January, 9th
Arnvidr
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29 Jan 22:07
January, 9th
ArnvidrI'll share some of these photos here sometimes, when I get something fairly interesting, so let's start off with the ghost runne!
Tertiarymatt likes this
23 Jan 07:09
How to Internet
by Kristian
Hm, maybe I should make a ‘gore’ tag. I probably have a bunch of even bloodier comics – this one immediately comes to mind…
Rosalind and -1 others like this
19 Jan 06:20
Dream Job
by Kristian
He probably also had a dream about forgetting to study for a test in high school.
Rosalind, Tertiarymatt and -1 others like this
18 Jan 06:15
Parents Investigated for Neglect for Letting Kids Walk Home Alone
by janrinok
ArnvidrWhat the hell?
Hugh Pickens writes:
The WaPo reports that Danielle and Alexander Meitiv in Montgomery County Maryland say they are being investigated for neglect after letting their 10-year-old son and 6-year-old daughter make a one-mile walk home from a Silver Spring park on Georgia Avenue on a Saturday afternoon. “We wouldn’t have let them do it if we didn’t think they were ready for it,” says Danielle. The Meitivs say they believe in “free-range” parenting, a movement that has been a counterpoint to the hyper-vigilance of “helicopter” parenting, with the idea that children learn self-reliance by being allowed to progressively test limits, make choices and venture out in the world. “The world is actually even safer than when I was a child, and I just want to give them the same freedom and independence that I had — basically an old-fashioned childhood,” says Danielle. “I think it’s absolutely critical for their development — to learn responsibility, to experience the world, to gain confidence and competency.”
On December. 20, Alexander agreed to let the children walk from Woodside Park to their home, a mile south, in an area the family says the children know well. Police picked up the children near the Discovery building, the family said, after someone reported seeing them. Alexander said he had a tense time with police when officers returned his children, asked for his identification and told him about the dangers of the world. The more lasting issue has been with Montgomery County Child Protective Services which showed up a couple of hours later. Although Child Protective Services could not address this specific case they did point to Maryland law, which defines child neglect as failure to provide proper care and supervision of a child. “I think what CPS considered neglect, we felt was an essential part of growing up and maturing,” says Alexander. “We feel we’re being bullied into a point of view about child-rearing that we strongly disagree with.”
Read more of this story at SoylentNews.
15 Jan 07:45
The System 762: Plan For Today
by admin
So work has gotten off to a busy start for the year, so here’s a comic about my day today. And tomorrow. And yesterday.
Rosalind, Tertiarymatt likes this
13 Jan 22:06
The sixth season of 'Community' starts March 17th on Yahoo Screen
by Billy Steele
ArnvidrYisssss
Back in July, Yahoo announced it revive NBC's popular Community for a sixth season after its original network cancelled the show. Today, the company announced that the new collection of episodes would begin March 17th on Yahoo Screen. Two episodes will premiere that Tuesday, with new ones following on a weekly basis for a total of 13. Of course, some of the original cast has already departed, so Troy (Donald Glover), Shirley (Yvette Nicole Brown) and Pierce (Chevy Chase) won't be regulars this season. When you finish up with that corned beef and cabbage, you'll be able get cozy on the couch for the return.
[Photo credit: NBCU Photo Bank via Getty Images]
Filed under: HD
Source: Yahoo
Tertiarymatt likes this
12 Jan 20:26
UK prime minister Cameron wants to ban encrypted communication
by donotreply@osnews.com (Thom Holwerda)
ArnvidrDamn, this guy is the devil.
David Cameron could block WhatsApp and Snapchat if he wins the next election, as part of his plans for new surveillance powers announced in the wake of the shootings in Paris.
The Prime Minister said today that he would stop the use of methods of communication that cannot be read by the security services even if they have a warrant. But that could include popular chat and social apps that encrypt their data, such as WhatsApp.
Apple's iMessage and FaceTime also encrypt their data, and could fall under the ban along with other encrypted chat apps like Telegram.
Part of Cameron's speech has been posted on YouTube.
Sophianotloren likes this
09 Jan 16:18
G-G the book - G-G on Facebook - G-G on Twitter
Sophianotloren, Rosalind and one other like this
09 Jan 15:52
The Tyranny of the Easily Offended
by BreadGod
Arnvidr2014 was a ridiculous year.
“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.”
– C.S. Lewis
The history of humanity is defined by the battle between two opposing forces: tyranny and liberty. There are those who wish to enslave humanity and there are those who wish to set humanity free. Tyranny will do everything it can to keep humanity in chains. Tyranny will try to fool people by disguising itself in the noblest of causes, but tyranny under any other name is still tyranny. Tyranny has taken many forms throughout the ages. It has held many names just in the past century. During World War II, it was known as fascism. During the Cold War, it was known as communism. Now tyranny has adopted a new name: social justice.
What is social justice, you ask? I wrote about this before, but long story short, social justice is communism in disguise. The advocates of social justice, commonly known as social justice warriors, are joyless losers who have nothing better to do than to ruin everyone's fun, and they do this in the name of noble sounding ideas like “equality”, “fairness”, and “inclusiveness”. Their ultimate goal is to create a soul-crushingly bleak and miserable world where no one ever gets offended. This world where social justice reigns supreme can best be described as the tyranny of the easily offended.
In 2014, social justice warriors unleashed an all-out assault on everything that harmed their fragile sensibilities. However, unlike previous years, common people started fighting back against their tyranny. This is evident in great events such as GamerGate and Shirtstorm. However, since this is a metal blog, I'll only focus on social justice's attempts at ruining the metal scene.
