Author Archives: Raizen

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.

5 Kinds of Bumper Sticker that SUCK.

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Bumper stickers are something that I agree with people using because it allows us to determine who among us are so open with their naive ideologies that they’d plaster them on their cars, making it easier for the rest of us to know who the ideologues are, so we can avoid them. Or swerve at them.

Some of these bumper stickers are so verbose, that it would’ve been more effective for them to start a blog or something. At least then, we could just avoid them if we don’t care to hear their opinion. Thank you for reading this one, by the way.

These bumper stickers are trying so hard to outdo each other, that they’re just begging for someone to make fun of them. And today, I’m stepping forward and doing just that. Here is a list of stupid bumper stickers that we see everywhere, and me telling you what you already think of them.

1. Naive Political Ideologies

there's a car somewhere under all thatThere’s a car somewhere under all that.

If a political ideology can be summarized in an easy-to-read bumper sticker, odds are that it’s not sufficient to operate an organized society. The makers of political bumper stickers are aware of this, which is why they usually stick with catchy slogans that serve to make the rest of us wish the election cycle was over.

If you spend time on the road, you’re bound to run into a decal that calls the president an idiot, whoever it may be this time. If someone became president, they managed to figure a few things out. The same can’t be said for people who drive ugly cars and demand free handouts for doing nothing.

2. Family Decals

family_sticker_glass

We usually see these ones on SUVs, and they show a father, a mother, a number of children, and sometimes pets. These decals tell potential stalkers whether they’re a military dad, which is usually away from home. The reason why “Dear John” letters happen is because military men that are away from home to serve their country have their wives and girlfriends taken from them by some doucheweasels that are doing no such thing. But, if she’d go along with them, she’s probably not worth having as a spouse, anyway.

What’s more, they tell pedophiles the general age of their children, and in some cases, even their names. This sentence serves no purpose than to give you more time to contemplate the full depths of that kind of stupidity. Contrary to the statistical data available, clinical pedophilia is not rare, and you have to worry about child molesters every time you take trips to Walmart. Not only that, they let them know that their scrawny, wimpy little dogs would be powerless to stop a home invasion.

Great work.

3. Honor Student at Vapid High

aiming high, are we

If you were to somehow connect turbines to the eyes that roll because of these bumper stickers, the energy generated by them could power Miami. Unless a child is going to college for a STEM major, they only became an honor student by regurgitating whatever information that their teacher told them, or happily going along with their political ideology, or keeping them entertained if they happen to be a pedophile (see point above regarding the same). In any case, the odds of a child becoming an honor student by thinking for themselves is pretty slim.

These children are their teacher’s darlings because they’re succeeding in convincing them of whatever point they’re trying to convince them of. This is not at all hard to do because children are highly impressionable, and it’s easy to convince them of anything. If parents didn’t teach their kids any better, there’s no telling what inane things they’d go around parroting.

By way of example, not long ago, my little brother happened upon the questionable section of the school library. You know what section I mean; it’s the one about aliens, the occult, and various truther garbage. Before long, he was checking out books about Russian ESP experiments and the like. Because, you know, the Russians had plenty of time to devote to weird conspiracy theory stuff, and not more important things like how to rig elections or how to avoid economic collapse in a classless society.

A short while after checking out these books, there were times when I’d try talking clearly to him, and he’d suddenly start staring directly at me with wide eyes and an intense look on his face, as though he possessed any capacity for telepathy, and that he wasn’t a sucker for believing he could do such a thing. If you’re wondering how he’s doing today, he still believes he’s smarter than grown-ups that have been around twice as long as he has, even though he spent half his time alive soiling himself. And probably still does.

So yeah, case in point, it’s not hard to get children to believe just about anything. In fact, if your child is on the honor roll and likes things such as YouTube poop and Spongebob Squarepants, you should be at least a little suspicious.

