Here is a totally unstructured set of memes I found on X during the last 6 months. Enjoy the madness that is X, people. Try not to think about it, and you will be fine! With no further ado, here it goes…

The Internet landscape explained in one picture

As a producer/podcaster/broadcaster I can relate to this. People that create something have to wade through loads of products that may or may not help us “mining” the listeners for their attention. SEO-tools, new plugins and the next cool DAW. The overestablishment of creators has led to a total eco-system of crazy stuff sold with the promise of making us stand out. And to what avail? No-one is listening anyhow. But hey, if you’re in the business for a shovel, have I got a deal for you!

Some people don’t want a Fox-Waifu

This is very understandable. I totally agree. What will the world look like when women feel inferor because they don’t have long telescopic ears, a wet nose optimized for hunting and a bushy tail? And what can women do when society requires them to forage for rodents in big hole, pounce on prey or raid the chicken coop?

X runs the AI ragged

Right! On X, everyone asks poor Grok “is this real” even when the picture shows big foot in lingerine in a parking lot. I totally get if he feels tired and wonders if humanity should be allowed to breed. Poor guy!

Are we back to 2020 (Let’s hope not!)

In 2020, this was how we felt. It was horrible. But many still work from home and probably are about to go full Jack Nicholson in the Shining. All work and no play makes us all go bananas!

Finally explained RIGHT!

I’ve seen this meme so many times. It tries to explain societal policies like “should we help the poor” or “let people handle their lives themselves”. But what always irked me was that all pictures showed a bunch of freeloaders trying to see the game without the paying entrance fee. And now… Finally … someone explains the obvious problem with the picture and what it represents. Thank you, dear sirs!

I’m not contesting this

Can’t we have cool code names for war, like many software products. I want the next world war to be code named “Burnt badger” or call it “Nuked Naarwahl” or something.

Elon and Ayn sitting in a tree k-i-s-s-i-n-g

Elon Must seems to fit in Ayn Rands “Atlas Shrugged”. Seriosuly, he would do just fine as a hero in her book. That’s the book that reveres dark tetrad behavior more than anything. Yeah, seems about what you expect from her… and from him.

Will I respawn or not?

If god has me as a playable character, what is wrong with his specs? And why can he not even play correctly? He has lost every battle based on social skills so far. Nah, this is not good. Are the are the angels with him on a raid? Does satan play as well? Many questions, but no answers. Maybe in the afterlife DLC.

But think about the kittens!!!!!

If it hurts cats, count me out. Also, it’s not stellar that it hurts humanity.

Is god Nietzsche, then?

My first girlfriend suggested this little aphorism:

• God is dead, says Nietzsche.
• Nietzsche is dead, says god.
• Nietzsche is god, says the dead.

This leaves me with the question: what does the undead say? And what does the fox say?

Remember: the only way to win is NOT to play

I remember War Games that I saw as a child. It had an AI (or AGI? or super intelligence?) that tried to figure out if it could win a world war. And it came close to figure that out for real. Maybe there is a story for Trump, Xi-ping and Putin there?

And this is why we can’t have nice things (with AI)

I cannot think of a better way to explain the problem with AI than this. It understands its task or does not, but always acts like it totally gets it. I know some people like that. But then again, those people does not consume whole nuclear power plants to function.

The honey badger… Nature’s arsehole

The honey badger is the worst animal ever. It just totally fails to have any redeeming point whatsoever. If reincarnation works, I would get most dictators and serial killers would become Honey badger in their next life.

This genre has a pretty long rap sheet…

I’m into 60s music. Like classic rock and old Jazz from the old school era. I also, weirdly enough, like chiptune music. But rap. I cannot stand it. In the olden days it was about injustice and the hard life for African Americans. This I could understand, respect and even like. But today it seems to be tough guy-attitude mixed with horrible sampled loops and some sort semblence of rhythm. To quote ABBa’s legendary audio engineer, Michael B. Tretow, “Skare där va musik????”.

