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crunchyenglish · 7 years

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Angry Lunatic's Scientific Journal of Shit I Made Up. Vol. This One

Feeling uncharacteristically productive today, and my new job is unusually slow. Time for another edition of my extremely occasional series, where I take the bold, dynamic declarations of the internet's lowest life forms and try to hold them up as an actual scientific hypothesis. I also try to learn something, which is usually the easy part given my limited knowledge base and tremendously narrow worldview. And since I'm making pretty liberal use of the word "scientific", here's the usual disclaimer:

I am not, and never have been a scientist. My education is paltry and laughable. Part of the point of this series is that this knowledge is freely available to anyone with an internet connection (which all my targets obviously have) and a desire to learn (which all my targets obviously lack). My only qualifications are a willingness to spend sometime Googling and a desire to showcase the stupidity of others.

Note: A lot of the dumbest discourse on the Internet these days is political in nature. Nothing seems to shut down people's ability to reason and function quite as much as cheering for or against a political party. And that landscape is currently filled bizarre conspiracy theories that are deeply tempting to rebuke or debunk. However, they aren't really in the spirit of this series, and unfortunately politics breeds that stuff because there's a lot of grey area and no source is considered very objective these days. Also, no one following politics has ever learned anything except "we are a fucked up species", and learning is my stated secondary goal.

So, with the housekeeping out of the way, let's get to this issue's hypothesis. This one comes to us from Mathew Shields. From his website, "He is a free- lance researcher and international speaker on the human energy field, paranormal phenomenon and healing techniques to name a few." That's right, it's time for this journal to up its game and beginning analyzing the claims of professional bullshitters. Mat Shields is a top-shelf dickhead with a bunch of suckers following in tow, and this claim in particular stands out as primo material for our little article:

"Negative Ions- the invisible healer.

Negative ions enhance our mood, stimulate our senses, improve appetite and sexual drive, provide relief from hay fever, sinusitis, bronchial asthma, allergies, migraines, even post operative pain and burns. Negative ions stimulate the reticuloendothelial system which is a group of defense cells in our bodies which marshal our resistance to disease. Negative ions promote alpha brain waves and increased brain wave amplitude which results in a higher awareness level. The body is better able to absorb oxygen into the blood cells, oxidize serotonin and filter airborne contaminants."

That's actually just the opening to a much larger article, in which Mat tells people to keep their shower running constantly in their house, since water in motion produces more "negative ions" than standing water. Before I get angry (ok, I admit it, too late) let's take a moment and appreciate this fine, thick slice of bullshit. This really is a master class. You can tell we've moved up to the big leagues here. You can't tweet this level of bullshit. It's got a bunch of impressive sounding words. It's claims are vague and opaque enough to confuse and desirable enough to tempt. Truly splendid bullshit. Now, let's figure out how we're going to take it down.

Negative Ions are a widespread health myth, propagated by all sorts of pseudo-doctor types. Typing "Negative Ions" into Google is going to get you a lot of positive results, and not all on homemade web pages with links to a Zionist World Order Theory in the sidebar. Sites like WebMD, Nutrition Review and other seemingly "reliable" sites have hosted blogs, articles and editorials by all stripes of quacks, most of whom are happy to push this narrative in order to sell you "negative ion generators" or "negative ion bracelets" or some other brand of this particular snake oil. And the health claims are exactly the kind of unspecific promises on which pseudo-science thrives: more energy, better sex drive, clearing up headaches, the works. Let's start with what a "negative ion" is even supposed to be.

An Ion, as you learned for a test and then promptly forgot in school, is an atom or molecule which is carrying a "charge". This charge is either positive or negative, dependent upon the number of electrons versus the number of protons. More electrons creates a net negative charge, fewer creates a net positive charge. The actual term for a negatively charged ion is an anion. This is a clever dodge by the quacks here. If you google "Negative Ions" you get all their bullshit, in no way hampered by any actual science, because people who know what the fuck they're talking about don't use that phrase.

Supposedly, these electron discrepancies are the source of "Negative Ion"'s "healing" powers. The only thing Anions should attract are positively charged ions, called cations. This is simple electromagnetism. Negative attracts positive and repels other negatively charge particles. Arguably, you could say that Anions would also "repel" or push out other Anions, but if that's how they work you wouldn't feel any of their numerously claimed benefits. So, unless positively charged Ions, cations, are constantly draining you of energy, causing you pain, making your dick wilt, and are giving you hay fever, then there's no reason for fucking Anions to have any benefit to you.

And I can even prove cations aren't doing that. Coulomb's law bitches! I could try to stumble through a basic explanation, but for the sake of accuracy, let's just cut and paste this next part:

Coulomb's law states that: The magnitude of the electrostatic force of attraction between two point charges is directly proportional to the product of the magnitudes of charges and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between them. The force is along the straight line joining them.

Short answer, if for some reason, you had a bunch of positively charged cations clogged up in your body, you would be constantly discharging them anyway. You are constantly coming into contact with Anions, they are exceptionally common. You don't need "constantly splashing water", or a "negative ion generator" whatever the fuck that's supposed to do. Oxygen is a goddamn Anion. Fluoride is an Anion. Chloride is an Anion. Cyanide is a goddamn, fucking Anion.

Ions are everywhere. I mean it, fucking EVERYWHERE. The forming of covalent bonds is the literal building blocks of the entire universe. To somehow suggest that nearly everything in the universe is divided into "neutral atoms", "the good thingys" and the "bad thingys" is fucking infantile nonsense. It's stupid on a level that I can barely comprehend and I once scrolled through Trump's twitter feed for nonsense for another article. If you're having trouble understanding the absolute incoherency of the bullshit here, let me try an example.

Imagine if I told you that all nutrition was categorized in three ways - Solid, Liquid and Jell-O. Now imagine that I also tried to convince you that Liquid was "The Bad One" and tried to sell you a device that turned all liquid food into Jell-O. That's the level of arbitrary crazy we're talking here. The only apparent thing you have to do to convince people to buy your shit is keep the benefits vague and use science-y sounding bullshit like "Negative Ions".

This one was less experimental than some other articles I've written. I didn't cite my sources properly, and I ranted a lot more. That's because I'm starting to think that writing rebuttals and thought experiments is the wrong tact for solving this problem. Maybe you need to already be a trusted quack and then tell people to their face that you simply fooled them and stole their money.

To that end, I'm proud to announce my new product - the Energy Wave Modulator Collar. Simply place it around your neck and let it's natural minerals effortless modulate the alpha waves in your brain and the beta...channels...in your....ehhh, let's say eyes. You'll see results in just a few days, or hours, or weeks. Your headaches will be far less frequent and more manageable. Your energy levels will rise. Your sensation of taste will greatly improve, and everything will smell just slightly like vanilla. You'll gain immunity to bee-stings. Your dick will stay incessantly hard for days at a time. If you don't have a dick your uterus will make friends with you and never hurt ever again out of respect for that one time you came to its birthday party. You will suddenly eat healthier and make better romantic choices. Buy my shit, losers.

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crunchyenglish · 7 years

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Canada’s National Motto Must Become: “Love Thy Neighbor”

I’m not a religious man. In fact, certain churches and faiths have been known to draw my ire from time to time. I believe the phrase “idiotic superstition” may have been used once or twice.

I’m not a compassionate man, either, to be honest. I’m a firm believer that actions have consequences, and sometimes the only way a person learns is to face those consequences head-on, without a bulwark.

To be honest, I’m not even a really nice guy. I like to make snide jokes, I think I’m more clever than I really am, and I often speak, even if I have nothing nice to say.

But if there’s one quasi-religious doctrine I can get behind, it’s definitely the one about loving thy neighbor.

The United States has elected Donald Trump. He has been inaugurated. The fear and anxiety of reasonable Americans is pouring out in waves. Pages about LGBT support and Climate Change have already been removed from Whitehouse.gov. Racist remarks are boiling over in comment sections across the net. Sexist comments and harassment of women are on the rise. It’s small wonder the truly despicable of humanity have started to become more brazen. Their role model has just captured the highest office in the land. If America follows the same pattern which proceeded the Brexit vote, you can expect spikes in hate crimes over the next few days. Like a handful of countries before them, America is experiencing an ugly expression of nationalistic, racist populism that has always sat dormant at the heart of their country’s identity.

In Canada, we have Trump supporters. Not many I hope, but some certainly. And they too, will feel emboldened by Trump’s victory. Expect hateful internet comments to rise. Expect racism to become more explicit. Expect sexism to become more commonplace. I’d like to think it will be in smaller measure than in the United States, but in my heart I know that fear and ignorance can thrive in Canada as well as anywhere else if it’s allowed to.

And that’s the key. Canada has to rally around the idea that we will not allow that to happen.

Canada is as diverse in population, culture and region as it is in ecological biomes. And those different groups often feel divided, or at the very least disconnected. French vs. English. West vs . East. Presumably some truly insane people have something against the Maritimes, but I kinda hope not.

We joke about bonding over Tim Horton’s or Hockey, or apologizing, or just plain not-being Americans, but the truth is, when you take a scant 38 million people, and spread them across the second largest landmass on Earth, it isn’t surprising that we often feel like we have little to nothing in common. Like we lack a unifying voice or presence. And Trudeau, whom I actually quite like if I’m being honest, is not the political heavyweight needed to bring this country together. I’m not sure any one politician could. No, we need more than a force of charisma to bind us together. We need more than a goal, or a war, or common enemy. What we need, more than anything else is a mantra. An ethos.

“Love Thy Neighbor”

I want to see a Canada, coast to coast, rallied behind the idea that we are a safe and welcoming place for everyone here. That we each take personal responsibility in protecting and caring for one another. I’m not talking about immigration debate, that’s a different issue. Whether you feel we should be bringing in fewer or more potential citizens is politics, and what I’m talking about is a national identity. Whether you think we should make our immigration more or less strict is inconsequential to how you treat the people that that are already here. People here are working hard, often supporting families, and deserve respect, compassion and security.

When the skinheads, and the white supremacists and the sex offenders begin to worm their way out of Canadian gutters, I want each of every one of us to take personal pride in saying:

“No. I’m sorry, but you don’t get to speak about my neighbor that way. They are a part of my community.”

Whether than neighbor is in your town, or your province, or on the other side of the country is irrelevant. Canadians know that what makes Canada great, or what could make Canada even greater is that we, as Red Green used to say, are all in this together. That we will each loudly and proudly proclaim every one of our neighbors under our protection. That the security, health and well-being of Ever Canadian is the responsibility of every other Canadian.

If that’s too bleeding heart for you, than take the pragmatic approach. The next time some guy starts mouthing off about how his gay neighbor is a “fucking fag” you tell him you won’t hear that crap. To be quiet or take it somewhere else. Not because you’re some crusading avenger of gay rights, but because you’re doing your part to make your own community, the place where you live, a safer and happier place. Consider it an investment in your property values, if you need to see a dollar and cents incentive. Because the safer and healthier Canadians are, the more economic stability you will see.

Canadians may not agree on much of anything, but one things we do want is a strong and proud country. We want safer communities. We want safer families and children. We want what’s best for ourselves, and our neighbors.

We can do it Canada. We can rally around the idea that in a world gone mad with hate and fear, at least one community will be full of concerned and caring neighbors. Not because we’re all just super nice, although that would be cool. No, because that’s just the kind of place we want to live in.

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crunchyenglish · 7 years

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Is Donald Trump a Legitimate President?

So, here’s a fun little graphic sent to me by a friend:

My friend and I are both Canadian. For us, Donald Trump is always seen through a filter, provided by our great nation’s sovereignty. To suggest that who the President of the United States is doesn’t matter to us is to be a bit naive about the U.S.’s global impact politically, but I think it’s fair to say it matters less to Canadians than it does to level-headed Americans.

(Here’s a “fun” side story. The night Donald J Trump was elected United States President, I was on a 5 hour flight back from Fort McMurray where I’d been working with disaster relief teams. Every channel you could get well in the air on this particular flight was election coverage. Your options were, provide your own entertain, buy a movie, or watch election coverage. The plane was about 15 minutes from landing when it was announced he won. The whole plane was devastated. Children crying. People were sobbing, shaking their heads. The Pilot made an announcement saying he was disappointed too but that everyone really needed to keep calm. Canadians can pretend his election doesn’t affect us, but when faced with the reality of it, everyone on that plane knew the truth.)

So we care but not as much as Americans, who are more directly affected, might. If we care, it’s probably more because we care more about concepts like justice, human decency, honesty and integrity than who gets to sleep in the big white house.

But a lot of Americans are upset, rightfully so. And some Canadians too. Because Trump is awful.

(The fact that Trump is awful? That’s not really up for debate at this point, but if you feel the need to point out that I shouldn’t just assert Trump is an inhuman, racist, sexist, lying prick without evidence, you’re technically right. In lieu of that evidence, howabout you just boot up, CNN, Washington Post, New York Times or literally any television within a hundred miles. Chances are it’s talking about some horrible shit Trump did right now. And if you said “Those are fake news”, do me a favour:

1) Buy a boat. Maybe give it a fun name like the “U.S.S. Spray Tan”

2) Take the boat out on to the ocean. Really get out there.

3) Pour kerosene on the boat, and then light it.

4) Burn to death, while drowning. Thanks. You’ve just single-handedly raised the level of public discourse in America.)

So Trump’s a dick, but as this chart points out, you can’t just hashtag “Not MY President” and pretend to be doing something about it. In fact, trying to discredit the sitting President, or attack his legitimacy is something we frequently got pretty mad about when people did it to Obama with such iron clad logic as “He’s Black, and therefore from Africa”. When I say “people” I mean obviously, Donald Trump, but hey, let’s not beat a dead horse.

America is rooted in the idea that the will of the people be heard. Donald Trump won an election, and by the rules of the game, that makes him the will of the people. You can hate Donald Trump, but attacking the legitimacy of his presidency is attacking the legitimacy of the election. If trust in the electorate falls low enough, than America’s great experiment ultimately ends in failure. You can’t attack the results you don’t like without eroding the system that got you there.

And it’s not like that system is perfect. As is worth pointing out (and reminding yourself as you hug a teddy bear and rock yourself back and forth in the fetal position at night) Trump lost the popular vote by a wider margin than any president in history, over 3 million votes. Voter suppression of minorities was rampant in places like North Carolina, Michigan and Nevada. Oh, and FBI director James Comey made public declarations about Hillary Clinton’s emails eleven days before the election in direct violation of FBI policy, commenting on a current and open investigation. So yeah, the electoral college isn’t perfect and neither is American democracy. People have their thumbs on the scale for sure. Reforms are needed. But for the time bring, you can’t use those problems to undermine the office itself and declare and president illegitimate.

So, if you want to hold Trump accountable for his disgusting words and actions, hey, go ahead. He’s clearly broken a bunch of laws, between his fraudulent university scam, the accusations of sexual assault, and his failure to pay hundreds of people who work for him. Attacking Trump on specific issues doesn’t negate his election, but it could deal with him without decaying the faith in the electorate. But that should be it, because calling him an illegitimate president would need massive evidence to back it up. Otherwise, you’ve set a precedent for every losing party to attack democracy itself whenever they get a result they don’t like. And surely, the evidence that Trump’s win is illegitimate doesn’t actually exist, or hasn’t been produced...right?

Actually, we have no idea. See, if Trump conspired with the Russian government to undermine his political opponents, that’s not a problem with the election. That’s treason and espionage. It would suggest that America elected, what is in essence, a stand-in for a foreign government. That would be completely illegitimate. The CIA, NSA and FBI clearly investigated Trump ties to the Russian government, but none of them seem to be willing to release too much in the way of details to the press. Ex-MI6 agent Christopher Steele leaked a massive report to the press, suggesting Trump is basically a puppet candidate, but the media focused on a juicy bit of gossip about Trump being urinated on by a pair of Russian prostitutes instead, and then turned around and called Steele “discredited”. Despite the fact that he has not been discredited and in fact jeopardized his career to release those documents when it was clear his superiors wouldn’t, because they feared revealing sources they had in Russia.

