BOFH: I'd like introduce you to a groovy little web log I call 'That's Boss' BOFH logo telephone with devil's horns "We'd like to Twitter our information to the world," the Boss gasps happily – in much the same excited tones as one would expect upon the discovery of a cure for cancer, a path to world peace, or a piece of "free" software that doesn't inject a toolbar into your browser the moment you …
That beancounter is the best thing about this episode, although given the content, I shouldn't laugh at it. The poor guy needs help.
It really reminds me of The Onion's once regular columnists, like the great Herbert Kornfeld (RIP brutha). More Info here: https://www.theonion.com/tag/herbert-kornfeld
You have a point and there is always the Samaritans (https://www.samaritans.org/) ready to listen hence another commentard's reference to the free number 116 123
The background to them is, of course, tragic as well and something that ought to be rammed down the throats of any politician, etc, who wants to control access to valid sexual information. From the Wikipedia page:
Samaritans was founded in 1953 by Chad Varah, a vicar in the Church of England Diocese of London. His inspiration came from an experience he had had some years earlier as a young curate in the Diocese of Lincoln. He had taken a funeral for a girl of fourteen who had killed herself because she feared she had contracted an STD. In reality, she was menstruating.
Most who joke here are doing what is common, dealing with the horrors of real life through humour and not actually meaning any harm to those with mental health issues.
Agreed. This is the first episode of BOFH where I have felt uncomfortable reading it. It feels like a line has been crossed that perhaps shouldn't have been. I know and love too many people who have struggled with depression and ended their lives as a result. I wish that each of them hadn't.
In hindsight, that line was crossed years and years ago when the BOfH and PFY used "hermaphrodite" as a hateful and derogatory term, but they stopped using it quietly and had the wisdom to not Streisand themselves by removing it, nor to draw attention to it by apologizing.
But yes, this was another line, and it really should not have been crossed this way. Jokes about a boring beancounter applying maximally-anal boring beancountery tactics to the ennui of workaday life? That can work. Joking about beancountery suicide, not funny.
"mental health isn't a subject for ridicule"
I actually read it as gallows humour. It's about the only way you can talk about it sometimes. Even just acknowledging that other people also genuinely think "Fuck it, I'm done" and then get on with it can help.
Stoicism is the exception, not the rule. Life sucks, and sometimes there doesn't seem like a way out. In the same way a drowning person just needs to breath but can't by themselves, a person in a depression needs to reach out for emotional support, but can't by themselves.
I've missed the signs, and I've had to bury too many friends who took their own lives.
This.
In the US, The southerners had a way of talking about gallows humor: "Sir, if I don't laugh, I'm surely gonna cry."
At times, my sense of humor can be black enough that it nearly got a lawsuit from Anish Kapoor.
(disclaimer: I've been engaged in a rather long-running fight with my own depression. Some days are better than others. If you are thinking of ending it all, Please for the love of $deity, call your area's crisis line.Life may suck, but all of us together makes it sucks less.)
Golden parachute - never understood that metaphor. I would think that a golden parachute should fly like a lead zeppelin: go down quickly and crushing the parachutist in the process. In an expensive way. But that's not what happens, rather unfortunately.
VLC Media Player is not "free" software, though: it's Free Software, in the originally-intended sense of the phrase.
VLC doesn't just cost £0. It fully respects the user's freedom to (0) ENJOY the use of the software without let or hindrance, (1) STUDY its operation, (2) SHARE the software with their neighbours and (3) ADAPT the software to their individual needs.
...is Twitter not derived from twit?
I had always felt that if you trace back the origins..
Twiddle
Twaddle
YMMV but there are some really interesting people out there and some of them tweet things very worth reading but there is also a stupendous amount of dross on Twitter. The trick is to only look at the interesting stuff. That's why I am not much troubled by advertising. I have this special device that stops me seeing adverts - it's called a brain...
This is the best, you know everyone is happy about it, everyone I spoke to is happy about it, this really is a great law, great law. It's going really well I think, and I think everyone is really happy about it. Really. Drain the swamp, Make Relational Laws Great Again!
Ingredients
12 strips bacon
2 cups 1-percent milk
3 large eggs
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons kosher salt
1/2 cup finely crumbled blue cheese
Directions
Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.
Cook the bacon using the "Mauro Method." Line a baking sheet with parchment, overlapping each side 1 to 2 inches. Put the bacon on the parchment and bake until crisp and brown, about 20 minutes. This way, the fat will fry the bacon to a perfect crisp, but not come in contact with the metal pan, creating a mess. Drain the bacon on paper towels and let cool. Once the fat is cooled, reserve 6 tablespoons.