4. Pets That Are Smarter Than Honor Students

Beagle_dog_honor_bumper_sticker

I actually did go to college for a STEM major, and made the honor roll in spite of the fact that I took the hardest classes that the college had to offer (it’s easier to get a high GPA if you take the easy classes). If your dog can program and perform integral calculus, we can talk.

5. Coexist Virtue Signals

41D+brXGQqL

People may have problems with turn signals, but they’re too eager to plaster their cars with virtue signals. When someone plasters Coexist bumper stickers on their car, they’re advertising that they’re aware that there are problems in the world, but instead of making any choice that could make the world any better, they’ll instead sticker their cars with vacuous platitudes that change nobody’s mind.

For the most part, all those different ideologies do coexist today, but it’s a brief hiccup in human history. Of course, there’s that the ideology that represents the “C” wants to bring the world under its control, so it’s appropriate that it’s poised to consume all the rest, Pacman style. Also, the “o” is overtly hostile towards all the rest, everyone makes up stupid conspiracy theories about the “x”, and the “t” once attempted to wipe out the true Church to replace it with Romanized and Hellenized pagan mysticism. But aside from that and so many more problems, “Coexist”, right?

I’m a religious minority, so consider what it means when I say that these naive bumper stickers don’t accomplish a thing outside of the appliers bloated ego. It’s an attempt at making people more aware, I get it. Awareness campaigns are worthless because being aware of a problem doesn’t do anything to solve it. The most that anyone who promotes them hopes for is that someone else solves the problem for them. Therefore, when someone engages in an awareness campaign, they’re telling you that they’re already doing all that they intend to do about a problem that they’re aware of.

Coexist bumper stickers aren’t doing anything to prevent a car-bombing, help a Sabbath-keeper find a job, or make the world any more peaceful. What they do is provide income to people that sell these bumper stickers. Just useless.

I just took a few antacids. That’s enough for now.

The right way to play Pokemon Platinum

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1002px-Platinum_EN_boxart

Note: this post contains humor. If you don’t have a sense of humor (due to some unfortunate accident or whatever), you’d be happier reading something else. But if you do take this advice seriously and play through Pokemon in this manner, let me know with a comment below.

With the release of Pokemon Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon, the real fans are disappointed because we wanted to see a Sinnoh remake instead of a remake of a game that’s hardly a year old. However, there’s already a Sinnoh remake that we can play on 3DS, and that game is called Pokemon Platinum.

You might have heard that there’s no wrong way to play a Pokemon game. This is a vacuous platitude that’s enjoyed by those who are satisfied with mediocrity. Every game has an objective, and that objective is to win. Winning is what this guide is about.

Another thing you might have seen around the intertubes would be guides on how to make the best teams for Pokemon games. Most of these guides are flawed because they suggest making full teams of six pokemon that are viable for battles. The problem with teams like this is that they tend to flounder in the late-game, when the levels of opponents are really high, but the team is under-leveled because the experience yield doesn’t spread as well among a larger team.

A better approach would be to focus on a battling core of two to four pokemon, with the rest of your team being open for utility pokemon and HM users. This way, you’ll have some higher-level pokemon that are better suited to take on late-game challenges while keeping grinding to a minimum. This is great, because in Sinnoh games, there’s often a need for late-game grinding.

The first major choice you’ll make in this game is to play as the girl, so when the prompt comes up to do so, you select this character:

Platinum_Dawn

Then you name her Dawn. Everyone likes Dawn, and this game lets you play as her.

Next, you get to name your rival. The character limit is too short for Flapjack, so we’ll just go with Barry, because that’s what they call him in the show.

barry v flapjack

Your next significant choice is to choose Piplup as your starter.

250px-393Piplup

I know that most guides will give you plentiful technical reasons why Chimchar is the better choice. But Piplup is the better choice because it’s much cuter, and GameFreak finally made a penguin pokemon that isn’t total garbage. When it evolves all the way to Empoleon, it gains a secondary Steel typing, which gives it plenty of useful resistances, and it can be taught Surf, which could potentially free up room in your party that would otherwise be taken up by an HM slave. Also, Dawn chose Piplup as her starter, so there’s that.

