Topics

16

Apple Talk / HORRIBLE WISDOM

« on: June 18, 2014, 08:39:22 pm »

Greetings gentle readers,

Today, Horrible Uncle Junkie officially opens his heart to all poor souls needing a little HORRIBLE WISDOM in their lives. I'm sure other fine Doktors will assist operations as required.

First up, Little Billy Raztech (19) asked:

I'm surrounded by redskins fans right now.  Productivity has almost entirely been replaced by bitching.  And they still won't turn down the fucking smooth jazz. How do I improve my situation?

Well firstly, like all advice columns, here's a sentence or two of padding and bullshit. This is apparently mandatory and people who get paid for this charge by the word. Let's call it setting precedence because I'm obviously pre-famous now. Yeah, that's how it works.

Secondly, I'm going to re-phrase your statement to make forthcoming actions much more palatable to deal with. "Organised sports fans won't SHUT UP and DO SHIT. And the music is bad."

This is obviously intolerable.

The start of the problem, is that you don't give a huge fuck about X. This is kind of your problem. To all of them, you are now THAT GUY. They've got a collective emotion which you don't give a fuck about. There's also enough of them who aren't paid enough to give a fuck to keep doing their job.

The first option is simple - Slack off yourself, zone out and be in the conversation in body only. Simple meditation techniques are useful here. A nice one for beginners is "pick a film you know really well and watch it in your head". Everyone's got a film they've seen that much, or swap in a album if you're so inclined. If there isn't one already in your head, watch the same film 4-5 times in a row, in a day. Pick something good. I've got Return of the Jedi and regret it now. With the odd grunt and general mumbling with the group feeling, this is an easy low level out.

Step up, would be earplugs if at all possible. Move away and crack on solo as far as possible.

Don't want to slack by yourself or in a group? Actually need to get shit done? Well shit. First thing is that music. If you can't seize control or demand equal/equitable time with your own tastes - IT GOES. Safety first is a good one, "does this place have a broadcasting consent (Check your own laws and lingo - most workplaces need some form of license to play music/radio/TV.) Guess how many places have one.

Both of those no good? Shit. You could try company policies and procedures, or you could just sabotage some shit. You would be AMAZED at how long it can take some places to fix a cut wire. Work late one day and scope it out on the QT. Leave it at least 3-4 days after the recon, longer if possible, shorter is sloppy, especially if you've already made a stink. Don't get smart and think about evidence, just ensure no CCTV and eventually a rat will get blamed. It's obviously better to go for as close to the speaker as possible, and the speaker in an ideal world. If you can get free reign, your best case is


THIS SHIT.

Expanding foam, motherfucker. A tin isn't very expensive and they'll spend a good while thinking they can fix the speaker before realizing it's FUBAR. Any of those should buy you a couple of days of blessed silence. It's also value for money as one tin can cover quite a few speakers. I recommend a 20 second spray/stop pretty much regardless of brand. As soon as you can see foam, you're golden.

So, it's quiet but those fuckwits are still going on about local sports team?

Well, you have options, but they change drastically on your relative position to them.

Assuming you are senior, and need them to do things, you must TELL THEM WHAT. Loudly. State consequences for the next most senior person. You are already that guy to them in this situation, so revel as you become an immediate outlet for their ire and continue to TELL THEM WHAT.

Assuming equal or junior, TELL THEM WHAT. State that consequences are going to befall THEM not YOU.

Other options include, but are not limited to:

- Full on THAT GUY. Embrace your role as that guy and talk as loudly as possible at all costs about something that interests only you. If anyone shares or picks up on that conversation, you need to be more hipster than thou. Not the film, not the special edition of the film, not the 1997 recut of the film, you're talking about main actor edited recut of the pre-screened 1996 version that was shot in sepia on a handheld camera film. Bore the piss out of them with it. Directly ignore conversation not related to it and ask questions only about it. When this gets questioned state that they are boring the piss out of you so it seemed only reasonable to do it back.

