Tag Archives: shit

The Republic of Nauru and their giant pile of shit is today’s rather unfortunate failure.

So, for those who are commiserable wretches with lacunae the size of the Pacific, Nauru is an island in the Pacific Ocean, it has some ten thousand really fat people living on it, it has basically two things going for it, fishing rights over its economic exclusivity zone and guano.

Thank you Atlas of Economic Complexity, for showing us just how bad it really is. (2017 Exports)

Guano? Right, bird shit, enormous staggering quantities of solidified bird shit, accumulated over thousands of years by vast flocks of marine birds, now turned into phosphate rock, which you can strip mine with utter banality of ease.

The mining started in 1906 and terminated utterly in 2002, thousands of years of birds shitting obliterated utterly in less than a century, not a bad track record, not bad at all. The unbelievable environmental damage is a totally different story, the interior of Nauru was basically a nightmare of jagged limestone pillars, with absolutely zero agricultural value and frankly very ugly.

Note the slight drop in the early 2000’s

Remember the first thing they had going for them? The fish? Yeah, the run off from the Phosphate mining basically wiped out forty per cent of the marine lifeforms within reach of the island, and island that doesn’t have a harbour due to ragged coral reefs surrounding then entire island, the only way they got the damn phosphate off the rock was using a large ram reaching above the reefs to pour the materials into the ships.

Now, Nauru did something very sensible, they established a Sovereign Wealth Fund, just like the Norwegians and several Arab nations have done, the Nauru Phosphate Royalties Trust, which began investing in various real estate projects around the globe, at it’s height, it amount to almost a billion US dollars.

It included:

  • Fiji: The Grand Pacific Hotel
  • India: Paradeep Phosphate
  • New Zealand: Auckland Sheraton Hotel, Roturua Sheraton Hotel
  • Philippines: Manila Pacific Star Hotel, Philippines Phosphate & Fertilisers
  • Contiguous United States: Pacific House (Washington), Singer Building Development (665 acres – Houston), Hillside Property (600 acres – Oregon)
  • Hawaii: Nauru Tower, Hawaiki Tower
  • Guam: Pacific Star Hotel
  • United Kingdom: 3 Chesham Street (London)
  • Samoa: Properties at Vaitele and Sogi
  • Australia: Nauru House 

Not bad right? Sure, but overspending and relentlessly poor management of the wealth contained, began to make itself known, they managed to burn off the cash reserves they had, meaning loans, that they couldn’t pay.

How mismanaged? One of the advisors to the fund, Duke Minks (A music producer, famously known for Unit 4 + 2, yeah I don’t know who that is either) recommended they invest two million pounds sterling in a musical, which he wrote.

Leonardo the Musical: A Portrait of Love, a giant of a musical, took four hours to perform, nobody stayed to watch, ran for five weeks, lost all the money.

In the end, the fund ran out of cash, it’s last attempt was a consolidation of their loans, essentially taking a giant loan from General Electric to pay everything off, it failed and GE seized what they could.

Yup, a railroad, it still counts!

The Phosphate was gone, the money was gone, hell, most of the island was gone. Nauru now survives from hosting a “processing center” for refugees arriving to Australia and not much else.

Add to that the literally most obese people on Earth, due their diet being mainly processed food, no cash, no tourism and no prospects.

But hey, at least they’ve got an airport and a railroad.

The lesson? That mineral wealth is very much finite and don’t waste it if you’re a stupid little island in the Pacific.

Sources:

The OUYA: Bullshit marketing and idiots

The OUYA: Bullshit marketing and idiots.

The OUYA, a magical beast from a time that never should, is a kickstarter funded, andriod-based video game console. It became an overnight success on Kickstarter, because people bought the Virtual Boy, the Philips CD-i, the Ngage and stupidity, and went off and raised over eight million US$. Why? How? Simple comrades, simple. An effective “stick-it-to-the-man” and “rebel-without-a-cause” approach, combined with the incomprehensible growth of libertarianism, add in a dash of idiocy, no sense of quality or control, a lack of knowledge about HDMI cables. And lo and behold! A stupid video game console.

