Author Archives: Raizen

TWAT News: Online professor fails to recognize Australia as country

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A news article on Time states that there was a professor of an online university that gave a student’s paper a failing grade after insisting that Australia was a continent, not a country. To be clear, it was the professor who insisted.

Those of us who did alright in elementary school geography know that Australia is the name of a country and of a continent. If you’re among the people who have at least that basic education, you’d not have made the mistake of thinking otherwise.

To its credit, the online college did replace the professor in question. However, there’s still something to be said for attending a college that you actually physically attend, as opposed to online colleges. Because you’d be seeing them in person, you’d know that your professors are actual professors, and not just some guy you’re teleconferencing with.

This is one of those news stories that you hear about, laugh, then later share at the coffee machine at work as your colleagues in turn laugh about the buffoonery of someone they’ve never heard about. So in that sense, this news story isn’t terribly unusual.

What really stood out to me about this story is that Time used Buzzfeed as a source. I repeat: Time used Buzzfeed as a source.

Because I’m cultivating a readership that aren’t total morons, I suspect that you already know that Buzzfeed isn’t so much a source of novel content and original reporting as it is a repackager of lazy and plagiarized content. If you’re reading “original” reporting on Buzzfeed, there’s a roughly 100% chance the reporting originated somewhere else, whether or not the original source was credited. What was original to Buzzfeed could likely have been made up by a college dropout on the fly, for all any casual reader knows. This might sound empowering if you’re an idiot, but should otherwise be recognized as enabling a complete lack of journalistic accountability.

While this story in particular may be factually accurate, it remains that Buzzfeed should not be trusted as a primary source when reporting the news. The fact that Time Magazine is trusting Buzzfeed as a source isn’t so much a compliment to Buzzfeed as it is yet another sign of Time’s fall from relevance.

Because it’s hard to trust the veracity of a story that Buzzfeed sourced, the smart thing to do is check to see whether other news outlets are making the same mistake. What I found is that The Epoch Times did the same thing. Come on, Epoch Times; that you’re a Chinese news outlet should make you above the shenanigans of western information media.

An online professor actually failed a student for identifying Australia as a country, not just a continent. That Was Actually The News.

The Right Way to Play Pokemon Crystal

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pokemon crystal.jpg

Pokemon Crystal is now on 3DS Virtual Console, with a special bonus: the game has been modified so that the Celebi event is now a part of normal gameplay! Not only that, the event can be accessed earlier than the original Japanese event would have allowed, so players can obtain one after beating the Elite Four!

This being the case, many players will make it their mission to breeze through the game as efficiently as possible in a mission to obtain Celebi. That’s where this guide comes in. This is a team building guide for Pokemon Crystal with the aim to choose the most proven and effective pokemon to get you through the game.

There are a few things I would like to point out about this guide. This guide is different from most teambuilding guides that you’ll find on the internet in several respects.

For one thing, this guide does not recommend for you a team of six battling pokemon, and there are a couple good reasons for this. First, most teambuilding guides out there don’t include dedicated HM users that can keep your team clean for you. The other reason is that leveling a team of six pokemon is cumbersome, and can take up a lot of time. Later in the game, the trainers that you see will not provide nearly enough experience to keep a full team of six decently leveled. All that experience spreads easier among only three or four pokemon, and it’s generally better to have a few stronger pokemon that can get the job done than a full team that can’t quite cut it.

Next, you’re going to want to get comfortable with boxing pokemon that are no longer pulling their weight. That’s especially true in this game, where there are several water types to choose from that can serve the team decently well, some for HMs.

What’s more, this guide assumes that you’re not exploiting glitches to get through the game fast. It’s also not a speed run guide, and the assumption is that you won’t be using external tools to get through the game. If you intend to use a code altering device or software, and intend to use it, much of this guide might not apply to you.

Okay, now for the pokemon. First up is your choice of starter:

cyndaquil

Out of the starters, the best choice is Cyndaquil. This is something you should have seen coming. Cyndaquil is useful against the most major in-game opponents, such as Bugsy, Jasmine, Pryce, Koga, Karen, and so on. Fire is a great type to have in this game, but there aren’t many that are available early on, and of the ones available through most of the game, Cyndaquil is the best. Not only that, it’s evolved form Typhlosion can learn Thunderpunch to hit the Water types that usually give it trouble. Also, it’s a pokemon that’s also an explosion. It’s not just strong, Typhlosion wins on principle.

Why not Totodile? There are many, many superb Water pokemon to choose from in Crystal, and they are abundant. Totodile’s evolved form Feraligatr would simply be outclassed by many pokemon of the same type. And why not Chikorita? Because it’s a punching bag. It has too many weaknesses and too few useful offensive moves.

sentret.png

You’ll want to catch a Sentret. Sentret can learn Cut, but so can Cyndaquil. Sentret’s main selling point is that it can learn Surf, and it’s the earliest available pokemon (besides Totodile) that can learn it and is available in grass rather than on water. Sentret can be found on Route 29 during the morning or day. But if it’s night and you don’t want to wait, you can instead catch Poliwag on Routes 30 and 31 during the night. Poliwag doesn’t learn Cut, but can learn Surf. Whichever one you catch, it will be quickly replaced once you can catch a better pokemon that can use Surf.

hoothoot.png

Next, catch a Hoothoot. You can catch it on Route 29 at night. Don’t bother leveling it up, its purpose on your team is to later learn Fly and Flash. It also helps to have a different pokemon to switch into to end status effects in battles. This is helpful against Falkner, because he likes to lower accuracy.