-Self entertainment - Human siren. Any conversation about Local sports team will have the same fucking words, phrases and expressions used over and over and over and over until you get the red fading in a little. Pick a couple of these and choose some noises. A cough, hum, short whistle are good. Whenever what you picked comes up, subtly make the noise. Examine the group. See if any are prone to mimicking mannerisms. I bet at least 1 is in any group of 5+. Now, what did we learn from Uncle Pavlov? It is possible to have 6 people in a group of 10 making a humming sound after a players name before one questions why the fuck that's going on. I suspect higher numbers are possible with a bigger group.

The possibility or realities of actual consequences are remote? Well, fuck man, don't you have a phone or something? It's the future and you're moaning about shitty workmates? You seem to have EMPLOYMENT and INTERNET ACCESS in a WESTERN NATION. Compared to many you're doing pretty damn peachy. And hey, if it always gets too much, you can just punch the most irritating bastard in the mouth and quit. Sometimes, that's the best damn thing to do. 

 

17

Techmology and Scientism / Inventors thread

« on: June 11, 2014, 09:39:06 am »

A conversation earlier reminded me about Troy Hubertise.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troy_Hurtubise

You may recall him as the guy who tried (and to an extent, succeeded) to build a bear-proof suit. Like many other inventors, there seems to be a healthy dose of crackpot about the guy, but some of his work appears to have serious potential. Firepaste, in particular would surely make anyone quite wealthy so why he hasn't pushed further development there is anyone's guess. I'm betting a key component was asbestos.

Angel Light was another thing he came out with and what that is apparently capable of over the years has changed dramatically from curing cancer to ultimate sci-fi X ray machine.

Crazy person? Likely. That said, i'd be interested to see some of his inventions tested independently. I'll add other similar folk as I remember them, feel free to join in.

18

Apple Talk / Measuring the rate of THE FUTURE

« on: June 02, 2014, 10:17:56 pm »

We all have various ideas about what THE FUTURE will bring, both good and bad.

What I don't really have is an objective way to measure the incoming rate of future beyond "oh shit it's happened". To this end, I propose some kind of psuedo wisdom of crowds bullshit to attempt to measure the approximate rate of incoming future. I would suggest this can probably be done somewhat simply by using shit you encounter/use on a day to day basis. Consider the following and have a stab at what YOU would think to be likely in 5/10/25 year terms. Don't worry overmuch about how accurate your actual guess is, as through the magical bullshit of wisdom of crowds your answer will be averaged into the actual truth because the some people can pretend the world works that way. Seriously.

Internet - Main browsing device (Currently PC/Laptop/Phone) 5-Phone/smartbook 10-phone/wearable always on tech 25-wearable, always on tech exclusively.

Mass Transport (currently car) 5 - car 10- electric car 25 - electric car, moving towards connected high speed rail

Currency (Currently cash, digital overtaking) 5 - Little cash, Largely digital 10 - Cash relatively rare, digital payment the norm 25 - Cash worth small sums gone, non digital, traceable, "accountable" transactions viewed with suspicion.


And so on. Expand it to other areas as you please, this is more a starting point.

19

Apple Talk / EAT CELEBRITY MEAT

« on: May 30, 2014, 10:05:31 pm »

http://bitelabs.org/

Fantastic. I'm not entirely sure if that's for the right reasons or wrong reasons though. This is the future I've been telling you all about.

20

Apple Talk / Hey Roger, it's got to be that time of year

« on: May 29, 2014, 08:18:17 pm »

New holy name time right? This one lost it's luster long ago and it's kinda melted because of all the fire.

21

Aneristic Illusions / PUAHate shooting incident

« on: May 29, 2014, 11:33:38 am »

For those who missed the latest mass spree killing in the USA, there's some FUCKED UP going on with it.

Beyond the usual things of possible mental illness and gun control, this one is pretty notable due to the levels of outright blatant and highly worrying misogyny.

