UKMT Winterval 2023 - Fisking the Trussay - The Something Awful Forums

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > UKMT Winterval 2023 - Fisking the Trussay

Tomberforce: May 30, 2006

Never really had a problem cooking induction stirfry on a flat bottom wok.

# ¿ Dec 6, 2022 00:39

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# ¿ May 14, 2024 11:40

Tomberforce: May 30, 2006

Thought I was fairly internet desensitized but goddamn the documentary on C4 tonight with the :nms:

filmed autopsy of a young mother who died of cancer :nms:

was a pretty tough watch. I thought pretty sensitively done though, genuinely interesting and informative without veering into spectacle.

# ¿ Dec 6, 2022 01:05

Tomberforce: May 30, 2006

If I had a house in this country if possible I'd install a 2. 5kw mini split system in a bedroom at least. The one we have in the bedroom in our house in a cold part of Australia (down to about - 7 overnight in winter) uses absolutely gently caress all power (about 400 watts) and heats the room in a few minutes. We run it entirely off a solar battery system.

Also has the benefit of being able to cool in summer.

# ¿ Dec 16, 2022 22:01

Tomberforce: May 30, 2006

OwlFancier posted:

I keep having a desire to get one of those thermal cameras and see if I can just go around with a tube of silicone and hermetically seal the house.

It's a good idea. Often local sustainable house groups or whatever will have one you can borrow.

# ¿ Dec 16, 2022 22:22

Tomberforce: May 30, 2006

Enjoyed some festive sightseeing today.

# ¿ Dec 17, 2022 18:46

Tomberforce: May 30, 2006

Yeah probably every 5th YouTube short that ends up on my feed is fash or fash adjecent creey mra poo poo. Going to check now how quickly they come up.

Discovered that Spanish drummer through it though who is absolutely loving amazing.

# ¿ Jan 2, 2023 23:37

Tomberforce: May 30, 2006

OwlFancier posted:

hy does a loving cooker need to be a flat slab of glass?

I don't miss cleaning my old gas hob that's for sure.

RE: EV fires etc. Exploding Teslas is a funny meme and Musk is an utter peanut but any fire that involves an EV is given massively disproportionate coverage worldwide giving a highly misleading perspective on the risk they actually pose. By any measure EVs are significantly less likely to catch fire than combustion vehicles so it's difficult to see it as anything other than petrochemical industry FUD to be honest.

Tomberforce fucked around with this message at 20:14 on Jan 14, 2023

# ¿ Jan 14, 2023 20:07

Tomberforce: May 30, 2006

Touchscreen controls in cars absolutely need to gently caress off though. Tactile control is important when you need to concentrate on driving.

# ¿ Jan 14, 2023 20:12

Tomberforce: May 30, 2006

NotJustANumber99 posted:

You don't need to concentrate on driving though

This explains so much...

# ¿ Jan 14, 2023 20:18

Tomberforce: May 30, 2006

My indulgence is popping certain types of biscuits in the microwave for 10 seconds or so which turns them warm and gooey again like they're just out the oven. If that's wrong I don't want to be right.

# ¿ Feb 6, 2023 17:52

Tomberforce: May 30, 2006

The Perfect Element posted:

Uruguay is a sufficiently obscure place to be that I bet if someone did some digging there'd be a very interesting story about why he's there right now.

Visiting the fam who moved there after the war?

# ¿ Feb 9, 2023 18:28

Tomberforce: May 30, 2006

Hey UKMT, I was having a chat with my in-laws this evening about family history stuff and my mother in law showed me two letters she has which were written in 1937 and 1938 by her uncle who fought and was killed in the International Brigades in the Spanish Civil War. In the letters, which are addressed to his own uncle (who it seems was very critical of his beliefs) he talks about his motivations and the development of his convictions as a committed Communist/ Socialist and has some really eerily prescient insights into the Fascist expansionism to come. I haven't yet photographed them or transcribed them but I thought they were fascinating and I thought some of you may be interested too if I get them transcribed?

Tomberforce fucked around with this message at 23:01 on Feb 18, 2023

# ¿ Feb 18, 2023 22:57

Tomberforce: May 30, 2006

1965917 posted:

Little game where you guess property values and then feel because you are very very wrong.

https://propertyguessr.fun/locations

Hahaha I got the first one in my home town right to within 10k and the second one in Oxford wrong by 490k!