April 28: A blog by the name of Shameless Navel Gazing accused Inquisition of being nazis. I already wrote about the incident here, but long story short, a guy named Daniel Gallant claimed that Inquisition praised him for having a swastika tattoo on his chest. Did this blogger ever bother to contact Inquisition to get their side of the story? No. This person just took what some guy said and ran with it. In the deranged world of social justice, rumors and hearsay instantaneously become fact. Inquisition would be considered guilty until proven innocent.
This blogger then tried to pull the guilt by association card. A guy named Antichrist Kramer paints nearly all of Inquisition's album covers. He also used to own a record label called Satanic Skinhead Propaganda. Although the label has a provocative name, most of the bands on the label weren't nazis. In fact, some of those bands featured non-white members. Did this blogger ever bother to get in contact with Antichrist Kramer to ask him about his views and his partnership with Inquisition? No. Instead, this blogger linked to an article called “White Supremacists Are Using Black Metal To Promote Hate” which talks about how Antichrist Kramer is a horrible person because he distributes albums from NSBM bands and this music might inspire people to attack minorities. Somehow. I get the feeling that the site this blogger linked to is extremely biased and is more interested in pushing a certain agenda than reporting on the facts, but what do I know? I'm just a straight white male who is oppressing minorities just by existing.
After a few days, the drama died down and everyone in the metal scene forgot this whole incident ever happened, except for me. I had the feeling that social justice warriors were trying to infiltrate and destroy the metal scene. This exact same shit happened in the atheist community. People getting smeared based on rumors and hearsay, feels trumping facts, demands for the community to be made a “safe space” (read: hugbox) for “oppressed groups”, I recognized all of the rhetoric and tactics. I was there in the atheist community when all that shit happened. (To learn more about how social justice warriors invaded the atheist community, I recommend watching this video.) Now social justice warriors were trying to pull the exact same shit with metal. I tried raising the alarm about it at the time. I tried telling my fellow metalheads that social justice warriors were trying to do to metal what they did to atheism, but no one believed me.
July 23: Tom Dare, the web editor at Terrorizer Magazine, wrote an obnoxious piece of clickbaiting faggotry called “Heavy Metal Is Gay: Why We Need To Tackle Our Homophobia”. I've been a metalhead for over a decade and I haven't seen any rampant homophobia in the metal scene. It's almost as if Tom Dare is manufacturing controversy just to get more pageviews and ad revenue. He starts off by talking about how metal culture and gay culture have a lot in common what with their love of leather and denim, then he claims “we are amongst the most homophobic sets of music fans in the world”. I read through the entire article to see if he provided any evidence to back up his claim, and all I found was this one screenshot:
Look at that cherry-picking, goddamn.
After spending a few paragraphs rambling about stereotypes, he states, “It might then, on the surface of things, appear odd how quickly homophobic abuse is doled out at any band metalheads don’t like, or at a band perceived as inadequately metal.” Does he provide any evidence which shows metalheads doling out “homophobic abuse” at bands they don't like? No. He then states, “...study after study after study has shown that people who are homophobic are more likely to be aroused by porn involving same-sex couples of their own gender than non-homophobic straight people.” Does he ever link to the studies in question? No. You see, this is one of the most common traits of the social justice warrior. They make a whole bunch of broad, sweeping claims that they never bother to back up with evidence. They just expect you to listen and believe.
Most of the article is just fluff involving the absence of sex in metal lyrics and the author's sexual fantasies involving several metal musicians. After claiming that metal is part of wider society, he proceeds to bombard us with a bunch of cheap emotional appeals:
Whatever the root cause, none of these are acceptable as excuses. Homophobia is horrible in all its forms. It hurts people. “Gay” as a synonym for “bad” tells LGBT people that they are different, that they are bad, that they are somehow inferior to straight people. It leads people to deny their identity, to battle with their own psyche, and is a significant part of why depression and suicide amongst LGBT people is still such a problem. It is why Rob Halford was in the closet for 25 years, why the Cynic guys only publicly spoke about their sexuality this year, and why there are so few openly gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender musicians in high profile metal bands.
Dude, you are not making an argument. These are just a bunch of emotional platitudes, but for the purpose of entertaining my readers, I'll bite anyway. Tom Dare, who are you to speak on behalf of all gay metalheads? Who are you to say what they find “offensive”? How do you know how they feel about these issues? Have you bothered talking to any of them? Also, are you aware that anecdotes do not equal evidence? Are you aware that the cases you've listed are not indicative of supposedly rampant homophobia in the metal scene?
As for your final point, how are you so certain that the metal scene's supposedly rampant homophobia is the reason why there are so few LGBT musicians in high profile metal bands? Which scenario is the more likely explanation for the lack of LGBT musicians in high profile bands: is it because metalheads are horrible hate-filled monsters who just want to shit on gay people every chance they can or is it because metal is more likely to appeal to straight people than to gay people?
After attempting to guilt trip us, Tom Dare calls for quotas at metal concerts:
Statistically, if we accept the percentage of the male population who are gay as around the seven per cent it is reported as, and if we take the average number of male musicians per band as four (it’s not, it’s higher, but we’ll stick with four for simplicity’s sake), then the Bloodstock main stage should feature eight gay men performing (to the nearest whole number), or two entire bands. In fact, there are no openly gay men at all. That’s none. Zip. Nada.