About a dozen members of Trump’s campaign, including Secretary of State nominee Rex Tillerson, have strong financial and political ties to Russia. And Trump has refused for weeks now to say anything negative about Vladimir Putin or his hostile regime. Remember, Russia invaded Crimea this year and that problem didn’t go away when CNN started election coverage. Russia wants the Ukraine, they want to undermine NATO and potentially start a new Warsaw Pact. That would be infinitely easier to do if Trump defunded American support to NATO which he has publicly stated he planned to do over a dozen times during the election. Note that supporting NATO and America’s European allies was standard Republican policy until Trump suddenly flipped one day. It’s highly suspicious.

But, you can’t impeach a president on suspicion alone. And whatever tack you take on attacking Trump, you can’t do it by attacking the election results or the electoral college directly. If you want to avoid a president who can lose the popular vote by 3 million and still win office, that will take thoughtful reform. If you want Trump gone, you’re going to need to attack his crimes and his words at every opportunity. But #Notmypresident accomplishes nothing, and worse, might even damage American democracy. Pick another strategy.

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crunchyenglish · 7 years

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Angry Lunatic’s Scientific Journal of Shit I Just Made Up- Vol. 4

First, a personal bit, you can skip to the first bold heading if you just want the article.

This issue, brought to you by insomnia.

See, I don’t write all the much anymore. It’s not that I don’t have the time, over the past few weeks I have more time than I’ve had in forever. No, the problem lately is that all the joy I used to get from writing is sort tainted by the fact that I’ve basically given up on ever getting any good at it. Oh, it’s not that I couldn’t get good at it. Writing is a skill like any other, it requires, primarily, practice. If you write frequently, and have the common courtesy to view your own work critically, or at least have someone you trust do so, then eventually you’ll get better. The thing is, I apparently lack the emotional fortitude and personal discipline to do all the hard work of sucking for a long time and getting better. Which is childish and petty, and fills me with guilt every time I sit down to type. I think about something I would like to write every now and again. Every I time I do I think about how bad the final product will inevitably be, how it only represents only one tiny grain in the hill of salt it takes to really log the hours, put in the practice and get good at something. Then, I feel discouraged. Then, on another layer I feel stupid and lazy for feeling that way and suddenly writing seems exhausting instead of fun, expressive and creative like how I used to find it. Make no mistake, I used to write a lot. Usually by virtue of not giving a damn about things like quality or self-improvement. One of the reasons for that was, for a period of about two years, I was sleeping roughly 25 minutes a day.

Writing in the middle of the night (current time 1AM) is one of the things I always used to do to stave off all the horrible things that happen to a person suffering with insomnia. See when I, for any particular reason and at any point in my life, don’t have enough to fill my day, move my body or stimulate my mind, I stop sleeping. I just don’t feel tired because I haven’t been challenged, I guess. While that sounds great in theory, because of my oddball, though I imagine more common than I realize, psychological hang-ups, it often quickly devolves into a nightmare. Sleepless nights inevitably spiral into depression, hypochondria, marked isolation from my friends and family, terrible nightmares and weird, inexplicable health problems. I’m fairly certain the shaking, the random pains and bizarre tingling feelings I’ve been experiencing the past few days are psychosomatic, but they make it even harder to sleep. It creates a recursive loop that’s hard to break and normally takes either isolated events forcing me to fix my natural sleep patterns, or just having somewhere specific I’m obligated to go everyday to get me back on track. Until then, being up in the middle of the night, desperate for distraction has left me trying to dig up old habits and start writing again. I can’t promise quality, only that until my sleep schedule resolves I’m probably going to do a lot more of this.

As for what I should write? Well, that part is easy. The last “Angry Lunatic’s Scientific Journal of Shit I Just Made Up” was a take down of some vegetarian’s pseudo-science bullshit excuse for why humans shouldn’t eat meat. I remember being fairly pleased with it when I wrote it...in April 8 months ago. It now feels like an impossibly stupid “punching-down” argument against someone who wasn’t hurting anybody, given recent events. For those of you who’ve been blessed with an enormous head injury in the ensuing months, Donald Trump is now president-elect of the most powerful nation on Earth, his VP is ten times worse and he just made the CEO of ExxonMobile his Secretary of State. Remember people who used to chant “No Blood for Oil” at President Bush? Those people are about to seem impossibly quaint. At least old Dubya never let the oil companies actually put themselves third in line for the presidency and officially decide who America bombed next.

And, no surprise, the election of a racist, misogynist game-show host to highest office in the land has emboldened a lot of crazies, providing them the confidence they were apparently lacking to present an awful lot of “thesis” points for my infrequent bashing of internet stupids, and ensuing attempts to still squeeze some useful knowledge out of attacking their bullshit. So, without further ado.

ISSUE 4 - The Easiest Target, Ever.

So, on his legendarily toxic twitter account, President-Elect Donald Trump once wrote-

Oh? What, you thought this was going to be about some random crazy person on the internet? A Trump follower, maybe, but not the man himself? Well, I got news for you pal, in order to find someone spouting off lunatic-level anti-science, pseudo-intellectual bullshit, I don’t actually have to go that far down the pipe. The man himself routinely qualifies for this article series with some of the most brain-hemorrhaging stupidity you’ve ever seen. I could write this series once a week, every week, forever, based purely on what he’s already tweeted out and never feel pressed for material. In fact, if I ever write another one of these? I will need serious self-discipline to not just pick on Trump again, and move on to some other deserving fuckstick.

To wit, here’s what the racist, serial rapist version of “Wink Yahoo” (Look it up) had to say about, oh, let’s say environmentally-friendly, energy efficient light bulbs:

Remember, new "environment friendly" lightbulbs can cause cancer. Be careful-- the idiots who came up with this stuff don't care.

11:39 AM - 17 Oct 2012

Now, it’s safe to assume that Trump is talking about Fluorescent Lightbulbs here, but since the word “fluorescent” is polysyllabic, asking him to actually use that word is probably tough, even if it takes fewer characters than “environmentally friendly” On the other hand, “fluorescent” is a 19th century term derived from a combination of “opalescence” as in “shiny” and “fluorite” a geological term for a certain hardness of rock. Do you think Trump could have managed “Shiny Rock Lights”? That feels about right for him.

Anyway, obviously saying something causes cancer is one of those nice, evergreen sort of scare tactics that seems to apply to absolutely everything and absolutely nothing, but not always in equal measure. Cigarettes definitely cause cancer, but so too does Sunlight. Cell phones might, but nobody can prove it . And so it goes. Basically, if I held influential sway over a group of people and I wanted them to hate, boycott or protest something man made, Cancer is probably going to be my golden-egg laying goose. I can simply level the accusation, people will freak out and panic, and because the causal connection between cancer and just about anything takes decades of studies to empirically prove or disprove, scientists will never be able to call me fucking stupid. Hell, it took a metric fuckton of data and thirty years of sorting through misinformation to prove smoking caused cancer, and scientists were pretty sure of that link back when Fred Flintstone was hocking that shit.

But just because scientists can’t call Donald Trump fucking stupid, doesn’t mean I can’t. As I often open this series with, I am not a scientist. I am just the lucky latest in a long line of halfway smart folks who get to say the obvious.

Donald Trump is fucking stupid.

Still, that’s not why we’re here. We’re here to dig deep into the stupid and find the nuggets of truth that might be there, and see what interesting actual facts we can sort out along the way. Here we go.

The idea that fluorescent lightbulbs might cause cancer is based on two elements of their design and use. First, their construction involves trace elements of mercury, which you might recognize as the highly effective syphilis treatment that fucking murders you and another good reason to never drink the contents of a thermometer. Mercury is about as toxic as anything on this planet gets and when you tell people it’s in something, they almost always panic, at least a little. Worse, mercury poisoning is not some long lost trial of generations past like polio or slave revolts. Due to toxic waste dumping into lakes and rivers contaminating fish, people still suffer from mercury poisoning today.

In fact, it was only in 2013 that an International Negotiating Committee in Geneva, Switzerland produced a global treaty to protect people from Mercury poisoning. That’s right, only three years ago did the governments of the world finally reach a consensus on the hot-button political issue of “Not Poisoning Everyone”. Awesome.

And remarkably, no one attacked the fluorescent lightbulb industry, whose incredibly minor use of mercury can barely be registered. Trump was wrong, what else is new. But while Trump was wrong about lightbulbs, turns out he wasn’t completely wrong about Mercury. Check it out:

Once people started checking into this kind of thing, turns out we had more Mercury in our stuff than we were supposed to. In very small amounts, Mercury is basically harmless. For example it’s in a lot cosmetic products used to “lighten” skin tones. According the American FDA the acceptable amount of mercury in such a product should be about 1ppm (that’s parts per million for my fellow liberal arts majors who somehow have also never watched any movies or television). After this treaty however, one 2014 medical study found that 3.3% of these cosmetics sold in the United States were found to exceed 1000ppm. Holy Shit.

To give you an idea how fucking awful that is I’m going to use an example with a poison most of you are probably more familiar with; Alcohol.

Where I live, in Ontario, the max Blood Alcohol Level is .08, that is 80 milligrams of alcohol per 100 milliliters of blood. Since that’s the legal limit before you’re considered intoxicated, your average bartender should cut you off somewhere right under that number if they know you’re an idiot and are planning to try and drive. Granted, most people know better than to drive drunk these days and so have a plan in place that let’s them drink more, but don’t derail my awesome metaphor with your logic. A lethal dose of booze, which results in fatal alcohol poisoning, is about 0.4, give or take. So, if you ingest about 5 times the legal limit in Alcohol, that shit goes from “Party Time” to “Would you prefer Oak or Mahogany for the casket?”

5 Times. Go 5 times about the legal limit on that poison, and you’re basically a pickled corpse. And some cosmetic companies were dosing their customers with 1000 times the legal limit of this other, way less common, poison. Granted the FDA already got those bastards, and good for them, but isn’t it weird you never heard about it? Wouldn’t THAT be something for the president-elect to actually warn people about? But Trump’s never had a problem with the cosmetic companies that keep his potential victims looking hot, so he attacked fucking lightbulbs instead. A great opportunity for public health awareness, wasted by a guy who just wanted to attack...what? Those “elitist” pricks who want lightbulbs to be brighter and last longer? Fucking Left-Coast Bastards! Sitting in the dim light of a single incandescent bulb in my rice and ammo bunker while lovingly stroking my AR-15 is my right as an American, dammit!

Ah, but just so you think I’m not cherry-picking, let’s go over the other reason some people freak out about fluorescent light bulbs, (Yes, we live in a society not only where people flip the fuck out over lightbulbs, but they do so for wholly separate reasons. We are fucked.)

Still, I hear you say, Trump wasn’t talking about Mercury! He was warning us that fluorescent lightbulbs produce UV radiation. What now? Are you going to try and tell us Ultraviolet Radiation isn’t bad?

Nope. UV Rads are really, really fucking bad for you. You don’t have to take my word for it, though. The giant holes, plural, in the ozone layer are going to make that point explicitly clear over the next few decades. When we need fucking spacesuits to walk across Nebraska, or my hometown is completely underwater, the immense damage UV radiation can cause is going to be really apparent. Especially since Trump just made climate change denier Scott Pruitt head of the EPA.

This all goes back to a highly dubious study carried out by Stony Brook University a few years ago. They showed that a protective coating on some fluorescent lightbulbs tended to break down over time, leading to the bulbs giving off potentially dangerous UV radiation capable of resulting in melanoma. Potentially harmful stuff, and probably caused by some companies cheating on the protective layers in the bulbs, particularly on coloured lights. What does that mean exactly on threat level?

Well, the threat assessment of the researchers showed that prolonged exposure to these lights at close range, within about one foot give or take, could be considered roughly equivalent to equal time “sunbathing at the equator”

My country’s government, through Health Canada, has basically concluded fluorescent lights to be safe, although they also point out that keeping a lit bulb within 30cm (that’s Canadian for one foot, folks) for a period of over three hours could result in skin damage.

So, actually, there’s some merit to Trump’s twitter ranting on this one. Technically, if you have a very nearby fluorescent light, say on a desk lamp, pointed directly at you for a period of about four hours, the research shows you are, actually, basically sunbathing. You could need sunscreen for that shit. But lest we think Trump actually had a point, let’s now point out all the ways what he said was fucking stupid.

1) Trump did not point out the severely limited scenario in which these lights could be a potential hazard or how to avoid it. He just said “light bulbs” cause cancer. That’s irresponsible and a stupid oversimplification, but hey, Twitter isn’t exactly a detail-oriented medium. Still, even in his limited character space he managed to not address the issue in anyway, instead choosing to...

2) He spends the back half of this tweet insulting...uh, the people who invented fluorescent energy efficient lightbulbs? Bulbs which have existed since the 1940s? Does Trump think “Big Lightbulb” is knowingly giving people cancer so they can sell....a less profitable lightbulb?

3) He put “environmentally friendly” in quotes. Which is fucking weird. Am I supposed to infer from that that fluorescent bulbs aren’t more efficient? I mean, I’m not a scientist but I can pretty easily keep track of how often I change a lightbulb. I change fluorescent ones less often. What terrible conspiracy am I supposed to be suspicious of here? I doubt even Trump knows, but since “environmentally friendly” is something the left supposedly cares about, he has to put it air quotes so people know he thinks it’s full of shit. I swear to God, at some point in his first 100 days he’s going to but the words “diplomacy” or “Allies” in quotations just to show outright contempt for somebody trying to avert a fucking war.

4) Finally, and I’m sorry for taking a swing at this impossibly easy target, but I’ve put it off for like 2000 words and I’ve fucking earned this damnit:

YOU ARE FUCKING ORANGE.

Orange. The man is a spray-tan advertisement come to life, if spray-tan companies thought “racist sex offender” was going to attract young people. You will not, ever, convince me that he has not spent a thousand fucking hours sitting in some tanning bed, pelting his own disgusting, sagging sexual predator body with about 5000 times as much UV radiation as it should ever be exposed to. You do not get to wildly and ignorantly blather on to your idiot twitter followers that their desk lamp might be fucking killing them, when you sought out a metric fuckton of the same supposedly dangerous light particles just so you could go from “sad, regular, 70 year-old man” to Rape-O the Clown.

So that’s it. I actually meant to do dive deeper into Trump’s irresponsible abuse of the truth, but 2800 words in and all I managed to tackle was the fucking lightbulbs. This is the inherent problem with trying to engage Trump in discourse by the way. He spouts off a psycho-level bit of stupid in 8 seconds back in 2012, and to show off all the ways it’s stupid takes me several hours of Googling and ranting. It will always be easier to be loud and wrong, than researched and right. And he produces so much of this trash that even just cataloging could be a full time job for a half dozen people.

There’s been a lot of think pieces about why America wasn’t bothered by Trump’s racism. Or his sexism. Or his obvious contempt for important American institutions, its allies or its history. They all seemingly wanted to ask “Was half America always secretly racist/sexist/anarchists?” And they phrased it that way so they could reassuringly print the words “No, he just conned them. Or promised them something unrealistic. Or demonized the left so well he was left to them as the only option”. Which is probably somewhat true and nice to hear, but doesn’t really address the bigger problem.

Trump’s a liar, and nobody cares.

See, if America was 51% racists, at least that would be a problem you could combat. Racism is just hate and fear and negative emotions like that can usually be undermined by attacking underlying ignorance. That might sound naive, but it works. Hate only really thrives when you keep people in a bubble and reinforce myths and stereotypes about the “other” you’re trying to vilify. Forcing people to confront the people that are supposedly the enemy can usually dissuade them of their hate, at least in part and over a long enough period of time.

