22 Comments
Jun 30, 2023·edited Jun 30, 2023Liked by Alistair Dabbs

Juan Ramón Jimenéz actually wrote '"Si os dan papel pautado, escribid por el otro lado' which translated means 'If they give you lined paper, write on the other side'

This I take to mean, if someone/thing is trying to force you into their way, choose to go your own way.

Not a bad sentiment and a far cry from your interpretation of the Bradbury et al mis quotation

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Jun 30, 2023Liked by Alistair Dabbs

Yes, yes. This is all very profound.

My experience of sheaves of lined paper is that they are lined on both sides. It's an existential nightmare. Möbius would understand.

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Jul 1, 2023Liked by Alistair Dabbs

Mom would write letters on a special blank pad with a single loose ruled sheet to slip in beneath.

... so the recipient wouldn't be offended by the presence of lines.

(I'm such a cad half the time I don't even pull the tractor feed off the sides, sorreee!!)

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Jul 1, 2023Liked by Alistair Dabbs

Mum used Basildon Bond notepads with the lined sheet as described.

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Jun 30, 2023·edited Jun 30, 2023Liked by Alistair Dabbs

Mind you on being a disruptor I get accused of that at work, mainly because when I see something wrong I have an uncontrollable urge to fix it. The other day I found the firewall management console wasn’t collecting interface or cpu stats. So I asked the why not - the answer was it caused too many alarms so we turned it off!

Not good enough the company depends on these firewalls if they are generating alarms then it needs to be investigated not ignored. So I am turning the alarms back on in a week or so…

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Jul 12, 2023·edited Jul 12, 2023

We have an anonymizer running in our testing environment, so no PII from production would be shown (GDPR et al). But the logging was on during that process, showing John Jackson had been changed to Jack Johnson, and the original account number was now a new one, and so on. Why? I queried. "Well, because logging is important!" <facepalm>

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Jun 30, 2023Liked by Alistair Dabbs

Being a failed innovator, I tried selling my own hand-drawn notepaper. It didn’t work out …the margins were too small

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Jun 30, 2023Liked by Alistair Dabbs

Ouch that was an awful pun, mind you Adam Savage has done a video on how they used to make lined books it is very interesting

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lnMFpv2Ta7I

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That video on making lined books is definitely on YouTube and not ‘pay per view’ ?!!

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Definitely on YouTube and no paywall, it is part of Adam Savages (ex mythbusters) you tube site tested.com

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…I was trying another pun along the lines of ‘pay per view’ / ‘paper view’ - yeah, it goes t quite work!

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It's ok, I expect several of us got it. Then went back to thoughts of why there isn't an appropriate emoji to represent that particular feeling...

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Jun 30, 2023Liked by Alistair Dabbs

The heads are very strange, it is almost done to indoctrinate the kids on hunting trophies being normal, I am surprised they didn’t go the full wooden mounting plate behind them.

What sort of people think they are intact and have crashed through the wall, although you could really mess with people and stick the body behind onto different heads, give the lion the wolfs body or similar

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Jun 30, 2023Liked by Alistair Dabbs

When I saw the business card, my first thought was "Hitler biscuits??". We seem to have similar thought process, Mr Dabbs (which probably isn't a good thing!)

The maxim about breaking rules always, in my opinion, should be phrased as "Learn the rules first, then discard the ones that don't help you". A skilled worker has gone through the process of learning their trade, starting with the very basic rules, then, as they develop their skills, they know which ones were training-wheels to be jettisoned when no longer useful. Since the only skills most of the modern "entrepreneurs" have learned since cleaning their teeth is how to snort coke and talk shite, they aren't even at the beginning of the process. They need to follow the rules more than most.

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Jul 1, 2023Liked by Alistair Dabbs

Reminds one of Muhammad...

https://youtu.be/BesI6NEPWlM

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Jul 1, 2023Liked by Alistair Dabbs

Don't get me started on the French hunting fraternity, Mr Dabbs. They a menace . If they refuse to have their "hobby" curtailed then the only solution is to allow the rest of us to carry sidearms. Ye-haw!

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Jul 1, 2023Liked by Alistair Dabbs

A TV report years back suggested some french guys hunting some poor tiny little bird. The average cat wouldn’t even get a meal out of that, goodness knows what the hunters expected.

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Jul 1, 2023Liked by Alistair Dabbs

"Regulators in the US are launching significant lawsuits against Finance and Coinbase."

The US is suing Finance?

Autocorrect is for Wimps

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Wimps sue Binance. Finance is where the real money is!

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Jul 1, 2023Liked by Alistair Dabbs

I was wondering about the hairdresser's business card with the 1930ies wig and biscuits before reading your explanation about the baker and local mountain. And yes, the severed heads are obvious. I also enjoyed several happy years before someone explained to me what they are supposed to see in the amazon logo....

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Jul 2, 2023Liked by Alistair Dabbs

I do recall some guitarist or other saying that the best advice he could give was learn all the music theory you could, and then forget it. To be honest though when it comes to "disruptive" thinking I tend to remember The Hitchikers Guide to the Galaxy, where the man who proved black was white got killed on a zebra crossing.

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Many of the tech bro billionaires are somewhere between Del boy and Rodney. It rarely ceases to amaze me how they manage to get away with all they do!

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