Microwave the milk for 45 seconds. Whisk together the milk, eggs and 2 tablespoons of the cooled (yet liquid) bacon fat in a bowl. In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour and salt. Slowly combine the liquid ingredients with the dry ingredients and whisk until combined. Let the batter sit for at least 1 hour (at room temperature) or overnight in the fridge (ideal).
Preheat the oven to 425 degrees F.
Evenly ladle the remaining 4 tablespoons bacon fat into the cups of a 12-cup muffin tin. Heat the muffin tin in the hot oven until smoking, about 4 1/2 minutes. Quickly ladle some batter into each cup of the muffin tin, almost up to the brim. Bake until golden brown with a dramatic rise (doubling in size), 25 to 30 minutes.
Once immediately out of the oven, place some blue cheese crumbles in the center of each warm Yorkshire pudding. Grind some black pepper over them and serve right out of the muffin tin.
Whisk? Seriously, just use a blender. No need to waste time waiting for the batter to sit for an hour or overnight either. Use the blender again a moment or so before pouring, all it really needs is some air bubbles in the mixture and a last blend of the blender does this.
At least you didn't mention making a well, using a fork first, blah, blah, blah... :)
I've found if I'm quiet too long, people think that I'm angry or something.
Bloody hell. Is that what's up with them?
I tend to be a quiet person most of the time, and prefer not to speak unless I'm certain I can improve upon the silence (yes, I know, my El Reg posts beg to differ!).
So often I've heard people claim that I am an angry person, yet I very seldom raise my voice at people or swear or cut them off/given the silence etc.
Now I think I understand, people just assuming I'm quiet because I'd rather not speak then spout some inane drivel (again, I realise my posts beg to differ... :) )
Thanks very much for the headsup. I shall now spew forth worthless drivel in case people think I am simmering just below the boil-over point.
No, twat is the past participle of tweet. Comes in very handy when discussing the platform.
"You twat?"
Which, serendipitously, happens to be my default response to many tweets accidentally seen (I never deliberately read that drivel), although with a slightly different inflection and no question mark.
I have no idea how to read a tweet and so far have managed to even avoid seeing one on someone else's phone.
The best upside result of that is only hearing about tweets from the orange potus third or fourth hand, heps to keep my blood pressure down.
The loosening of a window latch just goes to show, that twittering can be bad for your health.
I think this started out as a New Yorker cartoon, but their website isn't so easy to access from Europe: https://www.cartoonstock.com/directory/w/woofer.asp.
(Perfectly SFW, if you're worried)
"Most people have nothing interesting to say on a regular basis. As the frequency of tweets increases, the resemblance of tweets to senile dementia increases proportionately - particularly where politics is concerned."
MANY true word is spoken by BofH, and now we can add these :o)
made me realise the absolute pile of pants accounts I am following on Twitter too
Here I am reading that telling myself I want to get back in the real world of work (I'm semi-retired due top health assisting The Boss aka Mrs) and I lose the will to launch a new biz. Shucks and Brexit, that will be curse word in the future "send him/her to Brexit" I'm losing the will, still a great laugh and I'm currrently doing the (late) VAT return
[quote]
Calculated that the "sweet spot" for financial compensation is
April 3 2021 when my life insurance policy and home and contents
policy payouts are positively affected by the proposed
whole-of-insurance policy and that any insurance payout
would fall in a new financial year.
[/quote]
hehehe.. that's sucks..
We've got the best Reg in the world here and we've always had it and funded most of it here in internet land. You guys are not all paying your 4% for your el Reg. You Canadians are not paying your 4% ... more like 2% and Justin knows this but he's two faced. He says he pays but he doesn't. We have the best 4%s on the planet here in cloud (cuckoo) land. They are good solid 4%s and you should all have 4%s.
I'm going to pay the UK's 4% for el Reg because Russia have promised me a golf course and hotel deal in Scotland, England. They should thank God that our 4%s will run their National Golf Service. They will get the best golf and covefe that 4%s can buy.
Someone in this article used the word 'twit'. In the days of the 'ancien regime' before all this web and social plague, a twit was akin to a village idiot. The Monty Python crew used the term frequently. I still adhere to that viewpoint. The thing that bothers me most about President Trump is his twitting, even though in most matters he is a great deal better than his opponents in so many ways. If I am right about that, what does that say about the Democrats. Use your imagination. The world would be a better place if the Twitter-verse suddenly evaporated. Enough of the rant - Merry Christmas, everyone! Oh yeah - one more rant. I suppose many of you out there in twitter-land hate Christmas as you do Christianity. No wonder we got a Trump.
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