Ask not what he did in the oval office

George Carlin may have lived a bit wild, but JFK was a full on hedonist. I will not delve into that more, but he would have impressed Jeffrey Epstein. JFK may have been a good president, but a good man, he was not! George Carlin is brutal in his effective argumentation. It was most certainly not directed at JFK as Carlin entered his “FM”-era much later when he started going form “safe” to “risque” subjects in his shows.

’twas another time

Seen this meme a lot. Three old stuff that is getting popular and a fourth that you hoped would not. But there we are. Art deco is hot, people! Super hawwwwt!

Chuck Norris – the only man who could kill death

Ok, I admit, although with a heavy heart that the man is no more. But he most certainly did not walk gently into that good night. He probably raged, raged and raged against the the dying of the lime-light.

How it feel to live in Sweden today

I try to avoid getting political. But this is a joke comes with a very real background. When Sweden and Finland joined NATO, Russia threatened us with nukes. That was like the only thing you heard from them during that time. Putin, if you nuke us, what good will it do you to occupy the wasteland of Stockholm afterwards? Seems like a stupid thing to do.

Wasn’t he kinda a dick himself?

Seems like the man himself was not without his problems. And neither was mr. Deckard.

The rationalist’s journey is a lonely one

If you act like that, you will have no friends. But you will at least know in your heart that you built your reasoning well. And that makes you ready to battle all what is wrong on the Internet, one irrational Reddit user at the time. Once more into the fray!

Yo, Joe! Praise the Commodore and pass the ammo!

Kudos to the guy on the top of the image. Unless he is AI-slop. Then no. But this is a true (?) rendition of the classic loader screen of GI Joe from the C64 (bottom of the image). Cool!

Thinning lines…

Reddit! Are you reading this? Maybe get out off your neckbeard mancaves and offer some help instead of “helpful advice” from the “Yo’ mama” school of rethoric excellence.

I don’t wanna set the world on fire!

Would it be fun to play Fallout in real life? This observer says “No”, it wouldn’t. But then again, how would we know, without even trying? Might be fun to listen to 40s Jazz and blasting raiders in central Stockholm. Problem is that one might not even get to experience the fun of catastrophical scarcity.

Wise guy, huh?

Sure! We all want to be like him. But can we? Or are we all going to behave like the sad little nerds we are and cry mommy when someone “begs to differ” on the Internet. Not clear, I’m afraid.

Not the philosopher we deserve, but the philosopher we got

Philosophy is stupid! Just some old people shouting assertions at everyone. “You fool! Live as I say you should, not as I lived my life”. Many were rich old morons that didn’t have to live like the people they taught to live on hay so they would get pie in the sky when they die. Then there is the dude! The dude is awesome! Be like the dude!

… But that’s, like, just my opinion dude.

Don’t make any plans, folks!

So far, so good. Half a year to go, what could possibly go wrong?

Seven sins of politics – now in color!

You know this diagram of political views. Lefties to the left, righties to the right and pretty much everyone else in the middle . This is weird, but most people, the way this scale is made, land in the middle of it all. But that’s no way to make a political career. So the edge lords get elected and adhere to their respective ideologies. And now you know which sins to select. Nice! Mine is mostly Sloth and some greed. Because why not?

Told’ya so!

Interesting, no? Back in the day, I preached this logic to everyone and the people in my workplace said things like “let’s go to the cafeteria and listen to Erik’s new conspiracy theories”. But who is laughing now? No one. No one is laughing now. Every nation does this to every other nation. And yes, that is why we can’t save nice things on the Internet.

Nah, that’s Orion….

I have no idea what to say… Sorry. Words elude me.

Stuck in the middle…

What did I say about not being political? Well, here I go again. But actually, can we try not to be swayed but all this deranged “love … or .. hate” of false dichotomy? Nah, never! What would the debates on the Internet be about then? They would actually be interesting, enlightning and, you know, totally boring. And we can’t have that!

So correlation does not imply causation… But is it correlated?

Every now and then AI-slop can be interesting. Enough said!

I hope no one invents a religion with a name based on science….