Trump’s terrible, horrendous, rage-inducing brilliance is that he didn’t really attack people. Oh sure, he called most Mexican immigrants rapists, he wants Muslim internment camps and he thinks he can “undo” most of what gay rights accomplished throughout the United States over the course of the last two decades, but that isn’t his real goal. No, Trump’s real target was trust. Trust in the media, which was always low. Trust in the Congress which was already laughable. But also from there, trust in one another. Trust in fellow Americans. Trust in other ethnicities. Foreign Allies. Universities and educators. Trust in police. Trust in other Republicans.

Because once Trump has eroded enough Trust, you couldn’t attack him with evidence and facts anymore. Anything could be a biased slant, or a new conspiracy or fabricated lies. He became a lot of people’s only trusted public figure, a privilege he abused the ever loving shit out of by lying every three minutes. That’s not a made up statistic by the way, Politico.com timed and averaged it out.

You wanna minimize the damage of a Trump presidency? I can think of only one way, and that’s to earn public trust back into the hands of the people Trump undermined. Congress is too much to hope for, probably, those guys were fucked before The Donald showed up, but everyone else is fair game.

It doesn’t have to be a grand gesture or a massive movement, either. Friendly, helpful and outgoing Americans can reach out in their communities, push past the angry hate-filled bullshit they were going to have to endure over the next four years anyway, and just make their country, town or county a better place. The more people do that, the more Trump’s bullshit fear mongering will ring hollow. Kill’em with kindness, folks.

And so ends the longest and most politically charged issue of this so-called “Journal” I will ever write. If you made it this far, you are an awesome person and I can only hope I at least made it a little entertaining. Thanks.

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crunchyenglish · 8 years

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Acting With Purpose

*”He who makes a beast of himself, gets rid of the pain of being a man - Dr. Samuel Johnson”*

I first saw that quote scratched into a cement pillar as graffiti, poorly spelled and improperly attributed. It moved me immediately and I think about it often. I think it might be one of the most reasonable and useful quotations I’ve ever come across.

At its surface level, as perhaps some teenage vandal once interpreted it, it would suggest that our conscience is a burden. It is painful, unwieldy and inconvenient to be humane but nobly, humanity continues to care and treasure our better nature. It would be easier to be wicked, but we value the pain of being decent. A decent enough interpretation, I suppose.

But as I lie awake this evening, I can’t help but view this quotation in a different light.

Recently, I had a bad spot of luck. I assure you, it was a minor and uninteresting affair. Certainly, it was not sympathetic enough to prattle away about here, but for me, it was a deeply troubling period. I found myself, for the first time in my adult life, uncertain about what my best option was. When crossroads had come up in the past, I had always acted decisively and with little second-guessing. Sometimes it worked out, sometimes it failed spectacularly, but if I had regrets they were normally soon forgotten. This time was different. I knew I was facing a turning point in my life, and I also knew I had no instinct for the correct course. The situation has changed, somewhat, but not overly improved. I can parley for time, but I am coming to a decision point eventually. I am riddled with doubt and no amount of soul searching seems to help. I am paralyzed with fear. I am adrift. But we’ll come back to that in a moment. Bear with me, for just a moment, as I want to help you follow my, somewhat convoluted, train of thought. I promise I’m going somewhere with this.

I am no stranger to religious arguments, and I indulge in them with reckless abandon. I find the mental contortions of religious arguments pretty ridiculous on the whole, and delight in pointing them out. As you might expect, this makes me less than fun at parties and has offended a few friends and family members over the years. Because of this, I’ve heard no shortage of reasoning on why people choose to believe in God, Gods or other supernatural mysticism.

One typical cynical response from an atheist like me is, fear of death. I’ve actually claimed this one before and now that I hold it up and inspect it, I think I might be incorrect in that assertion. Certainly, nearly every religious organization promises some kind of infinite existence. Reincarnation, Heaven, Hell, Nirvana, what have you. There is something deeply insulting about just how vague and juvenile the promise of Heaven is, for example. “Eternal Happiness” is a meaningless phrase which we can in no way conceptualize, but it doesn’t matter because a great many people find the phrase “Eternal Torment” equally reassuring. The point is, there’s an endless existence and even if it all sucks forever, it doesn’t end. For some people fear of death might indeed be enough reason for them to believe. But I doubt that’s the main reason, because it doesn’t explain the atrocities and horrible acts some religious individuals get talked into committing. Voltaire said " Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities.” and he was right. In order for some people to be pushed into that kind of extremism, violence and other horrible hallmarks of religious history though, they need to be moved by more than fear of death. Because again, even the sinners continue to exist, just in less comfortable accommodations. You could believe in God, disobey him when he ordered you to hurt someone, and still get to exist.

A believer, on the other hand, will probably start with some useless nonsense about how they “just know”, as though they’ve been gifted some secret knowledge from a magical source. This is an argument-ender and is a religious person’s way of asking to not discuss faith anymore without “admitting weakness”. It’s annoying and useless but there’s nothing to be done about it. You can’t, and shouldn’t, force a religious argument on the unwilling. It’s rude, among other things.

Sometimes though, you can get a much more revealing response from a believer. Sometimes they will say “The universe can’t be a fluke” or “where did all this come from, if not God” or better yet, “If there’s no God, what’s the point of all this?”. And there it is, Doctor Johnson’s quote, illustrated clear as day.

God can be “the point” of life. He’s a purpose. If you dedicate yourself to a religion, than that religion takes the reins of your life. It guides you when you’re feeling lost, adrift. Sometimes it guides you even to bloodshed, but you hang on, because it’s guided you this far.

And of course, being me, I picked on religion, but that’s hardly the only game in town. Political Parties. Anarcho-communist rallies. Sexism debates. Conspiracy Theories. Console Fanboy Wars. It’s all the same. Causes. Doctrines. Purpose.

Whether you make yourself into a beast, or a slave, or a fanatic, you always become one thing - a follower. A follower is relieved of the burden of choosing his own path. He never feels lost, or confused. He has somewhere to go to relieve his doubt. To restore his “faith”. To stave off the feeling that he doesn’t know his next move.

When Doctor Johnson talked about the “pains of being a man”, I don’t think he meant our compassion, or goodwill toward our fellow man. He didn’t mean our guilt or our conscience. He meant our doubt. He meant our uncertainty. He meant our fear. A beast has no doubt, it acts on instinct. A slave has no doubt, because he has no choice. A fanatic has no doubt, because he has only faith.

I am staring down the barrel of a decision that I know will have serious consequences. I’m scared, and I’m uncertain. It’s tempting to follow someone else’s lead. To throw my hands up in despair and reach for anything willing to grasp them. It would be easier. It would be less frightening. It would make what happens next feel like it had a clearer, more detailed purpose.

But it wouldn’t be MY purpose. It wouldn’t be my choice. And in that moment, I would lose a lot of myself. That doubt and fear and uncertainty that I’m feeling is nothing to be ashamed of. Tonight, it feels like a badge of honour. Tonight, I’m at a crossroads, lost. But whatever direction I choose, I will have forged my own path. I’m going to endure the pain of being human, survive my doubts and whatever I choose to do I will have made my own choice. I think I’ve learned something from Doctor Johnson tonight; When you feel that doubt and uncertainty well up inside you, cherish it. Because as long as you feel that fear and that doubt, you are still at the reins of your own life. You are still in command of your own destiny, however unknown it may be. It might feel like small comfort, but remind yourself that no matter what choice you’re staring down, you have been strong enough, smart enough and brave enough to keep a stranglehold on that choice. A great many people have surrendered it, just for a feeling of purpose.

And who knows, with that strength and wisdom and courage maybe you can find your own purpose, your own guiding principal or ultimate goal. It might take time, but as long as you are the one feeling the fear and the doubt, you haven’t given up. Not yet.

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crunchyenglish · 8 years

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Rise of the Interloper: Let’s Play No Man’s Sky Part 2

Day 30

A week of travelling to a supposedly crashed Korvax ship, only to be rewarded with some debris, a Korvax flag and a crash site. No ship here, no Korvax. If the Korvax are on Tovikine Jonaw, they are very well hidden. I suppose the distress signal was older, but what’s more shocking to me than anything is how very similar the site was to my own crash. If not the for the flag, I might have thought I’d circled the whole planet. Still, a week is a long time, and although I stopped at a few settlements and ports along the way, I haven’t got much to show for my efforts.

Day 31

I’m continuing my efforts to study the Vy’keen ruins. I’m finding more all the time, but in this area they seem to be structurally different. The patterns to Vy’keen architecture is becoming more clear to me. The Pyramids and Monoliths are trials, they are used to test the mettle of young Vy’keen warriors, (or helplessly curious space travellers) and passing them predominantly requires knowledge of Vy’keen custom and culture. Think like an honour-bound warrior who practically worships death in battle and you won’t be far off. The plaques and ruins, on the other hand tend to speak to the Vy’keen’s beliefs and attitudes. A sort of, ancient how-to manual. These are the more welcoming, accommodating ruins I’ve found.

These new ruins, the large raised bridge-like designs with the ceremonial spheres and statues, appear to be a loose historical record. It’s impossible to discern fact from fiction, but it appears that Hirk, the mythical figure of Vy’keen’s faith, is not a deity, but in fact a sort of prophet. This ruin told of him approaching something called “The Great Monolith” for guidance, and it speaking to him.

Day 33

More historical records, and I admit, I find these troubling. Supposedly, Hirk questioned the Great Monolith about the travellers from the void (ie. Me, and people like me) and was told in no uncertain terms that we must be supported, protected and generally not impeded in anyway. The Vy’keen are not a welcoming people. Religious law tends to reflect the beliefs of its people at the time. A xenophobic war-like race welcoming strangers with open arms? Lucky for me, but not overly likely. This “Great Monolith” is less likely a deity, and more likely a space-faring race’s attempt at propaganda. Hirk, an ancient Vy’keen leader, found some kind of communication device, and was instructed...manipulated really, into allow spacefarers to come and go as they please. Worse, when Hirk questioned the “monolith” about the Sentinels, whoever was on the other side was silent. I suppose I’ve sen the magic of the Ancient Vy’keen first hand, it’s possible there’s more going on here than I can account for. I can’t know for sure there’s a sinister side to this...but I can’t shake my intuition.

On the lighter side, a Vy’keen presented me with a gift, supposedly from their High Command. A structurally reinforced prosthetic system for my exosuit. It takes up storage space in the suit and drains some of my power systems, but with it I can run faster, and for nearly three times as long. I’m powering out a 3-minute mile. Even with the time limits on my time outside thanks to the toxicity, it’s nice to be able to cover more ground, faster.

Day 34

More historical records. My knowledge of the Vy’keen language is coming along, but still rudimentary. What I can piece together, or have mentally projected right into my mind, supports my earlier suspicions.

When Hirk went to his people and told them to stand down, to be welcoming to the space travellers, he was met with murmurs and rabble rousing. People questioned him immediately. But then, according to these records, someone asked about the Sentinels. Hirk, obviously interested in placating his warriors, said the Monolith had remained silent on the subject, that its protection didn’t extend to the Sentinels. His people cheered. They could have their war, after all.

This story makes my blood run cold. The generosity, the honour, the deeper level of sophistication I saw in Vy’keen society... what if it’s a lie? Truly, they are the war-like and brutish race I originally took them for, and I’ve been deluding myself because I��ve been getting special treatment. It’s easy to think the best of people who were commanded by their god to be nice to you. But apparently, left to their own devices, their default reaction is to declare open war. I’m staying out of the settlements for a few days. I need to clear my head.

Day 37

I found more ruins, and more records, but the truly jarring experience came at one of the pyramids.

I think I was seeking the ancients. They had seemed...wiser, more even-handed that the modern day Vy’keen. Their spirits had sung to me, spoken to my mind. I believed they might give me perspective. Reassure me that the Vy’keen were the race I thought they were. But in order to summon the ancients, each pyramid has had a test. This one, was truly barbaric.

There was no burial of an ancient warrior, or respect for ancient tomb here. The ancients were clear and direct in their command. They demanded animal sacrifice. A small creature, a tiny bipedal lizard, was even provided. I killed it .God help me, I wrung its neck right there on the altar.

The ancients assured me that the Sentinels were unnatural. Tyrants. Progress, prosperity and war, these were the things that the Sentinels stood against. I felt sick to my stomach. The Vy’keen saw war as an intractable part of progress. Of prosperity. I was so bonded with them. I knew many of them so well. And I was beginning to see I’d been fooling myself.

Day 38

The records, from before, I finally translated them. Apparently Hirk had a rival, named Nal. Nal told Hirk the Sentinels were impossible to defeat. Hirk called Nal a coward and they dueled at the base of the Great Monolith in the middle of the ancient Durr’ando Mountains. Nal was knocked from the mountains and fell, according to this retelling, for 6 days before he hit the ground. There’s no mountain on this planet high enough, I’d have seen it from orbit, so I assume that’s hyperbole. But the chasms and tunnels beneath the surface go for miles in some places....maybe it’s not impossible.

Day 40

I’m seeking historical records to exclusion of everything else now. I’ve found more than a few just today. Nal’s followers fell in line behind Hirk. They went to open war with the Sentinels. The war lasted 7 years, and eventually, Hirk and Vy’keen stood victorious. They were the “Crashing wave the broke the dam”, the first species to progress beyond a certain threshold set by the Sentinels. They claim that they were the first true enemy of the Sentinels. The first race to journey out into the stars.

Propaganda, most likely, but this favourable retelling makes their war seem justified. Could the Sentinels, which I know only as tiny floating spy droids with a penchant for shooting things, at one point been a sort of governing leash on the ancient races of this galaxy? A measure put in place to curb advancing species and stop space travel? I need more data, and as much as Tovikine Jonaw has grown on me, I’m not going to get answers from history lessons written by the Vy’keen. I need more objective data.

Day 42

I picked up another distress signal today while mulling over my options, supposedly another crashed ship. It didn’t go well last time, but I investigate anyway. This time, I find a ship.

It’s a badly damaged Vy’keen vessel. The A23 is it’s designation. It’s honestly not much to look at it. It’s got a long, rounded design with not much style to it. It has even less storage capacity that my current ship, which is paltry and which is constantly causing me to juggle my inventory. Still, it’s a Vy’keen vessel...it’s shield and weapons are miles ahead of anything I have. I’m not looking for a fight, but I’ve been shot down once. And the Vy’keen’s welcoming attitude is apparently artificial. I might not get so lucky next time. It also has a Phase Beam Array for asteroid mining. I won’t pretend the idea of refueling mid-flight doesn’t appeal. Most importantly, it has designs on board for Warp Plasma Hyperdrive, Sigma-Class. My current ship isn’t even Hyperdrive compatible, as far as I know. Pulse jets would get me to neighboring planets fine. But if my intention is ever to leave the system...I’ll need these upgrades.

Day 43

I’ve made the switch and begun repairs to the Vy’keen vessel. I won’t pretend it was an easy choice. I keep wondering if my time with Vy’keen has made me more aggressive, or less reasonable. I’m trading cargo space for a weapons and shielding upgrade I might never need, preparing for some unknown enemy. My current Multi-tool has a grenade launcher on it for pete’s sake. Have I let the warrior culture go to my head?

Day 44

Two days of repairs, tons of refined ore, and most of my energy reserves later, the Vy’keen vessel is completely space-worthy. Taking off was a great moment, my doubts about the Vy’keen be damned. I got this ship running again, and she flies like a dream. I’m tired of my ship designations being a simple serial code. S36, A23. This ship, for all it’s faults, will be home now. I should give it a name.

I had considered naming it something in Vy’keen, but my mood seems to plummet when I consider how much of their language is based in combat and war. Finally, after some consideration, I call the ship by the name the Vy’keen originally called me when I first showed up at that space port nearly a month ago. Interloper.

