It's still dead, but I see four people have left comments there in the last year. Squib, I know you've got other stuff to worry about right now, but how would you feel about trying to start something new and seeing if we get any bites?
I'm not actually asking you to commit to anything, I'm just trying to gauge interest.
Bit drunk at the moment, so pardon the grammar. Got a message from cousin Tanya today. If you've been following along here for a while, you'll know who cousin Tanya is—that's provided I haven't fucked up the aliases. Anyway, she's the one who met her current boyfriend (from Thailand) over the internet. They're in town today, and wanted to know if they could crash at my joint tonight—or whatever ungodly hour of the morning they rock in tomorrow.
They spent the afternoon here, having a few "social" drinks, in preparation for going out tonight. And yes, Tanya asked me if I wanted to go, but I didn't. A few quiet beers in the evening is more than enough excitement for me these days. I'm simply too old for big nights of drunken debauchery. Never mind the fact that Tanya must be nearly 10 years my senior and she's still going strong.
Oh, the boyfriend, you ask? He seems polite … I guess … but he spent the entire time doing … something, on his phone. Talking to his family? Messaging other women? I dunno. Couldn't get more than two words out of him. Quite the looker though, and fit too, so I guess I know what Tanya sees in him.
Anyway, looking back on the year, it was kind of crap, I guess. I mean, last year I did that drawing per day thing, in an attempt to kick start this place as an art blog, and this year, I don't think I did a single drawing. Pathetic! Also, I never designed a new template like I wanted. Actually, I got really, really busy in the last half of the year. Busier than I've been in ages.
Which brings me to this next point. I wasn't going to mention this, but I've had—like—six beers, so what the fuck. I've had abdominal pains for the last three months. It hasn't been super bad, but it hasn't gone away either. I was trying to convince myself that it was probably stress induced ulcers or something, and it'd go away once work slowed down; but after Squib's shocking news, I'm kind of shitting bricks. I think I'll definitely be making a doctor's appointment sometime in January.
I do have some cute nibbling related news, but that can wait until I'm more sensible and coherent. What are youse fellas doing for New Year's?
Even if I had something interesting to say here, I don't really have time to say it right now.
Feel free to let me know how your Christmas went in the comment.
In recent weeks, I've made a number of posts linking to Noel Plum videos, and a number of posts talking about the "clean-up" that social media platforms seem to be having at the moment (ie: getting rid of people they don't like). So, it would only be natural that I would link to this Noel Plum video talking about the social media clean-up
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ssiEmov5Cg
For context: I've listened to the video he's talking about, and in it, this Carl Benjamin bloke (aka: Sargon of Akkad *makes wanking motion while saying wanky internet handle*) is talking to a bunch of alt-righters who are trying to troll him on a live stream, and he basically says something along the lines of, "You say you don't like blacks because of how they behave, but you behave in exactly the same way. As far as I'm concerned, you're acting like a bunch of white niggers". That's the gist of the statement that has apparently gotten him kicked off Patreon, and completely wiped out his income, without any warning.
So, I have to ask again, are people happy with gigantic financial entities, like banks and credit-card companies and so forth, wielding this kind of discretionary power?
On an unrelated note, I have to post this picture because of how awesome it is. And then I have to remind people (again) of how awesome Trudy Cooper's work is in general, and remind them (again) that she has a web comic, at oglaf.com
I've mentioned before that the thing that keeps the American economy afloat is the fact that the global economy operates in US greenbacks. One aspect of this is the SWIFT payments system. SWIFT is a global communication system that banks use for moving money around—keeping in mind that most of the time they're not actually moving anything—they're just deciding where something needs to be added to a balance sheet and something else needs to be subtracted. Having control over the SWIFT system gives the US unique powers when it comes to freezing accounts, seizing assets, and imposing sanctions—on anyone, anywhere in the world. So, of course, having a viable alternative to SWIFT would be a massive blow to American hegemonic power.
Fortunately (or not, depending on your view of things) creating a viable alternative isn't easy. Not only are there the technical, financial, and practical issues involved with rolling out something like this, there's also the problem of getting other people to adopt a new system when—for most of them—the system they've got works fine and is already in place. Imagine someone trying to establish a competitor to the telephone network. Not only would there be the massive up front costs, for a long time it would be buggier and more expensive than the old network; and if you switched over, but none of your friends did, what would be the point? Who would you call? It's the same sort of problem that people have trying to establish a competitor to Facebook or YouTube.
Regardless, China and Russia have both been giving it a go. China's alternate system has so far only been used internally and has been pretty underwhelming; but in the frozen North, things are looking a little more interesting. Recently, Moscow has been in talks with Tehran to allow Iranians access to Russia's own "SPFS" system. If this goes ahead, it could give Iran a means of trading with the rest of the world that bypasses American sanctions, and a simple method for selling their oil without having to touch US dollars, in any way shape or form.