Pretty sure P3nt's familiar with the Onion.

This is a bag of creepy shit, somewhat related. Turns out the shooter was part of a "PUAhate" forum, trolled bodybuilders and much, much more.
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:9jm67Lf42GUJ:puahate.com/showthread.php%3Ft%3D139474+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=ca&client=firefox-a

Warning - Nothing specific, its all fucking awful.

The worst part of that for me is that "PUAHate" isn't a bunch of people who hate PUAs because of their slimy, creepy, rape-y, objectifying ways, they hate PUAs because they feel "ripped off" the PUA techniques couldn't get them the sex they DESERVED.

I can't wait until PUAs and MRAs are classified as "hate groups".

This whole PUAhate thing is actually quite incredible. You've got some Incel (Involuntarily celibate) folk who have clearly in some cases paid substantial sums to PUA's, failed and decided they've not got a chance because that guys has (insert long description in what appears to be pseudo medical terms to describe face/physique.)

I can't stress how fucked up I find all of this. At this point the only possible positive I can see is the start of a decent backlash against PUA and it's associated areas. I'm literally waiting for the first big PUA to come out and say that PUA is OK, it's PUAhate that's where all the problems are. One of them is going to be stupid enough, mainly because of the size of their egos not allowing them to not be dumb in this regard.

I've ended up in a couple of arguments about whether this chap was actually mentally ill or not. Given the youtube video I'm strongly leaning towards a yes, for something like a severe narcissistic disorder of some kind at the least. As best as I can tell there's 3 main issues at play here and I can't quite determine which is the biggest factor. I suspect there's a very strong link between the mental health, gun control and PUAhate issues that have ended up in a very fucked up negative feedback loop.

22

Aneristic Illusions / Thailand national hobby thread

« on: May 23, 2014, 07:04:58 pm »

Apparently some kind of Coup d'etat is ongoing as we speak. I've caught a couple of tales but this is mainly a placeholder for the moment to remind myself to look at it more.

23

Or Kill Me / TBD

« on: May 22, 2014, 05:52:38 pm »

I'm on about a week of minimal sleep, so it may be best to move along quietly now.

I can't remember the last time I saw my own face in a mirror. For some years now, the reflection has been replaced by my Grandfather. I guess it started when I fucked my leg, foot and hand up in unrelated incidents. For a time, this gave me a limp and clawed hand that initially amused me by their remarkable similarities. We've always been somewhat alike so naturally, it gave me a laugh. Since this, I can't help notice the increasing change into someone else.

It does things to you, having your face stolen and replaced with an older version from a different person. I'm not entirely certain if they're good or bad things. Certainly things. Their opinions and stances come to mind easier. You start finishing lines of thought with "...and they would think that...". This is fine when you're in a general accord but becomes a like aggravating when it's a point of contention. When you're arguing with yourself every time you catch your own reflection, that's when it becomes tedious.

It could be much worse, I suppose. I could have had a genetic disposition to look like a famous murderer or dictator rather than a man who I hold in high regard. That would make the arguments much worse I suppose. Certainly more frequent.

This probably won't happen to you until you're lucky enough to have some substantial aging inflicted upon you or a similar bout of whatever madness I'm having.

What's the point of this raving, beyond disclosing some kind of mental problem? Well, a warning to start with. How often do you consider you likely appearance in 6 months, let alone a number of years? There's probably a damn good chance you'll look like an elderly family member at some point. If it's likely to be one you know and like, you've lucked out big time. Sorry if this isn't the case in either event for you, but this will probably not hit you as much, if at all, so consider that good or bad as you see fit.

I suppose another part would be considering the concept of "me". I'm still "me" but to many, and frequently to my own eyes, I'm not. It's surprised me how easily my Grandfathers mannerisms come to me and I'm relatively certain some are reflexive now and I'm not sure why that is. I guess when you constantly see yourself as someone else, it's easily done. My mockery of things tends to focus on whatever I see so I would imagine this somehow extends into this. Seeing someone else's face at the start of most days sets the mind to the me/not me idea straight away and the dissonance flows from there.