Next, you’re going to want to catch a Starly.

250px-396Starly

Starly is great on so many levels. For one thing, it and its evolved forms learn Defog and Fly, which takes care of those HM moves. Not only that, its final form Staraptor has excellent speed and attack stats, and uses them well with moves like Aerial Ace and Close Combat. Because it gains the Intimidate ability later on, it can lower the Attack stat of your opponents just by being sent into battle. This is one of the few early-game bird pokemon that remains good throughout the game.

bidoof_by_final_boss_emiko-dabpearSource

You’re also going to want to catch a Bidoof. Bidoof isn’t in this team for battling, it’s there for HMs. Bidoof can learn the Cut and Rock Smash HM. Its evolved form can additionally be taught Surf, Strength, Waterfall, and Rock Climb, so it can grant you some serious mobility. You’ll even be able to find Bibarel before you’ll need those moves, so there’s no need to level up your Bidoof. The only real catch is that it can only know four of those moves at a time, but you can have both in your team.

I know what some of you might be thinking: this team is too weak to electric moves. That’s why Gible was chosen to round out this team.

250px-443Gible

Gible doesn’t take long to evolve to Gabite, and late in the game, it becomes a superstrong Garchomp. What to do in the meantime? Teach it Earthquake, which is available in the very same cave you catch Gible in. You’ll have a seriously strong Ground type that also happens to be a Dragon. Why wouldn’t you? Also, it’s a land shark that can fly. Pokemon doesn’t mess around.

I know that some of you might be squeamish about going that far in the game with such a weakness to Electric moves, but it’s really not a big deal. Pachirisu could present a challenge, but it doesn’t learn an offensive Electric move until level 13, and you don’t encounter one that strong until Eterna Forest. Some trainers use Electric types on Route 206, but you’ll find the cave with Gible in it on the same route.

Note: Gible can only be found by using the cave’s hidden entrance, not the obvious one. The hidden entrance is under the bike path, not to the side of it.

And that’s pretty much your team. What, that’s not much? Of course not. This team works so well, that one or two slots don’t need to be used. You’re bucking the materialistic zeitgeist by playing like a Spartan! You won’t need as many pokeballs, because you’ll have just a few pokemon that can do the job. You won’t need as many healing items because you’ll have just a few higher-level pokemon that are better at taking attacks and dishing them out.

Some players either turn up their nose when it comes to legendaries, or prefer to put off catching them until it’s easier to soft-reset for an ideal nature. If you’re not one of these guys, then there are two pokemon that stand out as being excellent choices:

  • Giratina – Has excellent typing and defensive stats, and can be taught a variety of offensive moves. You have to encounter this guy as part of the story, but if you KO it, you can get another chance after becoming champion, so don’t feel like you have to catch this guy right away.
  • Azelf – Its typing isn’t that great, but it’s Speed and Special Attack stats are very high. Think “glass cannon”.

The question might come up: What do I do about such-and-such-opponent? Wouldn’t they be kind of challenging with this team setup? A valid question. The surest way to overcome any in-game opponent is with a tried and true strategy that I like to call, “assail with overwhelming force”. By maintaining a massive statistical advantage over your opponent, you increase your chance of victory.

If at any point you come across an opponent that’s too strong for you, here is what you do:

  1. Go into some grass or into a cave
  2. Walk around until a wild pokemon shows up
  3. KO that wild pokemon to collect EXP
  4. Repeat the process until your pokemon gains a level

Each time you do this, you increase your statistical advantage, making your pokemon much better at “assail with overwhelming force”.

Then keep going until you’re crowned the champion, and you’ll have beaten this game about friendship by demolishing everything in sight.

Hey look, Cards Against Humanity is being edgy again.

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screen-shot-2014-12-15-at-4-13-26-pmI did not edit this.