I take the Interloper out for his maiden voyage and blast off to the nearest planet in the system. I’m not sure what I’m looking for, but I know I have questions. How did I crash? How did I come to be on this edge-of-the-galaxy world covered in toxic rain? Are the Vy’keen really the first race to brave space? Are the Sentinels really dangerous tyrants? Who are the Korvax, and did whatever shot them down on Tovikine Jonaw also get me? I guess I won’t know if I don’t start looking for answers elsewhere.

Day 45

I’ve picked up a long-range communication signal from orbit above Tovikine Jonaw. It’s on the nearest neighboring planet. Actually, I think it might be one of Tovkine’s moons. It’s smaller, with almost no atmosphere, but it takes hours to get there even with Pulse Jets.

Day 46

I never thought I’d miss Tovikine. Not ever. This planet isn’t toxic. In fact, it’s a low gravity world. Moving is easy. It’s not much colder. And of course, there’s no toxic rain. I can be out on foot for basically as long as I like, making exploration a breeze. If only there was something to explore.

This world just feels so...dead, in comparison to Tovikine. There’s some scattered plant life, but it’s minimal and only in small batches. There’s no thriving life forms here. No majestic Wolf-Griffins. Just ugly grey rock as far as the eye can see. Tovikine was toxic to me, but it was unmistakably alive. Teeming with massive herbivores, exotic and friendly.

Then there’s this world- Pinnamru

No moisture, or weather. No settlements I can see. I found the signal beacon that called me here. It’s directing me to a settlement about a day’s travel away. Hopefully I can start finding some answers there .Or at least clues about what other world to start looking on.

Goodbye Poison Planet, you don’t look nearly so bad from out here.

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crunchyenglish · 8 years

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Poison Paradise: Let’s Play No Man’s Sky

The following is my in-character log of my adventures playing No Man’s Sky. The game has 18 quadrillion possible planet combinations, and starts you on a random planet, so everybody’s game is the same, but different. For the record the “Day” headings of this log are based on the game’s internal day/night cycle. Exploration and survival are the only real “goals” of the game, but as I hope to demonstrate, a little imagination can go a long way...

Tovikine Jonaw - Day 1

I’ve crash-landed on an alien world. I’d be traumatized, but I don’t remember crashing. Hell, I don’t remember much. My name is one mystery. What the hell I was doing on a one-man exploratory starship is another. I don’t have any credits. I don’t appear to have access to long range communications. Guess I’m not calling for a tow.

This planet is helpfully identified to me by my Exosuit as Tovikine Jonaw. I’ve never heard of it, obviously, but I can’t imagine what drew me out here in the first place. Murky yellow swamps and a slightly warmer than freezing climate would be bad enough, but the entire planet is covered in toxic rains. Damp, Cold and Poison, what a combination. It pour buckets here constantly, and direct exposure burns through my environmental shielding in minutes. Best case scenario, my Exosuit offers about ten minutes in the open. Other than that, I have to stick to my ship or to heavy cover.

My Ship. That’s a whole other problem. Damaged thrusters, damaged engines. If it had Hyperdrive of any kind it must have been torn off in the crash. I’ve seen escape pods more flight worthy. It’s not clear where exactly I am, but it’s not like I took this thing on a milk run to the corner store. I must have been desperate or crazy to come out so far in this rust bucket. My Exosuit informs me the ship is a Rasamama S36. Although S36 is a fine shorthand, if the ship had a name, I’ve forgotten it. Let’s just assume it has one though. I like to think I kept this pile of junk for sentimental reasons, rather than pure poverty.

My Exosuit, on the other hand, is not just my only source of info, but it’s handled the crash remarkably well. Jet thrusters and shielding intact. It’s not heavy on storage and the multitool I’m carrying has no defensive capabilities, but it seems to mine ore pretty well. A little luck and I might survive until nightfall.

Day 1 Cont...

The world is hellish in the day, but at the night the toxic purple haze is gorgeous. I’m actually finding it sort of moving. Or maybe I’m losing it due to isolation and my obvious, imminent demise. Near cliffs I was using for cover, there’s green bio luminescent plants. They add to the beauty, but I can’t stay distracted. There’s a Heridium deposit less than 300m away that could get my Pulse Engines up and running, but not without Plutonium for the launch thruster.

Day 2

Sentinel Drones are apparently protecting nothing out here. Little AI-controlled floating guns that seem to protect property and themselves. They scan everything. They’re the only signs of civilization so far. I want to indulge my curiosity, but survival first. I repaired my analysis visor allowing me to scan local fauna and flora. It’s helpful for identifying mineral deposits, but turns out I can’t pronounce the correct name of anything living on this planet anyway.

Strange Lizard Dogs. I’m no Xenobiologist but the ability for such complex advanced creatures to survive this toxicity is impressive. I call them Rep-canids, because I’m terrible at naming things. They’re docile, friendly even, but don’t stick around long enough after I feed them to do much.

While hunting for plutonium I found a hidden cache on my scanner. It required a bypass chip to open. Locked caches, sentinel drones. I’m not the first person here, not by a long shot. Small wonder the locals didn’t stick around though. This frozen, murky hellhole wants me dead. It never stops raining poison from the sky. I think I’m going nuts.

Day 3

I’ve made a discovery. A real discovery. A cave a few clicks from my crash site. The cave gives protection from the toxicity. I can use it as a waypoint to explore further. I mark it on my map.

In the cave I found a huge batch of plutonium. And also met my first hostile alien. An angry little beetle. Damn thing was immune to my mining laser, near as I could tell. My shield held fine but it gave me a start. I beat a hasty retreat to regroup. With pockets full of plutonium at least.

----

In that cave I found zinc I need to complete the last of my repairs, I also saw some monstrous beast in the distance. It was bipedal, huge and hulking. I kept my distance, but also stupidly forgot to scan it. I also had another run in with my beetle friend, but the Bolt Caster weapon I’d upgraded my mining laser with meant I had real firepower this time. Even after making mince-meat of the beetle, I still wasn’t eager to tackle the giant in the distance.

While I was recharging my shields and life support back at the ship, I tinkered around with a jerry-rigged bypass chip. They aren’t complicated in design and I made a couple. I don’t know that I’ll ever head back to those caches, but if I do, I have to see what’s inside.

Day 4

Four days in this poison swamp, and I haven’t seen one thinking person, or a single piece of useful technology I didn’t bring with me, or build from scraps.

I finished my repairs and cleared Tovikine Jonaw’s atmosphere. It was exhilarating to know I’d be free of this place. Even without Hyperdrive, any planet in this system has got to be better than this world that is constantly spitting poison at me. Still...I don’t remember how I crashed, but I can’t shake the feeling that that planet wasn’t abandoned. That it still had secrets. The Sentinel Drones weren’t scanning rocks for their health. Locked boxes don’t fall out of the sky or grow out of the swamp. Someone had to be back on Tovikine Jonaw… I’ve laid in a course back to the planet. I can leave whenever I want now, but I’m going to find out what I was doing there to begin with.

From low orbit I spotted what I knew had to be there, a spaceport. Or at least, some kind of man-made structure with a landing dock. I landed a few hundred meters south of it, behind a ridge. Paranoid maybe, but something shot me down, or knocked me out of the sky last time. Let’s not give them a second try.

The structure has markings I don’t recognize. Two downward arrows, like a military insignia. On the platform I find a Conscript of the Vy’Keen. I don’t know much about them, but this one is ugly and aggressive.

There’s some miming and some hand-waving, but eventually I successfully show myself to be no threat. The Vy’keen are easily bribed, mostly with food. I trade some iron oxide for a linguistic lesson and pick up a new word or two from my friend, who I gather is named “Ulh”. Nice to meet a friendly...ish, face. Plus, the Vy-keen are aggressive. Knowing some of their language could get me out of trouble.

Day 7

I discovered even more remarkable creatures near the dock. Wolf-Griffins. Or winged canines, anyway. I was moved by their beauty. Even in this toxic dump, life finds a way to impress me. Better yet, they’re friendly. I wonder if I came to this planet for a pet.

Now that this planet isn’t trying to kill me, I can’t help but want to look around. With a functioning ship and at least a small patch of civilization to protect myself with, I find myself intrigued by the Vy’Keen presence here. I spend a few days with Ulh, picking up more Vy’Keen language and exploring the local fauna. Birds and other small creatures. My beetle friend comes back ,and this time I scan him for profit. I watch the ships come and go, and just relax a bit. The port isn’t exactly grand central, but it’s nice to feel connected to the galaxy again.

Day 8

After a bit of R&R, I’ve got the itch to go exploring again. I stick to the plan and try to go find another cache and open it. Instead, following a similar signal beacon brings me to another Vy’keen outpost.The Nelgen Marsh isn’t much to look at, but it’s another port in a toxic storm. It is also near one of the caches I’m looking forward so much to opening. The Vy’keen don’t seem like good people to rob, but if they don’t mind (and they don’t seem to) their weapons tech is way ahead of my meager offerings.

Day 8 Cont...

To think, I would’ve been satisfied with weapons tech! (Actually, I found that too, an upgrade for my ship’s Photon Cannons I’m confident I’ll be able to build later). Instead, these “caches” are planetary signal beacons, connected to a planetwide network of interesting things. The Vy’keen seem to have set up the network as a navigational support tool. If I could read their language I could have built my makeshift bypass chip and gotten my bearings a few days earlier. I’ve discovered what I believe is the signal of an alien artifact. I’m headed out immediately. I should make it by early morning.

Day 9

The artifact is not overly impressive, visually. A simple black monolith with a rotating polyhedron. I am shocked to find it’s Vy’keen. The Vy’keen can’t be native to this world. Their structures seem modular and recently constructed. But they must have some deeper connection to this place in their history. This artifact touches my mind and gives me some insight into Vy’keen history. Violent, but honorable, the Vy’keen seem to revere something called “Hirk” a deity, or maybe a leader. It’s not clear.

I meet another Vy’keen at another outpost not far from the artifact. He upgrades my Mining laser and weapons, completely for free. I know I’ve made headway with these people, but this generosity is staggering. Even an upgrade half as effective would have cost me every scrap of credit I had.

Day 10

My next link in the chain of the planetary network strikes my eye as very informative, a factory. I’m still only picking up scraps of the Vy’keen language, and I’d like to know their connection to this toxic world. A manufacturing center seems more permanent than the structures I’ve seen. I want to get a feel for the Vy’keen purpose here.

Day 10 Cont...

The factory was a bust. It was heavily locked up. I blasted my way in, in a move I regretted immediately, but the Vy’kreen didn’t catch or identify me. The factory was small, modular and it wasn’t clear what they were building.

However, it was within a few clicks of another Alien Artifact. This one wasn’t on any map or planetary beacon network, either. The Vy’keen might be looking for them? Another mental download from the artifact taught me more Vy’keen vocabulary, but also about something called “The Book of Hirk”. Hirk appears to be a deity after all, one who instructed the Vy’kreen to await “Travelers from the Beyond the Void” and not to impede them in anyway.

Their generosity makes more sense now, perhaps.

Day 11

I follow a veritable string of artifacts now. It seems like the planet is littered with them, once you know what you’re looking for. I make a final discovery. A large pyramid which I translate as “The Ashes of..” Something. The word is foreign. The only words I can make out on the inscription are “Vy’keen Ancients”. As I palm the monolith, it opens, revealing treasures. The Vy’keen are here to help travelers like myself. I read it in their own texts. Still...something stays my hand. Call it morality, or just my better judgment. I can’t rob their ancient treasures.

My instincts are dead on. Ancient spirits speak to me and give me a gift of a small wooden effigy. Useless to me, but valuable to the Vy’keen. I chalk up the ordeal as a win. The Vy’keen will think highly of my deeds here, and they are not an ungrateful people. My reputation seems to be covering ground faster than my starship. I’m beginning to feel a bond with these people. They’re brutal, but they aren’t without nuance. Spirituality. Honor. They aren’t dumb ugly space monsters, that’s for sure. But what are they doing here? Most of their language eludes me, making a direct questioning impossible, but there’s a mystery here and I want to solve it.

Vy’keen encampments on this world, are small, modular and look relatively unsophisticated. There’s no way this is their home world. So why are the symbols, monoliths and pyramids of their ancient ancestors everywhere on this rock? I’m piecing together my Vy’keen language studies, but there’s still hundreds of more words I don’t know and my understanding of syntax is clumsy. There must be a better way.

Day 11 supplemental...

I come across another large industrial outpost. This one isn’t locked. Instead, it’s abandoned. Overrun with some kind of purple cilia moss. It’s an infestation to be sure, but I can’t discern what happened here. It’s unsettling, but there doesn’t seem to be anything I can do for this outpost right now.

Day 12

I found a “command center” of the Vy’Keen. Alarms are going off, it’s abandoned, but there’s no purple Cilia like in the other outpost. The terminal is damaged, and my grasp of the language remains imperfect. I give a shot to accessing the terminal anyway. I succeed and give command of the post back to the Vy’keen. I’m still not certain what went wrong, but it looks like they were in the process of constructing a freighter when things went to shit. They seem pleased, and I am welcomed by the next Vy’keen I meet as an honored guest.

Day 13

I found another Vy’kreen pyramid. There’s a dead soldier lying within it, hands still clutching his weapon. It’s tempting to relieve him of it, but my experiences here have taught me that the Vy’keen Ancients, and their spirits, are still watching these monuments. I give him a proper burial, as best as I know the rituals. I am rewarded by an overwhelming sense of peace and another Vy’keen Effigy. My relationship with the Vy’keen is bordering on brotherhood, and I still barely understand a third of their language. Some actions, I suppose, speak louder than words.

Day 14

I found a Vy’keen arms dealer. Real shady type, even by Vy’keen standards. He was wounded, and after I helped him get patched up, he gave me a brand new Multitool. It’s more like a grenade-launching bolter-rifle than a tool, but it has a mining laser on it too, so… yeah. Can never be too careful.

Day 15

At another outpost for the Vy’keen today. It’s a wonder I ever thought this planet was abandoned. They may not congregate in large groups, but the Vy’keen are in every nook and cranny of this world. This one was different, however. It was signalling a beacon in a simple numeric code. I broke the code and was given coordinates. At first, I thought it was for another monument of the Ancient Vy’keen which would have been exciting enough. Instead, if I’m reading this terminal right, it might be actual ruins. I believe they might possibly be of an ancient city. I’m headed there directly. This could shine some light on the ultimate fate of the Vy’keen Ancients.

As I’m headed out, a Vy’keen Captain stops me and shows me an image of what I believe is a Vy’keen female. He seems to be having girl trouble. I can’t imagine what dating is like for a Vy’keen so I just nod sympathetically and give him platitudes in English. Fish in the sea, better to have loved and lost, that kind of thing. I doubt he understands, but I try to look supportive. He got very excited, passing me a fair amount of credits and a new jetpack design. It took me two hours to realize what had happened. I believe I just agreed to marry his daughter.

Day 18

The Ruins of Yelmstev are unlike any Vy’keen structure I’ve seen. Equally old, and of similar design, and yet...softer, more livable. The hard, imposing structures of their monuments aren’t present. My impression is that it once housed gardens, or possibly religious iconography. The message hidden within the Ruins is as aggressive as ever though. None hamper the path towards the Dryn’Dargh as The Sentinels. They must be Destroyed. Their time will be ended. So has it been written, so it shall come to be. No idea what Dryn’Dargh is, but I guess the Sentinels are in the way.

The Sentinels are those floating droids. I had thought they were Vy’keen in design. Looks like the Vy’keen see the Sentinels as enemies. I’m certainly not a fan of the nosy little robots, but for a species like the Vy’keen to see them as threats, there has to be more to them.

Day 21

Damn my stupidity! I followed a stray sensor reading too far and ended up in a maze of underground caverns for a couple days. I eventually found a way out….a solid 8 hours away from my vessel. The toxic rain of this planet is too dangerous to risk long journeys on foot like this. I’m getting careless.