Notice how he isn't calling for more gay people in the metal scene because he thinks they'll produce good music or have something substantial to contribute. He wants diversity simply because he has been taught that diversity is an inherent good. Let's think about this for a minute. Let's say there are two metal bands. Let's call them Unholy Evisceration and OP. Unholy Evisceration plays awesome metal, but it's composed entirely of straight white men. OP, on the other hand, plays some of the shittiest metal imaginable but it's composed of non-white gay people. (One of them is also an otherkin.) In an ideal world, the better and more talented band is let in the door. In the deranged world of social justice, Unholy Evisceration is turned down in favor of OP. Sure, OP sounds like a herd of cows taking a diarrhea shit onto a microphone, but the concert organizers have a quota to fill, damn it!
Also, that brings me to my second point. Tom Dare, you claim that the percentage of the general male population who are gay is around seven percent. What makes you so certain that the percentage of male metalheads who are gay is around seven percent? Are you aware that different subcultures have different demographics? For all we know, the number of gay people in the metal scene might be lower than in the general population. Do you have any data to back up your claims, or are you just assuming that metal has the same percentage of gay people as the general population?
The article ends with even more emotional appeals:
We, the metalhead community, have been throughout our history, even to this day, fucking rubbish at challenging it, about sorting out our own house, at saying “you like metal? You’re in. Who you fancy doesn’t matter.” We need to fix this. For our lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer family.And because metal’s so fucking gay, we’ll look bloody stupid if we don’t.
Okay, you can start by not being a self-righteous faggot who's getting offended on behalf of gay metalheads everywhere.
August 6: Kim Kelly conducted an interview with Dragonforce. Well, it wasn't really an interview so much as it was an interrogation. You see, some of the members of Dragonforce used to be in a shitty black metal band called Demoniac. This band wrote songs that featured intentionally shocking lyrics about killing gays, jews, and blacks. On the surface, these songs maybe seen as “offensive”, but the band was never serious about it. They did it all for the lulz.
That concept completely went over Kim Kelly's head. She got so immensely butthurt over the lyrics that she confronted the band about it under the pretense of asking them about their upcoming album. She repeatedly attempted to chastise them and tell them that they should feel bad for stuff they wrote almost two decades ago, but luckily the band laughed it off. Although I hate Dragonforce's music, the members of the band are pretty cool guys. They laugh at social justice warriors and doesn't afraid of anything. What really caught my eye was this little bit at the end of the interview:
Well that explains a lot! I suspected that social justice warriors had no sense of humor, but Kim Kelly removed all doubts. Is she being sarcastic? She was pretty serious when interrogating the band, so I doubt it. From now on, when I think of Kim Kelly, or any other social justice metal journalist for that matter, I'm going to think of this:
After the interview is a closing paragraph. It's even more idiotic than the interview itself. Take this bit for example:
Ultimately, do I think the members of Dragonforce are racist? I think that they said a bunch of horribly stupid, disgusting things when they were young, then, as is most intelligent beings’ wont, they grew up and forgot all about it. Do I think it’s worth mentioning? Certainly, if only because they’re a band with legions of young, impressionable, internet-savvy fans who need to understand that it’s most definitely not acceptable to hurt or demean someone because of their race, gender, sexual orientation, or for pretty much any other reason.
Kim, are you implying that young metalheads are complete idiots who can be swayed to hate certain groups of people simply by listening to a song? This is, almost word for word, the exact same argument religious fundamentalists made against the metal scene back in the 80s and 90s. Here, let me rephrase that last sentence: “They're a band with legions of young, impressionable fans who need to understand that it's most definitely not acceptable to worship the devil or make blood sacrifices.” Most idiotic of all is this bit at the end:
That’s unacceptable, and the tired old “boys will be boys” defense doesn’t hold up. We need to do better.
Holy shit. It's as if my mom is trying to take over the things I like. Actually, I take that back. My mom is far better than Kim Kelly. My mom might say, “I disapprove of what you're listening to”, but she would never try to take over metal and turn it into something soft, non-threatening, and completely soulless and boring. Kim Kelly is more like the overbearing busybody mom the entire neighborhood hates because she keeps trying to control everyone's kids. Luckily, the more sensible members of the metal scene mocked her self-righteous umbrage in the comments section. I especially love this comment made by Phil Hall of Municipal Waste:
August 27: During August, a mysterious woman-fronted black metal band called Myrkur was getting a massive amount of hype from the metal press. Naturally, a lot of metalheads didn't believe the hype, so they started talking shit about the band. In response, Vice contributor Theis Duelund wrote an article where he claimed that the only reason anyone hates Myrkur is because they hate women and not because Myrkur is the same boring Alcest-inspired bullshit that had been pelted at the metal scene since 2008. The “evidence” he provided consisted of two obvious troll comments and a massive amount of hearsay. Of course, that didn't stop him from claiming that metal was a den of filthy misogynists who hated change.
I'm gonna be upfront about this: if Myrkur was fronted by a man, then no one in the metal press would give a shit. In fact, they would mock the band for its piss-poor musicianship and dreadfully unoriginal songwriting. But since Myrkur is fronted by a woman, the metal press gave the band shining accolades. They're not holding the band up to the same standards as bands that are fronted by men. They're giving Myrkur a free pass simply because it's fronted by a woman. Isn't that, you know, sexist? I already know how social justice warriors are going to respond. They'll tell me that sexism only benefits men. They'll claim it's impossible for sexism to go both ways.
