I dropped out of a decidedly average university to do customer support for the first ISP in Australia. After a couple of years of that, I got itchy feet and found myself in London, England. The plan was to follow the footsteps of many thousands of Australians before me, and get a job in a bar (note: I had zero experience in bar work), and get enough money to hang out in London for a while, and maybe do some side trips into Europe.
It was '96 or '97, and the dotcom boom was just getting started. Deciding to try my luck, I picked up one of the trade papers to look at the job listings. I bought myself a suit at Marks and Spencers and jumped on a tube to go to my first job interview. I took the tube home, and by the time I got to the other end I had a message waiting for me saying I got the job.
I found myself reporting to the brilliant Jack Lang (https://www.cst.cam.ac.uk/news/farewell-jack-lang), tweaking software developed by Tim King's company, Perihelion. I really was just making minor tweaks to a bunch of perl scripts, so I managed to stumble through it and not make a total fool of myself. Even though I was working with folks with extremely impressive bodies of work behind them and I was just some scruffy backpacker dude, they were always kind and generous to me. I met some great people there.
I never did get a chance to learn how to pour a beer.
I used Perihelion’s Helios on Transputers for several years. It was a cool system, and gets far less credit than it deserves. Plan9 and Helios were independently developed but have a lot in common.
At some point in the 2000s I was buying a laptop at an Apple retail store, and just before we processed the transaction the salesperson asked if I was a student.
You can use the Apple Store app to purchase physical items at Apple retail locations (smaller items like cables or cases). I've used it a couple of times, and I feel very awkward using it, so much so that I'll walk out kinda waving the receipt/acknowledgement screen around so that staff/security can hopefully see I'm not nicking something.
I came here to say this. Dave McCormack and Custard were in a popular indie band in Oz in the 90s. A couple of years ago he performed a couple of songs with The Wiggles, and came out on stage saying "Hello everyone, it's me! I'm from the 90s!" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pEeEjEdTqqk
He uses his normal speaking voice for Bandit, and you can very clearly hear the same voice when he's signing most of the Custard stuff:
Wisenheimer and Wahooti Fandango are still both great albums (...and then I moved overseas and drifted out of the Custard orbit). For anyone with kids firmly in the Bluey demographic, I bet you could really confuse them by playing Custard at them.
I'm surprised they (i.e. record companies) haven't been trying to push Custard more, given there's a large fan based just waiting to be tapped. It would be fun to see Bandit do karaoke of a Custard song, or sing a few lines when he was in the shower, or just doing chores, etc.
I've said before that I think a lot of people that think they suffer from depression are actually suffering from despair. I guess the more clinical term would be situational depression.
It's understandable to constantly feel anxiety over rising rents and living expenses in the face of flat wages, and their constant poor mood from the stress makes them think they're suffering from depression, and they'll seek help. But a Prozac or whatever won't make you feel any better about having a 2-digit bank account after paying the bills.
> His personal security cost was part of his “All Other Compensation” which amounted to $6,802,824 in 2023, and also consists of his 401(k) or Roth plan, and personal use of company aircraft or car.
It was '96 or '97, and the dotcom boom was just getting started. Deciding to try my luck, I picked up one of the trade papers to look at the job listings. I bought myself a suit at Marks and Spencers and jumped on a tube to go to my first job interview. I took the tube home, and by the time I got to the other end I had a message waiting for me saying I got the job.
I found myself reporting to the brilliant Jack Lang (https://www.cst.cam.ac.uk/news/farewell-jack-lang), tweaking software developed by Tim King's company, Perihelion. I really was just making minor tweaks to a bunch of perl scripts, so I managed to stumble through it and not make a total fool of myself. Even though I was working with folks with extremely impressive bodies of work behind them and I was just some scruffy backpacker dude, they were always kind and generous to me. I met some great people there.
I never did get a chance to learn how to pour a beer.