He’s just one man
ZambianOS is a very seductive interface, isn’t it? I have to iterate it once a year with new features, it gets quite tiring.
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Bad Machinery
New comics by John Allison
ZambianOS is a very seductive interface, isn’t it? I have to iterate it once a year with new features, it gets quite tiring.
Comments are closed.
But that solicitor has the legal strength of 20 men…
…20 BIG men.
Legal strength to lift them Greased and ungreased? Oh sorry, that was big Ken.
Get ready for the new Meat Sweats single, Big Men ft. Big Ken!
Wait they really have… wow! Glenn is amazing! But it seems too good to be true.y
The insurance will help in the case of a monetary judgement, or a settlement, but it won’t help if Dean is trying to get them barred from operating.
Just generally having a lawyer to deal with the other lawyers should help somewhat
Yes…these evil wizards do battle with scrolls called “writs” and “summons” and “subpoenas” full of Latin phrases from antiquity! It’s very useful to have an evil wizard of your own to hurl spells back at them!
Okay, that’s it, then. Problem dealt with. I’m sure we won’t have to worry about this situation ever again.
Does this mean that the last 9 pages of “Little Days” will all be about Lottie?
Glurm is a particularly sanguine man. I note the two twin beds bolted together.
It may not be – it looks like the connector many divan beds use: https://www.aaabeds.co.uk/bed-frames/plush-velvet-fabric-universal-divan-base/
Yes, well spotted. Hotel beds are often two single divans joined together.
Your attention to detail is rewarding. For us, anyway. ^_^
Dangit, don’t ruin my fantasies that way!
The trouble with desktop computer interfaces is they’re all more or less the same, bar little details. They’re all basically the original Mac OS (which in turn was based on the Apple Lisa, itself based on the Xerox Alto.) Aside from panel locations and the addition of tiling window managers little has changed.
Of course there is now iOS and Android interfaces, which can be run on desktops and laptops as well as tablets and phones, but I see that as an enshitification of computer interfaces. They mostly make it more portable and wrestle control from the user. Sure it’s easier to use, but that’s like saying you’ve made a guitar easier to use by removing all but one string!
To make a radical change to our current form of operating system would require a complete change in technology. Something different from a mouse or trackpad for input. I don’t know what that would be.
And if anyone brings of Windows Vista or Windows 8 I’m going to come screaming at them with an ax.
Um, “ax”? It’s actually spelled UX. Speaking of which was any UX more enjoyable than the Metro interface introduced with the world-beating Windows 8? Finally an OS worth upgrading from Windows ME for!
Windows ME – the OS named after the disease it will give you!
As a former UX analyst, I so appreciate this comment. When I began reading it, I thought there was going to be some Brit vs. Murkan ax vs. axe play.
No, an actual ax. (I’m a ‘Murrican, so I can’t spell “axe”) As in a stick with a wedge shaped bit of metal on the end. “Careful with that axe Eugene!”
If the ax is not sufficient, I have a decent broadsword, as well as a pretty nice katana.I keep the broadsword by my front door for when the god-botherers come a knocking.
Speaking of which, “Katana” would be a great name for a UX.
It’s already UX-adjacent.
https://www.foundry.com/products/katana/features/artist-focused-look-development-ux
My desktop computer interface is pretty much just a way to collect a bunch of bash terminals all on one screen.
There is always Archy.
So they have learned nothing about the folly of keeping secret something that has the potential to severely harm a friend? How many times must they ride this scary go round?
I was thinking the same thing.
It’s not folly if that friend cannot be relied upon not to screw up whatever plan you have in place to (you hope) avoid the severe harm.
True. I also can’t help but think even if Dean was in the loop about the events leading up to Wobbly Head, he’d try and involve himself in a way that hurts more than helps.
In that case, they shouldn’t have involved him at all. Involving Dean just endangered hum without his knowlege.
Exactly.
No. Incorrect. If they hadn’t involved Dean at all, he would have been drawn into events anyway, and died, along with the rest of the cast. See my comments elsewhere on this page. Remember: 9 Chickweed Lane is where you’d be now if not for the Dean-confusing Beate scheme. 9 Chickweed Lane.
That’s literally the whole plot structure of every sitcom ever. One or more characters keeping secrets from or refusing to talk to one or more of the other characters.
And also the linchpin of every romantic novel I’ve ever read — the refusing to talk and clear up the secrets/misconceptions. Not that I’ve read many, because see my previous sentence.