September 30: Dom Lawson, the editor-at-large of Metal Hammer, published an article called “Rock bottom: why Mastodon's misogynistic new video misfires”. Like Tom Dare before him, Dom Lawson is manufacturing controversy just to get more pageviews and ad revenue. This isn't helped by the fact that he published this shit on The Guardian, a notorious tabloid rag.
There's not much to talk about here. Dom Lawson is just getting butthurt over women twerking in a Mastodon video. He then expanded that butthurt into six paragraphs. I watched the entirety of that Mastodon video and I didn't find anything wrong with it. Then again, I'm not a thin-skinned crybaby like Dom Lawson. The video was confusing, but not offensive. The key thing I noticed about the video is that the women were having a good time. They weren't being forced to twerk, they weren't feeling oppressed, they were having fun while doing it. How do you explain that, Dom? Are you going to tell them they have “internalized misogyny” or shit like that? The entire article reeks of stupidity. Most idiotic of all is this bit right here:
But no, Dom, I hear you cry, it’s not sexist. It’s funny! Look at those vibrating butt-cheeks! Brilliant. It’s probably ironic or something. Well, no. It’s still sexist. I don’t care how much irony you throw at this. It was sexist when it happened in past videos and it’s still sexist now.
Translation: “Fuck your artistic freedom! You hurt muh feels!” Then there's this bit:
While there are enough genuinely horrifying things happening in the world at the moment, without me getting stressed about a metal band’s poor creative decisions and low-rent sense of humour, it does irritate me, because heavy music has spent the last few decades steadily edging away from an overriding culture of crass misogyny and making the whole scene a lot more welcoming and palatable to women in the process. Twenty years ago, women were a tiny minority at metal shows but things have changed dramatically in recent times and metal is all the better for it.
Okay, Dom. First of all, you just admitted that women twerking in a music video is a first world problem, which means you're getting butthurt over nothing. Second, where in the metal scene is this “culture of crass misogyny” you're talking about? One video that features women twerking is not indicative of a “culture of crass misogyny”. If you really want to know what a misogynistic culture looks like, I suggest you go to the middle east. Finally, which is the more likely explanation as to why there are so few women in the metal scene: is it because metalheads are misogynistic pigs or is it because metal is more likely to appeal to men than to women?
The most nauseating part of this article is the hypocrisy. Dom Lawson goes on and on about how misogynistic the video is, but what's the first thing you see when you load up the article? Big black ass. You just destroyed your credibility right there, Dom. Then again, you wrote this shit for The Guardian, so you didn't have any credibility to begin with.
October 22: Shayne Mathis of Metal Injection published an article called “The Problem With Heavy Metal Is Metalheads: Stop Calling Everyone A Faggot”. This was when metalheads really started to notice the social justice bullshit that was invading the metal scene and fight back against it. To truly understand why so many people got angry at this article, imagine if it was called “The Problem With Atheism Is Atheists” or “The Problem With Video Games Is Gamers”.
This article was torn apart by so many people that I'm just beating a dead horse by this point, but you know what? I don't care. I'm gonna beat that dead horse anyway because it's fun to do so. Long story short, Shayne Mathis states that the word faggot hurts his precious feels, therefore you should stop using it. He's telling metalheads, a group of people who are notorious for shock jock behavior, that he's offended and expecting them to give a shit. The article was a hilarious sight to behold. Shayne Mathis is perfectly comfortable with metalheads writing lyrics about killing people and fucking their entrails and various other unspeakable acts, but god forbid if someone uses the word faggot. In his mind, using the word faggot makes you worse than a billion Hitlers.
One of the most hilarious parts of the article is right at the beginning. Shayne Mathis claims he's been a metalhead for twenty years, but then claims, “I'm tired of always having to justify my love of metal by explaining to outsiders that most metalheads really are good people and not angry, dumb ogres.” Metal values individualism. Metal is about rejecting the herd mentality. It's about not giving a shit what ordinary people think of you. It's about being true to yourself. Caring about the opinions of outsiders is antithetical to what metal's all about. Shayne Mathis claims to have been a metalhead for twenty years, so you'd think he would know this. He goes on to say:
I'm also tired of the intolerance and unwavering dogmatism that infects this community that I otherwise love.
Really? Unwavering dogmatism. In metal. This is pure projection. Shayne Mathis adheres to a dogma that is intolerant of dissenting opinions, but no, it's metalheads who are intolerant and dogmatic. He then says:
Some of you clowns are ruining it for the rest of us, and the purpose of this new semi-regular series called The Problem With Heavy Metal Is Metalheads is to point out some problems within our community and hopefully work to correct them.
Oh yes, if there's anything metalheads love, it's moral busybodies like Shayne Mathis acting as the community police. Metalheads just love submitting to authoritarian cunts and being told what not to do. Then there's this:
It's my hope that the reasonable people reading these posts will engage in calm, rational debate in the comments section despite the reactionary sewage that will almost certainly bubble up from the nastiest, smelliest depths of Metal Injection's commenting community.
Great job shitting on your readers there, Shayne. It's no wonder Metal Injection has such a bad reputation. I also love how you continue to shit on your readers throughout your article by calling them maladjusted imbeciles, mouth breathers, reactionary cretins, internet goons and other insults. It's eerily similar, almost identical, to how gaming journalists would shit on their readers. Someone better call up Leigh Alexander because Shayne Mathis is stealing her shtick!
