Posts tagged ‘humour’


There is no point to posting on Twitter

08.03.2023

The demise of Twitter continues. Today I saw, while heading back to Tawa from Papakōwhai, the aftermath of a seven-vehicle accident (three cars, four commercial vehicles) on the opposite side of State Highway 1.

I posted this on Mastodon, and, made an exception and did a fresh message on OnlyKlans, I mean, Twitter. You know, the website where they let Nazis back in, and where today its proprietor mocked a disabled man with muscular dystrophy. Seems to be in keeping in a country where certain states are going after trans people and women’s rights that a disabled man would be next.
 

 

Net result of the posts in the first hour and a bit: four favourites and four boosts on Mastodon.

Absolutely nothing on Twitter.

I admit the messages were not identical and I called Twitter ‘OnlyKlans’, which might have ensured it didn’t get seen. That’s with hindsight. But since 2022, during a lot of which I had a cross-poster going between the two sites, this has been typical. Twitter engagement began to decline while Mastodon’s rose. Getting to eight–nil is completely on trend as I’ve had crickets to other Tweets, too.

I’ll know for next time. There really is no point, even when doing a public service, to announce a thing on OnlyKlans.

And the last few companies I Tweeted, because there were no other contact points (no phone numbers, no email addresses), didn’t reply, with the exception of Fiverr (who dealt with someone selling fake services). Google, of course, I expected nothing from, but Scottish Pacific Finance couldn’t be bothered, either.

This seems appropriate:
 

 

And this is useful context to the fediverse:
 


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Elizabeth Arden is missing out on a big market here

13.01.2023

As this wasn’t shared much on social media, I can only assume not many of you share my sense of humour. It’s a fake, of course, since I’m feverish from the first dose of the shingles vaccine (if you look down the side-effects list, I have them all) I needed something to ease my way into my work day. But just imagine …
 


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January 2023 gallery

01.01.2023

Here are January 2023’s images—aides-mémoires, photos of interest, and miscellaneous items. I append to this gallery through the month.
 


 

Notes
Rosa Clará image, added as I was archiving files from the third quarter of 2021.

The Claudia Schiffer Rolling Stone cover came to mind recently—I believe it was commended in 1991 by the Society of Publication Designers, which I was a member of.

I looked at a few more risqué, but mainstream, covers to see what is appropriate, since the Lucire issue 46 cover was one of our more revealing though most glamorous ones in years. Vanity Fair and Women’s Health were useful US cases.

Lucire 46 cover for our 25th anniversary: hotographed by Lindsay Adler, styled by Cannon, make-up by Joanne Gair, and hair by Linh Nguyen. Gown by the Danes; earrings by Erickson Beamon at Showroom Seven; and modelled by Rachel Hilbert.


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Posted in China, design, gallery, humour, media, publishing, UK, USA | No Comments »


Tesla to a typeface designer, and a big missed target

03.12.2022

Now that the quartet has been launched, it’s evident that Tesla’s naming strategy is all wrong. This is what they should be called.
 

 
On a related note:
 

 

Since I haven’t seen the March 15 video now circulating on OnlyKlans, I mean, Twitter, I can’t use the DIA reporting form. But those who have, should.

If it were a New Zealand website doing the distribution, a warning would have been issued at the least; and I bet it would have been blocked by now. The person running the site would probably have been charged. Basically what our government is signalling is that a foreign fascist sympathizer has greater freedoms than the rest of us. And what the opposition parties are signalling is that that’s OK, too, because here’s a real thing that they can sink their teeth into, but they prefer to gaslight over other stuff.

The Christchurch Call website has not been updated since September.

Anyone in politics who actually has some bollocks?


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Far more important news

14.09.2022

Among all the royal hoop-la, it’s nice to come across this vital 2014 article while on Mastodon.
 

 
To the scientists who analysed 1,893 poos, and other waste, thank you for your mahi.
 
All right, a couple of remarks about the royal coverage. First, I’ve heard from a legitimate news source, words to the effect of ‘It took the Queen’s death to bring William and Harry together.’

No one remembers Prince Philip’s death or the unveiling of the Diana memorial? Things that happened very recently?

The media really do think we are morons without memory sometimes, don’t they?

The other one: ‘There have been 15 US presidents since the Queen has been on the throne.’ I haven’t counted the UK prime ministers (15 is given there, too), but I have counted the presidents. And I get 14.

My friend James heard 12 in another report.

The media really do think we are morons without numeracy skills sometimes, don’t they?