Day 22

Another ruin, this one tells me less about the Vy’keen and more about the Sentinels. They self-replicate...and never die. Vy’keen see immortality as unnatural and evil. The more I learn about these Sentinels, the more I think the Vy’keen are on to something.

Day 23

I came across the a Vy’keen distress call today. Encoded, but not complex. Looked ancient, so naturally I was excited. Turns out it’s not Vy’keen at all. A species call the Korvax is calling for help, with a crashed ship. On damn near the other side of this planet.

This “abandoned” planet sure is busy,

8 hours of play, 3000 words and I’d seriously doubt I’ve seen everything even this first planet can show me. Buckle up, this could be a long one.

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crunchyenglish · 8 years

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Angry Lunatic’s Scientific Journal of Stuff I Just Made Up Issue 3

Hello again and welcome to my favourite thing I do on an infrequent basis, the Angry Lunatics Scientific Journal of Shit I Just Made Up. Or ALSJSIJMU for short. (Note: Acronyms are not my strong suit.)

Any way for those not in the know, this is a little series of articles I do just for me, where I find the stupidest things written on the internet (I mostly trawl through You Tube comments, twitter and Facebook conspiracy pages) and try to give them WAY too much credit. I’m no scientist, but rather than dismissing weird or stupid comments out of hand, I try to give them a fair shake and analyze their dubious claims with a rational eye. In the couple I’ve done so far, (a look at WiFi signals frying your blood brain barrier and if stem cell research could alter a person’s sexual orientation) they’ve ended up being as stupid and nonsensical as they first appeared, but I always learned something anyway, and had fun writing them.

Today is not like that. Today I’m going to roll the dice a little bit and analyze something that seems significantly less crazy than the other thesis statements I’ve cherry picked for these articles. I really hope this ends up being wrong, but if it doesn’t, then I really will have learned something today. Today we’re going to talk about meat. Specifically, if we as humans are actually evolved to eat it.

Today’s thesis statement was going to be something crazed about how doctors secretly want to keep people sick in order to sell them more drugs. A thing that many real people actually thinks happens. However, while watching an idiotic You Tube video called “Why Your Doctor is Lying To You” I came across a bunch of angry vegans in the comments section. Turns out, the human body isn’t meant to even eat meat and we should not be consuming it in any way. The food pyramid is a lie, and protein is better achieved without killing defenseless animals. For our thesis, here’s a long, rambling statement from a You Tube Comment from under the video:

“Our mouths are not "partially designed for eating meat". Carnivores and omnivores have higher acidic content in their mouths and digestive tracts than we do, and very large "canine" teeth, as Well as protein and fat receptors in the tongue, which we lack. What we do have is very high levels of salivary amylase, an enzyme for Breaking Down ... starches ... which carnivores and omnivores lack. There is evidence of SOME animal Flesh consumption, going back many years, but the best evidence is that our diet was largely herbivorous until quite recently - our digestive tracts have still not really adapted to it. The form of our stomach and intestines is that of an herbivore, and like other herbivores we develop arterial plaques when ingesting cholesterol from animals (not found in Plants). Carnivores and omnivores like wolves, dogs, bears, etc.don't have this problem - arterial plaques cannot be induced in them. They're adapted to eating other animals. We're not, as this shows. We CAN eat animals, but it's Far from optimal for us. And is simply NOT NECESSARY> “

Ok. That’s a lot less nutty than “Wifi Signals are frying our brains”. This has an argument I can follow without prior-induced head trauma. Namely, that we can eat meat, but it’s not what we’re “meant” to eat, and it’s not what’s best for us. Anyone who says meat is a valuable source of protein is selling you something, the alternatives are better for you. Sounds completely reasonable.

Full Disclosure: I want this to be wrong. I want to hate this person. I want to messily eat plate after plate of veal parmigiana and prime rib while they’re in the eye-misting chair from “A Clockwork Orange” and are forced to watch. I want to moan about how delicious animal flesh is and then make a big, pointed, theatrical show of just picking the bacon and croutons out of a salad. You are trying to discourage me from eating meat, and ergo, we are not friends. We are enemies. Forever. That’s the bias we’re working with today.

But that’s not why we are here today, and what I want doesn’t really matter. This person is making a pseudo-scientific claim on the internet, and we’re here to give it a fair shake and see if there’s any truth to it. So let’s get started.

So I was always told humans are omnivores. That is, we eat everything that isn’t nailed down, basically. We’re living garbage disposals like raccoons or bears. In the simple grade-school terms I was always taught - Carnivores eat meat, exclusively, Herbivores eat plants, exclusively, Omnivores needs both. A quick wiki visit however, shows that I have been grossly misinformed. Food preferences for animals is mega complicated.

For example, our vegan contributor up there postulates that “true” omnivores like dogs, wolves and bears don’t build up arterial plaques. This shows we are actually herbivores and shouldn’t be eating meat, right?

No. Obviously no. Because Herbivore and Omnivore is just a category we made up, and it turns out there’s a bunch of different kinds of both. Omnivores evolved from a bunch of different sources creating a tons of different kinds of “omnivore”. To pull directly from 2 sentences into the wiki:

“Omnivores come from diverse backgrounds that often independently evolved sophisticated consumption capabilities. For instance, dogs evolved from primarily carnivorous organisms (Carnivora) while pigs evolved from primarily herbivorous organisms (Artiodactyla). “

Turns out, omnivore animals that have carnivorous ancestors are the ones that don’t get plaque. However that plaque DOES show up in tons of species that are not humans that still eat meat as a regular part of their natural diet. The same is said for the fat receptors on the tongue. Our vegan appears to be confusing a very small sliver of omnivores which have benefits pulled from carnivorous evolutionary backgrounds, for a huge number of animals which eat whatever they need to to get the nutrients they desire. Science is actually pretty liberal with its definition of omnivore in that it has two meanings. Behavioral (do they eat both meat and plants) and Physiological (Do they derive nutrients from both meat and plants) Humans come up in the “yes category in both camps.

So wow, that was even easier than proving you can’t “cure” gayness by injecting stem cells into a person’s brain. I sort of thought vegans would be harder to debate than literal crazy people, but I just slam-dunked this one with, like, a single wiki page. Eat me, Vegans. Except you can’t because I’m clearly made of meat. I’m going to have massive steak to celebrate. If you’ll excuse me...

Oh. C’mon, really? You want to go deeper on this? Damnit. But...steak?

OK, OK, OK. What about our systems being relatively new to eating meat and it not being the optimal diet for us?

Well, first, let’s get this out of our way. Food, from the most delicious homecooked meal, to the greasiest burger, to the most timidly nibbled upon carrot, is a part of human society and it is so much more important than its nutritional value. It’s how we welcome guests to our home. It’s what we center dates around. It’s how we celebrate basically everything in our lives. If you’re so joyless that you view diet in terms of what is “optimal” you’re a terrible person and no fun at parties. Your friends always have a discussion about it before they decide to invite you anywhere, because you are just so, so awful. Tremendously trying on everyone’s patience, basically. They complain about you when you aren’t around. I thought you should know.

But OK, assuming that you eat food strictly to fuel your body and that flavour, social settings and enjoyment don’t factor into your life in anyway, should humans really be eating meat?

Yep. Once again this one is even easier than I thought it would be. A quick google brought up a decent article from National Geographic studying isolated cultures and their natural diets. The Tsimane tribe in Bolivia for example was being studied by some doctoral students and they found that meat, tapirs and capybaras were frequently on the menu. The Inuit tribes of Greenland, take it one step farther. They were almost entirely carnivorous, due to the absolutely lack of plant life in their arctic home. Not all of the few remaining hunter-gatherer tribes left on earth are meat eaters, but more are than aren’t.

What’s more, some evolutionary scientists theorize that our larger brains are a result of our early meat-filled diet. Here’s a quote from that National Geographic article:

“Eating meat is thought by some scientists to have been crucial to the evolution of our ancestors’ larger brains about two million years ago. By starting to eat calorie-dense meat and marrow instead of the low-quality Plant diet of apes, our direct ancestor, Homo erectus,took in enough extra energy at each meal to help fuel a bigger brain. Digesting a higher quality diet and less bulky Plant fiber would have allowed these Humans to have much smaller guts. The energy freed up as a result of smaller guts could be used by the greedy brain, according to Leslie Aiello, who first proposed the idea with paleoanthropologist Peter Wheeler. The brain requires 20 percent of a Human’s energy when resting; by comparison, an ape’s brain requires only 8 percent. This means that from the time of H. erectus, the Human body has depended on a diet of energy-dense food—especially meat.”

Woo! Another victory over misinformed vegans! Still, it’s not as though National Geographic is the end-all, be-all authority here. Can we do better in showing a link between early human development and eating meat?

Well, look at that, this appears to be a September 2015 article in “The Quarterly Review of Biology” about this very subject. It’s one of them fancy “actual science journals” with their pay walls, and their doctorates and their “actual science”. Whatever, they don’t have my style.

What they do have though, is a mind-numbing 250 page report from the University of Chicago about the diet of early humans. Which I paid for. Never say I’m not dedicated to my craft. And hey look, a point in the favour of Vegans!

I’ll spare you the technical gobbledegook since I basically had to translate it back into English anyway to understand what was going on. As I often say in these articles, and it bears repeating, I’m not an actual scientist. I’m just a man with a search engine and some time on his hands. But apparently, our bodies DO contain salivary amylase, an enzyme used for breaking down starches into sugars. It’s that stuff that the Vegan in our thesis statement was saying we have that carnivores and “actual” omnivores don’t have. Vegan said that this enzyme meant we are actually supposed to be herbivores, and our eating meat was a more recent thing. And guess what? They’re wrong! Again!

According to this paper, again by actual scientists from the University of Chicago, these chemicals break down raw plant food in a fairly efficient manner, but they kick ass at processing cooked plant matter. We get way more energy out of cooked vegetables due to this amylase. They propose that the presence of this enzyme in our mouths is us reacting to our ability to cook food. Which means the idea that we can get more calories and fuel out of vegetables is actually the part that’s more recent! Not only was everything that vegan said wrong, they actually had it exactly backwards! We humans are definitely evolved from meat eaters, and we’re supposed to be omnivores eating everything we can. If you want a reason arterial plaque is building up in our system, you should probably blame the fact that in nature no one is supposed to be able to sit down and eat an entire cow. Eating meat is fine. If you want a problem in modern diets, I’d encourage you to look at quantity, not quality.

There. I’m done. Science had my back on this one, start to finish. What did we learn? I guess, a little bit about human evolution. A little bit about how our bodies process starches. A few things really cool things about modern-day hunter gatherer tribes, which was awesome. Oh, and of course, Vegans are wrong. Enjoy your shitty peanut “butter” and tofu you losers. I’m going to do what evolution wants and eat more meat than it could possibly have predicted I would ever have access to. It’s not healthy, but it’s right.

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crunchyenglish · 8 years

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In The Details

Rourke’s was the best deli within 5 blocks. That might sound like damning with faint praise, but in New York City it’s actually something of an accomplishment. Everyone and their grandmother seems to have a favourite deli, and the reason was simple. It was all in the little things. The details. It was in the decisions that the owner, Joe, made everyday.

Joe baked his own bread, and had his own bread oven on site. It had been slow to warm up today, and there was a faint glow of heat in the air, as the lamps were still cooling. It had the pleasant effect of raising the temperature in the room the slightest bit. It was giving a feeling of warmth to the whole building.

Joe’s slicing machine was top of the line. It was properly maintained. If you got your face entirely too close to the blade, you might smell a hint of lubricant that helped it glide back and forth carving the meat smooth. You might even smell the tiniest scent of metal, since the blades had been sharpened that very morning.

Of course, to smell that you’d have to distinguish it past the meats themselves, of which he had only the highest quality. From salted pork to fresh cut roast beef, Joe’s meats were fresh and high end. You could almost hear the juicy flavour released by he swing slice of the blade against it. You absolutely could taste it, the fresh cold cuts hung in the air.

Then there were the pastries. So flaky and warm. Each crunch and crackle was delightful, but arrhythmic. Like the crunching of leaves under your feet in late autumn.

Joe himself was a small, older man of indeterminate origin. He spoke many languages and seemed at easy with most of them. His ruddy hands were always clean and well-washed. He’d changed soaps recently, I suppose he’d thought the lavender scented stuff his wife bought might be too girly. His Apron was clean and pressed. I don’t know for sure that Joe is the only deli owner in the area to get his apron dry cleaned, but I know no one does it nearly as often.

I heard another slight creaking noise and realized with a grin it was his spine stiffening. I had been heard. There was a squeak, his expensive show turning quick on the gleaming clean floor.

“Matt!” He called, with his impossible-to-place accent “You’ve finally returned. I was worried you’d wandered into traffic, again.” I couldn’t help but smile. Another of Joe’s gifts, the ability to tease without projecting even a hint of malice.

“Joe?” I said, feigning disorientation, “Oh darn, I must be lost. I thought I was in Breodeon’s on 43rd Street. I wanted some *good* pastrami today”.

Joe feigned outrage about as well I feigned confusion. “How dare you, Murdock! Why, you really must be blind to think that dumpster of a deli could compete with me.”

Then we both broke out in smiles as the false tension drained out of the room.

“Ooooh shame you, Matt,” He laughed, “taunting an old man like that. You know that Breodeon’s can’t hold a candle to my genius! Now come on, order! We can’t all sit around at a desk all day, like some big shot attorney!”

I placed my order as I reached for my wallet. I ran my fingers along the creases in my bills and made sure to overpay, significantly. I couldn’t help by smile as Joe handed back a bunch of bills, which he’d creased in the same fashion I used. Exact change. Good Ol’Joe.

Joe was smiling, but I felt his heart tremor, for just a moment. He’d had an upsetting thought. That was odd. Joe lived for this deli, his mood behind the counter was never less than sunny. I was wondering how to ask, without giving away how I’d noticed, when Joe saved me the trouble.

“Matt? Do me a favour and hurry home tonight, ok? Some punks have been causing trouble round here the last few nights.”

I bit my tongue to stop from smiling. “Oh?”

“A bunch of big guys, thinking themselves real tough. have been harrassing my customers. Trying to sell drugs to the kids, catcalling the women. I call the police, but they’re always long gone before any cops show up. I thought they were just an annoyance but... last night I definitely heard fighting, while I was closing up.”

He sure had, but he didn’t have to worry.

====================

The men in question, well boys really, had been been working themselves up to doing something awful for weeks. They’d decided to target a woman working as a waitress across the street. She was young and pretty of course, but she was also timid. She practically jumped anytime someone noticed her. They liked that, it made them feel powerful. They thought it made them strong. Made them scary.

I decided to teach them about scary.

I was just a few rooftops over last night, when I had heard the first few cat calls. The menace in their voice was unmistakable. Four voices, ranging from scared to angry. As I got closer, the smell of sweat pouring off them was clear, too. As was the clinking of a heavy metal object against one of the kid’s keys. Too much weight for a knife, had to be a gun.

Her heels clicked faster against the broken pavement, but she didn’t break out into a full run and so they were on her quickly. I was so close that anyone could have heard her scream when they shoved her into the alley, and when one of the punks grabbed at her wrists, I made my move.

I’ve fought monsters, they’re dangerous and terrifying. I’ve fought psychopaths, they’re unpredictable and chaotic. But it’s crooks like these that bring out the worst in me. The petty, cowardly thugs that prey on the weak because they think they can. Because they’re hollow and empty on the inside. Because they’re so scared to look in the mirror and realize how detestable they truly are. The contempt I feel for them, the anger, is what keeps me on the rooftops night after night. I showed them no compassion. I gave them no quarter.