After this, you’re only going to have a few pokemon on your team. You’ll be relying on Cyndaquil a lot, so don’t be afraid to level it up. You’ll also want to save your money for later on, so being higher leveled means relying less on items. The ones you find lying around usually suffice. Early on, saving up money is important, and I’ll get into why shortly.

With this single-battler approach, the most troublesome opponent you’ll face along the way is your rival, who will have a level 16 Croconaw with Water Gun when you encounter him at the entrance to Ilex Forest. If you’re leveled sufficiently, you should be able to overcome it.

abra.png

It’s Casey! Most of you likely saw this coming. Abra is just too good to pass up. You can obtain one from the Game Corner, but it’s only level 5 in Crystal, so you may as well try getting a level 10 one from Route 34. Abra teleports at first chance, so your best bet is to try catching it as soon as it appears.

Abra is the reason you’ve been saving your money up. In the Goldenrod Dept. Store, you can buy the TMs for Thunderpunch, Fire Punch, and Ice Punch for 3000 yen each. You’ll want to teach your Abra all three. Once it evolves to Kadabra at level 16, it will learn a Special attack to match it’s type, and will have phenomenal Speed and Sp.Atk stats! With it’s awesome selection of moves and great stats for using them, you might find yourself relying on Kadabra a little too much!

And it gets better: Kadabra can evolve into the unnecessarily-strong Alakazam by trading! If you have the option to do this, the rest of the game might not be much of a challenge. But that’s the idea; you’re trying to win.

abra

The next pokemon you’ll want to catch is another Abra on Route 34. This Abra won’t be for battling, but trading to a guy at Goldenrod Dept. Store for a…

machop.png

Machop. This Machop serves just one purpose on your team: to take on Goldenrod Gym. It can just about solo it, depending on its level. It can level up fast due to being a traded pokemon, which also helps. You might have a better time of Goldenrod Gym if you level Machop a bit first, but that’s only a minor inconvenience.

Whitney herself takes a bit of strategy. One approach that works for me is sending Quilava (Cyndaquil) against Miltank first, then have it use Smokescreen as long as it can get away with it, or until it has lowered its accuracy as far as it can go. Miltank’s Rollout might seem like a problem, but it starts weak and gains in strength with successive hits. But if its accuracy is lowered, it’s really hard for it to get those successive hits in. After that, Machop shouldn’t have much trouble cleaning up.

After Whitney is beat, you can just box Machop. It’s served its main purpose for this team. However, if you want to keep it in your team, that’s not a bad choice. It evolves into Machoke at level 28, and performs decently well against Jasmine and Pryce, and if you have a friend to trade with, you can get a superstrong Machamp. It’s your call.

gyarados.png

Gyarados is basically a glorified HM slave as far as this team goes, but it can hold it’s own until you get Suicune if you choose to use it in battle. After beating Morty, your pokemon can use Surf out of battle, so use that to get to the shiny Gyarados in the middle of the Lake of Rage. It’s a one-off encounter, so be sure to save the game beforehand just in case you mess it up. Once you catch it, your Poliwag can be boxed if you caught one, as its purpose was to get you to Gyarados. Sentret can remain if you didn’t teach your Cyndaquil Cut.

Gyarados can learn Surf, Strength, Whirlpool and Waterfall, so it can grant you some serious mobility. Not only that, its stats are great, so using it as a battling pokemon isn’t a bad idea. Thrash is a recommended move if you choose to have it battle. Just know that there are no Water physical moves in Gen II, and Gyarados gets no offensive Flying moves, so much of its Attack potential goes to waste.

suicune.png

The phenom. Suicune has excellent stats all around, you can teach it Surf, and it’s only one level away from learning an Ice type move once captured. And it has a majestic appearance on top of all that.

At this point, your team should look like:

typhlosion.pngkadabra.pngsuicunehoothootgyaradossentret

Typhlosion (battler)
Kadabra (battler)
Suicune (battler)
Hoothoot (Flash, Fly)
Gyarados (Surf, Strength, Waterfall, Whirlpool)
Sentret (in case you’d rather not teach Typhlosion Cut)

With that, you should be set for the rest of the game. One thing I recommend is making sure that Kadabra and Suicune are leveled well, because strong Ice users will come in handy against Lance. It’s possible to solo him with Kadabra, but it would take either a high level or careful play.

But what about…

There are a few options that are left out, so I’ll go over them.

lapras.png

Lapras is an excellent Water type for your team. It can learn Surf, Ice Beam, and Thunder, and you can obtain it right after you get to use Surf. The catch is, you can only catch one on Fridays. You’re not likely to be playing through the game pretty quickly if you’re waiting for a certain day of the week to catch a certain pokemon. Therefore, you’re likely much better off not concerning yourself with getting a Lapras for your playthrough.

dratini.png

Dratini is available too late in the game at too low a level, and even once fully-evolved, there are still better choices against your late-game opponents. The Extremespeed Dratini gift in Blackthorn City is more of a trophy pokemon than one that you’d use in a serious playthrough.

unown-a.png

You might think that that Unown there is a joke, but you’d be surprised how many people get distracted during what is supposed to be a focused playthrough. You’re trying to get through Crystal quickly, getting distracted by ridiculous side-quests isn’t helping. Especially that Ruins of Alph side-quest. If you can find all the different forms of Unown, so what?

