There Is A Phrase That Rhymes With 'NAFO'

NO! That Is NOT A Typo Nor Should It Be 'NATO'

I can see I'm going to have to start from basics here.  'NAFO' is the acronym for 'North Atlantic Fella Organisation', which is a loose conglomeration of individuals across the world, principally from the Global West, whom take on, expose and mock Ruffian propaganda as created by bots, troll farms and fellow-travellers.  This is done principally on teh Interwebz.  Art!

     Their emblem, mascot and all-purpose marque is a cartoon Shiba dog.  As I said, they are a loose organisation but some parts are tighter than others, for example the splendidly-named '69th Sniffing Brigade' who actively source funds for kit to donate to Ukrainian units.  Art!

     Those vehicles are part of the Broe-torcade of 4x4s bought with money raised by Jake Broe, and if you look closely you can see Shiba silhouettes on them.

     Ruffians and those who shill for them are convinced NAFO is a vast, ruthlessly administered organisation begun, trained, directed and funded by the CIA.  This is because any 'Fella' who puts up their personal data always indicates their Location as 'Langley'.  This is the base for the CIA in Virginia, and it's hilarious to see the Ruffian bot networks lather themselves into a frenzied rage about the sheer eeeeevil of this intelligence organisation.

     ANYWAY that explains 'NAFO'.  The actual acronym I mean is one you may have already guessed at: F.A.F.O.  Due to our rules on SFW I will have to translate this as 'Eff Around & Find Out'.  Or, if your conduct is malicious, expect to suffer the consequences of same when the law catches up with you.  Art!

SBF looking a little downcast

     The poster-child for FAFO, Sam Bankman Fried, who is now serving a 25-year sentence (ouch!) and forfeiting $11 billion for his crimes.

     ANYWAY AGAIN this has nothing to do with a Nintendo Wii, which forms the Macguffin at the heart of a citric saga on Youtube's Reddit 'Malicious Compliance' trope, which I will narrate here.  Art!

Worth $250 at date of story

     Humble Artisan, hereafter HA, worked at Best Buy in their Customer Service Department, where they dealt with returns, customer pickups and occasionally helping out Geek Squad* when they were busy.  So, they had an Entitled Customer come to the service desk with a Wii, as above, complaining that their child had gotten a disk stuck in it.  HA, since there was nobody else available, agreed to look at the problem.

     First task: plug into a monitor and check status.  The display did not recognise the drive as having a disk loaded.

     Customer still not convinced.

     Second task: load a disk into the drive, which the Wii accepted and then proceeded to load.  

     Customer still not convinced.

     HA informs EC that the disk he just inserted would not physically load if there was already a disk present.

     Customer still not convinced.

     In fact, EC doubles down, insists that she saw her kid put something in the drive, and HA needs to take the console apart to prove that his accusations of her lying are false.  HA informs her that he's not going to do that as it would immediately invalidate her warranty, and neither he nor Geek Squad can put it back together once disassembled.  Art!

     Customer still not convinced.

     HA, knowing that he needs to Cover His Bottom here, goes and gets the floor manager, who tells him that he can take it apart and send EC home with a bag of bits, and whom also goes to re-iterate HA's points about disassembly.  All this is done under the gaze of a CCTV camera recording the service desk.

     So, screwdriver in hand, HA descends on the Wii and takes it apart, all of it, down to the disk drive.  Art!

     There is no disk there.

     HA sweeps all the collected bits off the countertop into a plastic bag and hands it to a defeated-looking EC, whom at this point is definitely convinced.  She departs without another word 'looking sad' as HA mentioned.  This is the point when she realised she was experiencing a FAFO moment thanks to hubris and ignorance.

     Conrad can guess that the cost of reassembling it would make it better to purchase a brand new one, since the old one was now out of warranty.

A Fascinating Slice Of Someone Else's Life

One of the folks I follow on Twitter (eat it, Elong Tusk!) is 'Farmer Marv Bot', who is - once again you may be ahead of me here - a farmer over in South Canada.

     He occasionally posts photos or videos of what he gets up to on the farm, which usually involves mechanical equipment, because long gone are the days of  pitchforks and Dobbin.  He recently had trouble with one of the wheels on his baling machine, which is a big bit of tractor-powered kit that bales hay.  Here is his solution - Art!

     He drilled 6 holes in it and filled it with construction spray foam, which he says is silly string on steroids, and the whole thing is now very rigid.  The true test will come when he tries baling again.

"The War Illustrated Edition 194 November 1944"

I hope you appreciate the subtle difference between Your Humble Scribe posting his fan-fiction and other publications, the difference being the un-Tauped "".

     Having said that, let us proceed.  Art!

     This is the position of the front lines near Aachen, which was the first large Teuton city to be captured, and as you can see from the not-terribly clear picture, it's now well behind the front lines.  The forest here is the Huertgen Forest, and was an awful place to fight, thanks to lack of roads, the thickness of the forest itself and bad weather.

     Ah yes, the 'D-Day Dodgers' as they detested being called.  Italy from the south was easy to defend and difficult to advance over, with lots of east-west mountain ranges and rivers.  Here at upper port we have observer on Mount Vigese, very probably from the 6th South African armoured division as they were the ones to conquer it.  To starboard is the bridge at Castel Del Rio, which looks pitched uncomfortably high but must have been passable by horsed transport in the days of yore.

     A lower port you see British troops laying a smoke-screen to cover an amphibious crossing of the River Savio, which the Teutons defended tenaciously until threatened with envelopment.  To lower starboard an Medical Orderly brings in a wounded soldier, nonchalantly keeping one hand in his pocket

WABTEC

Another locomotive manufacturer, with a passing strange name.  It's actually an acronym derived from "Westinghouse Air Brake TEchnologies Corporation".  My aren't we having fun with acronyms today!  Art?

     Yes, it looks like any other locomotive, but this one is GREEN!  I mean in design, not livery.  If you see this as green, you are colourblind and you'd better not drive a car since you cann

  ANYWAY this is FLX-Drive, Wabtec's 100% electric battery-powered heavy-haul locomotive.  Not one of those lightweights that perform in shunting operations.  Art!

     This particular heavy-hauler is Wabtec's ES44AC, where the 'ES' stands for 'Evolution Series'.  Wabtec coyly avoid giving any details about how much they cost, but you're looking at a base price of $2 million plus, depending on whether you have various optional extras added on, such as DC or AC traction.  Whatever that means.  They have sold 3,000 of these units, so they must have something going for them.

     Okay, enough about locomotives.  For today.

Finally -

I've never been in the position of sitting next to a celebrity, for good or ill, so allow me to substitute Mark Hamill - yes, that Mark Hamill - for Your Humble Scribe instead, with his naked glee apparent.  Art!

   Yes, that is Stephen King he's sitting next to.   Hence the geekiness.  One can quite understand.

* A subsidiary of Best Buy, lest you be unaware