It was sold, in the start, as a sort of “poor-mans” console, 100 US$ for a console? Sold! But consider this, what kind of poverty stricken human being, would waste 100 bucks on a fucking video game console? No, that’s not the right answer, the correct answer is absolutely no one on the surface of the planet. So we return to the first proposal: Idiots, with no knowledge of HDMI cables. HD-TVs are fairly expensive anyway.

It was then sold as a “rebellious” alternative to “the Big Three”; Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo. Who, with their old well-established consoles, surely need an opponent! With a 60.000 strong user-base, who has no clue how HDMI cables work, playing bloody mobile games on their giant HD-TVs, well done. Sony must be shitting bricks, out of sheer existential dread. Again, nonsense. So we’re back to people, who can’t hook up a pc to a TV and who has no earthly clue how HDM*I works.

And then, and then, the argument became: “I want to play Android games on my TV” , because, well, who doesn’t want to play “Angry Birds” on their television. Other than people with a bit of taste, and a laptop, or a PC, or perhaps AppleTV, or a Rasperry PI, or the future SteamBox, or a smartphone, or an Xbox, or a Playstation, someone with a chess set, or perhaps an old fucking Sega.

So, morons, who enjoy simple colourful lights, I mean, mobile games, have no knowledge og PCs and cannot fathom how HDMI cables work.

Then they brought up the open nature of the platform, which sound really good, if you are blessed with a completely lack of common sense and logic, because at the point where this stupid thing get’s close to release, and surprise, “open” means, absolutely no quality control, at all, nothing, nada, zip, zero. so the OUYA shop looks like unregulated Newgrounds, you know, without the quality control that site has.

A 100 bucks to play flash games? And add whatever devestatingly stupid price to “developers” ask for their games, that parts that aren’t “free”. The hell? Just hook up and old laptop or something. It’s bound to be cheaper and much more flexible, than this stupid, barely working, box of cellphone innards. And hey, you don’t have to pay to use Newgrounds and Kongregate, so that’s a Vicory, and very small one, but a Victory is a Victory, no matter its relevance, size or meaningfulness.

And thus, comrades, we return. Back to the unbelievably thick, optimistic, gullible, stupid and weak morons, who fall for anything, even the smallest, most pitiful, hype. Who cannot understand how cheap PCs can be. Who cannot use HDMI cables. Who pays money for flash games. Who rejoices in pointless rebelion against targets, who are not even remotely worth it. And deified Julie Uhrman, a maniac, a former “Junior-Vice-President” of Digital Distribution, sadly not at Valve or Microsoft, but at IGN, so not actually someone who knows anything outside marketing phrases. I’m more of a Video Game Veteran than this bag of empty philosophy, you people will fall for anything, wont you?

Julie-Uhrman-OUYA-Founder
BEHOLD! THE DARK MISTRISS OF TERRIBLE HAIR!

So here we are, the OUYA, you know what? Fuck that name, I’m just going to replace it with random phrases, makes more sense. The OGABO is being released, technically, slowly, and probably not at all anyway. And guess what? To rave reviews! In the deranged mental landscape of its mentally deluded supporters at least, everyone else just thinks it’s rather shit. The Verge thought it was spectacularly rubbish, in one of those “Oh shit, I really don’t want to actually say how shit this is, let’s just fire of meaningly bullshit and give it a low-grade” ways. Joystiq went slightly harder, more honest, to work, and called the UOYA: “The Infinite Garage Sale”, presuming the damn thing ever get’s out to all 60000 users, and not just to the roughly thirty it’s reached so far, You can even get a picture of the Hardware if you check this one out, you will have to scroll, a lot.