So, for your playthrough of this 17-year-old game, what’s your prize? Here it is:

celebi.png

A Celebi! Once you beat the champion, go to the Goldenrod Pokemon Center, take a step up, and try to leave. Someone will give you the GS Ball. Take it to Kurt. After that, you’ll have to wait a day for the event to continue, but then you can visit Kurt again, and he’ll give the ball back to you. Take it to the shrine in Ilex Forest to make a Celebi appear there! It’s a good idea to save the game before interacting with the shrine, in case you mess up catching Celebi.

The Celebi is at level 30. Sadly, its level will be high enough that it will have replaced its more competitively viable moves with different moves on its learnset, and there is no move relearner in Gen II. However, you can transfer it up to a Gen 7 game, and have it learn its moves in those games.

Also, you have the opportunity to get a shiny Celebi this way, though the odds of any encounter with one being shiny is 1 in 8192. Have fun soft-resetting, shiny hunters.

Intellectuals don’t do football.

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jeopardy is still on the airMy biggest surprise is that this show is still on the air.

Last night on Jeopardy, one of the categories was football. The host, Alex Trebek, mocked the contestants after they failed to provide a correct question to each of the answers in the category.

Jeopardy is an odd case of something that is not terribly interesting, but can succeed in being around for a long time, and everyone knows what it’s about. In that sense, it’s like The Simpsons, except somehow less entertaining. Like The Simpsons, if someone were to call you while you were watching it and invite you to do anything else, you’d take them up on it, because there is nothing exciting going on in the show.

The premise is that in each round, there are six categories, and in each category, there’s an answer that the contestants are presented with, and points go to the contestant that can provide the correct question that goes to it.

What, you already knew that? So did just about everyone else, but when was the last time you actually watched Jeopardy? I didn’t watch yesterday’s episode, either. I was so bored, that I watched the same movie that I had already seen at least three times already. Who still watches Jeopardy? Or game shows in general? If someone’s just waiting for death, there’s funner things to do in the meantime.

In last night’s Jeopardy game, a football category was presented to three guests, and they failed to get a single point, all while being sassed by the host. A bunch of intellectuals didn’t know a thing about football; who would have guessed?

If they wanted a really interesting program, they could have had the typical categories plus a football category, then they can bring in a bunch of guys who were jocks in high school but didn’t really succeed much beyond that. It would be hilarious to watch the jocks ace the football category, but fail miserably at the rest of it. The contestants on Jeopardy are usually intellectuals, so there’s not much expectation that they’d get the football category, or have much interest in it.

High school is the place where students start selecting courses that have a more direct impact on the college that they attend. This makes high school an important part of a person’s formative years. It’s important for the student to not just come away with good grades, but demonstrate that they can succeed in higher education.

In this environment, jocks are treated like celebrities because of their place on the school’s sports teams. However, they’re dismissed from classes early to go practice, not benefiting from the lessons, and are sometimes even shown preferential treatment by teachers that give them good grades under pressure from the coach that wants them to continue to practice.

I’ve heard it argued that high school athletics do benefit students based on two main arguments:

  • Students who play sports can learn teamwork and cooperation, and
  • Student athletes may be awarded college scholarships.

For one thing, a student can learn teamwork and cooperation from a number of assignments that have real-world application. Or they can cooperate on essays, presentations, or even large homework assignments. If the goal is to prepare students for career success, why not teach teamwork with assignments relating to their field of study?

Also, if a student is awarded a college scholarship on the premise that they can continue playing football in college, they’re merely delaying the inevitable. The number of student athletes that go on to become professional is a razor-thin margin of one percent. Unless they figuratively win the lottery and go on to play for a professional team, that time that they’ve spent playing games when they should have been studying is only going to waste. Otherwise, they’re going to have to eventually pick a real-life skill and learn it before time runs out on them, because their time spent playing sports in school doesn’t qualify them for much outside of pushing carts at Walmart.

When it comes down to it, sports like football are only games. Schools sometimes let student athletes out of classes early so they can practice playing sports. If they’re going to do that, why not also let them out to play video games? The reasoning is just as sound, so why discriminate against one form of entertainment in favor of another? When I went to high school, I liked video games. But I didn’t play them during class, and I didn’t kid myself into thinking that they were anything besides entertainment.

Considering all this, it’s only natural that the intellectuals among us are those who didn’t bother with sports in high school, as they didn’t spend their class time that they should have spent self-improving instead playing games. Is it any surprise that the contestants on Jeopardy didn’t get any points on the football category? It would have gone much better if there were instead a category on Super Mario trivia.

