
Dilbert on 'FU Money' - steamboiler
http://dilbert.com/fast/2010-07-15/
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seanc
Actually, I think the phrase comes from the Neal Stephenson novel
'Cryptonomicon'. Two of the characters imply that it is the amount of money
that allows you to (when necessary) say "fuck you" to The Man, and go do
something else with your time.

"We look for places where the math is right. Meaning what? Meaning that pop.
is about to explode---we can predict that just by looking at age histogram---
and per capita income is about to take off the way it did in Nippon, Taiwan,
Singapore. Multiply those two things together and you get the kind of
exponential growth that should get us all into fuck-you money before we turn
forty.

This is an allusion to a Randy/Avi conversation of two years ago wherein Avi
actually calculated a specific numerical value for "fuck-you money." It was
not a fixed constant, however, but rather a cell in a spreadsheet linked to
any number of continually fluctuating economic indicators. Sometimes when Avi
is working at his computer he will leave the spreadsheet running in a tiny
window in the corner so that he can see the current value of "fuck-you money"
at a glance." - <http://www.cryptonomicon.com/text.html>

~~~
lotharbot
from wglb in yesterday's discussion[1]: _"In Soul of a New Machine, there is
talk about the formation of Data General in 1969. The attorney advising the
founders suggested that they set aside $1m each as part of any deal for the
purpose of FU money. The usage may predate even that."_ (The book was
published in 1981.)

[1] <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1513390> ; Replies to the parent
comment include other 1980s references to the term.

~~~
jgoewert
That would definitely be before the first time I heard it.

My first recollection of it was one of Casey Kasem's tirades back in the 80's.
I can't find the original on the web, but Bob and Tom spoofed it with "Mr
Obvious - Too Hot for Radio" - <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Vobd2qDpzU>

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hooande
There are times when I could swear that Scott Adams reads Hacker News. But
IIRC, these are written weeks or months in advance.

~~~
philwelch
I'm pretty sure he has a shorter buffer than that. My friend who works in
enterprise development says Dilbert has often come out and satirized some new
thing _to the day_ when it gets hyped up at work.

~~~
jackowayed
Is this the same comic that (appeared in newspapers yesterday|will appear in
newspapers today)? If so, he said in a blog post a few months ago that the
normal lag is ~a month and the best he could do was like 2 weeks. (Those
numbers are a little off, I'm sure.)

But if this is just an online version (it is /fast, whatever that means), it
might be a different story.

~~~
steamboiler
_it is /fast, whatever that means_

AFAIK _/fast_ is an URL to read just the comics "fast" without spending
bandwidth loading all the additional information presented in the landing page
of the website.

~~~
pchristensen
It also doesn't use flash. A gift to *nixy and mobile readers.

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apaulsmith
Working in finance the definition of FU money isn't when you can retire, but
when you get to say FU _before_ you hang-up the phone and not afterwards.

Nicholas Taleb has a similar explanation in one of his books (probably Black
Swan).

~~~
mseebach
Given that the consequence of that might be accelerated involuntary
retirement, isn't that the same?

~~~
jacquesm
Not if you end up living in a cardboard box during your 'retirement'.

~~~
winthrowe
if you end up in a cardboard box, I would think that means you didn't have
"FU" money to start with, to my understanding of the term.

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mark_l_watson
Obviously Scott Adams reads Hacker News!

Like many here, reading Dilbert is a special daily event for me. In my case, I
wait until my first cup of coffee is brewed. It must be awesome for Scott
Adams to be able to give so much pleasure to so many people, and make a good
living from it.

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ck2
BTW Dilbert is now on Netflix instant streaming, lots of fun!

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ax0n
Did Scott Adams just pull a Rage Guy meme on us?