Cards Against Humanity is doing yet another publicity stunt, this one called “Cards Against Humanity Saves America”.

Considering the misanthropic bent of everything that Cards Against Humanity does, questioning the sincerity of what they’re doing is natural. But as far as the “what” goes, what they’re doing is attempting to raise enough money to buy some land along the US-Mexico border to try to stop Trump from building a wall along it, as though that will do anything to slow down someone that can just take it back through eminent domain.

The entire point is that they want you to buy their cards. There are several problems with that, such as that those cards are positioned near the Pokemon cards at Target, and that’s a game that just about anybody would much rather play. Pokemon brings home Raichu, so that already seems like a much better deal.

SM4_EN_31No contest.

Cards Against Humanity is pretty self-satirizing, so one only needs to allow them to speak for themselves. There’s a few Q-and-As from their page I’d like to zero in on:

WHAT ARE YOU SAVING AMERICA FROM?
Injustice, lies, racism, the whole enchilada.

Oh yeah, because when taking up a left-wing pet cause, racism immediately becomes the target, because it’s the only way to set the bar lower. You’re racist just for asking that question, Nazi. In fact, everybody is racist, even if they don’t know it.

Okay, I’m going for it:

RACIST RACIST RACIST RACIST RACIST RACIST RACIST RACIST RACIST RACIST RACIST
RACIST RACIST RACIST RACIST RACIST RACIST RACIST RACIST RACIST RACIST RACIST
RACIST RACIST RACIST RACIST RACIST RACIST RACIST RACIST RACIST RACIST RACIST
RACIST RACIST RACIST RACIST RACIST RACIST RACIST RACIST RACIST RACIST RACIST
RACIST RACIST RACIST RACIST RACIST RACIST RACIST RACIST RACIST RACIST RACIST
RACIST RACIST RACIST RACIST RACIST RACIST RACIST RACIST RACIST RACIST RACIST
RACIST RACIST RACIST RACIST RACIST RACIST RACIST RACIST RACIST RACIST RACIST
RACIST RACIST RACIST RACIST RACIST RACIST RACIST RACIST RACIST RACIST RACIST
RACIST RACIST RACIST RACIST RACIST RACIST RACIST RACIST RACIST RACIST RACIST
RACIST RACIST RACIST RACIST RACIST RACIST RACIST RACIST RACIST RACIST RACIST
RACIST RACIST RACIST RACIST RACIST RACIST RACIST RACIST RACIST RACIST RACIST
RACIST RACIST RACIST RACIST RACIST RACIST RACIST RACIST RACIST RACIST RACIST
RACIST RACIST RACIST RACIST RACIST RACIST RACIST RACIST RACIST RACIST RACIST
RACIST RACIST RACIST RACIST RACIST RACIST RACIST RACIST RACIST RACIST RACIST
RACIST RACIST RACIST RACIST RACIST RACIST RACIST RACIST RACIST RACIST RACIST
RACIST RACIST RACIST RACIST RACIST RACIST RACIST RACIST RACIST RACIST RACIST
RACIST RACIST RACIST RACIST RACIST RACIST RACIST RACIST RACIST RACIST RACIST
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RAY-SYST!!!1

There. Now that the word has been worn into the ground, can we try articulating our objections instead of calling everyone Hitler?

No? Oh well. I admit that my expectations weren’t particularly high.

YOU SAID YOU WEREN’T GOING TO DO ONE OF THESE COMPLICATED HOLIDAY PROMOTIONS AGAIN.
We’re liars, just like the president.

Check out how edgy Cards Against Humanity is being, they’re dissing the president. It’s not like the routine was old back when it was directed against Obama, right? Or Bush. Or Clinton. Or Bush’s daddy. Or just about every president ever. Get a new routine.

Trump is one of the most overt presidents in recent times. Lying is among the least of anyone’s concerns about him.