Student athletics is a huge scam. What makes it so diabolical is that it plays to a student’s desire to become rich and famous by doing something that’s considered recreation, with the cost of admission being the important formative years of the student’s life. Nearly all of them fail to become professional, however, and they are left to pick up the pieces of their lives and find for themselves the focus that would actually get them somewhere, which they should have done to begin with. And schools come away with huge state funding, especially if the athletic teams do well, and they (might) thank the individual students for their time and energy with meager scholarships. Then they can continue to train to do nothing at all when they should be learning important skills in college! What a deal!

I know that the few football fans who actually watched Jeopardy last night are coming away from it high-fiving one another because they know something that the people who studied math in school don’t, but it’s really nothing in which a person can take true pride. If someone got on a game show and nailed five questions about anime but bombed at everything else, that goes to show where he’s been directing his efforts.

Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

may's enormous smile

If you’re a jock and were somehow able to read all this, leave a comment. I’m curious as to how many made it through.

This is when the #MeToo slander campaign falls apart.

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For a short while, porn star Stormy Daniels has enjoyed the notoriety that stemmed from her claim that she had an affair with President Donald Trump. Just yesterday, however, she fessed up that the affair never happened, according to The Washington Post.

While on the page, WaPo’s emo header caught my attention:

twp dies in darkness

Democracy Dies in Darkness? OH NOEZ!!!1 😥 😥 😥 That’s so sad... How can they be so mean?!?!?!?

But at least The Washington Post is being up-front with their objective.

As the #MeToo campaign gained in popularity, I’ve suspected that it was used to snipe celebrities and political figures as a means to bask in media attention for a short time, as I expressed in yesterday’s entry.

As the false-accusation trend reached its zenith, it needed a champion to act as its representative and ambassador of its virtues. Who better to fulfill that role than Stormy Daniels, who knows how to manage attention because the nature of her line of work demands it? And not only that, she had the plentiful gumption to level an accusation of infidelity at the very President of the United States?

Since taking her spot as the face of false accusation culture, she has been invited to appearances on Inside Edition and Jimmy Kimmel, as well as cashing in on sold out strip shows and having an appearance in a Las Vegas show known as the “Oscars of Porn”. She’s doing pretty well for herself, considering she shows her cunny for a living.

As many public figures do, Stormy Daniels has hired a lawyer. People who hire lawyers don’t usually understand what lawyers are about, so you can imagine her surprise when her lawyer told Stormy Daniels that she’d be a lot less likely to get into some legal hot water if she stopped going around lying to people. Was this what happened? I don’t know, but I imagine that this was what spurred her into coming clean with a full confession.

She made the whole thing up. Stormy Daniels had no affair with Donald Trump.

Suddenly, the #MeToo campaign and slander culture as a whole has lost their representative. She has done the worst possible thing that a person can do for their cause when what they represent is a total lie: she came clean.

There is more to this development than having lost a representative. The inference is obvious: if the chief representative of a movement founded on dishonesty has come forward and confessed to her dishonesty, then the dishonesty of the movement must be more far-reaching than is immediately apparent.

One can build up a skyscraper that can be seen for miles with the finest engineering that can be funded. But if the foundation of the structure is pure garbage, then the entire thing is eventually going to come crashing down, no matter how high it’s built. And so it is with the culture of false accusation that is made for cheap notoriety or as a cynical way to silence critics.

When you tell a lie, you’re playing a game you can’t win, as it involves speaking against reality itself, and may come with it struggling to maintain the ruse for a long time, possibly for the rest of your life, with the only way out being to finally come clean.

Steadfast adherence to moral principles wins the day once again.

TWAT News: Reverend needs lesson on the downsides of blasphemous libel

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An opinion piece from NBC News could have easily fallen past my radar but it caught my eye, and I decided to give it a look. What I’ve found is that old dogs really don’t learn new tricks.

For one thing, the opinion piece is part of the “Think” series, which you may remember for their attempt to make gamers out to be Nazi sympathizers for the Alt-Right (Note: this is not an exaggeration, they literally attempt this). One thing I can hand to NBC News is their audacity to name their series for what they’re attempting to do for their regular audience.

However, my main issue with this piece is against it’s two writers, in particular, the reverend who should know the Bible better. Because his hit piece touches on themes of racism and slavery, I became interested in knowing what he looks like. And here he is:

rev barberA modern reverend wearing an expensive ring and a pre-Christian pagan symbol? You don’t say.

The Reverend Dr. William J. Barber, hereafter just William Barber, has much to learn about the topic of defamation. A willingness to make a group of politically-involved individuals out to be a bunch of racists who wish to reinstate slavery who actually have no inclination to do so is the behavior of a small but vocal minority that is very annoying on social media, rather than a man who has taken upon himself the task of representing the way of truth and life.

While William Barber does provide scriptural citations, the citations he makes are not specific to the matter that he is addressing, which includes Trump’s willingness to build a wall to protect American interests.

Whether William Barber cares to admit it, the Bible does not command against a country acting to protect its assets. In fact, the book of Nehemiah starts with Nehemiah returning to Jerusalem to have its wall rebuilt. As this undertaking was going on, Judah’s enemies (Philistines, Samaritans, Arabs, and Ammonites) were doing everything that they could to obstruct it, and they were soundly condemned as a result. If William Barber is to maintain the premise that he understands the inner workings of Scripture, he should at least have an elementary understanding of it’s historical events.

