Those dresses were dangerous. I heard that “dress fire” was a major cause of death for the ladies of old.


Lol

lothar wrote:
Those dresses were dangerous. I heard that “dress fire” was a major cause of death for the ladies of old.


Lol

I think that's a bit of a myth… Because they would have all stopped wearing them if it was. Women DID die because they were flammable but mainly it seems the real truth was that because it was a super popular fad it had people who hated it and so exaggerated all the problems with it. Like corsets.
Especially because this was something women loved to wear so of course it MUST be frivolous and dangerous and evil and silly 😅


It was only popular for maybe less that 10 years and before crinoline people used peticoats and things to get the same volume so women weren't always super flammable.

I have worn both hoops and crinolines for work. In the heat of the summer, hoops are definitely more comfortable but make it impossible to sit on a normal chair or bench (a stool works okay). So, I would wear the hoop for outside events and the crinolines indoors – because aside from heat, they are more comfortable, softer, like wearing butt pillows.

My favorite myth is that wide doorways were designed for oversized hoop skirts – when they were actually designed for pallbearers.

Most 19th century garments we're flammable. So were floor coverings, furniture, buildings… Fire was particularly frightening, so I imagine many old-timey urban legends were fire-based.

There are a lot of enduring myths about undergarments because all fashion is ridiculous. XD (Modern and historical.)

It's always dark. Ugh. Seasonal Affective Disorder.

I had a dream years ago where the number 56 figured very prominently and it hinted at loss and death at that age. Racked my brain trying to figure out who it referred to.

Time's almost up if it's me. Time's past for loved ones, but not for me. Impending doom? Not any more than any other time. And I can handle nearly anything that comes along, but I really don't want to have to.

@bravo - I was reading recently that certain symptoms including thoughts
of doom/death are VERY common at a certain age range. A lot of the symptoms or particulars applied to me as well. I don't have seasonal affective disorder, but a friend of mine does and it just adds an extra roadblock, eh?

Anyway, I can relate to what you're saying. Hope you're doing all right.

I believe I'm more or less exactly the same age as you Bravo and had my fill of and death over the last couple of years. It's a rollercoaster ride but hang on in there old chum, life begins at 60.

Oh Em Gee!
I just had to do some mothereffin' epic level spam deletion on the test version of DD.

It was absoloutely infested! One particular account had so many spam posts on the site that I couldn't even scroll to the bottom of the admin page with the list of them. Even pressing “end” didn't take me to the bottom right away, I had to keep pressing it.
This bastard must have created their own bot that used a home made form so it could autospam, probably with over a million posts?

They were STILL posting even as I was fixing things… I killed easy access to the forums there now and I fnally managed to delete that account and all their posts but it took a lot of work…

Hopefully we'll have no more issues with spammers there… but I don't know.

Spam is like the Orks from Warhammer 40k. There's always more spam:P By the way, I'm so glad that I never got into that fandom. Games Workshop is a horrible company to deal with, if fan youtube channels are anything to go by.

I was into Warhammer 40K back in the early 90s. I liked it back then :)
I still appreciate it… I hate the whole grim-dark direction the universe went in though.
There was always a bit of that but it was off-set by an implicit humour that the whole thing was basically ridiculous- with hyper stylised weapons and armour, huge muscled space marines, fantasy “races” in space…

It was pretty much like a cross between Judge Dredd and Star Wars, but based on Dungeons and Dragons, with Tolkienian derived races.
-I think the game style was based on Napoleonic table top war gaming.

It became more and more serious and dark like a lot of stuff from the 1980s…
Wrestling, heavy metal, fantasy, SciFi. For some reason the 90's sucked the fun out of EVERYTHING.

I wouldn't have known cuz I was a wee kid back then. I might have gotten into it back then as well, if it was like as you say, and if I was a bit older back then:) But on top of that, these days, you also have Games Workshop acting like the GREEEEEEEDIEST company that has ever existed. Doing everything in its power to milk out the fanbase of every penny. Revising game rules every year and nerfing items so that the players of the wargame, or at the very least the competitive players, has to keep buying, buying, buying.