The punk reaching out was the first to go, I dropped in front of him from the fire escape above. I landed maybe an inch in front of his fingers, between him and girl. His wrist snapped like one of Joe’s baguettes, and I couldn’t help but smile at the sounds. He screamed so loud his vocal chords tore. I brought my elbow up into his throat and heard the breathe push out of him. He collapsed in a heap. The heartbeats of the others had already been hammering, but now they were thundering. I pounced forward. The girl was safe, now. I was between her and them. They were scared, turning to flee. I had meant to scare them, to prevent their disgusting act of violence. I had done both of those things. I could stop now and the situation would be over.

But I didn’t stop. My blood didn’t stop boiling. My anger at their cowardice didn’t recede. My contempt for them hadn’t run it’s course.

I grabbed the next one by the hair on the back of his head and slammed his face into the brick. I heard blood vessels in his face pop. I tasted copper. I felt the brick crack under the weight of his head, just ever so slightly. My smile was really just the baring of teeth.

They were out of the alley, in the open now. But that didn’t matter. I leapt up on a parked car, running in parallel to my fleeing quarry. I flipped down and landed with both heels solid on one of their necks. At first, I felt a break I couldn’t account for. i panicked, thought maybe I’d broken his spine. My twinge of regret was quickly replaced with another gruesome smile as I realized what had happened. He’d swallowed one of this own teeth.

The last one had the gun out, but he was no marksman. He fired blindly. He was endangering anyone on the street and several people in nearby apartments. I’d been sloppy to let him get his far with that gun. I’d been enjoying it, more than I should. Catholic guilt overcame my anger like a crashing wave. I gave him a chance. My voice was quiet, calm and authoritative. Designed to cut through panic, anger or reluctance.

“If you don’t drop that gun before you hurt someone, your friends will consider themselves lucky.”

He fired again, and flipped myself over the car for cover. Oh well, it was worth a shot. I yanked my baton off my belt, as I spun into a pivot. At the end of the arc my arm released the baton. I heard it crack on the brick work behind him before crashing into his knee, collapsing himself under his own weight. he fired once more, almost straight up in the air. Then, I was standing over him as he looked up from on his back. His smell of sweat was overpowered by the strong scent of urine.

Oh yeah. He was scared.

He brought the gun up one last time, and I caught him at the wrist. I didn’t yank the gun away though, in fact I kept his arm trained on me. I couldn’t see the confusion on his face, but I heard the slightest gasp escape him. I spoke to him, gave him another chance. This one I was sure he didn’t deserve.

“Go ahead. Pull the trigger.”

He swallows, loud. His finger is wavering.

Click. He makes the wrong choice.

“You’re out, asshole. Should have kept count.”

I brought my heel down on his face, stomping him into the pavement.

“Devil’s in the Details.”

====================

I shook myself from the memory, and tried to look appreciative of Joe’s concern.

“Foggy keeps telling me the same thing, how the city is going to hell.”

Joe just shook his head.

“This city is our home. It’s only as bad as we let it be.”

“Words after my own heart, Joe.”

#fanfic

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crunchyenglish · 8 years

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A New, More Moral, More Effective, Bigotry

Anyone who knows me, knows I am against hate and bigotry in all its fashions. Racism, Sexism, Homophobia (why is it not Homo-ism? Missed opportunity for “ism” branding, am I right?). But regardless of the fact that basically no one considers themselves racist, sexist or homophobic, (or will admit to it at any rate) there’s still a lot of hate in this world. People love their hate, and will always look for new ways to abuse their fellow man with it. It’s frustrating that people absolutely refuse to grow up and treat people like human-fucking beings. (And in the end, aren’t we all a bunch of human-fuckers?) But what’s more frustrating, is we always seem to jump to the worst possible use for our hate! Gay people have a agenda!? Yeah, sure, no doubt their all-powerful conspiracy is to blame for the fact that they can still be fired for being gay in like 40 states. Women are manipulative? I have some sexual assault statistics you should look at, because apparently these cunning puppet masters have been making some oversights. Immigrants are taking your kids’ jobs? Are they, or did your precious little Chad not love the idea of picking Tobacco for five dollars an hour to support his coke habit?

Which is all the more frustrating, because there is actually a secret cabal of dangerous individuals running half the damn planet based mostly on genetic lineage and damaging every aspect of human civilization. The kind of people we should be hating.

I’m speaking, of course, about pretty people.

Oh sure, I’m not breaking any new ground with this. We’ve all known, on some level, just how much power the Attractive Agenda secretly wields. We complain about it all the time. But we never see the kind of hate, the kind of aggression aimed at the attractive we see aimed at the disenfranchised. Their power over us is so ingrained we can’t even seem to really get upset about it anymore. Let me give you some examples, using complaints often leveled against other, more hated groups.

1) The Pretty People Take Our Jobs

This is an absolute no-brainer, obviously. Attractive people are as much as twice as likely to get a position they are actually qualified for, and we all know people who have “prettied” their ways into jobs they have no business having. And pretty people are very good at getting us to do their work for them, when it comes to covering this up. No one wants to admit to hiring or promoting a person for being pretty, for fear we’re seen as vain, so we make all the excuses for them!

Dave’s got a real “leadership vibe” you know?

Charlotte is just so personable, she gets along so well with the customers!

We think Mohammad is just a natural fit for the team!

None of those statements really mean anything, but odds are they were said about a pretty person. To say nothing of a bunch of jobs, we’ve been convinced need to exist specifically for pretty people. Like modeling, which is stupid because I want to know what a shirt will look like on me, damn it. Not on someone who could make a dead rat carcass look good.

2) Pretty People Manipulate/Control Our Media

I mean, Duh. It goes without saying that there’s very few non-pretty people in show business, and that after pretty people are done being paid to look good in front of a camera, they often go on to “work” in the behind the scenes area, directing, producing or otherwise influencing movies. They’re also our news anchors, or talk show hosts and our most popular You Tubers. Pretty people know we like to look at them, and they use that attention, taking advantage of instinctual genetic response, to control the message and the medium that connects this ever shrinking world. Their power is terrifying in its scope.

3) Pretty People Target Our Children

Just look at this horseshit:

It’s goddamn shameless. A direct attack on our children, indoctrinating them into simply accepting this deviant lifestyle. And worse, this lifestyle is also squeezing parents for cash!

For future parents out there, let’s break down how it goes. Let’s say you have a little girl. For the first few years of her life, she is an angel. She is completely unaware that “pretty” is even a thing. She gets cooed over by everyone she meets just for being her special little self. Her intelligence is likely more highly prized than her looks, because she’s learning so much so fast! And those are the moments that her parents lavish the most praise on. Her first words, her first steps. Everything is great!

The one day, years later, she comes home. She’s been talking with other girls at school. She’s learned all about pretty, and how some people are basically first-class citizens and everyone else is basically just the mud they trudge through on their way to success. It would be heartbreaking enough for a girl to learn the realities of the world at this age, but no, that’s not enough for the Attractive Agenda. Instead, they sell her the idea that SHE might be pretty, she might be so lucky! And even if she’s just not quite pretty, they can sell her a bunch of expensive products that will make her look pretty! Disgusting.

And so she comes home one day, and announces that she’s pretty. And you know it’s just a phase, but you want to be supportive, so here we go. Here comes the hair products and the clothes and the make-up. Thousands of dollars later, your beautiful little girl, whom you love no matter what she looks like, is no closer to getting into a secret club whose membership was already decided on the moment she had the misfortune of carrying your ugly-ass genes. Now, through no fault of your own, she’s heartbroken and you can’t help but feel responsible. Shameful.

4) Pretty People are Destroying the Sanctity of Marriage

To illustrate this fairly straightforward point, a mildly hyperbolic example:

Imagine a friendly, pleasant gay couple. Let’s call them Joe and Steve. Joe and Steve grew up in the same city, had a couple dates and really hit it off. They shared a love of architecture and bad pizza. They were active and vibrant and in love and after a year or two of dating they just knew it was time to tie the knot. They can’t wait for the whole ceremony thing, that’ll come later. They just laugh and smile all the way down the county clerk’s office to file for a marriage license. Ahead of them is another couple.

Raymond is an investment banker, he’s 64 and his net worth is somewhere north of eight digits. He’s done well for himself, had a family, but due to him spending too much time at the office he felt a lot of distance grow between himself and his first wife, Judith. They never seem to have fun anymore, and they bicker all the time. Raymond had been worried about this a lot, and been wondering for months what he could do to try and rectify the situation and save his marriage. Maybe he would have succeeded, maybe he would have failed. Hard to say, because relationships, particularly lengthy marriages, are incredibly complex. But he never got that chance, because he met Tiffany.

Tiffany, is of course, a pretty person. She’s 22. She dresses provocatively. She sees an opportunity with Raymond to put up with some lackluster sex in return for never, ever having to work again. She likes Raymond fine, of course, she just likes his money more. She flattered him constantly. She flirted with him in a way that made him feel young. She blamed his current wife for all his troubles and convinced Raymond that she was just ungrateful of all his hard work. She feels no shame in what she’s doing to Judith because ‘bitch should’ve hung on to what was hers’. She is, essentially, the Devil. She is not only destroying one marriage but creating another, hollow, sham of a marriage to get what she wants.

Among certain segments of the population, what Tiffany is doing is gross, but should be allowed. Somehow, Steve and Joe are the deviant monsters. What the fuck is wrong with us?

So, in conclusion. Bigotry and Hate is wrong. Hating someone for how they were born is stupid, shortsighted and evil. And if it were up to me, we’d all just get along and be good to each other. But if you absolutely, positively, must have someone to hate. Why not hate the people actually doing all the stupid shit you’re constantly blaming on people you don’t like? Why not turn your hate on someone who was born with an actual advantage, like the attractive? I have a feeling it’s because you’d like to sleep with them.

You monsters.

#Bigotry #satire #essay

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crunchyenglish · 8 years

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The Angry Lunatic’s Scientific Journal of Stuff I Just Made Up. Vol 2.

Greetings amateur “science” enthusiasts, I return in triumph! Sort of. The better part of a year later.

See, Waaaay back in August of last year I thought it might be fun to find a stupid internet comment and give it way too much credit. To essentially try to hold the comment up to scientific rigor. Now, part of the problem with that plan was that I’m not much of a scientist. Or any kind of scientist...

Ok, I’m a liberal arts major who is kinda lazy, to boot.

So not a lot of actual “science” happened. But I did a bunch of Googling, research and writing. It was a lot of fun! I learned a bunch of stuff, mostly of the depressing variety and I felt very smart for several minutes. Good times.

And today, I want to try that again. And I can, because the internet is never-ending renewable resource of stupid. The number one problem I find with evaluating new “content” for this series is that a lot of it is the same themes over and over again. “Jews secretly control everything and the holocaust was a hoax”, “the government put a microchip in my brain”, “Here’s 600 pages of why Bruno Mars is a lizard person”. Boring, stupid stuff with so little connection to reality it makes it actually hard to argue with. I don’t want to play “Pigeon Chess”, I want to use genuine research to investigate something that seems ridiculous on its face. And that takes a special balance of stupid. Also, I have to be careful to not fall for “Poe’s Law” since most of the dumbest stuff on the internet is just trolls seeing who will bite. Also, today especially April’s Fools pranks are rampant.

Still, I keep at it. My secret hope is one day I write one of these and the lunatic ends up being impossible to completely discount. That would be both scary and fun. I mean, it doesn’t seem overly likely, but that’s what would make it cool.

With the basic conceit of this series properly recapped, let’s get to today’s “thesis” and it comes to us from “Subramanian Swamy” on twitter rearranged to make context clear:

“Yes, [Homosexuality] is curable by stem cell medical advancement”

Um. Wow. I mean...right, sure. That uh...that’s a bold statement. Stupid. But very, very bold.

Why did I want to do this again? Maybe it’s not too late to just spend all afternoon on Reddit.

NO. No. I’m an amateur yes, but I can still be professional. I can do this. I can do this. Ok. First things first.

DISCLAIMER:

The most broken, hateful, stupid, ignorant, stupid part of all this stupid is the nasty assumption that being homosexual is something to be “cured of”.

I’ve seen this demented line of thinking before, it goes like this; Since homosexuality is an inherent trait of a person (not a “choice” as some idiots might prefer) and is therefore in someway genetic, it must be a “condition” which could be cured. I can even see the warped logic. Homosexuals have it pretty rough in a lot of areas, and their sexual orientation could often be considered a detriment to their quality of life. That’s sort of like a genetic disease, right? Like being lactose intolerant, or being born with a heart defect? Why don’t we just “cure” homosexuality. That’ll make everybody happy!

Except bring attracted to the same sex isn’t naturally a detriment to anything. It’s not like the pain an asthmatic feels in their lungs, or a person with a heart defect needing surgery later in life. The only thing that makes life harder for gay people is...well us, basically.

I’m not some big LGBTQ (or however many letters you need to be inclusive these days) progressive. I’m a hetero male. I know a few gay people but I don’t talk sex politics, much. I’m actually terrified of saying something stupid as I write this. Basically whatever two consenting adults want to fuck, or get fucked by, is completely up to them and I’d rather they left me out of it. I do hate assholes though, and gay people are often the target of assholes. Plus, because it’s sort of an inherently nasty implication of this issue’s “thesis” I think I’ll go out and make a big brave statement:

“I think gay people are pretty cool, and shouldn’t have to “change” or consider themselves anything other than “normal”.

There, look at me, taking a bold stance. Next I’ll come out as Pro-Ice Cream.

DISCLAIMER OVER

Ok, so first we need to do some basic research, I think. “Stem Cells” has basically become “Quantum Physics” for biomedical research in that a lot of people have a fundamental misunderstanding of what it means and what it can do.

Here’s the first line of the wiki page about Stem Cells, just to give us the basics:

“ Stem cells are undifferentiated biological cells that can differentiate into specialized cells and can divide (through mitosis) to produce more stem cells”

Pretty easy concept to understand, but as usual the jargon obfuscates things a bit for a layman like me. Basically, as my limited brain understands it, it works like this:

Let’s say I was a very boring animal and I had two cells in my body, and that they were structured out of these parts.

Cell # 1 - A----B-----C-----D

and # 2 - A----B-----E-----F

But if we went looking in a few other places, say, my umbilical cord (don’t ask how a two-celled animal has an umbilical cord for fear you derail my awesome example) and you find all these “Stem Cells”. They look like this.

Stem Cell - A----B

These cells could still be either Cell 1 or Cell 2 depending on how they grow. So I’m going about my two-cell day, scoffing at all those amoeba that are around, and suddenly I’m wounded in a horrible Amoeba-gang knife fight. Oh no! Cell #2 has been damaged! Quick, body, send some Stem Cells to my wound. And these stem cells then “specialize” into the cell my body needs to repair itself.

Again, from the wiki (first paragraph, I’m very lazy):

“In adult organisms, stem cells and progenitor cells act as a repair system for the body, replenishing adult tissues. “

Makes sense to me. Stem cells are basically cells that haven’t decided what body part they belong to. They’re essentially your body’s unrefined cells which will later be cranked out into the body as whatever finished product you happen to need. Also, stem cells don’t always just wait around waiting to be other stuff. They also self-propagate through mitosis. So I guess we don’t run out? Clearly this means that with enough Stem Cells I could basically be Wolverine. No doubt science is hard at work on that one.

Wait....what the hell does that have to do with Genetic Disorders? I mean, forget crazy bigot’s tweet for a second. Didn’t I read about Stem Cell Studies researching cures to Alzheimer's? How can you cure a genetic disease using healing cells? Let’s see what Wiki has for us...

“Neurodegeneration

Research has been conducted to learn whether stem cells may be used to treat brain degeneration, such as in Parkinson's, Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, and Alzheimer's disease.There have been preliminary studies related to multiple sclerosis.

Healthy adult brains contain neural stem cells which divide to maintain general stem-cell numbers, or become progenitor cells. In healthy adult animals, progenitor cells migrate within the brain and function primarily to maintain neuron populations for olfaction (the sense of smell). Pharmacological activation of endogenous neural stem cells has been reported to induce neuroprotection and behavioral recovery in adult rat models of neurological disorder.”