I DON’T LIKE THAT YOU’RE GETTING POLITICAL. WHY DON’T YOU JUST STICK TO CARD GAMES?
Why don’t you stick to seeing how many Hot Wheels cars you can fit up your

This is the one that’s supposed to make you ask what their problem is. But that’s hard to do when you know that the cranky millennial shtick is what they’re going for.

It’s established: they can use the mean words.

I’D LIKE TO CANCEL MY ORDER.
We’d like to cancel the 2016 election, but neither of us is going to get what we want.
It took some decent foresight to put this in the FAQ. Think that picture above was a joke? This is the company that literally sent tens of thousands of customers turds in the mail.
Look, I do see this for what it is: a publicity stunt. It’s how Cards Against Humanity is promoting their game. As a publicity stunt, it’s pretty well conceived, and it appears to be having its desired effect. However, there are going to be some people out there that won’t be able to see through the obvious ruse, and will happily contribute thinking that CAH has a legitimate interest in standing up for this left-wing pet cause. In those cases, it was only a matter of time before they’d blow all their money on something stupid like emoji pillows. It just so happens that CAH were the ones to tap into their wallets, this time.

Facebook wants your nudes

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peter-griffin-family-guy

Facebook has taken an interest in combating revenge porn, so they’re testing a new system that’s being developed to deal with it.

If you don’t know what revenge porn is, then you, like myself, don’t use Facebook much, if at all. Revenge porn is sharing nude photos of someone to get back at them, usually an ex that just broke up. As far as crimes go, it’s pretty stupid and short-sighted. After all, the list of suspects is usually pretty short. I can just imagine what the investigators would say:

Investigator #1:
The only person that had access to these images other than the client would be her boyfriend, who just broke up with her, and her chat logs show a conversation with him in which she shared the nudes. We’ve established a means and a motive. Any thoughts?
Investigator #2:
Give us time. We’re still examining the evidence.

How does Facebook intend to combat revenge porn? By implementing a system that recognizes hash values and blocks any that are duplicates of those already in the system. How do you get it to work? By submitting nudes of yourself before anyone else gets a chance.

What can possibly go wrong?

For one thing, that a small portion of Facebook’s staff will get to see the submission. Facebook guarantees us that this team would only see the images briefly before deleting them, and this involves taking their word for it that some of them won’t go maverick and decide to keep a few of their favorites for themselves.

So, how about it? Would you trust Facebook’s carefully-selected team of left-wing low-T beta males to take just a brief gander at your vertical smile or yogurt cannon?

The next and far more obvious problem is that this system is going to be hacked. It’s begging for it. The NSA may already have access to your nudes, but they’re government workers, and government workers get paid well whether they make something functional or not. Hackers on 4chan will happily hack into anything that anyone dares them to, whether anyone pays them for it or not, for no other reason than because they can, or because they think it’s funny. While decent paychecks are a motivator to get into your stuff, that pales in comparison to weaponized autism. Facebook’s system is going to be hacked, and it doesn’t help them that they have the equivalent of a huge neon sign advertising an enormous stash of nudie pics.

The next problem is that Facebook’s proposed hash recognition system will be far too easy to get around. Image boards such as 4chan already use a similar system to ensure that duplicate images aren’t posted, which goes a long way in ensuring that the O RLY owl doesn’t wind up in every single thread. But the owl still comes up, because altering an image’s hash value is simple: Just open the image in Paint, then change one pixel in a spot where it won’t likely be noticed. Done. Facebook’s nudie patrol will know what your breasts look like, and you’ll have done nothing to stop anybody by sharing them.

What’s more, it’s been suggested that this system be used to combat child porn. Give that a moment to sink in. Facebook is a private company, so wouldn’t they get in trouble for possessing the stuff, especially after asking for it? And what of the people that submit it to the system? If they’re the first people to submit an image, wouldn’t the implication be that they produced it?