Why are you reading this? It's sleep deprived lunacy. Give me my face back. 

OR KILL ME.     

24

Apple Talk / Historical TV

« on: February 18, 2014, 10:23:24 am »

I've had the idea in my head for a while that TV shows could potentially tell us quite a bit about attitudes and common understandings in a culture and how the culture may be changed or influenced by such.

There's a slight problem in that I don't watch much TV so decently representative list is not likely to appear from just me. What I will do, is have a look at a few series and try and highlight what I think to be key to the topic. I'll mainly try and stick around privilege based areas such as depictions of race and mental health.

Many of these shows are now considered "Classic comedy" which means it's OK to laugh at it. Which would imply to me that the culture/society condones the depicted behaviours. Yes, there's a few assumptions here but that's why you people exist.

Shows I intend to cover so far(open to further suggestions or join in and what areas I'll try and look at in a bit more detail

MASH - Gender and Mental illness depictions
Rising Damp - Race. Obviously.
A touch of Frost - Various
2 and a half men (I watched an episode. I think I got everything I needed) - Duh.

There's been many claims of late that you can't judge previous eras based on modern attitudes. If we accept that, then we can certainly judge modern shows by modern attitudes and the charlie sheen shit does not really hold up well. I've not really much more of an idea about where this will end up yet, so lets start with Rising Damp.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rising_Damp

The key focus of the show in many cases was the sole black cast member Philip played by Don Warrington. Philip was pretty much the main part of the show here. Suave and educated in marked contrast to every other cast member, in many ways is quite laudable. Any racism or idiocy from rigs by was usually countered with irony or sarcasm until the point was made. Credit is due for that to some degree, and indeed for even having a non-white guy be a main cast member in an era where it was still pretty rare to see.

That said, a re-watch now is pretty stunning. What could easily today be classed as racial abuse occurs regularly and while laughed off or mocked, is clearly as much of the joke as the rebuttal. Does this imply that Rising Damp helped normalise racism? I'd say not, more that racism was by this point pretty normal and institutional so it was seen as easy laughs. "Comedians" such as Bernard Manning took this kind of act to the wall and filling fairly substantial venues with "jokes" that tended to use "nigger" as the setup and punchline. Other shows like "Love thy Neighbour" were about and the idea of "not racist - only joking" can be seen to get into more common use.

Philip was used extensively as an exotic object of affection for the spinster character of Ms Jones. That was quite progressive for the time even if it was mainly played for laughs. I'm trying to recall offhand when mixed race relationships became normal to society (I suppose they still aren't in some) but I'm damn sure it was still something of a hot topic around the time of broadcast. 

While Rigsby never "won" any of his battles, he didn't exactly lose the war. He was a landlord with constant full occupancy who let others live in bad conditions and felt no obligation to fix or improve anything. While you could say that's the attitude of most landlords it's an mindset that ill serves both parties. Since broadcasting, slumlords have risen in practically every major town and city making money from the least affluent. While I can't hold this show accountable for this, it again helped normalise the behaviour. People now expect landlords to be terrible and tenants ungrateful. At least now Landlords have to give 24 hours notice before barging in and racial abuse is frowned upon.

So let's consider what this show could look like now. Rigsby would be inundated with repair bills and legal problems. Rather than a sole black tenant he'd have people from all over Europe who are obviously taking his job. Ms Jones would be a 20-something dreamer. Alan would be far more intelligent and Philip would probably really be an African (Or Arabian to keep with the times) prince. Many, if not all, old behaviours shown are now pretty unacceptable. Overall, I'd call that progress.

It's increasingly clear to me that I have no idea where this is going so I'll just type and if anyone can drag a theme or some sense out of it then kudos. You win a prize.