Well, that's the theory, at least. There's not too many of these types of things that don't run into unforeseen hurdles. Also you can bet your bottom dollar, the Yanks will be doing everything in their power to make sure this whole escapade goes tits up. However, if it doesn't—if this thing proves to be viable, and other countries—like Turkey, India, China, etc, start looking like jumping on board—you better believe that it'll mean the start of Cold War II proper; the Yanks will be invading Iran, and we'll be right there with them, like the good lapdogs we are.
So, here's my tip. From now on, when you're watching the news, keep your eye out for the term "SPFS". Maybe I'm wrong, and it won't end up amounting to anything, but on the other hand, it just might end up being very import going forward. But let's hope not.
Yes, this makes me sad.
I'm sure I've covered this numerous times before, but for anyone who isn't clear about my stance on pornography, let me get you up to speed. I hate roughly 90-95% of the pornography I've seen in the last twenty years. I find most of it to be humourless, degrading, and robotic. But the truth is, I hate 90-95% of the movies, TV shows, YouTube videos, music, comic-books, etc, that I've seen in the last twenty years too. Of course, that doesn't mean I want all media banned, or kicked off the internet. And yes, there is still pornography out there that I consume and enjoy—especially in the form of erotic art and comics. In fact, one of the few regular comic strips being published today that I still enjoy, just happens to be pornographic comedy (Oglaf, by Trudy Cooper).
But Alex, you might say, there are tons of places on the internet where people can post pornographic material. Are there? Really? Certainly, there are image-boards that allow people to post pornographic pickies, and there are YouTube-type sites where people can post videos, or do live cam shows, but how many general purpose blog-type platforms are there where people can post a mix of pornographic and non-pornographic content? Apart from Blogger, I can't think of any off the top of my head. And who knows for how much longer that's going to be the case. Google already tried to purge Blogger once before, a couple of years ago, but backed down amid the howls of "censorship". Of course, that was in the days before people were used to seeing things like the coordinated deplatforming of Alex Jones and Gab. Now it just seems par for the course. If Tumblr goes through with its purge successfully, do you think Google won't take a second bite at the cherry?
I haven't posted a huge amount of pornographic material on this blog, but I like knowing I can if I want to. I like having a place where adults can post a mix of adult and non-adult content, without it having to be all one thing or the other. And if Blogger goes the way that Tumblr's going, I just don't know where I'd be able to turn for that sort of freedom.
Any thoughts?
As an aside, I listened to a review the other day for the Fifty Shades trilogy. The reviewer described them as being perfect fodder for the "so bad they're good" crowd. Has anybody seen them, and is this actually the case, or are they just boring and shit?
WBBL started this weekend. Last cricket season, it struck me how idiotic car ads were getting. This year, it's the mobile phones. Whether it's Samsung, Apple, or Google, all of these ads seem like they're designed to appeal to the most vain, shallow, vacuous, annoying, simpleton you could possibly imagine. I would actually feel insulted if I thought I was the target audience for these things.
Oh, and I dunno what they're going for in the UK, but can I point out that a new top-of-the-range iPhone will now set you back over two grand Australian.
Who the fuck is buying these things?
Have you ever done work for someone whose entire business was a disaster waiting to happen? It happens to me more than I care to think about, and these people generally fall into two broad categories.
Firstly, there's the wilfully malicious. The fly-by-nighters who know exactly what they're doing and have nothing but contempt for the people they damage along the way. Then there's the dangerously incompetent. The people whom you only have to spend five minutes with to realise they have absolutely no idea what they're doing. You look at the way they manage their affairs, and you can almost hear the distant sounds of the future lawsuits coming to get them.
I'm doing work for one of these types at the moment. The kind of person who doesn't understand a single thing about how computers work, but gets upset when somebody else can't instantaneously do the equivalent of conjuring magic out of one.
The kind of bloke who is incapable of understanding that other people don't know things unless he tells them. He will ask you to do something a certain way, then change his mind about how he wants that thing done—but not tell you he's changed his mind—and then gets stroppy because you've done things the way he asked and not the way he wanted. Also, if he has a list of eight things he wants doing, he'll ask you to do the first two things, and then get upset that you didn't also do the six other things that you didn't even know he wanted done.
You know, in this day and age, when spell-checkers are built into everything, it's hard to imagine that somebody could misspell every fucking word in every single email they send, but somehow, this bloke manages it. I wonder if he ever wonders why there's red lines under everything he types. Probably not.
Fuck, this cunt is doing my head in!