I feel bad for Facebook’s nudie patrol. People have already gone after airport security over scanners, and they’ve been accused of being in it to see naked people, including children. Now Facebook’s nudie patrol is going to have to put up with it, too. The cherry on top is that most people don’t look like they’d be very appealing while naked. Not only will the nudie patrol be made out to be pariahs by the press and have a hard time discussing their jobs to future interviewers, they’ll be scarred by countless images from fat people and women who don’t shave down there. Yuck. Looking at naked people all day would not be a dream job.

Anyhow, I expect this system to roll out shortly in spite of what can go wrong, as well as the predictable sensationalist news stories from a corporate information media that mostly pitches to morons. Then, further down the road, there’d be the hilarious stories about the system getting hacked.

NBC News has lost its mind.

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Who’s up for watching a train wreck in slow motion?

You can tell that NBC News has done something special here, considering the like/dislike ratio of this video:

nbc news disliked

Oh, hold on…

NBC News subscription count wah waah

Considering that NBC News is a huge media institution, that subscriber count is pretty low. For comparison, here’s the subscriber count for a YouTuber:

sargon subscription count

That guy’s subscription count is higher in spite of the fact that he’s not an outlet for the corporate media. He’s just a guy who gets on YouTube and talks about how crazy left-wing fringe groups such as feminists are. Even though he’s just a guy, he has more power on YouTube than NBC News. This is in spite of the fact that the YouTube main page tries to shove the channels of old media outlets up our butts.

Back on subject, NBC News has attempted to connect GamerGate with the Neo Nazi protests in Charlottesville and the grassroots movements that got Trump elected, and dragging Discord’s name through the mud, while they’re at it.

That in itself is a mouthful, and I don’t really have to say anymore. But I’m going to keep going. That old media is finding new ways to disappoint us is surprising at this point.

I’ve said already that old media doesn’t have to convince the smartest people among us for their ideas to gain traction, they only have to convince enough idiots to make a difference, and they are the ones that they are primarily aiming for. Today, the idiots that old media are aiming for is an old group that we’re already familiar with; the Pharisaical busybodies that see video games as some boogeymen that cause violent crimes. The tune has apparently shifted, because the social engineers have determined that the most effective way to drag someone down is to call them “racist” or “sexist”, because those are the words that currently have the most impact. Therefore, these ad-hominems are now being thrown at gamers.

If you’re among the brighter people among us, you’d look into matters before arriving at a determination, rather than taking old media’s word for it. Better yet, you wouldn’t have used old media to inform you to begin with. Of course, anyone using their brain will know that the connection between racists and sexists with video games just doesn’t exist. There’s a certain baseline for intelligence that NBC is aiming for, and they decided to exclude those who can think above it.

Today, NBC’s efforts to mislead the public are backfiring in a huge way, considering that most people play video games in some form, and understand that the presence of racists and sexists among us is greatly overstated.

If you haven’t watched the above video yet, here’s an interesting point to keep in mind as you do so:

Cherry Picking fallacy:
When only select evidence is presented in order to persuade the audience to accept a position, and evidence that would go against the position is withheld.  The stronger the withheld evidence, the more fallacious the argument.
Description from LogicallyFallacious.com, “Cherry Picking”

Can you find examples in the video above? Here are just a few to get you started:

  • Discord is made out to be a haven for racists, even though such communities on Discord are few, if any even still exist. Discord themselves have even shut such a community down.
  • GamerGate is made out to be a sexist movement because some members have made sexist remarks, as the video shows. In reality, these members don’t represent the movement as a whole, as the vast majority of the GamerGate movement are for ethics in game journalism. It’s their stated objective.
  • Footage was shown of someone using racist language in a game’s voicechat feature. This is treated as representative of gamer culture as a whole. It should be obvious why this is unfair.