# ¿ Feb 20, 2023 17:05

Tomberforce: May 30, 2006

Yeah I have two kiddos and we haven't got married in part as a deliberate gently caress you to that regressive fuckwittery tbh (also that poo poo is expensive).

# ¿ Feb 21, 2023 21:56

Tomberforce: May 30, 2006

I posted a little while ago about the letters that my mother in law showed me a few days ago which were written by her Uncle who was killed fighting in the Spanish Civil War with the International Brigade. The letter dates from December 1937 and he was killed around Aragon in March 1938. He was clearly a deeply committed and idealistic member of the CPGB and the letter outlines in detail his rationale for his Socialist worldview and he goes on to make some eerily prescient observations (even going as far as to use the word holocaust - in a letter from 1937) about the coming global storm. He was 23 when he was killed but he writes with an eloquence beyond his years. I thought it was a genuinely fascinating document both for its observations of the situation of the time and the prevailing relevance of many of the themes. I thought some of you might find it interesting too!

This is the first page of the letter - it's 11 pages so I will just post my very imperfect transcription for the rest of it.

quote:

10/12/1937

Dear Aunt and Uncle,

I have received letters from both John and Hilda, imploring me to give up this �silly Communism� as I am in danger of losing my job.
Apparently I am suspect of basking in the sunshine of high brow dilettantism and of embarking on the �road to ruin�. This is not an attempt to be funny.
I have been accused almost in these terms of playing at Socialism. This is not surprising considering that my critics have no knowledge of socialism or
for that matter of the relations between man and man in the process of production. I have replied to my brother and sister and attempted to make the
position clear and I should like to explain to you very clearly just why I am not in the least intimidated by these criticisms or the possibility of losing my job.
When I first became a socialist I did so because I thought it was rather a clever clever thing to do and I used to hang about holding intellectual discussions
with charming little boys in bowler hats who have now graduated into pillars of the Church and excellent sidesmen (excluding those, of course, who subsequently
cut out all the swagger and got down to business). In other words I was playing with socialism.

But since I have been a member of the Holborn Branch of the C.P. I have had a lot of ???? knocked off and a considerable amount of common sense knocked
into my head. Like many other occupations. The people who enter for the fun of the thing get ? against some practical work and either collapse altogether or revise
themselves in such a way as to make them equal to the job. The first thing that happened to me was that I was given a great deal of practical work.
Canvassing, selling the Daily Worker on a street corner, envelope addressing, Trade Union work (I am a member of the Shop assistants Union) stewarding at meetings,
taking a ???? class, helping to organize socials and dances writing ????? and pamphlets, and organizing literature sales in the point shops in Fleet St. The result was that
I was learning more from the printers than they were learning from me. Being broad minded they bore with my pomposity for a while and gradually taught me what the working
class movement is and what loyalty to that movement means. The result is that wherever I go in the working class movement now instead of gentle toleration on their part there
is a mutual trust and as a party comrade I am expected to behave like a man and I�m treated like one.

But what is this communism that it means so much to me? It is our mutual struggle for a better life and an end to the more appalling miseries that beset us today.
It is the struggle against the impending doom of imperialist war. And it is at this particular stage above all the working class against fascism.
Everywhere I go on the streets of London I meet and talk to people whose lives are weighed down by the price of food and whose constant anxiety is food and shelter.
The ???? need of millions of us in security from starvation in its many aspects and war. There are 12,000,000 people in this country living on less that �3 per week and
thousands who haven�t seen a days work in years. The ugly conditions of industry have sapped the vitality of vast areas and dejected the people who live there.
For many more the conditions of employment are to come cap in hand to our rulers and be grateful for our natural rights. On the land, as you very well know, a labourer gets on
the average 35s per week and the small farmer is at his wits end to keep going because of the ??? rent and tithe system and the impossibility of finding a market.
??? are suicidal because the only goods we can exchange are used articles for ??? are agricultural goods. The more we prohibit imports of agricultural produce the less
we export in industrial goods. This means less profits, less wages, less means of consumption, less market for home produce and so the vicious circle.
Already in industry over-production has been reached as witness the secret ???? of the federation of British Industries to leading manufacturers.

