Dilbert loses newspapers, publishers, distributor, and possibly its website

[EEVblog]

Can we please stop the Trump stuff.

That wasn't an invitation to start with the covid stuff.

[SiliconWizard]

Surgical masks are meant to prevent bacteria from entering surgical wounds, not viruses. And incidentally to prevent medical staff from inhaling/swallowing patients' blood or anything else nasty that could come out.

[EEVblog]

Looks like he has 109k followers on Locals. Don't know how many paid though.
Following (unpaid) with my existing Locals account I can see his first Dilbert Reborn strip.
He recently gave permission for people to use but but not actively republish the strip, so here is the first strip, 1 of 3, I'll just post the first one. Dilbert dies and was cremated.
You guessed it, in the next one he's reborn from the dumpster.

[Someone]

My point was making a non-sterilising vaccine a condition of work, or to go to public events was the issue. The vaccine is very good at preventing severe disease and death. People get infected, but it's much milder, than it would've been had they not had the disease or vaccine, so it's definitely useful. It's just questionable whether it's beneficial for all.

If it [the vaccine in Australia] wasn't mandatory, the uptake would have been too low to keep the hospitals from collapse (which did happen in the UK and some other countries). Pretty much all the public health measures were just to balance hospital capacity and continues today. Isolation and/or Vaccination, one of those is much easier to sell politically.

The fact it wasn't mandatory had nothing to do with the UK's hospitals being over-crowded. Most of the pressure on the NHS occurred at a time, before the vaccine was approved (Spring 2020) and during the point people were queuing up to take it (winter 2020/2021) and it had to be given to those who were deemed to be more vulnerable. Uptake amongst the vulnerable was more than high enough to ensure the NHS could cope. This was one of the reasons why the Delta and Omicron waves didn't cause as much of a problem as the previous ones.

I've added the situational clarification to the above. Many people will get the vaccine only when they feel it will immediately help them which is a rational position for them to take individually, but people tend to be very bad as assessing risks so rational does not equal effective/efficient for the population. Had there been no vaccine mandate in Australia the hospitals would have fallen over like they did in the UK (or other measures would have been needed like longer and harsher isolation/lockdown) as the uptake was very slow.

The UK didn't have the luxury of deciding how/when to roll out the vaccine as the virus was already running wild, but Australia ran a "zero" transmission effort/regime during that same period. Lockdowns couldn't run indefinitely (political or financial) and the vaccine uptake wasn't moving fast enough (for the suggested modelling) without a mandate. Even with all that fiddling and pulling of levers, the hospitals in Australia squeaked through by pushing back "elective" procedures and things like cancer screening. Overall effects are a hard thing to measure, the health care that hasn't been provided because of dealing with covid patients (even without attention grabbing hospital collapse) is a huge and growing cost that could have been lessened with more aggressive vaccination (the health system has been publicising heavily on the ratio of unvaccinated people hospitalised for covid) and/or isolation and/or [insert you choice of control method here].

As we're both in agreement on, keep people informed of the moving data is important. But most of the public can't ingest this sort of complexity and need/want a simple "rule".

[EEVblog]

Ok, Just STOP IT with the covid posts.
I'm deleting any further posts.

[Tomorokoshi]

Ok, Just STOP IT with the covid posts.
I'm deleting any further posts.

Painful visions of being in the EMC lab trying to pass 61000-4-6 by clamping ferrites on cables.

[Black Phoenix]

Ok, Just STOP IT with the covid posts.
I'm deleting any further posts.

Jesus Dave, just close the thread. It lost is purpose after the first few posts.

I'm the OP but as someone said correctly I'm not the owner of it and can't decide how it develops.

Dilbert for free in a easy way to be accessible is no more, fork $70/Year for a daily strip or wait for paying people to set a website who rips the strips daily and publishes in the dark Web for free.

I'm not implying that the creator should work for free, but all this situation was blown out of water when other public figures do worse and nothing happen to them.

No one is coming back what was said, and newspapers, publishers and other deal holders are also not gonna change their decision. So close it, burned it to the ground and bury the ashes.

[vk6zgo]

Ok, Just STOP IT with the covid posts.
I'm deleting any further posts.