 

25

Apple Talk / Prophet Replacement Service

« on: February 07, 2014, 10:34:25 am »

As DOUR is bleeding from the eyes due to an overdose of future and Tucson, I am taking this opportunity to usurp oust seize for my own ends offer my humble services as a replacement Prophet.

Now I'm not as accurate as DOUR, nor as polite and tolerant of the horrors the your various futures hold.

So step right up one and all. Your future happiness, health, wealth, horrific disfiguring injuries, mistaken lottery wins and reasons for your untimely death (and in more than one instance, murder) are just a question away. Future joys and woes exposed for the low, low price of my own amusement. Do you want to know more? Of course you do!

Here's a freebie - One of you gets molested by an iguana this year. In the ear.

26

Apple Talk / Experiences with Retail: Build-a-Bear

« on: February 03, 2014, 09:48:02 am »

For reasons I have yet to fully understand, I spent a significant chunk of time yesterday in "Build-A-Bear".

If you have been fortunate enough to escape this concept, here:
http://www.buildabear.co.uk/

I lasted about 10 minutes before my wife had to remove me. The reasons follow:

1- Upon entering the first, and I mean the fucking first thing I see is a giant My Little Pony. Which looks exactly like the one from that picture. It's being examined by a man in his late 30's. Unlike most patrons, this man does not appear to have a child with him. I managed to suppress the laugh to a snort.

2- The concept of the place is unsettling. You are surrounded initially by the skins of empty stuffed toys. You hand pick your 3rd world made  cuddly toy and queue to allow someone to fill the skin with whatever crap it is they use for this. Asbestos wool or something I think. Looks like it at least. They insisted it isn't. Anyway, this whole procedure takes a surprisingly long time for the size of toy you are actually getting. The main objective here is for the filler to upsell you the various outfits, voiceboxes and other assorted add-ons that can be had for very reasonable prices each but end up at quite alarming numbers when added together. The stealth money extraction is handled quite nicely.

3 - Now in possession of your stuffed toy, you are directed towards various stations where you can dress and add various accessories. By this point you should be acutely aware that you're basically in Walt Disney's idea of a sweatshop. Every tag ID's the produce as made by countries with questionable labour laws and rights. This is where the horror started to kick in for me. Kids making crap to send around the world for other kids to assemble. Around the same time as this realisation, I noticed I was being moved gently but forcefully to the exit by my wife.

4 - Outside, being bathed in day-glo horror, I was kind of numb. That many primary colours will do that to a body. That is, until I heard my wife pay for the memento of child labour rights violations.

I suspect that this place is actually a minor outpost of hell trying to break through to our reality. All other explanations seem lacking.

ETA- My wife is now threatening to never take me shopping again. I pray to all gods that this threat is carried out.

27

RPG Ghetto / Papers, Please

« on: January 31, 2014, 07:58:50 pm »

http://lparchive.org/Papers-Please/

"The communist state of Arstotzka has ended a 6-year war with neighboring Kolechia and reclaimed its rightful half of the border town, Grestin. Your job as immigration inspector is to control the flow of people entering the Arstotzkan side of Grestin from Kolechia. Among the throngs of immigrants and visitors looking for work are hidden smugglers, spies, and terrorists. Using only the documents provided by travelers and the Ministry of Admission's primitive inspect, search, and fingerprint systems you must decide who can enter Arstotzka and who will be turned away or arrested."

I heard about this a while ago and suspect it may be of interest to some. There seems to be a growing market for games of this nature and that could be very interesting. The concept here opens up quite a few different discussions and none are particularly clear cut or comfortable. Any game that actively seeks to cause cognitive dissonance has to be worth something and this one seems to do it very nicely.

28

Aneristic Illusions / Unlimited "Israel, What the fuck" thread

« on: November 26, 2013, 11:21:52 pm »

So there's a decent story regarding Israel quite often and I've just been shoving them in random news. Flicking back over the past few months, there's pretty much no end of strange shit so I'll start shoving it here instead.