This article is filled with so much retarded faggotry it's making my head hurt, so I'll just cover the highlights. First of all, Shayne Mathis doesn't have any actual proof that the metal scene is a hostile environment for gay people. Instead, he says the metal scene “can be” a hostile environment for gay people. Shayne Mathis uses such weasel words in his article constantly. Social justice warriors love using vague terms such as “may not” and “can be” in order to keep ordinary people from realizing that their claims are completely baseless. This reminds me of the time when social justice warriors claimed atheist conventions “can be” a hostile environment for women. Social justice warriors use the exact same playbook for every community they invade.
He then says that you shouldn't use the word faggot because it's been used as a slur against gay people since 1914. He is implying that language never changes. By his logic, the word gay still means happy. He then says, “So, if you're one of the few people who honestly don't understand the history of the word, now you know.” Guess what, Shayne? I still don't give a fuck because faggot isn't being used as a slur against homosexuals. It's being used as a slur against whiny bitches like you.
He also links to Tom Dare's shitty clickbait article. Like Tom Dare before him, he doesn't have an actual argument. All he has are a bunch of cheap emotional appeals. And like Tom Dare, he also pretends to speak on behalf of all gay metalheads. After attempting to put us through a massive guilt trip similar to the one Tom Dare tried to put us through, Shayne Mathis ends the article by saying, “Hopefully you'll think twice about the language you use in the future.” My mom said the exact same thing to me the first time I said a swear in public. This is another thing you need to understand about social justice warriors: they think they know what is best for you. They see themselves as brave missionaries who are trying to spread the divine word of social justice to the filthy savages in the metal scene.
Metalheads didn't like how Shayne Mathis was dictating down to them. They responded to the article by laughing at him and repeatedly calling him a faggot. Even gay metalheads were laughing at him. They told him they had no problem with people using the word faggot and that he should stop getting offended on their behalf. They told him that they're not his shield. Shayne Mathis responded to the backlash by claiming that metalheads were just throwing tantrums. Oh yes, Shayne. The only reason people hate your article is because they're unruly children and not because you're trying to force your social justice bullshit onto them.
November 6: Before I rip apart this next article, I need to give you a little background about Babymetal. They are a Japanese band that has become extremely popular in the west. Their entire gimmick is that they feature three little girls looking cute and singing in a cute manner atop metal instrumentals. I tried listening to one of their songs and I couldn't even get past the first minute. The “cutesy” singing was annoying as all hell and the guitars just played a bunch of generic metalcore riffs. After exiting out of the video, I washed the stink out of my ears with some Indonesian brutal death metal. If you ask me, Babymetal is nothing more than a novelty band, and that's all they'll ever be.
Despite being a shitty band with a shitty gimmick, Babymetal is adored by an overwhelming majority of the metal press. Metal journalists constantly parade Babymetal around as though they were the greatest thing to happen to metal since Slayer's Reign in Blood. They also get extremely angry and defensive if you talk shit or make jokes about their favorite metalcore/j-pop fusion band. Case in point, here's an article written by Metal Injection co-founder Robert Pasbani entitled “Can We Stop With The BABYMETAL Pedophilia Jokes?” Long story short, Robert Pasbani got offended over pedo jokes people were making against Babymetal on Metal Injection's facebook page. These were the jokes in question:
Seriously? You're gonna get all assblasted over jokes this tame? Top fucking lel. I've seen far worse jokes than that.
He then bitches and moans about how people are jokingly calling him a pedophile because he like Babymetal. He then says:
Or maybe people just have different tastes, open minds and aren't offended by pop sensibilities entering the metal realm.
You know, funny thing about Metal Injection. The site first became popular by mocking nu metal bands. The fans of these nu metal bands would get offended by the articles Metal Injection would write and claim that “people just have different tastes, open minds and aren't offended by pop sensibilities entering the metal realm”. And now here is the co-founder of Metal Injection making that exact same argument when people mock one of his favorite bands. How he's unable to see the irony of all this is beyond me. He then says:
How is metal supposed to be taken seriously when anytime something comes along that isn't just four dudes from the midwest, it's mocked, criticized and stereotyped? Much like with Shayne's Stop Using the Word Faggot rant earlier this month, it just makes us all look bad.
Holy shit. He's making the exact same argument Shayne Mathis made. Hell, he even links to Shayne Mathis's whiny butthurt clickbaiting article. Rob, have you completely forgotten what music scene you're in? Are you really that out of touch? Metalheads take pride in shocking and offending people. Metalheads take pride in not giving a shit what normal people think of them. Caring about normal people think is, simply put, not metal. I swear, these metal journalists care more about what normal people think than an insecure teenage girl. He ends the article by saying:
I'm not trying to be a social justice warrior here, I'm just trying to tell you to come up with more clever insults.
Yeah, I don't believe this fucker for one second. Don't be fooled by his suggestion to come up with better insults. Social justice warriors want to become the gatekeepers of everything, including comedy. They want to have the power to decide what types of jokes are acceptable. If wimpy, thin-skinned faggots like Robert Pasbani held power fifty years ago, then great comedians like George Carlin and Richard Pryor would not exist.
December 12: Kim Kelly wrote her list for the top ten metal albums of 2014 for SPIN. This in and of itself is unremarkable. What really sent up warning flags was this snippet:
Metal is still dogged by the issues that arise from its deep-seated conservative values, but thanks to an increase in conversations about racism, politics, and feminism, those on the right side of history have gained solid ground.