Maybe you should be able to set up a different sort of thread, like some forums have, where you can have a whinge about something "close to your heart" & be able to disable comments.
That way, we won't be wasting your, (& our time) discussing what seem to us to be associated issues.

I know you have always wanted this forum to be as open as possible, but perhaps it is time to have a "special place", other than your videos where you can "tack your colours to the mast."

As it is, you know that not everyone will agree with you, others won't agree with them, in turn, & both sides will bring up "side issues" to seemingly bolster their case.

[james_s]

Hopefully the Dilbert collection will end up on a torrent somewhere, I'm not going to subscribe to some service I've never heard of just to read that.

[wilfred]

Dilbert for free in a easy way to be accessible is no more, fork $70/Year for a daily strip or wait for paying people to set a website who rips the strips daily and publishes in the dark Web for free.

In researching (? ? ?) what was behind the story I watched about 30 minutes of a Youtube video of Scott Adams in his own words saying why he did what he did. I went back to find what I thought was the vital part where he explains it. I'll link the YT video keyed to the exact time. You only have to watch for about a minute.
But basically he says the he has gained massive notoriety as a voice to speak about things he feels need to be said. So it was calculated and the risk was in his favour.  If you look at the titles of his YT channel "Real Coffee with Scott Adams" you will see a pretty good cross-section of topics. I expect these will fairly heavily feature in future Dilbert cartoons.

If it pans out that way I don't think the new "paying" Dilbert audience will intersect greatly with the old one because cubicle culture will be greatly diminished.
https://www.youtube.com/live/RiNVN6c9E9g?feature=share&t=3570

[EEVblog]

If it pans out that way I don't think the new "paying" Dilbert audience will intersect greatly with the old one because cubicle culture will be greatly diminished.

Dilbert has always been about all sorts of current business and social issues and events, and just general human traits etc. It's trivial to map almost anything into the context of the cubicle world, the jokes still remain the same, just the setting might be different. So nothing changes.

[EEVblog]

Ok, Just STOP IT with the covid posts.
I'm deleting any further posts.

Maybe you should be able to set up a different sort of thread, like some forums have, where you can have a whinge about something "close to your heart" & be able to disable comments.

That has been repeatedly voted down by the community many times over the years.

[wilfred]

As it is, you know that not everyone will agree with you, others won't agree with them, in turn, & both sides will bring up "side issues" to seemingly bolster their case.

The disadvantage of these topics for me is that they diminish the forum as an electronics forum. I usually just look at the list of recent posts and if it is heavily populated with topics like this one and bank collapses (and yes I know banks use ATM's and they are electronic and therefore on-topic) then I see fewer thread titles that are interesting electronics ones.

Having said that I have posted a handful of time here and I hope they were more topical than this one.

However to try to shoe-horn this one back to Dilbert I will say that if engineers like Dilbert and Dilbert is poking fun at office and cubical life then engineers are dealing with the real world and so spillover discussion here about real world issues that also affect engineers may be justified.

But if the forum is to be seen as predominantly electronics related and non-electronics off topic threads likely to drift in off-topic hot-button areas are tolerated for any length of time then is seems like you cannot have your cake and eat it too.

[EEVblog]

Ok, Just STOP IT with the covid posts.
I'm deleting any further posts.

Jesus Dave, just close the thread. It lost is purpose after the first few posts.

No it hasn't, it's a place to talk about Dilbert and Adams and what's happening, and cancel culture. As I said before, it potentially impacts all of us. Things could always evolve in the Dilbert universe, so best to keep it open.

[wilfred]

No it hasn't, it's a place to talk about Dilbert and Adams and what's happening, and cancel culture. As I said before, it potentially impacts all of us. Things could always evolve in the Dilbert universe, so best to keep it open.

That's exactly right. This forum board wasn't retitled from "General Chat" to "General Technical Chat" for no reason.

Edit: Maybe it's time to set aside a board for such discussion. Cooking scored one and this must be at least as deserving given the nerve it seems to have struck.

[vk6zgo]

Ok, Just STOP IT with the covid posts.
I'm deleting any further posts.

Maybe you should be able to set up a different sort of thread, like some forums have, where you can have a whinge about something "close to your heart" & be able to disable comments.