Nah, no one would ever be that daft. Can’t happen in the best of worlds (that we all live in)

Warning labels are so morons won’t sue… I guess…

I would like to know who this is useful information for. Or rather, please don’t tell me. I don’t.

But she loved me! (That was until my credit cared was declined)

I have seen the AI girlfriends on the Internet and if they were real poeple, they would probably sort under some kind of diagnosis. And I really hope the price of a good graphics card soon goes under the GDP of Tanzania.

My liver begs to differ

In this day and age, its easy to want to soothe your soul with some “sudden comfort”. But you shouldn’t. You know drugs are bad, mmmkay?

Wonder what a sequel to this would look like?

Not to comment on the man himself, but this is not a joke. Biff Tannen, as seen in the second installment of the franchise, is meant to be him. This has been confirmed. And that is interesting.

Great words from a great man

In these days, it’s nice to remember wise words from a great man. Not everyday you find that on the Internet.

When Internet fails in five years from now… Well, now you know how it happened

It’s in Swedish and says “I can vibe code – then the software giants will fall on market”. Yes, and so will the Internet.

Doesn’t matter: everyone already knows everything about everyone

As of lately, Discord wanted you to do this. And tomorrow, it will be someone else for some other reason. But then again, every device and app spies on you. So just complain when you are alone in your apartment and someone will consider what you just said. Unclear if that is really a good thing.

Old man is bitter

SkyNet is an AGI or even superintelligence. Still dumb as a brick, though

What would an AGI or a superintelligence makes out of humanity? Hate, love, serve, control, help, annhilate … or maybe observe us and then say “screw this… I’m out” ?

My parents raised no fool

That Hitler guy, the more I read about him, the less I like him. Really nasty person. Someone should stop him.

Lands of confusion… But this time without Ronald Reagan or Genesis

We’re back in January of 2026 and this is what it looked like. Maybe one day, it will look better. Because worse than this, it can’t get. Right? Right?

If we’re going to play Fallout in real life soon, might as well get the feeling for it

Maaaaaaaaybe ….

Yes, this story we must tell our kids

This I remember. Try to run anything that hasn’t passed through five different malware scanners and three firewalls today. It just isn’t safe. Then again, what is safe on the Internet today?

Hah! As if! Vibe coders couldn’t hit their left foot with that

Another scared comment about the dangers of inflicting code you have never seen, nor understand on the Internet.

I remember when it was ok to just be a big nerd

I might just go into early retirement now.

It makes my security work easier

Back in the day we called everything either “Virus” or “Antivirus”, so I don’t really see what has changed.

Sure, but will it still work afterwards? The computer that is.

The man was still walking the earth and beating up the flowers in the park when I saved this picture. And I believe he could have inserted the USB strick with the power of a thousand sledge hammers. But, would that have been a good thing? Unsure. But the hole in the wall behind the computer afterwards would have been impressive. And the computer would have been found in a neighboring country.

All we know from the pre-war history is in small fragments

The history has been passed down orally between the generations. All we know, is that this was, what we call in in layman’s terms “a bad idea”.

Top rationality or the road to nowhere?

Most people are, as I wrote earlier, in the middle. But all idelogies and thought leaders are falling off the edges. So there…

Please don’t nuke here

In between China, Russia and US – who would be the better one to occupy us? No one, I say. Sweden has done pretty well on its own so far. And our king whould issue a stern protest and then retract it, if this happened. And we can’t have that, can we?

POV Trump

Touch grass, mr president!

=================================

1900 – Teddy Roosevelt defeats a bear with his bare hands – Outcome: As far as Internet history is concerned, he did.

1910 – We will fly to the moon – Outcome: Kaiser Wilhelm was angry. Also, there was a Covid-like thing and nothing good came out of either.

1920 – We will party like there is no tomorrow. – Outcome: Prediction correct. For reference, see 1929.

1930 – A better human will emerge. A superhuman even – Outcome: Nooooooooooooooooooooooo. Hell no….. Never again!!!! (also applies to the 1940s)

1940 – We will get out of this horrible war, everything stops for tea and Jazz will be better with Bebop – Outcome: Yes, Yes and NO!