Let’s hope they’ll understand that having to deal with an angry Dean.
Love Claire’s expression in the first panel, for some reason I can’t quite explain.
It’s the look of a master strategist that belies Claire’s age and size.
Should the worst come and they really do need a lawyer, I think Shelley Winters is who Team Silver should turn to.
*Team Solver
Solver Silver is their discount plan for their senior citizen clients.
Team Silver is their subsidiary company that investigates swashbuckling stumpers
Team Silver: Pirate Puzzles
Agree! It’s always nice to see Shelley. Maybe we could also see a glimpse of Penrose.
Did I somehow miss Shelley getting a law degree?
I believe that she got one a while back, but has been constrained from using it by a paralysing fear of judges. A fear that she is scheduled to overcome some time before the 2030s. Perhaps that was a beneficial side-effect of the Department’s apparently failed attempt to wipe her memory.
Is that a Nemulon icon on his desktop? Does Zambian make Nemulons?
Pretty sure it’s a convergent evolution kind of thing in the UI realm. Like carcinisation, the natural world trend for non-crabs to turn crab-shaped.
It could be a Nebulon looking out at Ygln.
The government bureau presumably has private-sector contractors to build their tech. Maybe Zambian is one of them.
Gelm is a trackballer! There are dozens of us! Dozens!
Claire’s admiration is adorable. Good for Glenn. That said… not telling him was one thing. Actively using him as BAIT was another.
I sympathize with Claire: She was in an impossible and stressful situation with no road map, no backup like Lottie, and Dean being a coinflip between genuine asset and liablity and in the middle of all of that she nearly died.So I get why she went with the worst plan, but she DID use him as bait. That was the time to deal him in, a calculated risk but one to take. That said I have hopes the story will adress this as i’m not sure the lawsuit mess will be resolved by the end of this one. We’ve still got 9 pages to go.
Well, quite.
I don’t usually indulge in this sort of post-facto analysis of decisions made by fictional characters (their choices serve the story and the author’s priorities, no real logic is at work here), but! Had Dean known what was going on, the doctored beverages would not have entered play, nobody would have been spiked/strapped up/driven to Wobbly Head Reservoir and threatened with a terminal dunking.
Claire, of course, had no way of knowing this, and – returning to the solid ground of “author stance” – that is the essence of tragedy. And this is, I think, a tragedy – if I had to choose between the Classical forms – despite having good jokes in it. I would hope the Solvers come to Glom’s conclusion here and accept at least some culpability in putting the man who started their business rolling in the first place at risk of death.. but that’s what I’d expect from a real situation, and isn’t this where we came in?
As this line of enquiry goes on and on, and on, I would offer, following my own logic as the writer of this series, that if Dean had known about the plot and been included, all the beloved characters in Solver would now be dead and you would be reading 9 Chickweed Lane right now. The time and effort needed for Beate to drag the 6’2″, quite beefy, Dean into the van and into a wheelchair were critical in weakening her physically and spiritually for the final confrontation. Dean may not be happy about how things have played out but I can say with 100% confidence that his current predicament is absolutely the best case scenario given all the potentialities of this narrative.
Oh, please. What do YOU know about it?
Very good very good Dan
FWIW, I never heard of 9 Chickweed lane; just looked it up and read 20 or so strips; and thought “meh.” Whereas I’ve been avidly reading John Allison works since early Scary Go Round. So there.
John’s contempt for 9 Chickweed Lane pales in comparison to David Willis’ of Dumbing Of Age. There are entire months where Willis’ social media is dedicated to nothing but verbal savagery against that comic.
Nah, there’s also Transformers and holding up choice bits of the DoA comments section to amaze and horrify the public.
I don’t feel contempt for 9 Chickweed Lane – I must be absolutely crystal clear about this. I find it quite peculiar, but I think that’s a selling point. It creates a reaction – good, bad, it doesn’t matter. It’s something. 9 Chickweed Lane continues, fired by its own weird energy that I just don’t understand. I think it’s very, very small for one artist to put the shoe into another without very good reason.
Frankly, I think it would be very easy for someone to pick my work apart as equally odd.
I used to read Dumbing of Age regularly, but I tired of it. What’s the gist of Willis’ beef with 9CL? (I’m not on social media – comix comments is as close as I get)
I can’t speak to the consequences of informing Dean, but I can assure you, sir, that I would not be reading 9 Chickweed Lane.