That has been repeatedly voted down by the community many times over the years.

Sorry, Dave, I had quite forgotten that Black Phoenix was the OP (yep! I'm a senile old git!), & as you had a flurry of posts some time back, I somehow got the idea you started it.
Obviously, even if my suggestion was palatable, it wouldn't apply in this case, anyway.

[james_s]

Ok, Just STOP IT with the covid posts.
I'm deleting any further posts.

Maybe you should be able to set up a different sort of thread, like some forums have, where you can have a whinge about something "close to your heart" & be able to disable comments.

That has been repeatedly voted down by the community many times over the years.

Yeah that sounds terrible. No point in posting a thread that nobody is allowed to comment on, that defeats the purpose of a forum.

[wilfred]

Yeah that sounds terrible. No point in posting a thread that nobody is allowed to comment on, that defeats the purpose of a forum.

Sounds to me like some are suggesting that threads like this one defeat the purpose of an electronics forum. I'm leaning that way too.

[fourfathom]

Yeah that sounds terrible. No point in posting a thread that nobody is allowed to comment on, that defeats the purpose of a forum.

Sounds to me like some are suggesting that threads like this one defeat the purpose of an electronics forum. I'm leaning that way too.

You may be right, but I think any cure would be worse than the disease.  If I am not interested in a thread, or get bored with one I've posted to, I just tick the "ignore topic" box.  Works like a charm.

[Tomorokoshi]

Ok, Just STOP IT with the covid posts.
I'm deleting any further posts.

Jesus Dave, just close the thread. It lost is purpose after the first few posts.

No it hasn't, it's a place to talk about Dilbert and Adams and what's happening, and cancel culture. As I said before, it potentially impacts all of us. Things could always evolve in the Dilbert universe, so best to keep it open.

Please define "cancel culture".

[aeberbach]

Simple: "cancel culture" is what they call it when one of their own experiences consequences. "f*** around and find out" is what they call it when someone else experiences consequences.

[james_s]

Please define "cancel culture".

Why don't you just read through the thread and see where it has been defined multiple times? Or you could google it.

It's pretty simple really, "cancelling" is when a mob, usually online on Twitter or other social media uses bullying tactics to attempt to force entities associated with a person who said something they find offensive to cut ties with that person. Entities can include corporations the person works for or is otherwise associated with, friends, family, or other associates. The primary goal is to silence a person, then to punish/harass/destroy them to the greatest extent possible. The "cancellers" are bullies, plain and simple, just like the bullies commonly found on school playgrounds. Like any bully, they use tactics including threats, harassment, intimidation, and sometimes physical violence. They're not interested in a debate, they're not interested in a conversation, and they're not interested in educating, all they are interested in is the use of force or coercion.

You've made it abundantly clear that you support this behavior, but just you wait, if it continues sooner or later they will come after you. Very few individuals can pass all of the purity tests, especially since they change over time and you can be punished for something you said or a photo that turns up from 20-30 years ago that has retroactively been deemed offensive.

I don't think you're actually interested in learning anything about it, but if you are, look up Bret Weinstein since that was one of the early victims. He and his wife sued Evergreen University and won half a million dollars, a bit low given what they went through and were accused of for the great sin of declining to participate in an "optional" and blatantly racist event but at least it's something.

If you still don't get it, then you are willfully ignorant.

[james_s]

Sounds to me like some are suggesting that threads like this one defeat the purpose of an electronics forum. I'm leaning that way too.

Then why are you here? There are hundreds of other threads, lots of them don't interest me, I ignore those, are you familiar with the ignore thread feature? Nobody is forcing you to participate in this thread if you're not getting anything out of it. This isn't an electronics forum, it's an electrical engineering forum, Dilbert and office/corporate politics are very much a part of engineering.

[EEVblog]

Please define "cancel culture".

If you have to ask that then I'd prefer that you not particiate in this thread. You are clearly not here to talk about Dilbert and Adams.

[EEVblog]

Edit: Maybe it's time to set aside a board for such discussion. Cooking scored one and this must be at least as deserving given the nerve it seems to have struck.

I repeat, the community here has voted down this idea multiple times over the years, the majority do not want a free-for-all section.