1950 – Tradition rules, everything is possible and lets keep this neat and tidy. Nukes are scary. No dissent or people that are not like us – Outcome: For reference of the outcome, see latter part of 1960.

1960 – Will be like the 50s. – Outcome: Nope. 1967 begs to differ. Make love not war. Also, pop and rock is awesome. Love everyone. Stick it to the man.

1970 – More hippie stuff – Outcome: Well, no. But we got an energy crisis, disco and cool movies.

1980 – I dunno, less crisis – Sorta kinda. Outcome: Economy booming, no worries, yuppies, morning in America, scare of nukes again, the future is unknown.

1990 – More good economy? – Outcome: No, kinda troublesome at that. But freedom! We got freedom! No Soviet! Brithop, Grunge and Eurotechno.

2000 – Everything is possible! Internet, baby! – Outcome: Yeah, until everything got a really bad (see “IT crash”, “WTC” and “Economy 2008” for further reference). Also surveillance.

2010 – Everything is mobile and possible – Outcome: Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes (I’ll have what she’s having). Then see “2020s” for further reference and don’t forget surveillance (seems most have).

2020 – It’s like 1920s again!!!!! – Outcome (TBD): Well, yes, so far. Spanish flu, meet Covid. Party without thought for future? yeah! Looming crisis? Sure! Also, everything is a weapon. Did I meantion you have no privacy? This is new!

The drink you can do while broadcasting. Just don’t drink it near the mixing console.

Ingredients

• 7UP (Sodastreamer or normal)
• Tonic water (Schweppes)
• Concentrated lemon (liquid)

Get a big glas! No alcohol, so just go nuts. Fill it to one quarter with 7UP. Fill three quarters with Tonic water. Add so much lemon, that it gets that “sting”, but doesn’t go sour.

Ice cubes can be added if you like, but then reduce the amount of tonic water somewhat.

It’s more than a year ago since I wrote the essay “When are we going to get out of this mess?“. It was my first (I hope) attempt of sending a message back in time to myself explaining Covid19. Just like a UDP-paket, I have no idea if it went through. As I don’t remember getting it, either it failed or was sent to the wrong timeline or dimension.

So, with no further ado, here are the news:

The Covid19 pandemic is over! It ended <TBD>

Hah! Summer of 2021, we all emerged from the bomb shelters. More and more of us vaccinated and all so happy it was all over, and it was. At least until the infection rate shot up again, and we all went from: happy friends to happy tree friends. Hope became despair, because the bloody tentacle monster came back in a new dress of mutation. The alpha was yesterdays news and out of style, because delta was all the rage. Right now, I wonder if we run out of letters in the greek alphabet before running out of new variants.

The Covid19 zone – the diagram showing our fear of a mutant planet:

Vaccines helps – unless you’re ignorant

I’m pretty sure the vaccine helps, but cannot tell, as it does not give off a “beep” when it stops an attempt to infect me. My antimalware software does that. Then again, in order to do that, it would need to have a microchip in it and we don’t have the technology to create such a marvel of science!

I need to clear this up for you anti-vaxxers out there: IT’S NOT TECHNICALLY POSSIBLE TO DO!

But it should be! I want a WI-FI enable vaccine that I can monitor from my smart phone and also upgrade to get the latest protections. Then again, that would became a literal “killer app” if the hackers found a way to hack into it. Just imagine the newest version of ransomware: “Nice immune system you have – would be a shame if something bad happened to it”.

In all honesty:

To be serious: Please get the vaccine. I’m tired of all those new mutations, we don’t need more of that, thank you very much. Also, you can feel really smug and take some vaccine-selfies that just scream “I’m a douche bag”.

Politics are really interesting, try to keep up

Trump lost the election, but someone needs to tell him that, as he seems to have some alternate version of how it went. In my opinion, you’re a bit of a sore loser when you ask people to raid the congress because you don’t get to stay up late.