Ohhh. I get it. Certain diseases have brain degeneration as a symptom, and using Stem Cell Therapy can treat that problem, keeping the brain healthy by potentially pumping up is ability to heal and repair itself. They don’t somehow “rewrite DNA” until you don’t have Alzheimer's, they just might curb the effects or symptoms. Well...that seems like good news!

Wait, is this week’s lunatic tweeter saying gay people have brain damage? Man, I hate this asshole even more now. Obviously that’s ridiculous and...

No. No, I’m going to do this properly, even though it’s stupid. That’s the whole point of this article. First, let’s make sure being gay is genetic. To Google...(sigh)

Damnit, science. I wanted a straight answer. Instead I get this -

“A Simple and singular determinant for sexual orientation has not been conclusively demonstrated; various studies point to different, even conflicting positions, but scientists hypothesize that a combination of genetic, hormonal, and social factors determine sexual orientation.”

Thanks for nothing, science.

Ok, look, here’s the deal. While a genetic connection to homosexuality isn’t really up for debate, studies don’t show anything as simple as a “gay gene”, indeed a simple chromosomal switch doesn’t seem to be able to account for anything regarding human sexuality, the topic is just too complex.

Twin Studies (that is, studies of fraternal identical twins, the latter of which share 100% DNA) can show a definite correlation between genetics and being homosexual. If one identical twin male is gay, odds are about 62% his brother his as well. At least, according to the numbers I could find. That’s bonkers crazy high, but it means that DNA isn’t the whole story, either. Otherwise a 100% DNA match would be identical twin brothers would always be either both gay or both heterosexual. The correlation between genetics and homosexuality clearly exists, but it’s also more complex than that.

Fine, but we don’t have to answer the “cause” of homosexuality. After all, we don’t know the direct cause of Alzheimer’s either. What symptom could gay people possess that could be fixed by repairing or replacing cell tissue?

Fucking Nothing, obviously.

There is no, I repeat, absolutely no degeneration, damage or physical symptom of homosexuality that is linked to their arousal by the same sex. Turns out “Stem Cell Therapy” repairs damage and, lo and behold, there’s no evidence of gay people being in anyway damaged or suffering any kind of degeneration. They are perfectly healthy, functioning people and therefore Stem Cell Therapy has no “solution” to offer them. You may not agree that homosexuality is “natural”, and if that’s how you feel, fine. But whether it’s a hormonal imbalance, or magic gay-rays being shot out by the Illuminati or fucking GMOs, I can assure you of at least one scientific fact:

It’s not cell damage causing gayness.

Get Rekt with Science, Twitter Bigot.

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crunchyenglish · 8 years

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The Night Shift: Introduction and Episode Guide

Lucky Number 13.

That’s the episode number we are currently on for our new gaming podcast: The (Game Haven) Night Shift. For those of you who don’t know, here’s the deal:

Game Haven is a local video game shop in Burlington, ON. It’s pretty great. Natasha Pignalosa, Steven Drouin and me, Blake Treleaven, are all Game Haven Employees. Technically Natasha and I haven’t worked there for some time, but once a Game Haven employee, forever a Game Haven employee it would seem. Our passwords still work. We still get our employee discount. We still take an active role in trying to make the store a great place to hang out talk about, and buy, video games. That’s because Game Haven wasn’t just a part time job we all did through high school and university, but a community of people we were very reluctant to leave.

So about 14 weeks ago, when Natasha came to me and was looking for an idea to get a new podcast up and running (our then-current project being sunk by a beloved friend and co-host moving on to bigger and better things), I suggested we focus on Game Haven and the kind of conversations we might have had behind the counter. I couldn’t tell you the number of times Steve, Natasha, a rotating collection of friendly (or sometimes eccentric) regular customers and myself spent an entire Saturday or Sunday afternoon chatting about games. The games we love, the games we hate. The meaningful moments. The stupid, silly stuff that doesn’t make any sense. Surely, having a microphone in the room couldn’t be a bad idea?

Whether it was a bad idea or not remains to be seen, but what it did end up being is a lot of fun. I ended up looking forward to every recording session and investing a fair amount of brain power into what we might want to talk about. Natasha and Steve always bring a lot of energy and, usually, disparate views on the games we talk about (at least when I shut up long enough to let them). We’ve talked about everything from “What does it really mean to be human?” to “Boob-lighting” in just these first few months and in my view, we’re only getting better.

This week represents a notable change though. For the first time, instead of just having a microphone in the room, Steve has gone all out and set up a genuine home recording studio. Steve, Natasha and our friend Will are looking forward to new, bigger projects. Steaming. Let’s Plays. A genuine presence on social media. There comes a time in any hobby, from Magic: The Gathering to Hockey to Lion Taming when you have to look within and say “How seriously do I want to take this?” “How much of my time and energy do I want to devote to being good at this?”

Well, my friends are about to start talking this very seriously, and far be it from to be left in the dust. When faced with their genuine excitement and enthusiasm, it’s time to get on board or get out of the way. I’ve decided on the former. And my first step is going to be a write-up of what we’ve accomplished so far. Here’s a quick break down of the first thirteen episodes of the Night Shift, with links, to perhaps tempt you into giving us a listen.

Episode 1 - Legend of Zelda: Tri-Force Heroes

This Episode has us introducing ourselves, and explaining the basic premise of the podcast, then discussing a portable Zelda title. As you might expect there’s some stumbling around with pacing in this first attempt, Steve talks too slow, I talk too fast. Also, we’re perhaps overly critical of the game as we do some “armchair strategist” stuff and try to figure out what we would have done differently with regards to the game’s design and marketing. Overall though, I think we have a lot to say, we aren’t afraid to go off topic for the sake of better discussion and Natasha manages to distill 90% of gaming into one sentence. A good start.

Episode 2 - Fatal Frame 5: Maiden of Blackwater

I think it speaks to our bad planning that we started this podcast right before the holidays, but I think it also speaks to our enthusiasm that we released an episode on Christmas Eve anyway. I think I, personally, come across as a bit of a shill for Game Haven in these early episodes. Oh well, C’est la vie. This is the first of many conversations we’ll end up having about the presentation of female characters and fan service. Steve has some good points about grinding and resource management. We need to let Natasha talk more, but I think it’s still pretty good.

Episode 3 - Myst IV: Revelations

Arrrgh! I’d forgotten the music is completely missing from the opening of this one! Honestly, this episode is a complete technical trainwreck. Bad audio quality, a loud clicking noise from some mystery source at the end, it’s a real gong show. It’s a terrible shame that the glitches are probably going to stop a lot of people listening, because once we get talking this episode is step up from weeks 1 and 2. We have a lot say, we’re all high energy and Steve’s discovery of the Myst universe was something I think most fans of the series would enjoy.

Episode 4 - Digimon Card Battle

My first week for choosing a game since Tri-Force Heroes is also probably our worst episode. The best part is probably our extended off-topic look into 2016′s release schedule and VR at the beginning. Or maybe our nostalgic look into Diddy Kong Racing. The point is, Digimon Card Battle doesn’t really excite us, so we find our interesting conversations anywhere else we can manage. The weird clicking is back, hopefully for the very last time.

Episode 5 - Resident Evil 6

Another frustrating episode. Tasha’s second choice of game had the potential to be our very best episode yet, and the audio errors we’d be experiencing reached their peak as a full 15 minutes are somehow clipped off the end of this week. Thankfully, unlike the Myst episode which was rendered nearly impossible to listen to due to audio errors, what survives of this episode remains pretty entertaining. Capcom’s oppressively awful design decisions gives us no end of fodder to goad them with. We have a lot of fun with this one.

Episode 6 - Megaman X

If I had to try and narrow down a good “starting point” for The Night Shift, I’d start here. We have a lot to say, and we hit an excellent pace and rhythm. The audio is clear. The game is excellent and we start to feel much more comfortable. Apparently we’re not fantastic at Megaman X, but we love it and our enjoyment really comes through. Steve begins to adopt his role as a “villain” of the night shift, playing a sort of “Idiot Devil’s Advocate” in order to keep conversations moving (and raise my blood pressure).

Episode 7 - Sonic Generations

If there was ever a “Blake” episode of the Night Shift, this is it . I am relentlessly enthused to talk about Sonic the Hedgehog. We don’t even make a dent in this topic, as far as I’m concerned. Steve’s love of Chao’s continues unabated, no matter how hard I publicly shame him. Prototype Raptor’s Chemical Zone remix is the best opening music we’ve ever used. Natasha tells us about her Dentist.

Episode 8 - Ni No Kuni

Natasha brings us our first RPG and it goes really well. We discuss the delusions and mental damage of a grieving young child and apparently tell Steve that Santa Claus isn’t real. I pompously quote George Bernard Shaw, and I’m pretty sure I screw it up. Also, we discuss the amount of care and effort that goes into the best kinds of games. Natasha would actually follow up on this massive title a bit in later episodes too, as we bump against the hard limits of our self-imposed one hour of play time.

Episode 9 - Life is Strange

Our weirdest episode by a country mile. The double time-travel theme of Chrono Trigger and Life is Strange had our brains stuck in a weird 4th dimensional sloppiness. Combine that with the fact that none of us could reconcile Life is Strange’s endless amount of critical and financial success with the boredom we felt actually playing the first bit of it and apparently we just couldn’t cope. We impulsively decided to build an entire episode around a bizarre gimmick. I love it, maybe more than anything we’ve ever done, but I freely admit it’s going to annoy more people than it will please.

Episode 10 - Metro 2033 Redux

Things are back to normal in Week 10, but we manage to find a few nooks and crannies to explore in the idea of narrative shooters. From the discussion of hypothetical Russian listeners to Steve briefly defending Nazis, it’s a solid episode, although perhaps the first time since Megaman X where we had less energy than the proceeding week.

Episode 11 - Trauma Team

Another goofy episode. Trauma Team’s inability to decide whether it was a serious medical drama or a goofy anime destroyed our ability to take it seriously. Which, in turn, led to a bunch of discussions and about topics like vintage porn and helicopter burial grounds. The real special treat is our friend Will Ward showing up to mock us all for not knowing what Tachycardia was and for how bad we are at Megaman X. Will will definitely be back, because he bring a different energy to the room and helps shake things up.

Episode 12- Saboteur - Coming Soon!

Nazis, Boobs and Bullets rule the day in this week’s episode, but the real monolithic evil empire we take on is EA, and what they did to Pandemic Games. Recorded in our newly constructed sound studio, I’m hoping the audio turns our to be a step above our earlier podcasts.

And that’s basically it. Hopefully some of that appeals to you guys and you’ll take a look at what we’ve been doing. Please, by all means, leave a comment on the podbean pages and let us know what you think. Right now all we have to go on is our own opinions, and knowing what people like and don’t like will definitely help guide this project as it begins to find its real footing. Thanks for reading and let us know what you think.

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crunchyenglish · 8 years

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Reddit Writing Prompt Response

This is the Prompt I was given : After Batman and the Joker end up killing each other Gotham is in Chaos. Oracle is forced to make the hard choice and with the temporary help of Nightwing trains a new Batgirl, Harleen Quinzel.

Note: There’s no real “good” time for this to happen in regular canon, so I played fast and loose with timelines and character arcs. If that bugs you, try to tough it out, but know that I apologize, sincerely.

“This is not a good plan, Babs. This is the opposite of a good plan. This is somewhere around ‘League of Assassins Summer Camp’ or ‘Blind Date with Calendar Girl’ on the scale of bad plans.”

Barbara Gordon cut the channel before she sighed heavily for about the third time during this conversation. They were going in circles and constant remarks were getting on her nerves. No one was questioning Dick’s glib wit, but at moments like this, he was so frustrating. How could someone so flexible be so stubborn? She pinched the bridge of her nose and tried to summon the patience to open up the channel again. Then she did, because someone had to make the hard decisions and no one else was around. She would have to push for this.

“That’s not the what the psych profile says, Dick. They’re pretty clear in the consensus. The...catalyst of her problems is taken care of. She should revert back to normal, she probably would anyone given enough time. But we don’t have time. What we have is a crisis. And you can’t tell me she doesn’t have the skills. Even... even Bruce noted this possibility in his files.” There. Low blow, but let’s see him refute that.

Across town, Dick stopped his freerunning across the rooftops of Park Row. He opened with a joke, but his tone lost a lot of its playful cadence.

“Killer Croc knows a lot about raw meat, but I’m not going to get him a job in a butcher shop, Babs. And I don’t...It doesn’t matter what Bruce thought might, hypothetically, happen after he was gone. He couldn’t possibly have known all the circumstances and variables. His back up plan for that wasn’t files or scenarios. It was us. And we’re going to have to be enough. To have been trained well enough to stop this city from tearing itself apart. That’s why we were ever involved at all. So the war could go on, even if he couldn’t.”

Babs couldn’t help it. She let some of the anger and frustration she was feeling overflow into her response. She was too tired. Too worn down. And Dick was just so damned sure of himself.

“Well I hate to break it to you, Boy Wonder, but even while you’ve been visiting we haven’t been enough. The city is spiraling. Tim has slept 4 hours of the last 38, even he’s getting sloppy. Cass is still nowhere to be found still probably neck deep in that assassination plot overseas. Selina is putting on this brave face, but she’s been so tired she’s left the comm on twice. I hear her crying in her sleep. She’s grieving, hurting and on the razor’s edge. And still it’s practically a warzone out there. What are we supposed to do when you go, huh? Or did you permanently fix all the crime in Bludhaven when I wasn’t looking?”

“So I stay. Is that so terrible an idea? I’ve done it before. Assumed the cowl-”

“It won’t be enough. And even if it was, the Joker made things too public. People know, Dick. They know the ultimate fate of the Batman. And the dark and twisted things in the shadows of this city are celebrating. Which is terrifying and wracking up a hell of a body count, but it’s nowhere near what will happen when they settle down and back to work.”

It was Dick’s turn to sigh. He looked out over the glow of the city streets. Sirens. Smoke. He looked down at his hands. They already had a lot of blood on them, from his work earlier in the evening. Babs was right. Blackgate was overflowing. GCPD was losing ground by the hour. And he was here, trying to move a beach with a pair of tweezers.

“Alright, find her. Time to go give a recruitment speech.”

======================================================

First, Harley had cried. She’d cried and cried and cried. He grease paint was resilient but even it had started to break down. She’d gone to reapply it, and suddenly be struck by the notion that she didn’t know why she was bothering. Then she’d cried some more. It was all so pointless. She’d been watching, smiling ear to ear, when the laughter had gone and fallen out of the world.

Over the next few days she tried to reach out. To old goons, to Eddie, to Ivy. But people in the city were so busy now. Two mythical titans had slain each other, and now they were all trying to scavenge pieces. Pieces, Harley thought bitterly, of his legacy. His greatness. Ungrateful jerks. She was angry, but she figured that was just part of the process. She knew all about grief, and loss and the muddy, inarticulate process of the human brain. She knew, on some level, she’d eventually accept what happened. She just wasn’t sure how.

The anger, the loss, the pain. That was, funnily enough, easy to deal with. She’d dealt with it all before. Not on this scale, maybe, but still. No, the scariest part was the completely paralyzing loneliness. She’d built her whole life around her love, her man, her perfect soulmate. And he was gone. Who was she, without him? What was she? She wasn’t Harley Quinn. Not really. That was...that was a tribute to him. A monument to her love. To his ability to shape her. Possess her. Even when she’d gone off her own, or with Ivy a few times, she’d always brought that along with her. Now it seemed hollow. Empty. Completely joyless. She was alone, with not even her devotion to him to keep her company. She felt numb.

She walked out in the pier, dressed only in a drab brown raincoat, over boring “regular people” clothes. No jangly hat, no goofy paint or colourful jumper. Just the sirens and sounds of a city in mourning. Just the cold waters of Gotham. She looked down and saw how tired she looked. How empty her eyes were.

