Abracadabra
Abracadabra: “I create as I speak”. The etymology and translation is disputed, but who cares? That’s what it means, that’s my story and I’m sticking to it.
I once heard a tale about some guy who went through a series of unfortunate mishaps. He won some money — say $1,000 — and he told his wife about it within earshot of his car. The next day, his car started giving engine trouble and it would cost $1,000 to repair. Next, he got a tax rebate of $500 or whatever, and again told his wife, but this time in the kitchen over breakfast before work. He went to work and soon after arriving, his wife phoned him to report that the fridge, stove, washing machine, toaster, everything in the kitchen was not powered on. He got her to call out an electrician, thinking it was a tripped breaker or something. The electrician arrived, investigated and discovered some frayed wiring which caused a short. The cost to repair? Yup! $500.
And so on and so forth. He eventually learned to announce good fortune far away from everything that can break and end up costing something to repair or replace, and usually by the same or very close to the amount of his windfall.
Maybe it was an urban legend. But this stuff is only legend until you see it for yourself.
Take, for example, this freaky episode. Yesterday, I wrote this using the same machine where Thunderbird resides. TB is my at-home RSS reader and it has been humming along without fail for months on end, faithfully pulling in my feeds.
As soon as I hit publish, I check in and notice tumbleweed in there. No new posts. TB’s been running for hours…we should have something. Hmm. I check my website’s feed and there are a few new items. Strange. It has…suddenly…stopped working for no apparent reason.
Thunderbird and RSS is notoriously finicky so I emptied it, reloaded my feeds and even created a new profile. Everything failed, and it is still not pulling in new items today.
Then it hit me. I spoke. I created. I wrote:
How strange that my waking thought this morning was on cleaning up and deleting things which I no longer feel I need, my Notes and my FetchRSS, specifically.
I willed it; it manifested!
Except, the twist here is that FetchRSS is fighting back, not wanting to be deleted. So, it did something bad to Thunderbird, something unspeakable. I can’t say it…this is a family-friendly page. Let’s just say that TB’s RSS functionality is now asleep with the fishes, may it rest in peace.
FetchRSS is not even AI, man, but I swear that code is alive.
Watch your back, friends. Mind what you say and what you say it in front of. You never know, the syntax can get you when you least expect it.
Oh, for the record, FetchRSS is the best and so is my Notes. They will never be deleted and will be run and maintained for ever. Yes. Thunder…what’s the last name? Never heard of it, must be crap. I love my FetchRSS and Notes. Very much.
I’m, erm, going now to see a man about some special water and other stuff like in that 1973 movie which begins with the letter “E” then “X” then “O” then “R”…you know the one.
So catch you later, maybe.