Viv says Genevieve is his “medium sister”.

Lola is his big sister, and Gen can’t be his little sister because she’s older than him.

In order to think outside the box, you must first know how to think inside the box.

Then you kill the cat and fuck off.

“The FQ’s end-to-end equality platform includes co-branded research, content campaigns, and partnership opportunities at its signature Equality Lounges®. Visibility is further driven through The FQ’s robust social, media, and editorial channels. The FQ approach is intersectional, inspirational, and inclusive, working with leaders and rising stars in every industry and around the world.”

Whatever they’re selling, FQ is a coin-driven laundromat, washing corporations with gobbledygook.

“Giant building in voluntary administration”

That’s what I read.

It was actually a building giant.

The dumbass bogan tabloid media delights in reporting business failures.

It’ll be click bait and, by trial and error, they have learned that their audience loves this shit.

But why do they love it?

Possible explanations:

1. You’re not alone in the cost of living crisis, others have it worse, or
2. Schadenfreude. My money’s on this one.

Portmanteaux from Viv…

1. Jitsu
2. Obstacourse

That’s the ethical service of alcohol.

Oxymoron if I’ve heard one.

Back in the days of wooden sailing ships, a wooden log device on a string was used to measure ship speed.

From this, we have “ship’s log”, being the original  description of the book used to record the speed measurements.

From there, a zigzaggy line via Alan Turing to logging in to a computing device.

But, noting the nautical origins of log, possibly “log on” is more correct than “log in”.

After all, you step onto a ship and into a boat.

Imagine a world without termites.

We’d be walking around on a layer of dead trees about 100km deep.

You wouldn’t want to drop your keys.

My petty gripe: allowing hot food in cinemas at the end of civilization.

Product assembly refers to the process of putting individual components or parts together to create a finished product.

In this context, your IKEA dishwasher isn’t  actually a product, in the old school sense. Competition and price pressure have resulted in the situation where  your dishwasher, is at best a collection of low quality parts co-located in the same area of the universe.

Initially, as factory-assembled, it all works just fine, before oxidation, fatigue and dirt collectively ensure that the parts, when dislocated for the inevitable repairs, can never be properly reassembled in a working fashion without the use of cable ties, glue and luck.

Entropy and time are related through the second law of thermodynamics, which states that entropy in an isolated system can only increase or stay the same.

Entropy is a measure of disorder or randomness in a system, and the fact that it increases over time gives time its direction.

This is sometimes called the arrow of time. Fired precisely into the heart of your IKEA dishwasher by the fuckwits that designed it.

There’s nothing worse than the praise or adulation from people that you don’t rate.

Entertaining, yes, but you won’t be if you start taking it seriously. Nor entertained.

In my dream last night I took Viv to an isolated beach. We noticed a snake on a log and I used a branch to toss it 50 metres. It then burrowed through the sand to get back to bite us, so we pissed off. Then we noticed there were hundreds of venomous snakes on the beach and I was starting to panic as we raced for the track that led away from the beach.

And then I woke up.

Viv tells me when he gets stuck in a dream, he always wakes up. Says it’s connected to the waking phase.

He’s onto something. And to think I gave him a 54 year head start…

But whilst we’re living, the dreams we had as a child fade away. That was Oasis, not me.

I’m proposing that Tesla drivers are the new Volvo drivers.

So the guardians of the struth serve up this article all about the mental health issues of boomer men, of which I’m one, just. Click, bait.

Reading, reading, scratch, scratch.

Precis…

Situation: When it comes to the personal identity of Boomer men, work often ends up becoming the cornerstone. “You are your job. If you aren’t checking in and running the show, who are you?”

Complication: This association of identity and worthiness with productivity and achievement means that retirement can leave many ageing men struggling to find purpose and value.

Proposed resolution: Instead of clinging to lost identities, we can seek purpose in connection, legacy and gratitude.

Alternatively, you could first ask yourself if just about anyone could have done the job. Answer is always yes.

(sidebar; in my case I got opportunities that others didn’t because a. I wanted them, and b. I had enough of a package to be seen as a potential next big thing. Luckily, I wasn’t so lucky. In fact I just avoided enough mistakes to get a pass mark. And that’s it.)

