omorrow it’ll be 3 weeks until Rianne’s birthday and exactly 3 weeks since the end of the hearing in London [1, 2]. Many people go on a long holiday this coming week, some had their last day (prior to leave) this past Friday. I’ll be keeping this blog active throughout August as there’s no imminent plan of long-distance travel. The weather here is already good and I have plenty of things to get done.

have taken stock of things we did about half a decade ago or years ago but no longer do. The main ones:

1. Midland Hotel/Spa
2. Shopping in Town
3. Weekly coffee shop trips
4. Massively feeding hundreds of birds (we agreed with the weed-smoking neighbours to reduce the feeding in exchange for them curtailing their weed habit/hobby)
5. Consistently working overnight or at nighttime (we quit that job

From the home of the Pankhursts [1, 2, 3]:

“The 41-year-old is the first ever female Mayor of Greater Manchester and was the first LGBT leader of the city council.”

Crossposted from Tux Machines

oday, August 1, we have a new mayor. It’s the one Rianne and I bot rooted for. It’s a good start for a new month.

This coming week we’ll be rather busy with leisurely affairs and Rianne celebrates her mother’s birthday.

Image source: Manchester in Christmas 2019

e’ll soon know who replaces Burnham for Manchester

“Five candidates have now been eliminated from the contest,” as reported, “Geraldine Coggins (Green Party), Phil Eckersley (Conservative Party), Marcus Farmer (Independent), Richard Kilpatrick (Liberal Democrats) and Marlon West (Restore Britain).”

Results likely out soon: “The way that it’s going to work is that for anybody who didn’t vote for Sian Astley or Bev Craig as their first choice, counters will now start looking at who they put as their second choice and those votes will be reallocated. It means that both candidates may pick up some more votes as second preferences.”

Percentage turnout: less than 25%

Very low.

AM sometimes considered a contrarian because I focus on many things that are bad or became bad. I go against the “PR”. I want to fix the bad things or get rid of them. That’s just me. I think if more people did the same thing, the world would become a better place for more people.

Contrarians have harder lives; they typically go against “monied interests”, which subject critics to resistance, abuse, harassment, and sometimes lawfare.

T seems clear to me that IBM, the company that existed like 70 years before I was born (by another name though), is going to vanish in a number of years. There’s nothing in the pipeline, only massive cuts and downsizing.

What will we say to future generations about “the company that once existed” and was “called IBM”?