And of course, the marketing machine went fucking haywire. And unleashed every single one of their awe-inspiring weapons of sales directed psychology. Or that’s what those maniacs thought they did, for the rest of sanity, this is what they did:

They claimed that reviews shouldn’t be made, until after the OKLHA had been released, because, get this, it wasn’t “ready” for reviews. How the hell does anyone even remotely believe this? Even after Uhrman’s insanity made her claim the damn thing was “finished”, and hey, seeing as no one’s actually getting this stupid thing, I guess she was rightWRONG.

WHY? YOU FUCKING MORONS! WHY? WHY DID YOU DO THIS?

I guess the HOKAH is only really useful, as a very expensive decorative item. A decorative item designed by Yves Béhar, a big fan of boxes, squares and useless overhyped junk. apparently he’s biggest credentials is his involvement with some “Laptops for kids” initiative, not sure what a designer does on a charity project, money’s better spent elsewhere, just go use IBMs old laptop design, cheap, indestructible, perfect.

The OUYA isn’t anything new and shiny, there’s been attempts to make Open platforms before, many attempts at “indie” consoles, all have faded into obscurity, none has ever taken off, this is just another Ngage, CDi and almost a Phantom.

The OUYA was stupid when I saw it on Kickstarter, it’s still fucking stupid, if you think otherwise, then do I have an offer for you! A free Eiffel Tower, only 100 US£, slightly used.

Philip “Ragnarokz” Balfour, is a useless hack, you shouldn’t read this.

The Pointless labyrinthine story of Sluggy Freelance

Sluggy Freelance, a comic that was intially started by Ptahoptep, Vizier of Djedkare Isesi around 2500 BC, the date of the start of it, has fortunately been lost to history.


Oldest Recorded instance of Sluggy Freelance.

Sluggy Freelance is a fucking ancient webcomic, starting out when the Internet was still young and full of porno, which it still is, it’s just of a higher resolution. It’s absolutely ancient and the story lines makes no sense at all. It’s a confusing mess of random crap, old memes and painfully slow “stories”.


Oldest Modern recording of Sluggy Freelance.

It has a gallery of characters which, for it’s time, was pretty fitting: Lazy nerd guy, crazy inventor guy, crazy evil chick and a completely normal young woman, who at this stage, should have lost her mind a long time ago.

In addition, such wonderful supporting characters as: A talking rabbit, an alien that keeps changing shape; pretty sure it’s presently in the shape of a furry’s wet dream and a crazy one-eyed old inventor guy.


RAAAAAAAAANDOM!

Nothing that has been happening in this comic makes any sense any more, it’s been running for so painfully long, that absolutely nothing happens any more. The drawing has been slightly improving over time, SLIGHTLY!

You’d think that after 4.500 years of drawing this crap, that it would actually improve drastically, but no, it hasn’t really changed in any serious way in the last few years.

Why?

The fans of course. It has a small loyal fanbase, and seeing as they depend virtually entirely on their donations then:


Don’t waste your time, the drawing doesn’t exist

They don’t dare change anything, out of a fear that they’ll end up losing their ever precious fans. So they simply stagnate in increasingly more and more bewildering storylines, alienating new readers and scaring away old readers when they realize that fuck all has happened in 4.500 years of reading this crap.


A storyline about mind switching and lingerie just ended here. Sounds fun doesn’t it?

It fucking isn’t.

It’s just another piece of fanservice to their small horde of drooling fans, attempting to get into Sluggy Freelance would presently require the use of the combined Archaeology Department of Cambridge University, a blessing from Horus and Richard Dawkins screaming “DAAARWIN” into your left ear.

Not really worth the effort eh?

Not much change since the great Viziers work eh?

And the damn layout hasn’t changed since 1996 AD.

Remember: Subscribe to my Twitter to get updates when it happens, rather than randomly check my site during the day.

This is a resurected review dragged out of the distant garbage pit of the now derelict ragnarokz.net site.

And for good measure, Sluggy Freelance is the sixth worst webcomic I have ever liked when I was young and stupid.