Perhaps more relevant to what William Barber might be going for, becoming politically-involved endangers his church’s status as a tax-exempt 501C3 organization.

However, that’s not the main issue that I have with William Barber today. Towards the beginning of his piece, he brings up the matter of Trumps alleged affair with porn star Stormy Daniels as a means of segueing into his main point. The fact that the allegation is just that, an allegation, and not proven, is key here. William Barber speaks of this adulterous affair almost as though it were a proven fact, and not as a mere accusation with the potential of being baseless.

If William Barber understood the Bible and lived by it’s principles, he would not presume guilt against a person for adultery before the matter was determined by a judge in a court of law. Even judges have to carefully consider the information presented to them after both sides of a case have made their testimonies.

Related to this, the Bible teaches “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.” This is the ninth commandment. What’s more, the Bible says, “You shall not spread a false report.” (Exodus 23:1)

How does one know whether a testimony or report is true? Obviously, a person cannot make such a determination unless they were an eyewitness, victim, or perpetrator of a crime or carefully considered the evidence including confidential information that is usually only available to select individuals involved with a proceeding. Obviously, this means that ordinary members of the population who are only exposed to either allegations or arrest information from mainstream media sources do not have sufficient information to determine guilt.

This is the level of scrutiny with which the movement that cultivates political advantage through false accusation falls apart, as does the #MeToo movement that is used to snipe the careers of celebrities so the accusers can bask in the short-lived glow of cheap notoriety.

Believe it or not, wanting to protect America’s national interests (whether or not the means to do so are misguided) does not make a person racist. Disagreeing with you on some matter that you’re politically involved in (which may affect your 501C3 tax-exempt status) does not make a person a nazi, racist, sexist, or a whatever-a-phobe. People are getting better at seeing past the cynical misrepresentations that are a favored tactic of the Social Justice movement, which is one of the many reasons why people are getting sick of it.

I’m getting sick of defending Donald Trump, and I wasn’t really a big fan of the guy to begin with. But I know pretty well that the tactics that are used against him can just as well be used against any member of the population, which is why I feel a pretty strong urge to stand up and point out what I see that’s wrong. Personally, I’d rather be using this blog to talk about Pokemon.

If William Barber knew the Bible anywhere close to as well as he lets on, he’d know that defamation is a sin, and the Bible is particularly strong in its condemnation of it. I wonder whether he’s even aware that “Devil” is not a name, but a title, and it means “slanderer” or “accuser”. The enemy of mankind is known for his main trait. We have to be careful about whose work we are doing!

From a more worldly standpoint, William Barber should be more careful about how he expresses his viewpoints, as his careless accusations have the potential to be viewed as blasphemous libel, which is a form of defamation. Because William Barber is a public figure, it would be very easy for someone to sue him for damages in a court of law. And if someone has a case against him (such as Trump, for example), I say “go for it”. I’m really sick of seeing this kind of thing coming from mainstream media outlets.

EDIT (31 Jan 2018): Stormy Daniels herself has come forward and confessed in a letter that the affair never happened. Because the affair never happened, William Barber’s accusation came to a puttering stall.

What did we learn today?

TWAT News: CNN says cuckolding is great.

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cuckold-printThis image came up in a DuckDuckGo search for “cuckolding”. It’s insane.

If I told you that there was a mainstream media outlet that came out in support of cuckolding, there might be some of you left that would still be surprised. Once that short-lived initial shock wears off, no surprise would follow that the mainstream media outlet in question is CNN.

Here is a link to the article. On the unlikely chance that CNN realizes what a stupid idea the article was and takes it down, you might be able to find it with the Wayback Machine.

Because CNN has become a champion of cuckolding, they would of course attempt to redefine it in a positive light, while taking aim at the supposed oppressiveness of the institution of marriage. Being predominantly left-wing, it follows that CNN doesn’t have a clue how to have a successful marriage.

There’s more to cuckolding than it merely being an adulterous affair. Cuckolding involves knowing that one’s wife is sleeping with another man, but doing nothing to stop it. It’s an insult because it’s a sign that the man is weak-willed and unable to maintain his authority in his own house. If a man knows that some other man is doing his wife, the natural reaction is for him to close up all the distance between his boot and the man’s ass in as little time as possible.

Because CNN has no problem finding an expert in the art of cuckolding, it follows that these proponents of cuckoldry have brought one in for a few pointers on how to ease your spouse into it:

“I’ve seen men who try to trick their wives into cuckolding them, and this never, ever ends up well.” -David Ley

So, treating your spouse like they’re stupid is likely to upset them. No kidding. Next thing you know, you’ll be telling me that most men have fantasized about it, as though that somehow makes it a good idea to try.

Lehmiller surveyed thousands of Americans and found that 58% of men and about a third of women had fantasized about cuckolding. -The CNN article

Because we all know that presenting unrealistically high numbers is how you turn a sexual quirk into a human rights movement. Whether it was intentional that someone’s wife is likely to read the article and come to the conclusion that her husband has a 58% chance of being a pervert, it’s hard to tell. Considering that leftists have become determined to ruin marriage at every turn, I have my suspicions.