This means sooner or later slump and the only thriving industry is steel. Steel for guns and for the capitalist, that�s the only way out. These guns threaten you and me and unless
all of us do something about [it] we shall be in the middle of the most dreadful holocaust imaginable. You must realize that war means that we are all in the front line.
In every military college in Europe it is being taught that future objectives are civil populations. Panic must be struck in the enemy. I ask you to envisage the effect of an air raid on London.
Millions of the people will scatter in the home counties searching for food, and there will be no food. This is no idle fantasy of my own it is the considered opinion of Winston Churchill
one of the most far seeing of the ruling class who gave voice to this opinion in the House of Commons. ?? he saw this as an example of the necessity for fascism
(the militarization of the whole nation in preparation for war on the ??? of Nazi Germany). You may say yes but we all know this and the national Government is a peace force.
That�s just what it isn�t! The national Government like Hitler realized the contradiction of capitalist society want in an age of plenty.

They realise that only Socialism can end this system but Socialism means divesting them of the privileged position and they�ll hang on to that to the last drop of working class blood.
How has Hitler been able to come to power? By the encouragement of international capital (Jews as well). The capitalists in Germany were threatened with Socialism to such an extent
that nobody could maintain power unless he put forward a socialist sounding programme. Hitler was clever enough to do this and called his party the National Socialist Party.
He just said to the workers put me in power and I�ll right every wrong and because the leaders of the Germany Labour Party were weak and didn�t realise the implications and the fact that
Hitler was actually ??? English and German capitalists they lost the confidence of the masses of the people for just that short space of time to allow the fascist to get to power.
Once in they murdered the Trade Union leaders, the Communists, the working class Jews as scapegoats and interned hundreds of middle class thinkers who were brave enough to oppose them.
They regimented the whole nation under the iron rule of the �leaders�, forced down wages �Guns not butter� says Goering and blackmailed the British capitalists for loans by threatening the
wrath of the working class and promising an attack on the land of the Soviets. These are the people who with Italy and Japan that our ruling class have seeked to ally with.
Recognition of Franco, Hitler -Halifax talks, vitriolic attacks on the Soviet Union in the press. All these things serve a purpose. Owing to the antagonism between all imperialisms
it is only possible to form an alliance at the expense of another power. The other power in the long run is the Soviet Union. Take the Japanese invasion in China, some of the
conservative elements have supported the collective front against Japan because they are stealing our markets in China. But the more far seeing members of the cabinet say no.
If China wins she goes Bolshevik and we get nothing. If Japan wins she can�t supply all Chinas needs and we get a rake off if we play our cards right.
Then if any of the fascist power threaten the empire we divert them against the Soviet Union. Sooner than later the expansionist Germany will press for more colonies,
however, and the stronger she gets the more insistent will become her demands. Again the ruling class realizes this and that is why we are rearming to crush Germany as in 1914-1918.
And that is where you and I are being led up the garden path for the protection of capital in the name of �defence�. What shall we do about it? Unite all the forces for peace in the country
and turn out the national Government. Enter the Franco-Soviet alliance and draw all the minority nations in Europe to our side and present a front to the fascists �They shall not pass�.
This in itself does not prevent war it gains time, however, and time is very valuable. The fight for peace and the fight for socialism are indissoluble. If the fascist cannot expand they have to
relate production with consumption in their own countries and this they cannot do. The longer the peace the nearer to Socialism. Socialism once achieved throughout Europe means no more war.
This is the crux of the whole issue the profit making system means antagonism and the bloody conflict for markets.
The system of production for use means concord, security, and hope for millions. Compared with the world state of socialism, all previous history has been the prehistory of mankind.
In Socialism mankind has mastered the Frankenstein�s monster of economy and we begin for the first time in History to live. Fascism is the last degraded ditch of monopoly capital.
It is the most dire barbarism that can befall mankind, with its glorification of war and worship of money.

[Time?] Our fight for socialism will be fraught with trouble and suffering. As it is the members of the Communist International have been persecuted to such an extent that the Spanish
inquisition pales into insignificance in comparison but it is an honorable fight and I have pledged myself to play my part in it.

Foremost in the struggle for years has been the British working clas with its tremendous traditions of loyalty and courage. As Engels said, �Once the British working class becomes conscious
of its mission there is not a power on earth that will withstand it for a day�. Well that�s how I feel atbout it and I don�t intend to bow the knee to the rapscallions at Shell -Mex or any
other money-kinds for that matter My life as a revolutionary will be a dangerous one (already my letters are opened) but surely you wouldn�t have me cut and run.

P.S I am staying at Langes over xmas but I�ll come up and see you.

Bert.