I only went about halfway through the video before I decided to stop taking examples. It doesn’t stop there. It just keeps going.

gamergate romantic(EDIT 8-Nov-2017: This tweet has been found to have originated from Kevin Dobson, who directed them to Anita Sarkeesian. The problem? The Kevin Dobson tweets were issued a day before the #GamerGate hashtag was coined. NBC News has been caught editing the #GamerGate tag onto a tweet not associated with them to vilify them. It just gets worse and worse.)

But while most of it was a train wreck, there is one part that made me bust out laughing. That part starts at 3:41. That’s the part where Lester Holt, with a bright, enthusiastic smile, asked me to subscribe to NBC’s YouTube channel.

No, Lester Holt. No.

Vegan Artbook revisited: answering another vegan lie

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straw man

Sometimes, I go back to a webcomic that I’ve reviewed to see what the artist has done with it since. I decided to check out Vegan Artbook, and found that it had two updates, one of which addresses a point that I’ve made in the review.

As much as I’d like to think that this means that the author has read the review and has taken it to heart, taking it as an impetus to improve, if you were to read her latest update, you’d see that this is not the case. The point that I made was that veganism propagated through dishonesty and predation on ignorance.

Here is what Vegan Artbook has to say about that:

p32ONLINE

You can see what I meant about the comic declining in artistic quality, but that’s not what I’m arguing against here.

Putting aside that she speaks of meat and vegetable industries as though they were in competition, the main problem with her argument (putting aside her incessant use of straw man fallacies) is her use of cherry-picking, which stands out like neon breast implants. She mentions those huge celery, pear, grape, and peach industries as those who don’t “hire PR agencies to write newspaper articles for them every week”. This says nothing of the apple industry, or for that matter the broccoli, turnip, mushroom, or even the mammoth, heartless, soulless zucchini industry, with their briefcases packed with freshly-printed hundred dollar bills. Did she leave them out because they do this?

I know that the typical vegan worldview pictures the meat and vegetable industries as being in some kind of competition. But in reality, the two fall under the banner of “agriculture”, and are happily married. They do stuff with each other, and they even have awesome children such as hamburgers. And jockish duds such as gummy candies.

So, why does the meat industry want PR articles written? The answer should be obvious: because vegans make up lies about them incessantly. Priya is the cause of the problem that she’s complaining about! What she’s doing is called defamation. However, it’s pretty hard for an industry to go after ordinary members of the public for a civil defamation suit. It’s more cost-effective to use PR to undo the damage that they cause.

No surprise; vegans lie to propagate their cause. Here are a few examples:

  • A few years back, vegans said that eating meat made it more difficult for men to maintain an erection. If this were true, you’d think that vegans would make up a higher percentage of the population by now.
  • They said that the Bible promotes a vegetarian lifestyle. It does not.
  • They say that it takes N gallons of water to produce a pound of beef. Like with the gender wage gap, the fact that the number fluctuates so wildly indicates no consistent source, and someone is making it up.
  • They also say that vegans are smarter. The vitamin deficiencies of a vegan diet directly results in irreversible neurological damage.

And there’s more. I can keep going. Their willingness to lie is symptomatic of the post-truth mentality that plagues left-wing fringe movements, which are already predisposed to the thinking that lies are justified if they somehow benefit the cause, rather than the liability they should be viewed as.

I’m going to conclude this with the same point that I’ve made in my review of Vegan Artbook:

If it’s necessary to lie to get people to accept what you’re trying to sell them, perhaps you shouldn’t believe it, either.

Webcomic Review: Addanac City

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addanac city miserable

One of my favorite comics while growing up was Calvin and Hobbes. It was about a boy, a stuffed tiger that seemed real to him, and it had tons of social commentary.

Being a kid, I didn’t immediately understand what Calvin and Hobbes was about. To me, it seemed to be about what a bad kid Calvin was in spite of his intelligence, and the misadventures he could get into when his imagination would run away with him. It wasn’t until later, when I had grown up and long after the comic had concluded that I realized just how much of it was clever criticism of commercialism and syndication of the comic industry in particular.