Today, we have this:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-25108559

A Hollywood producer behind hit films such as Pretty Woman and Fight Club has said he spied for Israel in support of its nuclear programme.

Arnon Milchan, who was born in what is now Israel, gave an account to Israeli investigative programme Uvda.

Mr Milchan said he performed dozens of clandestine missions on behalf of Israel after he was recruited by Shimon Peres, now Israel's president.

"I did it for my country and I'm proud of it," he said.

Mr Milchan told Uvda that rumours of his own involvement with Israel had swirled around Hollywood for years and he wished he had addressed them head on.

"In Hollywood, they don't like working with an arms dealer, ideologically... with someone who lives off selling machine guns and killing," he said. "Instead of someone talking to me about a script, I had to spend half an hour explaining that I'm not an arms dealer.

"I'm not an arms dealer, I don't sell guns, I don't sell rockets," he added. "If people knew how many times I risked my life, back and forth, again and again, for my country."

Like many of these stories, I have no idea how much shady shit is also involved here beyond "A lot". What you can see is the reaction to the story. Is the USA pissed and demanding extradition? Behave. The man is clearly crazy and there is no history of people in entertainment being involved in espionage. There will certainly be no collusion of any sort or any money changing hands either. 

The other scary thing is the straight up bug eyed "I'M RIGHT" conviction. From the Knesset to the frontier settlers this attitude scares the shit out of me. If his claims have any substance then I'm sure he'll have been convinced he did the correct thing. Which could have some unpleasant repercussions in the future.

29

Apple Talk / FAO - WAFFLES

« on: November 22, 2013, 05:57:45 pm »

Heard "Das Seelenbrechen" by Ihsahn yet?

If not, drop whatever the fuck you're doing and get it. I'll wait.

30

Or Kill Me / My Hate - Part 2 - Privacy, Secrecy and such.

« on: November 12, 2013, 08:35:54 pm »

So, did you see the latest about Spying the NSA and that guy? The NEW revelations? Of course you fucking didn't. This shit comes out daily in amounts that no single person can process. Only the biggest bits get told to many and then heavily filtered to the views you are supposed to hold. It's not your fault, you just don't have time. No one does. No one has the time to listen to people who do take the time either. Life's fucking frantic everyday, right? Sometimes it's a struggle to just know which family members are alive, let alone think about shit half a planet away.

None of it is new anyway. You know the nice men in sharp suits aren't really that nice. You've already resigned yourself to the internet not being serious business. Hell, your ID has probably been stolen twice already anyway, right? So it's no big deal really that Amazon, Google or any other company or website you can name funnels data to the NSA. They wouldn't be interested in your thing would they? And you've done nothing wrong anyway, right?

Tales of government shenanigans with technology are as old as the technology. This is not new. You are reading a forum that is routinely hit with bots when certain topics are discussed. You know this. You still post here. You've got nothing to fear, right?

So what do you do? Nothing. You still got that book from amazon, have google as your browser and search engine, all tied to your iphone and virtual wallets. You have nothing to fear, because if you DID you'd be FUCKED already.

Or maybe you do have something to worry about. Maybe a bitcoin got caught up in the silk road. Maybe you get a knock on the door in a year when they've sorted through the data. Or 5 years. Maybe never. Maybe someone leaves the data in a suitcase on a train and it vanishes. Or maybe that game you just couldn't afford and would totally buy on steam next sale is a marked torrent. Maybe you've now got a 5 figure fine and the RIAA claiming you owe them 3 million for your Vanilla Ice fetish.

Maybe none of this happens. Maybe we wouldn't have to think like this if people kept what they were told in confidence confidential. Maybe you shouldn't have thought I was being crazy and paranoid because I might be a little more pleasant if my crazy paranoia wasn't on the news every day.

Society is a compromise between Freedom and the ability of the state to intrude on those freedoms. I'm pretty sure there's no incentive for the state to discuss this with the people, so you best start using the freedom you've got. You don't know how long you're going to have it.