Tomberforce fucked around with this message at 23:31 on Feb 21, 2023

# ¿ Feb 21, 2023 22:52

Tomberforce: May 30, 2006

HopperUK posted:

That's incredible, thank you so much for writing that up.

e: the missing word is 'critics'. It is not surprising considering that my critics have no knowledge of socialism

Makes sense cheers!

There is a second shorter letter dated from just before his deployment which I'll endeavour to type up soon too.

If anyone is curious and wants a link to the google drive link for the full letter feel free to hit me up.

# ¿ Feb 21, 2023 23:16

Tomberforce: May 30, 2006

killerwhat posted:

Thanks for this, it�s fascinating and impressive. Such a young man to be so well read, considered, and eloquent.

It didn't go unnoticed either according to his available personnel records. He was immediately earmarked for leadership when he arrived 'and should develop into a sound Company Commander with more theoretical training'. He was killed just over a month later. Such is war.

# ¿ Feb 22, 2023 00:15

Tomberforce: May 30, 2006

Jaeluni Asjil posted:

A fascinating and eloquent letter, and interesting that he uses the 'holocaust' word in 1937.

I just had to google that and it seems Dachau concentration camp opened in 1933 and boycotts etc of Jewish owned businesses etc, and setting up of Gestapo also began that year. So I guess it may have been in the wind though whether the word itself was in use at that stage, I don't know. That said, I feel he was using the word in a wider context.

(source: https://www.museumoftolerance.com/education/teacher-resources/holocaust-resources/timeline-of-the-holocaust.html)

Yes I think it is certainly is being used in a wider context - it's just a somewhat eerie coincidence in that respect.

# ¿ Feb 22, 2023 00:16

Tomberforce: May 30, 2006

Danger - Octopus! posted:

This is really great, thanks for sharing. Is it ok to share this with people elsewhere who it would be of interest to? I'd ask them not to post it publicly on social media sites etc, obviously

Yeah I think that's fine. I've improved on the transcription a little bit and will type up the shorter second letter when I get a chance soon.

# ¿ Feb 22, 2023 15:31

Tomberforce: May 30, 2006

justcola posted:

My brother has asked me to recommend him some podcasts. He's coming off Joe Rogan and other more right wing leaning stuff, so I'm hoping to sort of deprogram him a bit. Are there any recommendations for some more laddy left leaning podcasts? I think WDTATW would be just a little bit too gentle for him. Someone posted a video last year of a working class economist with a shaved head, so something along those lines would be better (can anyone remember the person I'm talking about?)

The Dollop - comedy history podcast. Highly recommend the Rube, Oofty Goofty or the Willie Dee as intro episodes but honestly any of the early ones especially are absolutely hilarious and they also have some good left orientated introductions into so many topics - civil rights, Reagan, Wells Fargo, the background of the Iraq war.

The Rube is about a Baseball player - I have no affinity for baseball whatsoever but it's definately one of the funniest things I've ever listented to (honestly if you haven't listened to it - do it).

Also Behind the Bastards is another obvious one - they did a huge 6 parter on Kissinger (the Forrest Gump of war crimes) with the Dollop guys which I am yet to listen to fully.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m0zI3Ed0kTQ

I think the economist you're thinking of is Garys economics, who does a really good job of explaining economic concepts in a comprehensible way.

https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-d&q=garys+economics

Tomberforce fucked around with this message at 13:13 on Feb 23, 2023

# ¿ Feb 23, 2023 13:09

Tomberforce: May 30, 2006

Doctor_Fruitbat posted:

I haven't listened to the more recent episodes, but there is a very definite trend in The Dollop of host Dave gradually getting more and more sick of capitalism's poo poo the more he has to learn about it and barely being able to suppress himself from going off on one constantly.

Yeah it very much started out as 'we aren't going to get into politics too much' the earlier episodes are definately best to start out on as they are just so funny but some of the political ones are really interesting too. The Reagan one is great and horrifying.

# ¿ Feb 23, 2023 13:23

Tomberforce: May 30, 2006

Italian tourists everywhere recoiling in horror as their turnip bruschetta arrives.

# ¿ Feb 23, 2023 18:59

Tomberforce: May 30, 2006

Viz classic. It's not loving rocket science.

# ¿ Mar 1, 2023 01:10

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# ¿ May 14, 2024 11:40

Tomberforce: May 30, 2006

endlessmonotony posted:

Now do dig up the success rates from the relevant literature.

Rocket science is much easier than weight loss.

Oh I know! Wasn't making a serious point - just referencing the comic!

# ¿ Mar 1, 2023 01:39

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