We all say that at first, John, but it’s a place we can all go if this dog and pony show goes off a cliff. 9 Chickweed Lane. See you there.
If I ever wake up and find that badmachinery.com redirects to 9 Chickweed Lane, that’s when I’ll truly know I didn’t actually survive that car crash back in 2004.
So proximity to Dean is spiritually weakening?
I can’t help but feel like I’m being told off here, which serves me right for doing the thing I would normally admonish in myself and others. It’s only because it’s my comment that you replied to, but that (hopeful) coincidence is easy to take personally.
I consider myself told, in any case. Sorry for being tiresome.
You’re not being admonished at all! I just tried to furnish you and other curious readers with my thinking.
Duly noted. You’re a gracious man, Mr. Allison, and I’m quite sure that in a hypothetical non-authored scenario, Dean would have found some way to make things worse.
Amends need to be made. This Dean situation will go away with some sincere amends. That seems unpleasant though- lawyers may be better. Yes. Go with lawyers here.
Indeed! Besides, there’s (Claire) little chance that Dean will view any approach by The Solvers as “sincere”. He’s been burned by them once; you’ll not catch him a second time!
Are those Nemulon eyes on the left of ZambianOS?
Nemulon Eyes sounds like an 80s hit song.
The question is: Eagles or Kim Carnes?
A duet with Kim and Don Henley.
I see what you did there, but in my head canon it’s Billy Idol.
“I have never admired you more than I do now for discovering a pre-existing fact that I could just as easily have discovered for myself.”
I suspect it’s not merely “discovered”, but that, as their business guy, Gloom arranged it in the first place.
Ronald, how many 20 year olds do you think know about “professional legal insurance”. Whatever number you came up with, it’s probably on the high side.
(?)
I’d say it’s significantly higher than the number of 20 year olds who run detective agencies. Besides, if the agency has professional legal insurance, who if not Glenn acquired it in the first place? Sorry, I’m just not getting it. And that’s okay.
IMHO it’s kind of odd how you keep CARING what I think. Who am I that you are mindful of me? 😐
I have to moderate these comments because no one else is able to, and I because I do it every day, I know the user names and in some cases the tiny faces of every single regular poster. I notice when people disappear from the comments for good. Ronald, you often sound slightly downcast or confused about things that happen in the stories I write and draw and I cannot help but feel responsible and want to make amends. I feel my calling is to entertain, not disappoint, my readers. This holistic approach to audience relations has driven me, I would say, around the bend.
I have come to view the commenters here as a family, with John the patriarch doing his best to guide and mentor his opinionated teenagers as they throw ideas onto social media willy nilly
And in that family I suspect I am that creepy older uncle that people tolerate
“I know who you are and where you live, and if you disappear for good, it’s definitely because you became disappointed in my attempts to entertain you, and you most definitely weren’t abducted, bound, put on the ledge of a huge dam, and pushed off.”
Is “being abducted, bound, put on the ledge of a huge dam, and pushed off” the definition of Beaten?
It’s the FACT that Glenn acquired it that impresses Claire. Glenn’s revealing his ace in the hole to Claire, and she’s impressed.
No man is an island, Ronald. We all have to be mindful of each other.
Each man’s death diminishes me,
For I am involved in mankind.
Therefore, send not to know
For whom the bell tolls,
It tolls for thee.
And the son of Ronald that John visiteth him?
Sorry, just wanted you to feel heard.
I wonder why Donaldson is a standard last name, but Ronaldson isn’t.
Possibly a sign that Ronalds did not propagate very well during the medieval period.
Yes, that’s the point. If Gren had not acquired it, no one would have — can you see Lottie getting it? I can hear her dismissing it as a racket already — and they would not have professional legal insurance, so they would be in something of a fix now. Claire is impressed because Gorn is revealing that he has not only saved the day, he did it in advance, using wisdom and foresight.
Ronald I am sincerely confused by your comment, what does it mean?
Oh Glorm, you sly dog! You know the effects such pragmatism must have on Claire!
Just try saying “perilouth situation” aloud. I bet what Claire actually* said was “perilouthituation.”
*I know she’s not real. I do. Really.
Grab that admiration while you can, pal
Legal Insurance! Wunnerful!
But did Glenn think to get Fire Insurance? The upcoming “Ronsonol” page makes me wonder.
Perhaps Claire covering their tracks as they flee the city?
*Wunderbar!