Random News Stories

[Junkenstein]

I'm just waiting for the day when people strap cartons of eggs to themselves and rush politcal conventions, election announcements etc.

The day of the egg-jihadis will come.

[Demolition Squid]

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/dec/22/george-rr-martin-the-interview-sony-pictures-hack-north-korea

George RR Martin offers to screen The Interview at his own cinema

Game of Thrones author volunteers his Jean Cocteau cinema in Santa Fe for a screening, after 'stunning display of corporate cowardice' from Sony and cinema chains

George R.R. Martin steps up out of principle and - I presume - his earnest love of pissing as many people off as he possibly can.

[minuspace]

http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/senate-torture-report-public-opinion/

Data shows that popular opinion on the use of torture by the U.S. government has subtly shifted since 2004, when Pew Research Center began polling Americans on the subject. Pew asked whether torture used against suspected terrorists to gain important information is justified, finding a majority of respondents (53 percent) said torture could never or only rarely be justified. But over the next five years, public opinion slowly reversed.

I've avoided talking to my dad about this because I figured I could guess his views. I was right. Last night he said 'Everyone knew they were torturing these people. Why does it matter how they were doing it?'

The thing is, the more I've thought about it the more I can see his point.

Everyone HAS known for a long time that America has been torturing and killing with impunity. I suppose there's the issue of the CIA lying about the extent of it and how useful it was... but in the grand scheme of things those don't matter. Would it have made it more acceptable if they'd just been brazen about it?

If you accept a little torture for the right reasons, you have already stopped seeing the victim as human, so it matters very little what else is done to them. And the right wing have been working hard for years to justify that 'little torture'. It works for Jack Baur, right?

That's why all the sordid physical details are only foils for the real, psychological agenda.

[Reginald Ret]

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/dec/22/george-rr-martin-the-interview-sony-pictures-hack-north-korea

George RR Martin offers to screen The Interview at his own cinema

Game of Thrones author volunteers his Jean Cocteau cinema in Santa Fe for a screening, after 'stunning display of corporate cowardice' from Sony and cinema chains

George R.R. Martin steps up out of principle and - I presume - his earnest love of pissing as many people off as he possibly can.

This made me smile, GRR Martin is a good man.

[Junkenstein]

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/dec/22/george-rr-martin-the-interview-sony-pictures-hack-north-korea

George RR Martin offers to screen The Interview at his own cinema

Game of Thrones author volunteers his Jean Cocteau cinema in Santa Fe for a screening, after 'stunning display of corporate cowardice' from Sony and cinema chains

George R.R. Martin steps up out of principle and - I presume - his earnest love of pissing as many people off as he possibly can.

This made me smile, GRR Martin is a good man.

Strongly debatable. I would suggest it's more likely that he's seen the same gigantic cash cow other independent cinemas have and is looking for a quick buck with a superior moral attitude.

ETA - Also, I have no idea why but this stinks to high hell. It's quite likely to be a shitty film, everyone involved is simply terrible. A cynical man might think this some kind of cunning marketing ploy. It's apparently had no marketing budget (Hear of it before this shit? No? Point made. A film's marketing budget is typically around 1/3 of the total production cost. Think of how much Marvel/Disney advertising shit you see for these "hits" to happen. Enough money is thrown at it to make sure it will not fail. Films that don't, particularly shit like this, you don't spend that cash and you get your standard "commercial flops".) It might not be enough to make it a success, but I bet all this shit means that it at least breaks even.

In other news, I'm advertising all future ventures as North Korea approved/unapproved as appropriate.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I heard that it was completely terrible.

[Cain]

Not surprising, given who is in it.

Personally, I like all the moral posturing.  "So Brave" doesn't even begin to cover it.  Would Hollywood make a film about assassinating any other head of state, ever?  Nope.  They only do it because North Korean dollars don't matter....look how quickly studios bend over to appease China for many examples.  And then they turn around and act like scared children because "North Korean" haxx0rs might somehow blow up cinemas, through the power of Internet Magic.  The whole thing's a farce, so it's no wonder Martin is sticking his oar in.

[Telarus]

I found it a terrible spy movie. I found it a HILARIOUS take on how far the intelligence community has infiltrated Hollywood.

I mean, "the North-Korea guy" from RAND was having 3rd party communications with DoD officials (through the producer) about "the ending", knowing the film would eventually get to NK and the politics of showing a living head of state die onscreen at the hands of American entertainers. Part of these conversations ended up forcing Rogan to bargain with reducing the imaginary CG burn marks on Un's face ("We have removed 3 of the 4 burn marks and reduced the overall flesh burning... is this acceptable?") in order to actually show him die in the way the script intended.

I found a lot of the film to be parallel jokes on exactly this kind of shit. Bu no, it did not live up to the hype generated by the surrounding spectacle.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I dunno, it doesn't seem very important other than being apparently a not very good movie? why is it getting more attention than Team America?

[P3nT4gR4m]

So maybe this is America's last opportunity to take down China before their "Superpower" status is demoted to "third world shithole"? Maybe NK could provide the in?

So, surprise surprise, there are digital WMD's hidden somewhere... somewhere... something... TERRURISM!! CYBER-TERRURISM (The scary kind - it could harm your Facebook!)

It's been proven that the US public don't specifically require a coherent narrative to buy in, so why go to all the trouble?

Newsflash: Brown people are no longer badwrong. Oceania has always been at war with yellow people.

[The Wizard Joseph]

Been holding on to these for a while hoping to eventually drop them here.
Today is eventually day.


http://www.theverge.com/2014/10/31/7135639/slack-is-now-the-fastest-growing-workplace-software-ever

http://www.businessinsider.com/slack-ceo-explains-11-billion-valuation-2014-10

http://www.crunchbase.com/organization/tiny-speck

Not news, but their website has some interesting info as well
https://slack.com/

[Cain]

"So, I'm not, like, apologising for murder or anything.  But those cartoonists in France...totally asking for it, amirite?"

Reasons why Cain avoids Twitter #347

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

"So, I'm not, like, apologising for murder or anything.  But those cartoonists in France...totally asking for it, amirite?"

Reasons why Cain avoids Twitter #347

Why would cartoonists be asking for it? What did they do?

[Cain]

Made fun of Islam in general and Omar al-Baghdadi in particular.  So, according to the edgy and contrarian Twitter masses, they were totally asking for it.

I mean yeah, it's kinda douchebaggy, that output.  But if douchebaggery were punishable by death...well, people being contrarian, victim-blaming twats on Twitter while there's still blood being washed out of the offices of Charlie Hebdo would rank somewhat higher on the list than Charlie Hebdo themselves.  And violent, Islamist extremists would dwarf both by comparison.

[Demolition Squid]

Thought this was interesting: http://www.theguardian.com/global/2015/jan/07/life-after-a-viral-nightmare-ecce-homo-to-revenge-porn

A while ago I wrote about being nervous over the internet's long memory and how easy it is to accidentally screw yourself up forever- or be a victim of random chance turned into a meme. It is nice to see that this isn't always totally awful, but I'm still not sure it is worth attaching your face/name to social media...