Be prepared

rowing up with many dogs, I loved dogs. Don’t get more wrong, I’m a “dog(s) person”. Years ago we thought about getting a dog ourselves. We ended up delaying and we only bought things for a dog, except the dog. Delays delays…

We have one neighbour with a Bully XL. I don’t like those dogs (the breed) because I don’t trust them. I’ll probably never trust any Bully XL, not just because of what I read in papers (they even murder their own elderly owners sometimes) but the actual ban on such dogs (and sometimes “culls” too). The UK identified them as unworthy of the risk.

I’ve had to mentally prepare for a scenario where this one Bully XL goes berserk and decides to attack me. I’ve decided that because this dog is short-legged and clearly overweight sprinting away from it would be effective enough; he cannot catch me and I can run for a lot longer before stamina becomes an issue. This Bully XL is around 60-70KG, it’s very short, and it’s just a “fat boy” basically. Second option is, hop on the roof of a nearby car. This “fat boy” cannot even jump over his home’s fence, surely a car would be “too tall” for him. Failing that, in case I need to wrestle such a dog, avoid neck bites or falling to the ground. Fatalities won’t be possible due to a bleeding leg or hand.

Of course they could just put a muzzle on this Bully XL. But guess what… of course they don’t and lecturing an old lady about it ain’t “my cuppa tea”.

wrote something yesterday and it is something that seems to have attracted attention. My point was, sometimes the court says “you won”, but in reality it’s a bit like poker face (crossposted for emphasis with another title). Sometimes the judge knows upfront no money will be paid, as it simply cannot be paid, but then follows the procedures to set the records right for the court, not for parties. That’s just how the system works.

There’s an anecdote here. Someone cited my article (also from yesterday) that said “life expectancy of a new car is now 7 years”.

He said that “about 20 years ago, a dealer tried to cheat my dad out of a particular lifetime guarantee. He, fortunately, had all the receipts even through they tried to prevent him from that by attempting to “forget” to give him the receipts several times, forcing him to stay and press the issue. However, having all the receipts, there was no way out for the dealer which even tried to buy the car from him, with increasing offers. The dealer eventually took the matter to court. Technically they lost, and had to honor the lifetime guarantee. But in reality it became a major victory for them because the court decided that the lifetime of a car is 7 years from then on. Setting the definition of lifetime of a car at 7 years, established a throwaway culture for the vehicles and rewarded negligence by the dealers…”

So what sort of outcome is this? As an aside, regarding “modern” cars (that physically cannot long): “Proprietary firmware and other forms of technological obsolescence will only worsen that. Proprietary diagnostic APIs being among the worst. Once the last of the independent mechanics are gone, watch out!”

The planet has processes, but not all human processes lead to all parties – if any – being happy. Sometimes only the lawyers win (fees, bills).

New rules against time-wasting, a tactic of Brett Wilson LLP (they doubled the duration of the recent hearing where we had an experienced legal team that included two barristers)

can recall the hearing we had last month very well. How can I forget? Unlike the applicant, we attended it. He did not! He was in London at the time, but he chose to not even show up.

My barrister told me that his barrister was intentionally “time-wasting”. It was not hard to see this, he was very repetitive and clearly he tried to deny our side (two barristers) enough time to get across points. It was an exceptionally hot week, so those in the Court were already tired by the time our barristers had a say.

If “time-wasting” is a legal tactic (like stalling), then the Court needs to curtail it, even penalise for it.

Our barristers aren’t cheap and my barrister is vastly more experienced that the time waster’s.

Tomorrow I’ll write about these tactics in Techrights. The headline will be: “Decades of Debt, Weaponing Borrowed Money to Try to Put Critics in Debt”.

Prior parts below:

Crossposted from Tux Machines

arlier this month we went on holiday/vacation, which we are very much enjoying. Weeks earlier we published press releases [1, 2] about a hearing that ended 4 weeks ago. We were clear about what happened.

Garrett told a bunch of nonsense in public. Maybe was was made to believe this nonsense, as he had not attended his own hearing. Why? Go figure…

Garrett’s lawyer and barrister only spent a few years in this occupation. It’s the same lawyer and barrister who work for his friend, Graveley. They work on this together.

My lawyer and barrister have both spent decades in this occupation and are vastly more experienced, they know the two men above are “bullies” and have “basically lost”… it’s “embarrassing to them”.

Some dumb words in social control media won’t change this.

E are exactly two weeks away from Rianne’s birthday and gift ideas need to be based around sentimental value this year, not monetary value. Jewellery and other ‘vanity items’ have always been a waste of money (hard work and sometimes child labour for a bunch of pebbles or metals or whatever). Over the course of three weeks a lot can be done to convert time into joy and joy lasts much longer in the mind than in the shop.

It takes courage and work to make gifts that aren’t just something one scans at the checkout (till) but instead produces one way or another.

The older I get, the more obvious it seems gifting in the “Traditional” (with capital T) sense became merely consumerism and we’re far detached from real scarcities, which aren’t something one can purchase. I was never fond of consumerism and birthdays; over time it becomes easier to explain the “whys”.

Slow down.

T is the 10^th of August today (day 3 of vacation) and we have 3 weeks left in this vacation, which is warming up. I am more relaxed than I’ve been in decades and so far I only do with I enjoy. We fed the birds at Mayfield today and tomorrow we plan to mostly relax. This afternoon/evening I pulled out one of the 1997 hits CDs; I still use optical drives a lot, the music from that era is on average a lot better than the contemporary stuff and there are no ads. With the drive working concurrently with the PC there is also less CPU toil (no signal decryption or decompression necessary).

Looking back at my 20s, I was “racing” a lot of the time and it seems rather common among people that age. What are they really racing towards? What is this “Rat Race”? Sooner or later they will realise that life is not a contest, social control media isn’t popularity (just shallow voyeurism/vanity), and health matters more than speed. About 2 years ago I began sleeping a lot more after 2 decades of trying to limit myself to 6 hours per night. Why? It was not healthy, that’s for sure. That had no point to it…

All around me I see anxious, nervous people – some to the point of being dependent on medication. Many of them have debt, obligations, and a lifestyle they cannot afford, which is connected to why they took loans in the first place.

Heatwaves aplenty, fifth one coming this week

HAVE been checking wet places to go (somewhere nearby, we want to not get too far away from the Net… not for very long anyway). The Therme Manchester facility will take at least another year to complete. “The cost of the scheme has ballooned from £250m to £400m since it was first announced in 2019,” BBC reports.
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There is some news regarding stadium expansion nearby, but it seems like ‘vapourware’ for now unless Carrick can perform very well.

The expansion of nearby shopping facilities depends a lot on the local team. The Lowry across the water (from the stadium) is almost totally dead. Even Trafford Centre has many units unrented, boarded up.

On the lower end of the scale, there are some very large water parks nearby that are free to walk around (taking equipment costs money). Debdale Park is always nice and not too far; many birds there that one can feed.

There’s still time to decided. 3 more weeks of vacation left for us.