This is more proof that social justice is trying to invade and destroy metal. Let's start off by examining her laughable assertion that metal has “deep-seated conservative values”. The word conservative is defined as “holding to traditional attitudes and values and cautious about change or innovation, typically in relation to politics or religion”. What kind of person do you think of when you hear the word conservative? You usually think of someone who is deeply religious, is pro-life, votes republican, and supports traditional marriage and societal values. The metal scene can hardly be called conservative what with its liberal use of profanity, blasphemy, and drugs. Not only that, but most metalheads I know are liberal. Of course, to social justice warriors like Kim Kelly, anything that isn't full-blown communism is “conservative”.
Next is her statement that there has been “an increase in conversations about racism, politics, and feminism”. Last time I checked, social justice warriors weren't having conversations with metalheads so much as they were dictating down to us and telling us how horrible we all are, as can be seen by all the previous examples I've listed. Finally, there's this phrase: “the right side of history”. There is no other phrase that reeks of self-righteousness more than “the right side of history”. Communists believed they were on “the right side of history” too, and they ended up killing a hundred million people in the past century.
That one sentence was enough to launch MetalGate, a revolt where metalheads are fighting back against the social justice bullshit that is invading their scene. It might seem silly to think that one sentence is enough to launch a revolt, but as Julius Caesar once said, “In war, great events are the result of trivial causes.”
Closing Thoughts
And this is where we are now. The metal community is currently going through the exact same bullshit the gaming community went through. Metalheads are being attacked and vilified by their own press. Metal journalists are telling us that we are evil, horrible people for refusing to submit to their social justice dogma. I bet you in the next few months all the big metal zines and blogs will publish articles declaring that metalheads are dead all on the same day. Social justice warriors will try to take the metalhead identity away from you the same way they tried to take the gamer identity away from gamers. It maybe tempting to simply ignore them the same way we ignore everyone else who attacks metal. Don't. Social justice warriors are invasive, authoritarian, and sociopathic. They equate silence with agreement. They don't care about you, your music, or your community. They only care about power and control.
If we let social justice warriors have their way, then metal will be purged of all bands they deem “offensive”. Bands like Anal Cunt will no longer be permitted to exist. Freedom of expression will be replaced with self-censorship. Social justice warriors claim they just want to make the metal scene better and more inclusive. Don't believe a single word they say. They said the exact same thing to the gaming community. Next thing everyone knew, they got Grand Theft Auto V pulled from Target stores in Australiabecause it “promotes violence against women”. Do you want censorship like that to befall the metal scene? Do you want to live in a scene where a small group of people get to decide what metal is morally acceptable to listen to? I sure fucking don't.
So how can the metal scene fight back against the social justice menace? There are several strategies you can use. The first is to educate yourself and your fellow metalheads. Thesetwoarticles are a great place to start. They're long, but they're worth the read. Learn about the lies social justice warriors like to spread and how you can counter them. Social justice warriors like to work in the shadows. Trickery and deceit are second nature to them. They operate in the darkness because they know their ideas cannot stand up to scrutiny. Drag them into the sunlight and expose them for the world to see. Show people what kinds of individuals social justice warriors truly are.
The second strategy is mockery. You will never convince social justice metal journalists to come back to the world of reason. If they were smart, then they wouldn't be social justice warriors. Instead, just laugh at them. If a metal journalist tells you that a band is bad because some of its members wrote “racist” lyrics two decades ago, laugh at them. If a metal journalist tells you not to use a certain word, laugh at them. If a metal journalist tells you not to tell certain kinds of jokes, laugh at them. Just look at that article Shayne Mathis wrote. He claimed the article would be the first in a semi-regular series. He has yet to write anything new in that series. I think this is because metalheads laughed at him and repeatedly called him a faggot. I know we don't like to admit it, but mockery works.
The third strategy is to simply stop going to any metal zines or blogs that try to force social justice bullshit onto you. Show them what happens when you bite the hand that feeds you. These social justice metal journalists take their readers for granted. They need to learn that a website is nothing without its readers. Gamers have been extremely successful at boycotting sites that tried to force social justice bullshit onto them. Just look at what happened to Gamasutra. Back in August, they declared that gamers were dead. Their traffic ranking has been going down the shitter ever since.
I believe metalheads can pull off the exact same results. We just need to stop visiting any metal sites that shit on us simply because we refuse to conform to their political ideology. To get you started, here is a list of metal zines and blogs whose writers have been known to disseminate social justice bullshit. If you deny them your clicks, they will shrivel up and die.
Metal Injection
MetalSucks
Terrorizer Magazine
Metal Hammer Magazine
Invisible Oranges
lastrit.es
metalriot.com
Shameless Navel Gazing
Black Metal and Brews
Meat Mead Metal
VICE
SPIN
The final and most important strategy is to build alternatives. It is not enough for us to simply destroy the corrupt. We must also build the virtuous. Be the change you want to see in the metal scene. Are you passionate about metal? Do you like to write? Then create your own blog. Sites like Blogspot and Wordpress make that real easy. I was able to create my blog in five minutes. Provide a better deal than what the social justice metal journalists are offering. Since they constantly attack their own readers, that shouldn't be too hard.
Social justice warriors made a big mistake by picking a fight with metal. They're having a hard enough time fighting against gamers, but gamers are merely driven to win. Metalheads, on the other hand, are a group of people who are so devoted to their music they are willing to die for it. If someone comes after the music they love, they will unleash a storm of fury upon them. Social justice warriors have made many enemies throughout the years. Last year, their enemies started rising up and fighting back. Social justice warriors are now being attacked on all sides by people they had oppressed for so long. In the midst of all this, they thought it would be a good idea to pick a fight with metal. Their fight with metal will be their Stalingrad. This will be the beginning of the end of the tyranny of the easily offended.