Of course, I was a kid, so there wasn’t much expectation that I’d understand just what Calvin and Hobbes was really about. But imagine if someone not only missed the point of the comic, they made a comic that attempted homage, claimed the original as its inspiration, did everything that the author of the original pined against, and failed in just about every way imaginable.

You really don’t have to imagine such a thing, because Addanac City exists.

addanac city hank

Addanac City features Hank (pictured above), the worst possible thing that could happen after a night of drunken sex that you don’t remember. But while Calvin misbehaved but was generally relatable, George Ford (the author of Addanac City) went well out of his way to make Hank out to be a horrendous child with no redeemable qualities. So yeah, Addanac City goes the Allen Gregory route in storytelling where the main character is so abrasive and rancid that it befouls just about everything else that the comic is attempting to do. Not that it was doing any of it particularly well to begin with.

Addanac City is supposed to be a gag-a-day strip. It fails every single time because the jokes are so horribly repugnant that it’s almost as though someone were struggling to make something bad on purpose.

I was going to post an example here, but I decided to instead post a link to the archive. Go ahead and pick any one at random. There isn’t a single one that won’t prove my point.

Speaking of the “bad on purpose” thing, people can quit it with the whole “make-something-that’s-only-ironically-likable” dealie. I know that it seems easier to win a race to the bottom, and thus stand out as being the worst at something. But there are so many people running that race that it’s an actual challenge now and takes some effort to “win”. Because of this, it’s harder than it’s ever been to plod along with a minimum of effort. So, why not put some effort into making something that’s actually a positive contribution? Besides, Sonichu exists, so you’d already be beat, anyway.

Because it’s classified as a gag-a-day strip, George doesn’t have to bother with something called “plot”, freeing up his precious little effort for characterization. But he didn’t bother with this either, because the personalities of each of his characters are various degrees of fulminating rectum. Even Susie Derkins Christie, one of the victims of Hank’s antics, has her moments.

As far as art goes, each of the characters are to the eyes as farts are to the nostrils. It takes someone with some funny preferences to not be totally disgusted. George takes the concept of cartooning to mean that there’s no need to consider either anatomy or consistency. While it’s acceptable for cartoons to have colors that are vivid, George makes them so stark that they’re an attack on the eyes of the person who views them.

Another example is not being posted here. Here’s another link to the archives. You can pick any one; the art hasn’t improved at all since the comic’s inception.

There is an inconsistent use of gradients for shading, which makes everything that’s not shaded look flat, and in some cases, clothing textures are Photoshopped in for some outfits, but not for others. It’s as though George wanted to use some Photoshop effects for his comic, but neither knew how to use them properly or consistently. The result is a comic with a mish-mash of improperly applied effects with bright, painful colors.

Okay, fine. Here’s an example:

addanac city bad

See all the problems? Now you know why I don’t want them on my blog. I don’t want George Ford’s content dragging mine down. I also don’t want men blaming me for erectile dysfunction or women blaming me for not self-lubricating.

Everything about this comic conspires to make it terrible. What makes it even more of an insult that he’s comparing his work to Calvin and Hobbes. If any humorous irony can be had from this, it’s that the author is so inept that he doesn’t recognize his comic as being the very thing that his source of inspiration warned against comics becoming: a bunch of illustrations for bad jokes that can be completed to the author’s satisfaction before lunch.

If you want to see something really interesting, here’s a YouTube video of George having one of his comics read aloud:

What’s interesting about it? That he got a woman to read it with him. And that woman is his wife. HIS WIFE. Something to think about if you’re one of those lonely men who find themselves wishing for a woman with low enough standards.

Now for a score that reflects how this comic holds up against my own standards:

0.2 / 10

You know how I usually find something funny in the comic to use as it’s score? Not this time. I just don’t want to go back there. Jack was a better webcomic than this. Vegan Artbook was a better webcomic. Even Boss Rush Society holds up as a better webcomic. Addanac City is just a mess.