Chris Limb
@catmachine.com
1.1K followers 450 following 7.6K posts
Writer, Music, Dreams, Space #ActuallyAutistic #Neurodivergent They/them UrbanFantasy MusicBiz novels: http://comeba.co.uk Hastings based
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catmachine.com
Just remembered another childhood banana phobia I had - was convinced they’d have tarantulas hiding in them.

I was half convinced the bruised bits in bananas were something to do with them.
catmachine.com
Even the teachers thought I was uncool.
catmachine.com
Well I don’t have it. And weren’t we being told last week* that higher than basic arts exams were “rip off” qualifications?

*yes, by the Tories, but the message in the media all feels like it’s in the same voice.
catmachine.com
Another “Things Seen While Going For A Walk” post.
Two partially boarded up holes in a concrete groyne next to some shingle with green water visible through it. My sparkling purple boots on the end of my legs as I sit on a beam of wood on the shingle beach with the sea in the distance. Two wooden posts in the foreground. Concrete groyne stretching out to eventually submerge in the calm green sea under a grey sky. Some kind of rusty post is mounted on the end. Big rusty anchor on shingle next to three of the tall black wooden net huts on Hastings beach
Reposted by Chris Limb
bethanyblack.bsky.social
Saw a video comparing the AI bubble to the Nifty 50 stock crash of 1973, and it feels like the closest parallel, certainly moreso than the dotcom bubble. In 1973 it turned out the top 50 stocks were overvalued by x10 and a combination of the oil crisis and the Nixon Shock made the market crash
catmachine.com
I still get Exciting Plans occasionally although to be fair these days they’re usually far more practical and stand at least a slim chance of being carried out.
catmachine.com
But nevertheless it was one of those things that felt like An Exciting Plan for an hour or so.
catmachine.com
I just remembered that at one point in my childhood I got it into my head that I was going to translate Watership Down into French.

I managed the first sentence "Les primevères était fini." and then lost interest.

(I suspect that deep down I knew my knowledge of French was severely limited.)
catmachine.com
But only one set of cutlery that I use for myself.
catmachine.com
I expect it happens when I’m avoiding something and have run out of procrastination material.

(Unstuck now; suspect I was avoiding exercises.)
Reposted by Chris Limb
gralefrit.bsky.social
Maybe we can cut the corners off the paper, like in Battlestar Galactica, so it feels futuristic.
catmachine.com
Got stuck sitting on the stairs. It’s something that happens to me sometimes.
Reposted by Chris Limb
eddierobson.bsky.social
People being performatively outraged/neurotic/judgmental about things other people do that don't affect them in any way has got out of hand in the social media era, I think.
alexvont.bsky.social
One of the posts that got me flamed back in the old place was when I said I didn’t fetishise books as objects and wasn’t bothered if their owners wanted to rip them in half to make their baggage lighter or chuck them in the recycling once they’ve read them or whatever. Some people went ballistic
nick-pettigrew.bsky.social
The veneration of Books As Objects misses the point entirely. If you're reading a book, turn the corners down, break the spine, spill soup on it. It's your book, go nuts. A pristine, unread book is a tragedy in a way that a beloved, much-read book that looks like the dog's been at it could never be.
catmachine.com
I also still remember some of my friends' numbers.

Interestingly there was one occasion I forgot a friends number when trying to call him from a phone box so i had to empty my mind and let my muscle memory do the thinking for me.

It worked.
catmachine.com
While we're talking telephone numbers, I still remember the numbers of all three of my London childhood homes. (All "01" because I struck out on my own before the number change.)

One of these even had the local exchange name written in the centre of the dial rather than the three digit prefix.
catmachine.com
I have been guilty of this myself in the past.
catmachine.com
Even if it was mine?!

If there's a set of ostensibly identical mugs I can still tell the difference.

Of course now that I live alone I have a number of "my" mugs.
catmachine.com
When first sharing a place with others after leaving home I caused great hilarity amongst housemates when I referred to a particular mug as “my” mug.

I was thunderstruck. Did this mean that they all just drank their tea or coffee out of… the first mug that came to hand?
catmachine.com
Whenever anyone talks about “the [x] debate”, “the [y] issue” or the “[z] question” where x, y and z are groups of people, they are trying to legitimising bigotry by pretending it’s part of civilised discourse.

They’re not doing anything else.
Reposted by Chris Limb
patrickgaley.bsky.social
Sorry, what? There is no “race debate”. There is racism, there are racists.

This isn’t a legitimate political polemic, this is hate speech and hate crime.

Can we stop trying to wedge the bigotry of fragile white men in to public discourse? Doing so is hate-washing and we need to stop it.
catmachine.com
#OnThisDay

14 October
Brighton, Hastings
The pod of the Brighton i360 – a mirrored flying saucer – near the bottom of the tower shaft. People queue in the foreground, Close up of a crow perched on a railing in front of of the beach. Slices of shingle, groyne and sea visible. My head and shoulders in profile and in silhouette against a blue sea and sky in Hastings. Rainbow arcs down over Hastings, placing the pot of gold at the junction of St Mary’s Terrace, and Plynlimmon Road
catmachine.com
I have noticed that occasionally people will work for hours adding extra complicated features to a system in order to avoid doing a simple thing that would take them a few seconds.
Reposted by Chris Limb
bleary.off-the-records.com
If anyone needs me I will be in the museum, lying down next to the bog bodies.
Did people really memorize phone numbers before cell phones, or is that just a movie thing?
2? Questions
I was watching some old shows from the 90s and noticed people would just dial numbers from memory - like they'd call their friends or family without looking anything up.
Made me wonder if that was actually normal back then? Did people genuinely have all their important numbers memorized, or did most folks keep a little address book or written list nearby?
Reposted by Chris Limb
gralefrit.bsky.social
It’s galling that the tech bubble is still so overinflated with capital that we don’t find out nobody knows how to make any money out of a new idea until about 25 years in, when they’ve destroyed all the proven industries that did it perfectly well before.
Reposted by Chris Limb
tubemapper.bsky.social
I had a lovely time exploring the small tunnels of the mail rail at the Postal Museum.
In the mail rail tunnels