Marriages are for people who win at life. Consider all the hurdles that a person has to overcome to come to the point that they marry another human being.

First, a person has to be able to overcome an education system that is run by passive-aggressive state employees who hate their jobs and couldn’t care less what becomes of you. The objective is to come away with some pretty good grades.

Next, a person must continue their education by pursuing a skilled trade. This involves more effort than the previous diploma-mill that merely processes a child until high school graduation, because now the person has to learn skills that are actually useful.

After that, that person has to use their skill to play a job market and attempt to get hired to a job that doesn’t pay total garbage. It helps if the skill from the previous step is one that employers have a use for. Auto mechanics are usually well-off. English majors, not so much.

Finally, that person will want to make enough money to afford a place to live, a car, plenty to eat, and have enough money left over to convince someone else that they can live comfortably with them. Afterwards, a person who previously massaged their own genitals can enjoy the luxury of having someone else do it for them.

After all that effort, you can be sure that if someone else moved in on a guy’s source of hard-earned fun, he’d go after that someone and ruin his day, and probably quite a few of his days afterwards.

Marriage is for winners, and cuckolding is for losers. Now we know which side of the matter CNN is on.

Google ex-prize: Google ditches moon trip contest without awarding prize

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shruggingWah wah~

Google has just announced an end to their “X Prize” contest which would have awarded $20 million dollars to a team that could put a man on the moon. Earlier today, they stated that that they’re not awarding the prize.

Here is Google’s announcement as it appeared on Twitter:

google ex-prize

The reason, as given by Google, was that none of the five finalists could meet the March 31 deadline for a launch. Therefore, Google did not succeed in getting someone to the moon by dangling a heap of money as an enticement.

As anyone who has ever argued with their little brother can tell you, victory can still be claimed by changing the conditions of victory and then saying that you’ve met them.

sailor moon brother

In that light, here is what Google executives have to say on the matter:

“As a result of this competition, we have sparked the conversation and changed expectations with regard to who can land on the moon. Many now believe it’s no longer the sole purview of a few government agencies, but now may be achieved by small teams of entrepreneurs, engineers, and innovators from around the world,”
-Peter H. Diamondis and Marcus Shingle, Google executives (emphasis added)

That sounds great; you were able to challenge beliefs and expectations. But what about actually getting someone on the moon? Also, since when is the truth of any matter determined by mere belief? Why would it take a campaign involving tens of millions of dollars just to challenge the beliefs and expectations of an unspecified “many”?

Of course, we all know that the point of any corporate-sponsored contest isn’t to award a prize, but to win positive publicity for the corporation holding the event. In this case, Google’s Lunar X contest was a smashing success for Google because of all the positive publicity that they’ve gotten since the contest was announced in 2007. After all, the contest did succeed in giving Google a pro-science veneer which is all the rage with the science-chic millennials whose only real involvement with science is using consumer electronics.

Google could at the very least award the cash prize as a consolation to the team that came the closest to the goal. They may not have achieved the conditions of victory as stated in the rules of the contest, but considering how much time and expense the contestants put into it, it doesn’t seem wrong to at least award a consolation prize. I don’t know, but I suspect that the reason has something to do with the fact that such a choice might cost Google $20 million.

Now that Google’s contest has succeeded in netting them their pro-science publicity, they’ll probably go right back to censoring the internet and pushing their political agenda. By the way, Firefox is an awesome browser, and DuckDuckGo is an awesome search engine.

Maybe there’s more to solving problems than throwing a ton of money at them.

How I De-Googled My Online Activities

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anti-google-ads

Since it came to my attention that some of my posts were being omitted from Google search results, I decided that it was about time to remove Google’s influence from my computer and online activities.

Why would I do this? First, and most obviously, censorship is bad. Google is primarily a search engine, which makes them digital librarians. Because Google is omitting from search results pages that it deems problematic to the ideology of its staff, Google has become the book burners of the information age.

Second, I value my privacy. Google collects tons of information on its users. Google then uses this information for profit with targeted advertising. If you’re particularly stupid, you’ll see targeted advertising as another way to bridge the gap between yourself and products that you weren’t aware you would have wanted. Otherwise, you’ll see it as another technique for liberating your money from you.

While I’m aware that some of Google’s alternatives might have some similarity in business practice, Google is generally the worse option due to the nature of its agenda. Also, the fact that it’s actively censoring me makes the matter more personal.

Browser

First, if you’re still using Chrome as your browser, you should stop. There are numerous alternatives out there, and even Microsoft’s current default browser Edge isn’t so bad. After considering my options, I decided on Mozilla’s Firefox as my browser. There are lots of reasons to go with Firefox instead, but I found that I liked Firefox’s ability to store multiple themes, as opposed to Chrome, which makes you redownload old ones if you want to reuse them unless you use an extension. And even then, the extension wasn’t reliable.

The only real bother was making up a new list of favorites and bookmarks for my new browser. While there may have been an option to import them from Chrome, I decided to just start afresh, rather than eventually go to the trouble of deleting legacy bookmarks I don’t use anymore. It’s a new browser, and a new beginning.