I've heard a new player can expect to spend at least 300 british pounds to assemble enough materials for a “proper” game. That's like the equivalent sum of over 3000 kronas in my country. I look at that and I'm like “Woooow, that's way too expensive of a hobby for me, thank you very much”^^

Andreas_Helixfinger wrote:
you also have Games Workshop acting like the GREEEEEEEDIEST company that has ever existed.

Hahaha! They have ALWAYS been like that XD
Absolute bastards LOL

Topic for Saturday's Quackcast:
I'm doing some reading on manipulation of public opinion and the spread conspiracy theories in social media using bots and AI, for example: to spread CoVid-19 misinformation.

It turns out that it's not actually driven by misguided people debating online. People actually use AI and bots to spread that shit… It's deliberate.
I don't think there's any particular goal apart from social unrest and stoking resistance to authority. The only reason CoVid-19 is targeted is because it's an easy target. Nothing but low hanging fruit.

Out of all the misinformation stuff out there it simply trended better.

Social echo-chambers are largely a myth it turns out. It's AI curated information sources that are more at fault because we use systems like Google, Google news, Apple News, Twitter, Facebook, Apple etc all of which tailor stuff to what it thinks we're interested in.

back in the day I used to argue politics, religion, and all kinds of crap with people online. even in these very forums {now lost to the ravages of time}

But I actually am afraid to touch this subject

I have my opinions and I talk with people in the real world but I won't get into it online. It's not worth it. there are certain people I just don't talk to because things have become so polarized.

We'll see how this all plays out if we survive.

Use bots and AI so more time can be spent doing worthless “research”. Having chased down a few famous conspiracy theories to their origins usually the research is an echo chamber with succeeding “researchers” merely parroting previous researchers as opposed to looking at primary sources of information. It's almost always the debunkers who go back to original sources and find out the quoted and requoted secondary sources are in error misrepresenting or putting things in that just aren't in the original sources. And everyone parrots it in an echo chamber of works and articles ad infinitum. Fun stuff.

@Lothar - yup, that's a good instinct. Debate online has been skewed by the online environment, it's deliberately predisposed extremes.
And unfortunately is not just a case of “real world vs online world” because that dichotomy doesn't exist- there is ONLY the real world and “online” is just a form of communication used by it. :(

For things to improve the tech giants will all need to be regulated and stop curating what we see. And the use of AI and bots will need to be policed.
It's damaging discourse and has real world consequences- antivaxers and the spread of covid because of that is one, the invasion of the Capitol is another.

———-

@Bravo- interesting and ironic you should say that- From my readings I found that the social “echo-chamber” was actually largely a myth when it comes to guiding people's opinions. It's a folk theory, not supported by the research. But so many other papers and articles I read talked about it as if it was a basic fact.

“Echo-chamber” is still a very useful metaphor regardless and does apply to the way AI personalisation of web experience works so I still use it.

The relationship of writers quoting other writers with debunked studies could probably be better characterised as a human centipede, incest, or even a perpetual motion engine haha!

Parrots because they often don't know what they're saying doing their copy and paste research. When the major source in the notes is ibid you know the research is mostly useless.

Centipede implies that they're adding something but most of the time it's just the same thing all over again. Copy and paste and paraphrasing bordering on plagiarism. And copy errors creep in and aren't corrected. It can be entertaining tracking reading it all and then reading the properly researched articles and videos that show the progression and often regression of the ideas.

And there's almost always Nazis. :D

Invoking Nazis is always fraught XD

___________________

Rant:
Pronunciation, argh!
Some Americans have a thing with words like Horror and Mirror, where they pronounce them “horr” and “mere”. That's cute more than anything though.

What I hate is fellow Australians pronouncing words badly. It's not an accent thing, just a stupid thing.
Year is “yeee”
Debut is “day-boo”
Water is “wadder”

I'll try to think up more XD

There are so many accents on this island I wouldn't know where to begin. Where I grew up debut was pronounced “dare-byew” and where my dad grew up water was “watta!”