Come back in 2024, and if I may have some stuff to say about Biden as well.

As to everything else, everyone seems to be angry at everyone else everywhere in the world. We don’t have to sing “we shall overcome”, but maybe chill down a bit or at least don’t invade someone over it.

I don’t like losing readers and followers over something like politics, where we will never agree. It can destroy any relationship, dinner or knitting club meeting.

Hackers be hacking

Effective defence level – effective threat level = “just how screwed we are”-level.

This equation has been producing negative values since the days of Blaster, slammer and Nimda. Sorry, that’s just how it is. And it always gets better – for hackers and pentesters. Right now, you may be excused for believing the IT-security business will provide job security forever and ever.

Facebook managed to both to get hacked and to hack themselves. I must say, I’m impressed.

Back to your bunker – just don’t go full Jack Nicholson

Some countries now ask you to kindly go back home and don’t come out until all is well again. Exactly when that is, isn’t clear. If you are vaccinated and deemed healthy your covid-pass will grant you access to your local pub. Unless a new variant comes out, when they might ask you to shiver in fear and avoid eye contact with anyone that may carry the virus. Also, don’t play the accordion near populated areas, no one likes that.

When you’re home again, try not to talk to yourself. If you do – don’t shout and bang your head in the wall. It hurts and your neighbors will not like it, as it disturbs their “frozen in shock”-Yoga.

If you give yourself advice, remember you will always agree with yourself, if no one is there to talk some sense into you. That is a good insight to have when you wonder “will it become worse?”.

Prepping is good, but you might want to get rid of that stash of 2048 toilet rolls that fill up 3/4 or your house. Could be good to get better stuff instead. I’m just saying.

And yes, here’s something to cheer you up: the aforementioned YouTube-clip:

Ok, speling errors are fun. And Microsoft delivers the goods… The master Browser is such an old technology that it simply seems to be abandoned by the people in Redmond.

In 2010, the prolific and unorthodox mind of Winston Rowntree created the comic that the picture above was taken from. It’s called “The museum of the theoretical“. The story of this strip is about a woman who finds the “Museum of the Theoretical” an outfit that deals in things that COULD have been. As for most of Rowntree’s creations, it is really a treat for the imagination.

The poster behind the woman who owns the exhibition shows the last Beatles album that COULD have been and it is titled “Imagine a photograph from a passing jet”. It is a brilliant joke.

We know that the members of the Beatles actually made songs in the last years of the band, that ended up on their solo albums like “All things must pass” from George Harrison and “Jealous Guy”/”Child of nature” from John Lennon. It also references the songs “Jet” from Paul McCartney, “Imagine” from John Lennon and “Photograph” from Ringo Starr.

But mr Rowntree (That’s not his real name by the way) continues to deliver as Beatles is a recurring theme within his comics.

Tomorrow never knows follows the fictitious (I hope!) story of John Lennon being bothered by time travelers. He seems to be used to this kind of crap and simply ignores them.

A->B Road (See what he made there?) is built around your life as the medley from the back side of legendary Beatles album Abbey Road. It points out that days and the need for sleep removes the impending feeling of doom that would be with us all the time if life was just an endless stretch of time leading up to the inevitable eternity of non-existence.

Musical Wheres uses cities as metaphores for well known bands. The image “alt”-texts are to die for in this picture:

You probably know just how much I love the original Twilight Zone TV-series, and mr Rowntree’s webcomic “Subnormality” seems to appeal to that mind set. You know philosophical drama with darkness and hope mixed.

He also drew stuff for Cracked.com, like this rather cynical take on the music industry.

And to end the discussion with something I do not agree with, but that is an interesting take on Beatles anyway:

I’m no big fan of Halloween or the Swedish “All-helgona”. Visiting the graves of my relatives is a very fine tradition, but the whole “trick-or-treat”-thing is not only ignored by me, but I will simply not open the door.

Consider this picture above… Good case for automation, but ultimately not appreciated by those that believe manual labor should be a punishment for … well… doing bad stuff..

… And here it is in Powershell… Hell yeah!