To quote Brian; “Look, you’ve got it all wrong! You don’t NEED to follow ME, You don’t NEED to follow ANYBODY! You’ve got to think for yourselves! You’re ALL individuals!”

I’m not.

Start there fellas; unpick that and it gets a lot easier. And then you can add connection and (I guess) gratitude.

Get that just right and you’ll die happy, without any legacy. In fact, you’re much better off with liberty in your lifetime rather than legacy afterwards.

I’ve said it before but it’s worth repeating;

It looks exhausting, trying to fit in and stand out, at the same time.

In fact, the more they try the closer to mental illness they inch.

I like to think that somewhere in the universe there’s a paradise where everyone is goofy and different.

In this quantum world the paradox collapses to a singularity: you fit in by standing out, thereby not standing out at all. Mental illness is non existent.

The closest thing we have to that is China, goofy AF. Unfortunately mental illness is rife there because people have strong preconceived concepts about matters other than fitting in and standing out.

They’ve missed an opportunity for sure.

“The aviation industry is not moving fast enough to reach its targets for producing and using sustainable aviation fuel, Willie Walsh, head of airline trade body IATA, said, as the sector aimed for net zero emissions by 2050.”

They’re currently at 0.3%

So much fanfare about the new updated AI engine, o1. This one can reason, they claim.

So I used my VED standard test enquiry…

“what rhymes with orange?”

“Orange” is famously difficult to rhyme with, but some near-rhymes or creative options include:

1. Sporange (a rare word, meaning a type of fungus, sometimes used in poetry or wordplay)
2. Blorenge (a hill in Wales, also a place name)
3. Door hinge (though this is a two-word phrase, it can work in some contexts)
4. Arrange (a near rhyme with “orange”)

While perfect rhymes for “orange” are scarce, these words and phrases can work in creative writing and poetry depending on the context.”

Close, but no cigar.

So we have bogans but what do we call the rest of the population?

I’m going with AB negatives.

I’m living with the ultimate salad dodger.

He’ll pick the basil off a margarita pizza.

His attitude is that it doesn’t matter how he gets his calories so long as there’s no nutrition involved.

“In the world of artificial intelligence, the idea of “singularity” looms large. This slippery concept describes the moment AI exceeds human control and rapidly transforms society.”

Right then, I’m going for my own definition. When AI can design, build and demonstrate a working quantum computer with more than a million logical qubits, running a useful algorithm and demonstrating real supremacy over digital computing, then I will be singularly shocked into admitting that everything I know might just be beliefs.

In other words, I’ll eat my very real hat.  I ask you, what would said AI have to wager in the context of consumable headware?

Got a special meal.

I think I’d prefer “nil by mouth”.

A deposit of high-quality gold ore containing around 1,000 metric tons of the precious metal has been discovered in central China.

It’s valued at approximately 600 billion yuan or US$83 billion.

And they think there’s a lot more there to be found.

“Announcements of the findings have contributed to a further increase in the already skyrocketing gold price”.

That’s not exactly how supply and demand works. You find a large deposit and the price should drop.

But it got me thinking. There’s only about US$2.3b of RMB in circulation. So they’ve got enough gold to put their currency on a gold reserve.

That’d ensure that the RMB becomes the dominant global currency.

C’mon China, do it.

On the subject of Mr Beast I proffered the opinion that he’s probably nowhere near as nice as he makes out to be.

Viv objected strenuously and tactfully called me “truthless”.

Viv’s first use of AI wasn’t that great.

“What rhymes with orange?”

“Here are a few words that rhyme with “orange”:

• Norange (not a real word, but a playful rhyme)
• Jorge (a name)
• Forge (to shape metal by heating and hammering)
• Sorcery (magic)
• Florrie (a name)

Let me know if you have any other questions.”

Viv declined the kind offer.

Viv asks “how much money do you have, dad?”

I quote the fantastic sum in my super.

He suggests we spend it at T.K.Maxx

I respond “well it’s not really mine because I can’t spend it.”

“but neither can anyone else”, I add.

Upon further reflection, “except the government, they can take as much as they want at any time.”