07 Jan 23:03
Finally we got to hear what Neil Young's Pono music player sounds like
by James Trew
ArnvidrThis thing is still baffling me, as to what it does VS a flac-enabled player. Anything your study can do, flac can reproduce. Comparing this thing to a youtube video makes no sense.
Herbie Hancock just tickled my ears. Not kidding. Adele did too. But Herbie tickled them better. No, this isn't some weird dream/nightmare. This is Pono. Go listen to Hancock's "Watermelon Man" now (link here). We'll wait. Back? What you just heard was a compressed version of Hancock's classic. What I just heard was not, and the difference is quite dramatic (even over reasonably priced headphones). Good thing too, given that Neil Young's quest with Pono has been to guide us away from the tyranny of the heavily compressed MP3, and steer us to the calm, warm waters of uncompressed audio. But, even though we've followed the Pono story quite closely, we learned a little more about the curious yellow prism today, too.
Such as, what about that curious triangular shape? Ergonomics, and necessity, it turns out. Pono might not fit well in pockets, but it's designed to rest in your hand comfortably. Which, if we think about it, makes some sense. It's also a good shape to house the cylindrical battery that hides inside. That battery has good company too, Pono explained that inside the device there's no amplifier to speak of. It's actually constructed with discrete components from Ayre that are custom-tuned for optimal audio performance. As for the lemon-yellow color choice? That's just for looks. Kickstarter orders (from the very successful campaign) shipped in December, and while there aren't many units floating around right now, you can preorder the $400 player now for the next run in February.Filed under: Handhelds, Home Entertainment
07 Jan 08:07
Wednesday, January 07, 2015
ArnvidrYuuup
Brevity by Dan Thompson for January 07, 2015
Nathan Fhtagn, Tertiarymatt likes this
03 Jan 00:21
Honorable Mentions of 2014
ArnvidrNice to be mentioned alongside Carcass, even though we didn't reach the top 25 (with all the good shit that came out this year, who can complain?)
It’s New Years Eve here in America and unlike all the other metal sites, blogs, zines, etc. out there I haven’t released my top favorite albums of the year. I decided to wait until now because what if I heard an album that made me shit my pants more than some albums on the list I already presented? That’s how I look at it at least.
But today I am just announcing my Honorable Mentions of the year which are the albums that were qualified for the Top 25 list but didn’t quite meet the criteria. I have 6 Honorable Mentions in total for you below that are not put in any particular order by preference. And if you’re wondering when the actual Top 25 is coming out what better day to do it than tomorrow – New Years?
Pro-tip: click on the album cover for a stream of the album and click the text to go to the review I made for the album.
Carcass – Surgical Remission/Surplus Steel
Mushroomhead – The Righteous and the Butterfly
Grave Robber – Straight to Hell
Echo the Aftermath – Echo the Aftermath
Tertiarymatt likes this
25 Dec 22:33
Merry Christmas, everyone! Thank you all so much for reading my...
Merry Christmas, everyone! Thank you all so much for reading my comics over the year, I hope ye’re having a great day.
Tertiarymatt likes this
25 Dec 13:32
The 10 Best Things About Being an Atheist at Christmas
by LaminatorX
ArnvidrI don't understand the first point. Or the eight for that matter. Sure, the name is kinda stupid in English, tying it to christianity, but, in my opinion, "happy holidays" is stupid, and has nothing to do with not being a christian.
Also, not sure what christmas song is better, but the Mariah Carey one is not even in the running.
"gewg_" writes:
Amanda Marcotte notes at AlterNet
We may object to using the holiday as an excuse to push overtly religious songs and prayers on kids in public schools, but the Christmas holiday, despite its religious origins, is accepted by most atheists as a secular holiday and many of us enjoy it as much as the Christians do. In fact, I'd argue there are many advantages to being an atheist, when it comes to celebrating the holidays.
1. Travel flexibility
2. No Christmas mass
3. Sex
4. Creative decorating (a Nativity scene with superhero action figures)
5. Wrapping paper
6. Give me the loot!
7. No praying before the meal
8. "Happy holidays!"
9. Better music. (You can fully admit that "All I Want For Christmas Is You" by Mariah Carey is the best Christmas song, full stop)
10. Better movies
I disagree with her best song selection. The obvious choice is "Five Pound Box Of Money" (Pearl Bailey, 1958).
Read more of this story at SoylentNews.
18 Dec 22:53
Sony Leaks Reveal Hollywood Is Trying To Break DNS
by Soulskill
Arnvidr"
It seems that the bipeds who once inhabited this planet had, at one time, developed a comprehensive worldwide networking system. They accomplished much through it, from exchange of all kinds of information to commercial transactions, education, and even personal communications.
But suddenly, one day, this useful system was destroyed. Apparently a small group of bipeds, which had enriched themselves by creating carefully distorted fictional representations of life and events, decided that the network might be slightly reducing the rate at which they amassed wealth. So they sabotaged it.
We really have no idea what kind of intelligence those bipeds had - if it was even intelligence as we know it."
schwit1 sends this report from The Verge: Most anti-piracy tools take one of two paths: they either target the server that's sharing the files (pulling videos off YouTube or taking down sites like The Pirate Bay) or they make it harder to find (delisting offshore sites that share infringing content). But leaked documents reveal a frightening line of attack that's currently being considered by the MPAA: What if you simply erased any record that the site was there in the first place? To do that, the MPAA's lawyers would target the Domain Name System that directs traffic across the internet. The tactic was first proposed as part of the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) in 2011, but three years after the law failed in Congress, the MPAA has been looking for legal justification for the practice in existing law and working with ISPs like Comcast to examine how a system might work technically. If a takedown notice could blacklist a site from every available DNS provider, the URL would be effectively erased from the internet. No one's ever tried to issue a takedown notice like that, but this latest memo suggests the MPAA is looking into it as a potentially powerful new tool in the fight against piracy. 