Lie-berry for library. The wife especially hates this one. So after thirty years of marriage, I intentionally use it. ;)

Cal-var-ree or Cal-vary for cavalry. I mean the shorthand for cavalry is CAV not CAL how can you get it wrong? Calvary is a hill and often a church. Cavalry is a mounted combat arm. XD

My fave hoity toity accent is:
“One likes to wonder arinde abite the hice rather than go ite.”

Ozoneocean wrote:
My fave hoity toity accent is:
“One likes to wonder arinde abite the hice rather than go ite.”

Sounds like Katherine Hepburn and that patrician accent she had.

bravo1102 wrote:

Ozoneocean wrote:
My fave hoity toity accent is:
“One likes to wonder arinde abite the hice rather than go ite.”

Sounds like Katherine Hepburn and that patrician accent she had.

Hoitier and toitier than even her haha!
I copied that that from Queen Elizabeth II

Ozoneocean wrote:

bravo1102 wrote:

Ozoneocean wrote:
My fave hoity toity accent is:
“One likes to wonder arinde abite the hice rather than go ite.”

Sounds like Katherine Hepburn and that patrician accent she had.

Hoitier and toitier than even her haha!
I copied that that from Queen Elizabeth II

If you haven't, you have got to see the “queen” skits from the old Carol Burnett show. She nailed the accent. Hysterical stuff.
“Hell(tongue roof of mouth and flip forward)owe”

Wow! 2021 has been a crazy year. I don't even know where to begin. So I published my debut comic “ORIGIN”, on the DD. I was terrified to do this (publish a story from my head), but hey, I did it. I'm super grateful for the DD affording me the opportunity to publish my work. And a big thank you to those who have been reading my comic. I just can't believe I'm actually doing this. I've always wanted to draw comics since the first time I held one at a barber's shop when I was 3. This is a freaking dream come true. Thank you guys, for existing. And, oh, if you haven't given my comic a gander, here: https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/ORIGIN_by_David_Abiola_Olukoga/
Merry Christmas 🎄

2021's nearly over (thankfully) but I just signed up here, having binned my old accounts from 10 - 14 years ago to start fresh and post stuff I've made in recent times. Having reinvented myself, I've also reinvented my art but am in no rush to post it up yet… Things have changed a lot since I was last here (though I see the site itself hasn't!), and forums just don't seem to be such a thing any more. Yet here we are, still using ‘em, like it’s still 2007. So ‘hi’ to anyone seeing this, and look forward to being a part of things again soon ;)

2007 is good, just so long as it's not 1987. Talk about a year of poor personal decision making. XD

MB Productions wrote:
2021's nearly over (thankfully) but I just signed up here, having binned my old accounts from 10 - 14 years ago to start fresh and post stuff I've made in recent times.

Welcome back to Web 1.0 - looking forward to seeing your wares.

—

1987 wasn't the best year it's true. I existed as a sort of jazz vampire, sleeping all day in a freezing Victorian terrace and only coming out to twang around in smoke choked venues after dark.

bravo1102 wrote:
2007 is good, just so long as it's not 1987. Talk about a year of poor personal decision making. XD

I was still at school, so not a good one for me either :D By the way is that an old BBI Cy Girl ‘Sky’ in your signature?

Ironscarf wrote:

MB Productions wrote:
2021's nearly over (thankfully) but I just signed up here, having binned my old accounts from 10 - 14 years ago to start fresh and post stuff I've made in recent times.

Welcome back to Web 1.0 - looking forward to seeing your wares.

—

1987 wasn't the best year it's true. I existed as a sort of jazz vampire, sleeping all day in a freezing Victorian terrace and only coming out to twang around in smoke choked venues after dark.

All of the above sounds quite familiar…except I was doing the vampire thing 10 years later… Currently polishing up a few strips and comics and wondering what to start off with.

I don't post very much, and I spent most of this year in a mental hospital, but I figured I'd pop in again for old time's sake. I've spent the better part of three days making this, and while I'm sure I still need to do some mixing work, I figured I'd share what I have so far.

Reliquary (Rough Mix)