Not just media, but some political parties and governments actually attempt to thrive off these—and it makes you wonder if you are the only one who has faculties to remember and count.
 
It is up to Twitter to provide less frustrating coverage:

Dog poo, in amongst all this, has been far more interesting to read about.


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Posted in culture, humour, internet, media, politics, UK | 2 Comments »


A tribute to Boris Johnson

08.09.2022

What a perfect tribute to Boris Johnson. (Note: coarse language.)

I guess he wasn’t the last UK PM after all.


 
On a happier note, Liz Trussell, who has the Twitter handle of liztruss, has been replying to messages tagging her, including from the Swedish prime minister. Her account is well worth a look.


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Half an hour is a long time in politics

20.07.2022

Hat tip to Johnnie Moore for this one, on Twitter earlier today.


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Life in the capital

21.11.2021

Amazing what sort of press releases come in. I had no idea that Auckland is our capital, and I was surprised to find that Toronto and Antwerp are as well in the same release.

Essential Living is a British firm, from the looks of it, and no, we won’t be publishing this in Lucire.

   You’d think the PR firm might check as well, but maybe post-Brexit they don’t really care about other countries any more?
 
Meanwhile, on Twitter. It’s getting nutty toward the end of the year. Just today we saw a motorcyclist come off his Suzuki in Johnsonville, and a Toyota van almost losing control altogether in Tawa. ‘Driving to the conditions’ doesn’t seem to be a thing any more. On Friday, it was this:

Usual story on Facebook. I had better report this fake account with a fake name!
 

 
   Facebook says: it’s fine, nothing to see here.
 

 

Why do people continue to believe their user number claims? They’re rubbish.


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The Google analogy of today

23.10.2021

Of course a Reddit post like this appeals to me.
   The one quote a few Redditers have picked out: ‘As I’ve often lamented, Google has reduced the Web to a brothel of whores competing to give a robot the best blow job.’
   One awful thing the poster notes is (link removed, but you can see it on the original post): ‘I got a spam email from a scumbag black hat criminal fraudulent crooked waste of money SEO company this morning … What they do is take money to put up spam links to a company’s competitors’ sites to hurt the competitors’ Web presence …
   ‘The even sadder thing is that the black-hat SEO actually works. Google’s bots are so stupid that tactics like this will in fact harm the targeted companies.’
   This is, in fact, the big concern I have with the Google My Business panels. Anyone can coordinate some negative reviews and mess you up, and there are no safeguards against it.
   Finally, they write this: ‘Without exception, the stupidest people I’ve ever dealt with in IT have all worked for Google.’
   I’ve only met a handful of people who worked for them. One was really on the ball. Another helped me out virtually (Rick Klau). But if they’re right based on a larger sample, this explains a lot.


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台山阿伯返鄉下講英文

12.10.2021

This is one of those things I have to note down otherwise it’ll get lost to time. And you won’t see this mentioned during ‘Chinese Language Week’ here.
   In the old country (台山, or Taishan, China), when my father was a boy in the 1930s and 1940s, there were some whānau in the village who had been to the United States, where his paternal grandfather had settled. When conversing with them about their experiences in foreign lands (specifically, 金山), they said a few things that confused him then, but as an adult it all clicked.
   One was when they spoke of their travels to 金山. They claimed, ‘船頭打鑼船尾聽唔度.’ As a child, Dad would think, ‘Wow, that ship must have been massive.’ He knew that if someone had 打鑼 in one village, the next village could hear it. Conclusion: the length of the ship between the bow and stern must be greater than the distance between two villages.
   As an adult, ‘The buggers tricked me. No wonder they couldn’t hear 鑼 at the bow of the ship. They would have travelled in the hold!’
   The second one was in response to, ‘What are movies like?’ I imagine cinemas were thin on the ground during wartime, so he could only ask those who had been to the US. Their response, ‘打煙塵.’ Hitting smoke and dust? (Note that these have to be pronounced in Taishanese, not Cantonese, and definitely not Mandarin, for this story to make any sense.)
   Again, as an adult, who wound up grasping English better than many Anglophones, he realized the old 台山阿伯 had seen westerns, where they fought Indians, or more specifically, Injuns.
   The third one was, ‘What’s it like speaking English?’ The reply: ‘婀籮心.’ He never figured that out as a child—it sounded like gibberish. Again, when older, having learned English, he realized what they meant: all the same.
   Bear in mind those early travellers, or immigrants who were returning to visit the old country, wouldn’t have had great jobs and learned little English. It isn’t surprising in this context that they had pidgin phrases, ones they could fool a boy with.


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