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Tertiarymatt, Ronald.phillips likes this
17 Dec 14:49
Torture Report A Best Seller On Kindle, Despite Being Available For Free (And In The Public Domain)
by Mike Masnick
ArnvidrConvenience is a currency.
"You can't compete with free!" is the mantra of a number of copyright maximalists -- and no matter how many times we show them examples of people successfully competing with free, it's still taken as inviolable law by some. Yet, here we are with yet another example of it happening anyway. As you know, last week the Senate Intelligence Committee finally released its CIA torture report (or, rather, the redacted version of the executive summary of the full report). It is a gripping read, and you can read the whole thing here (or embedded below). We can post it here for a variety of reasons, including the fact that the document is in the public domain, as a work of the federal government.
A little over ten years ago, we noted that the famed 9/11 Commission Report, despite also being in the public domain, had become a best seller in its printed version -- even though it, too, was in the public domain. It appears something similar is happening with the CIA torture report. There is a Kindle version that costs $2.99, and despite the report being available as a PDF (which can be viewed on Kindle), the fee-based version of the torture report is the number one seller in the "intelligence & espionage" section (beating out James Risen's recent book Pay Any Price). And this is happening despite the fact that people on Amazon are warning people not to buy the fee-based Kindle version, posting comments to tell them it's just a PDF that's available for free.
Yet, it appears that the convenience factor has made it worthwhile to an awful lot of people, who are willing to pay the money rather than figure out how to get the PDF onto their kindle. As we've pointed out for years, things like convenience and ease-of-use are real selling points -- and it's why things like Netflix and Spotify have been shown to decrease infringement -- because it's worth paying a little extra for a better-to-use system.
Meanwhile, physical copies of the CIA torture report are being rushed out with at least one publisher, Melville House, saying it will be out by the end of the year -- though, I'd imagine others will follow suit. In Michele Boldrin and David Levine's book, Against Intellectual Monopoly, they have a fascinating discussion on how publisher W.W. Norton made out wonderfully in being the first to publish a hard copy of the 9/11 Commission Report, despite not having to pay any copyright royalties:
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A little over ten years ago, we noted that the famed 9/11 Commission Report, despite also being in the public domain, had become a best seller in its printed version -- even though it, too, was in the public domain. It appears something similar is happening with the CIA torture report. There is a Kindle version that costs $2.99, and despite the report being available as a PDF (which can be viewed on Kindle), the fee-based version of the torture report is the number one seller in the "intelligence & espionage" section (beating out James Risen's recent book Pay Any Price). And this is happening despite the fact that people on Amazon are warning people not to buy the fee-based Kindle version, posting comments to tell them it's just a PDF that's available for free.
Yet, it appears that the convenience factor has made it worthwhile to an awful lot of people, who are willing to pay the money rather than figure out how to get the PDF onto their kindle. As we've pointed out for years, things like convenience and ease-of-use are real selling points -- and it's why things like Netflix and Spotify have been shown to decrease infringement -- because it's worth paying a little extra for a better-to-use system.
Meanwhile, physical copies of the CIA torture report are being rushed out with at least one publisher, Melville House, saying it will be out by the end of the year -- though, I'd imagine others will follow suit. In Michele Boldrin and David Levine's book, Against Intellectual Monopoly, they have a fascinating discussion on how publisher W.W. Norton made out wonderfully in being the first to publish a hard copy of the 9/11 Commission Report, despite not having to pay any copyright royalties:
The 81-year-old publisher struck an unusual publishing deal with the 9/11 commission back in May: Norton agreed to issue the paperback version of the report on the day of its public release.…Norton did not pay for the publishing rights, but had to foot the bill for a rush printing and shipping job; the commission did not hand over the manuscript until the last possible moment, in order to prevent leaks. The company will not reveal how much this cost, or when precisely it obtained the report. But expedited printings always cost extra, making it that much more difficult for Norton to realize a profit.As Boldrin and Levine point out, according to copyright system supporters, this situation couldn't possibly work out. After all, Norton is agreeing to publish a work that anyone can get for free, and which any other publisher (including the federal government) can offer for sale at a lower price. In fact, the book notes, a rival publisher, St. Martin's, teamed up with the NY Times and got a second physical copy on the market just a couple of weeks after Norton's physical copy, and priced it at $8.50. Clearly, Norton got a bad deal, right? And yet, Norton sold 1.1 million copies of the book, and donated $600,000 in "profits" from the book to charity. But, you know, you can't compete with free (and public domain).
In addition, the commission and Norton agreed in May on the 568-page tome's rather low cover price of $10, making it that much harder for the publisher to recoup its costs. (Amazon.com is currently selling copies for $8 plus shipping, while visitors to the Government Printing Office bookstore in Washington, D.C. can purchase its version of the report for $8.50.) There is also competition from the commission's Web site, which is offering a downloadable copy of the report for free. And Norton also agreed to provide one free copy to the family of every 9/11 victim.
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Tertiarymatt likes this
16 Dec 23:12
Dead Depressed Tumblr — Twitter — Facebook— Buy my books
Tertiarymatt, Rosalind likes this