When switching from Chrome, don’t forget to uninstall the Chrome browser so it won’t still be on your computer doing whatever it is that it does when you’re not using it. Paranoid? Maybe, but this is Google we’re talking about, here. And while you’re at it, remember to uninstall your other Google programs as well.

Search Engine

Second, you’re going to want to use a new search engine. Of the changes to make, this one was probably the easiest. Just remember to set whatever search engine you choose as the default on your new browser.

There are some pretty nice contenders for this category, notably Bing, which greets you with a pretty nice home screen which changes. But my choice was DuckDuckGo. DuckDuckGo is a well-developed search engine with the main selling points being that it doesn’t track you or store information about you. This already makes DuckDuckGo a winner, but it doesn’t censor search results like Google does. Big win.

One word of caution is that you should probably be a little careful about how you use DuckDuckGo. If you turn Safe Search off, it’s very easy to find Rule 34 in the image search. You’d see the internet the way it used to be. You might find that awesome, depending on who you are. But it might be a good idea to mind the Safe Search setting, depending on where you are and at what time.

EDIT (15 Nov 2020): DuckDuckGo has lost its integrity. Finding a different search engine is advised.

Email

This is easily the hardest part of the de-Google process, because we tend to like having one email address for everything. After doing some research, I’ve determined that most mail clients are satisfactory, but I decided to go with Yahoo. As old as it is, Yahoo is still a decent email client.

I’ve been thinking of changing my email client for a while now, but I found the prospect of going to different sites and changing the email address in my profiles daunting. However, the main thing that prodded me on is that my ex-girlfriend decided to try to get revenge on me by using my old email address to sign me up for numerous online services so my inbox would be flooded with spam emails. I’m sure that what she’s doing is illegal, but I blame myself for not doing my due diligence in making sure that the women I’m interested in are not psychotic.

As it turns out, switching to a new email client isn’t that bad. It helps to make up a list of those you want to have your new email address, and notify them of the change. It’s also a good idea to update your resume and your online job search profiles. In case you miss someone, it’s not a bad idea to check your old inbox from time to time. In fact, it’s not a bad idea to go through the first few pages of your old inbox, making note of those you still want to receive email from.

Cloud Storage

I’ve never used cloud storage because I’m not an idiot. If you store your files externally, they can be accessed externally. Storing them using the internet doesn’t make them secure.

Suppose you took a picture of your genitals to copy into your sketchbook (because that’s more fun to draw than a bowl of fruit). If you then send the same picture to the cloud, you’re sending it through the internet, and having it stored where you have no idea how many times it’s copied or viewed by someone else.

If you’re running low on storage space, buy a bigger hard drive. Or an external hard drive. Or a thumb drive. All these choices are smarter than sending your files to the cloud.

Google already makes it it’s business to collect as much information about people as they can. Why trust them with your files?

What about YouTube?

YouTube is owned by Google, so one might think that an effective boycott of Google would include avoiding YouTube. However, Google is having a difficult time running YouTube due to the sheer number of users that use AdBlock. What’s more, Google’s attempts to pander to advertisers have upset YouTube content creators, so YouTube has had to walk on eggshells to keep the platform viable.

Therefore, I’m not really concerned with Google’s presence in YouTube, as the platform has proven to be a liability for Google to run. You’re more likely to spite Google by using YouTube. Besides, the YouTube alternatives that I’ve seen are varying degrees of suck.

That’s how I’ve been doing in de-Googling my computer and online activities. I suggest that you give it a try, too. Send Google a message letting them know that if they’re going to censor the people, then the people are going to hit them where it counts: right in the pocketbook.

An image to describe 2017

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Last couple years, I made images to describe those two years. Nothing special, just something hastily thrown together with image editing software.

No one has objected yet, but even if they did, I’d probably have done it again, anyway. In light of that, here’s one that I think describes this year pretty well:

2017

Let’s hear it for the new guys.

Hey SJWs, you are not the Resistance.

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poe dameron not in the mood.jpg
Poe Dameron is not in the mood.

Star Wars: The Last Jedi is hitting theaters shortly, and I plan on going to see it sometime after the rush dies down. When I do, I intend to enjoy it for what it is: an enjoyable and novel escape to a fantasy universe with characters I remember and some new ones. I’m not the only one. Millions of Star Wars enthusiasts are ready for the latest installment in this long-running saga.

However, not everyone is willing to let us enjoy it. Some are determined to ruin The Last Jedi for us by making it about their sordid political agenda. While the rest of us go to bed at night, they are scheming around the clock to do things such as regulate shower heads, take away the incandescent light bulb, and, of course, screw up our favorite movies for the rest of us by making it about their SJW fantasies.

I’ve said before how silly it is to attempt to write one’s own political agenda into some form of entertainment that really has nothing to do with it. However, today I’m going to turn their own approach against them to show just how easy it is to cast something into a work that really wasn’t intended.

As we all are likely aware at this point, SJWs like to imagine themselves as the Rebellion from the original Star Wars trilogy, or more recently, the Resistance from the newer movies. I can understand the appeal of making one’s self out to be part of a motley group of freedom fighters that speak truth to power. The problem is, the SJWs are not it.

