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Stranger than Fiction

*Mostly* resolved

To borrow a line of thinking from “Miracle Max” from The Princess Bride: mostly resolved means partly unresolved!

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Florida Stranger than Fiction

Florida Cat redefines the slang expression “banana hammock”

Orange cat resting on a bunch of bananas in a banana tree.
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Stranger than Fiction

The picture tells you whose idea it was

News clipping titled “Alberta couple sells off ‘very impressive’ collection of John Deere memorabilia” with photo of couple standing among a collection of toy John Deere tractors. Dan looks dejected; Donna is beaming.

You can click here for the news story about the sale of this collection, but for the full story, just look at Dan and Donna Specht’s body language and facial expressions.

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Stranger than Fiction

“A” for effort; “ת” for execution

At least they tried. The sad thing is that the picture in the “Happy Rosh Hashanah” sign shows the food that’s actually associated with the holiday.

Consider this a reminder that if you’re working with unfamiliar subject matter, consult a subject matter expert, or at least someone familiar with it!

(In case you were wondering, “ת” is “tav,” the last letter in the Hebrew alphabet.)

Categories
Music Stranger than Fiction The Current Situation

Jimmy Buffett’s career wasn’t THAT long…

50 decades? That’s 500 years.
Tap to view at full size.

I think whoever was assembling the “lower third” for CNN’s news segment on the late great Jimmy Buffett (RIP, you magnificent bastard and musical role model of mine) was trying to choose between saying that he’d played for over 50 years or 5 decades, settled on “50 years”, and forgot to change the final word.

Consider this another reminder to use processes and tools to double-check your work before you put it out into the world, especially if it’s a rush job.

Categories
Stranger than Fiction

Oh, my sweet summer child…

Screenshot of Google results page questions: “People also ask: Is Oppenheimer based on a true story?”

This might be a testament to the power of the Oppenheimer movie trailer, because getting someone to go see the movie without knowing about Robert Oppenheimer, the Manhattan Project, and all that sounds like it would be a hard sell.

Categories
Stranger than Fiction

The story in the “Bill Gates at a restaurant” meme never happened

There’s this “Bill Gates at a restaurant” meme that’s been making the rounds again among acquaintances of mine who are a little too deep into “hustle culture,” and I’m here to tell you that the story it tells is 100% fake.

The story changes slightly with each retelling, but it generally goes like this:

BILL GATES in a restaurant.

After eating, he gave $5 to the waiter as a tip. The waiter had a strange look on his face after the tip, Gates realized, and asked the waiter what had happened.

The waiter replied, “I’m just amazed because on the same table your son gave a tip of $500, but you, his father, the richest man in the world, only gave me $5.”

Gates smiled and replied with meaningful words: “He is Son of the world’s richest man, but I am the son of a wood cutter…”

(Never Forget Your Past. It’s Your Best Teacher)

The problem with this story is that Bill Gates’ tale isn’t one of rags to riches, but of riches to even more riches. After all, Bill’s foray into tech was greatly assisted by the fact that in 1968, he was at an expensive prep school — one of the few that had a computer:

A young Paul Allen (another Microsoft cofounder) and Bill Gates
at Lakeside Prep School.

As for Bill’s dad, William Henry Gates II, he was not a wood cutter, but a founding partner of the law firm Shidler McBroom & Gates, which would grow to become K&L Gates, which boasts over 1,000 employees. It’s no Microsoft, but neither is it small potatoes.

I suspect that the meme’s popularity with my “hustle bro” acquaintances is that it justifies their tendency to underpay people to fatten their own wallets, a fact that many of them often boast about (along with other shady behavior). That’s one of the reasons they’re acquaintances, not friends.