For one thing, SJWs like to compare the newest villain, Supreme Leader Snoke, to President Trump. The reasoning is that Trump is rich, the leader of a nation, and ugly (not really), traits that make him comparable to Snoke.

snoke.png
Snoke: Star Wars for “public figure you don’t like”.

There are several problems with this, most notably of which is the fact that Trump wasn’t even president when Snoke was conceived as a character. Obama was. And Hillary Clinton was considered the favorite to win the Democratic nomination, a move everyone saw coming years in advance, well before the DNC conspired to screw Bernie Sanders out of it.

Also, Trump is pretty far from the ugliest politically-involved millionaire that I can think of. That distinction would easily go to George Soros.

george soros

Furthermore, there’s the very reason Snoke became so unbelievably wealthy: casinos. You know, that thing that the political right usually opposes because they are pro-values, while the left is gung-ho about it because it’s a source of money?

If there’s any group from Star Wars that the Social Justice movement and leftism in its current state can be compared to, that would be the Separatists from the prequel trilogy.

For one thing, there was the fact that the galaxy was relatively peaceful until they started stirring things up. Similarly, race tensions in America were actually very low until the SJWs came along insisting that systems of oppression persist (with arguments good enough to convince them, if not the rest of us).

The reason why the galaxy came into a state of unrest was because a political figure worked behind the scenes to play both sides so he could use the resultant unrest to further increase his political power. Knowing this, consider the fact that Black Lives Matter began as a hashtag campaign, but as soon as it became an organized movement, George Soros funded it with millions of dollars, and it immediately became a terror organization.

If there’s a Star Wars enthusiast reading this, they should be able to tell me immediately what government that the Separatists sought to undermine. It’s the most oft-repeated title of the government that the good guys in Star Wars runs when they succeed in doing so: The Republic. To be more precise, it’s a Constitutional Representative Republic. Just as such a government does in real life, the Republic protects the rights of the galaxy’s inhabitants with rights enumerated in the constitution, while officials are elected to represent each inhabited world in the Senate, each planet maintains its individual identity, and is given significant authority to govern its own affairs.

If that sounds familiar, that’s because that’s precisely how America is governed, right down to the federal government’s relationship with the states, and the protected rights of its citizens. Like the Separatists, the SJWs are being used to destabilize the American political climate to bring the vision of the group behind the scenes into fruition, whether any individual foot soldier is aware of his role or not.

trigglypuffA foot soldier in the world’s saddest army.

Consider also how resourceful the separatist movement was. Even in difficult times, Count Dooku could count on the support of the Techno Union, bankers, and the Trade Federation. They actually had quite a lot behind them for support. In this world, the political left is so massively resourceful, that it makes the Separatist movement seem positively silly. Sure, it’s easy to buy the narrative that SJWs and similar leftists are just an unsophisticated group of resistance fighters, if you were to put aside their support from labor unions, academia, the entertainment industry, banking cartels, the tech industry, social media, the corporate mainstream information media, the IRS, and the military-industrial complex.

Considering the many similarities that current leftism and SJWs have with the Separatists from the prequel trilogy, I’m surprised that they’d turn to Star Wars of all places in an attempt to reach for protagonists that they can identify with. It’s almost as though they haven’t actually watched Star Wars at all, or were too dimwitted to learn the prequel trilogy’s obvious lessons. Though, to be fair, it was easy to sleep through much of Episode 2.

Speaking of lessons, I think that how the Separatist movement came to an end in Episode 3 should give the many SJWs, leftists, and those who carry water for them pause for thought. After the Separatists had served their purpose, Palpatine sent Darth Vader to “take care of them”. That is, by massacring them. Palpatine had obtained what he’d wanted; at that point, the separatists would only have been a liability to him.

Similarly, once left-wing overseers have already gotten what they wanted, what future exists for a bunch of firebrands that only created instability to get them where they are? The initial revolters rarely survive to see the end of the revolution. Those that do might not last much longer. Once it’s over, it will be time to clean up the rabble-rousers before they prove themselves willing to enact the same strategy against them that overthrew the previous government.

See problems with my comparison? That wouldn’t surprise me. This was really only an experiment to show just how easy it is for someone to see a person or people in a work, even if it weren’t meant to be the case. Having said that, the comparison between leftists and the Separatists is surprisingly strong. It’s a bit surprising that they themselves don’t seem to notice it or admit it’s there.

Anyhow, I’m going to try to find an opportunity to watch Star Wars: The Last Jedi in the next few days. And I’ll be rooting for the Resistance fighters as they attempt to keep the Republic alive. Of course.

Resistance_starbird
Ain’t nothin’ like the real thing, baby~.

EDIT (15 Dec 2017): Out of curiosity, I decided to search Google for this entry using its title and numerous variations thereof, but to no avail. This happened even after using the very name of this blog, Magnetricity, in the search terms. Still nothing, except a few of my other pages which were insanely popular anyway. Curious, considering that Google usually indexes content for search results the moment it’s posted.

So I tried popping the title of this entry in Bing. It was the very first result. Just like that.

I’ve long suspected that Google filters out content that it deems challenging to its political agenda, but this is the first evidence I’ve seen which was specifically against me. It’s almost as though there was something to my claim above about the tech industry and social media.

If you’re looking for yet another reason to switch from Google to Bing, there you go.