“Oh Mr. J...”

“I thought black was traditional for a woman in mourning.”

It was a testament to Quinn’s acrobatic training that she smoothly turned “jumping in fright” into a perfect flip. She landed on the edge of the pier, now facing Nightwing, arms up in a defensive posture. Then she looked at her own hands. What was she doing? She let them fall limply to her sides.

“Go away.”

“Um, you mean go away ‘Birdbrain’ right? Or,” and at this point he adopted a insulting impersonation, the kind you have to practice, “Howdy Bat-Baby! Lookin’ to go for a swim without your floaties!”

Harley just started at him blankly. Tears ran down her face. When spoke, her voice was a hollow, raspy thing.

“What’s the point. In any of it. Go on, go beat somebody up. I don’t like this game. I don’t want to play anymore.”

Dick almost did. It would have been so easy, in that moment, to just fire a line and fade back into the night. He could tell Babs that Harley was no threat, but also no good to them, and just ignore the whole problem. But there was something so...honest, about Quinn in that moment. She was grieving. She was sad. She was lost. And it was plain on her face.

After Bruce had died, they all felt it. Not just the loss of a friend, a lover, a...father. No, they had also lost so much of their purpose. So much of their world. And they were all so damned intent on not showing it. On hiding their pain for the good of the mission. On putting on a brave face. Batman had a family, of sorts, that loved him. But out of twisted devotion to him, out of the crisis that arisen in the wake of his death, out of pride, or fear or some combination of it all they hadn’t shown it. None of them had cried. There’d been no old stories or shared support. They hadn’t expressed the unspoken pain they all knew they were feeling. She wasn’t hiding anything . Dick looked at Quinn and knew exactly what kind of pain she was feeling. Because it was his own. In her case it was for a twisted, psychotic murdering monster, but the cause didn’t matter. It was the exact same pain and he knew what she needed. What he needed.

He hugged her.

She stiffened worse than if he’d struck her (and he had plenty of that experience to compare it to) and the first look in her eyes was so angry, that he almost let go. And then she collapsed into his arms. She wept and wept. He just stayed stock still, silent and did nothing. She didn’t want to be comforted. Not really. But the connection between their pain was real, and they both felt it. Both needed to feel it. When she was cried out, Dick put her down. Wordlessly, he shot up to the rooftops. He had more work to do.

===============================================

It was nearly three days before she found Nightwing again. She wasn’t even sure why she was looking. It was a testament to how much crime was still going on in Gotham that she couldn’t just follow the sirens.

But eventually, Harley (”Harleen” she mentally corrected herself) found him in an alley. He had stopped a low-level arms deal, and was currently chatting about the one mook who was still conscious about where to find his boss. She’d thought about jumping in to help him, as a gesture of good will but she’d hesitated. It had been over in a split-second anyway. The kid moved with grace and, she had to grudgingly admit, it was fun to watch when you weren’t on the receiving end. She watched the goon spill his guts and then walked into view.

“Quinn.” He said, with a nod. He was stiffer than normal, no jokes. Harleen took it as a good sign.

“Bird- er...Nightwing.” She fell silent. They stared at each other a minute, blankly. He cleared his throat. She coughed. Then she broke the silence. She always hated quiet.

“I wanted to uh... to maybe say thanks, or whatever. You know. For the other night.” Immediately the screaming in her head started. Oh God, punch him. Make a fart noise. Throw a water-balloon filled with acid. ANYTHING. But she didn’t. She just looked down. This was so hard. To pretend to be, or to remember to be, normal.

“Oh. Well. I’d say sorry for your loss, but we both know I’d be lying. Or I’d say something dismissive, but I...don’t feel like dismissing you.” Wow, Grayson. Lame. “I mean, because... look Quinn-”

“Quinzel.” she cut in. “I uh, it doesn’t feel right. The other stuff, now.”

Even with a Domino mask, Nightwing’s expression showed him coming to an immediate decision.

“We want your help.”

=============================================

“25 more push-ups. No whining.” Said Oracle.

“Buuuuuut I can’t do anymore!” Harleen whined.

“I know. That’s why it’s called Endurance training. And no more cheating. Every time your knee touches the mat I’m adding three more the set.”

Harleen grumbled under her breath “How do you even know? Your in outer-space or in a bunker or something.”

“You can’t grumble quietly while wearing a Comm, Quinzel. And just because you don’t know where I’m watching you from, doesn’t mean I can’t see you. Now 25 more.”

“ This is boring, all by myself. Are you sure I can’t just train with Nightwing?” Harleen asked hopefully.

“What, so he can go easy on you every time you start the waterworks? Yeah right. Now stop slacking off.”

As soon as the channel cut out, Barbara switched over to Dick.

“Ok you were right. I was wrong. I admit it. She’s a nightmare, Dick. It’s like training toddler. This is a grown woman. A PhD for crying out loud!”

“Hello and good evening to you too, Oracle. Why yes, I am fine.”

“Seriously Dick, things have calmed down a lot. The city has finally started to stabilize. Dad says he can see the GCPD flipping off the panic switch without even setting foot in the precinct. It was a storm, but maybe we weathered it.”

Dick shook his head, even though he knew Oracle couldn’t see it.

“No, Babs, I think you were right. We did enough to convince the rats in Gotham’s gutters that it wasn’t an all-you-can-eat buffet out there, but that just means they’ll get smarter. Safer. They still think of this as a post-Batman world, and we still need all the help we can get.”

“Fine, but she- Damnit. I have to go.”

“Why what’s up?”

“She’s eating cupcakes. I looked away for like 30 seconds!”

================================================

The first real test came when Two-Face took a pair of celebrity twins hostage at a nightclub downtown.

Harleen had been in intense training for nearly a month. Even with her borderline superhuman powers, he years of acrobatic training and combat experience, Nightwing and Oracle hadn’t been satisfied. She’d barely done anything but sleep and train for weeks. Nightwing had asked her if she was ready to help and she’d said yes immediately. She was eager to prove she didn’t need anymore training. But Nightwing had asked her another question and it stymied her just as fast.

“Why?”

Harleen opened her mouth, but no sound came out. She tried again.

“Be-because I’m ready. I’ve done all the training. I’m fast and as strong as I’ve ever-”

“No, Harleen. Not why are you ready. Why are you helping?”

“Uh, because you ask me to?”

“Not good enough.”

“Because...” Harleen got quiet again. She hated being quiet. “..because I have nothing else.”

“Wrong again.”

Harley got frustrated. “Well that’s the only reason, Birdbrain, so if you don’t want me here, why did you let spooky radio voice lady boss me around for-”

“Harleen, that is not why you’re here. I know why your here. So do you.It’s the same reason I’m here. The same reason Oracle is here. But I need to hear you say it.”

Harleen paused. She thought about that night on the pier. She knew the answer. She was really quite clever when she tried to be.

“Loss. I’m here because I’ve felt a loss. One so terrible it stripped away almost everything else.”

Nightwing nodded. “And?”

“Because I don’t want anyone to feel that. The way I did. Ever again. Because people out there can still be happy. Still have the people that matter to them. And I don’t want anything or anyone to take that from them. Like it was taken from me.”

Nightwing handed her a cowl. Distinct ears sat atop it.

“Let’s go, Batgirl.”

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crunchyenglish · 8 years

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Rants to my Steering Wheel

I talk to myself, a lot. I joke about it, about how I just like the sound of my own voice. Or how no one else can hold their own in a conversation with me. Or about how it keeps the voices entertained. The truth is though, that I just have to work to keep my internal monologue internal. Somewhere along the line, I got used to just saying it out loud. In private, I often just ramble out my entire stream of consciousness, confident no one is listening. The number one place i do this of course, is behind the wheel of my car. I’m going to start writing them down, so I can remember them and see if there’s anything worthwhile in all my crazy. I have a long commute, so buckle up. Also no promises any of this makes any fucking sense. Also, if I should be seeking medical help, let me know. Having typed this, I’m kind of worried. Here’s today’s, it’s apparently about news, or the internet, or human nature. I don’t fucking know.

How the fuck am I supposed to know what happens in the world today? No really, how am I supposed to have any goddamn clue about what’s really going on. Everyone has a bias or an angle or a narrative they want to push and it’s always self-serving bullshit. Fact-checking these assholes would be a full time job. If the story was - Obama passes a bill giving harsher penalties to sex offender, the story would never just be that statement.

At MSNBC it would say “President Obama, our Commander-in-Chief rode a winged steed to victory today, as he united a fractured congress, a broken nation and our shattered hearts in a daring assault on the darkest depths of human nature, emerging victorious with harsher penalties across the board for the monsters and gremlins that endanger our precious American children”

Fox news would just be a headline running along the ticker that said:

“Sexual Assault, Pedophiles, Obama?”

And then it would have that asshole Sean Hannity saying “Of course, we would never allege anything so slanderous as the idea that President Obama was simply passing this bill to cover for the fact that he is, in fact, a sexual deviant himself. That would be slander. So instead. let’s cut to Donald Trump screaming that into a microphone we gave him.”

The thing about it is, since no one knows what to believe, you get psychos who who believe fucking anything. Rejects who, instead of developing critical thinking skills decided “fuck it, it’s easier to believe anything I want”. And I’m not just talking religious nutjobs, I mean those guys who think we faked the Moon Landing.

And conspiracy theorists are so fucking sad. Like, you read them for a whopping ten seconds and you can see every delusion is just them covering for some personal failure or insecurity.

“The Moon Landing isn’t real, trust me a I dropped out of a physics program in college and math doesn’t actually fucking work”

“The Homosexual Agenda is trying to get me to think about sucking dick all day. I can feel the homo-rays in my skull, but I’m fighting it, I’m too strong.”

“The President is a Secret Muslim which is why I can only get a job at Wal-mart”

“Half the population is Lizard People, which is why I can’t get promoted at Wal-mart”

“The Government is dumping Chem Trails from airplanes which is why my dog doesn’t like me”

“The Secret Order is putting Mind Control drugs in TIde, but the jokes’s on them, my Mom does all my laundry. Check and Mate, Illuminati”

But as terrifyingly pathetic as these idiots are, at least they’re mostly harmless. The internet is still a bad place to get news, even ignoring the psychos, because there’s also a brand of people that just spends all day on the net vomiting pure infantile rage and abuse on to anyone stupid enough to engage with them. The scary part of that of course, is how normal it’s become. We don’t even care, we just ignore it. Really? That’s not troubling to you?

The internet is not some fantasy land where people are infinite anonymous. It’s not actually hard to know who someone is and find them and these assholes know it. They just figure most people will be too lazy to do anything about it. Is that all it takes to turn us in to rage-fueled monsters, the thinnest fig leaf of anonymity? The fact that you can’t see the face of the person you’re hurting?

If we all wore ski masks 24/7 would out society immediately crumbling into the Mad Max apocalypse? Would we all be stomping each other’s skulls in hoping candy fell out, confident no one would reach over and take off our mask? Because that’s the really horrifying conspiracy theory - that we’re all as terrible as we pretend to be online.

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crunchyenglish · 8 years

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The Ultimate Guide to Racism, Sexism, Nationalism and Religious Hate.

Racism. Sexism. Homophobia. Religious Discrimination. These are broad, nuanced topics with a lot of people trying to decide where “the line” is. Here, finally, from my obvious position of moral and ethical superiority is the final word. I mean it, this is the one-stop checklist for “Should I be typing this?”. I promise. Follow these rules and you’ll never be an asshole.

1) If you’re angry, even if you’re justified, don’t type anything.

Outrage is a powerful tool for getting people on your side, and it feels good. But when you’re angry, you’re stupid. It literally affects the way you process information. If you can’t get your point across without anger, I promise your point is flawed. Don’t do it.

2) When typing something, always think of the icons or heroes you’re trying to emulate.

The fact is, when we comment on difficult subject matter we often stand on the shoulders of giants. We like to drop MLK into our discussions of Race Relations or Eleanor Roosevelt into our discussions of feminism, or what have you. None of these fights are new, people have been different from one another since the start and a lot of our ideas are built out of the history and ideals of people that came before us.

When you type something on the internet, sometimes you think you’re skewering a fool with your rapier wit, emulating Johnathan Swift, or Oscar Wilde. Sometimes you’re trying to rebel against oppression like Gandhi. A lot of us, probably think of ourselves more as a light-hearted figure, say a Mark Twain.

But Swift was “joking” about people starving, trying to shame an oppressive empire. Twain was racist in order to shove people’s faces in the uncomfortable truth of racism.

When you make a comment, try to think about the people who came before you and decide “Who can I envision saying this, or something like this?”

Obviously none of us are Oscar Wilde (no matter how much our egos might differ but if a comment can’t begin to live up to your heroes, then why bother posting it? You should be striving to make the best post you can, not typing just because there’s a text box available. And if the person you can mostly hear saying this is Donald Trump, well, then you have bigger issues.

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crunchyenglish · 8 years

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Bond Girls: Fantasy in Flux

When I say “James Bond” it’s a name that, through 80 or so years of cinema, comics and novels, invokes an awful lot of imagery. Fast cars, cool gadgets, shaken martinis and beautiful women, spring to mind.

Maybe a particular actor, or a particular scene is where your mind jumps. Most of you probably can’t help but think of Sean Connery strapped to Goldfinger’s Laser Table. It was originally supposed to be a rotary saw, but the laser was an excellent visual, which felt wholly unique to Bond. A good mix of courageous action mixed with simmering spy-tension. For some of you, maybe you prefer Roger Moore’s more action-oriented, “cartoon-y” version of Bond. Sliding down a banister firing an AK-47 or sprinting across the backs of a half-dozen crocodiles. For others, it might be Timothy Dalton’s more muted, gritty portrayal. Brosnan’s short career was one triumphant success in Goldeneye, followed by remaking several classic films, usually with less success than the original but with a genuine feel that the people involved cared. Craig’s films would take a modern approach to action and add a brutality that would have been a hard sell in 1962.

Whatever your preference for actors or tone, a few things remain constant. The grounding familiarity with the Bond character, his preferences and idioms are what makes a bunch of largely disconnected action movies feel like a shared universe. Governments rise and fall. Villains come and go. Enough generations pass for their to have been four James Bonds (ten if you consider a “00″ agent’s probable life expectancy). Bond is immutable, not unchanging, but uncompromising to the passing years. He still likes a martini shaken, not stirred. He still looks good in a tuxedo. He still can’t seem to help himself when it comes to making glib remarks. He drives the fast car de jour and he’s still an “irresistible” ladies man. Oh yes, Bond wins many a day on the fact that women seem helpless to his charms. Which is interesting, because while governments have rearranged a bit and “global terrorism” is more of a harsh reality than a cartoon villain plot these days, nothing in Bond’s world has changed more than the women he supposedly appeals to. Feminism, beauty standards and the role of women in film has change quite a lot in the last 50 years. How well have the “Bond Girls” kept up? How much attention did we actually pay to Bond girls? Were they characters? Props? Was there more to them than we really considered? I thought I’d take a look.

“Bond Girls” may seem like a dismissive or inadequate descriptor for a group of over thirty women stretching over almost six decades of film, but imagine what else you would call them. They are an eclectic bunch, to put it mildly. From rich heiresses, to assassins, to prophetic mystics, to nuclear physicists there is no one defining trait that seems to connect the “Bond Girls” beyond Bond himself, and the fact that they’re all pretty much stunningly gorgeous.

Even in their looks, there’s a lot of diversity. Bond apparently isn’t prejudice to any particular hair or skin colour. Cultural or linguistic problems never seem to get in the way, and their ages range substantially, from about 18 to 50. Since Bond himself is essentially ageless, that seems like a good range. Although admittedly, it would be nice to see the high end creep up a bit. Bond’s been at this since the Cold War, after all.

Early on, he did seem to have a thing for blondes, with the first three Bond Girls all looking pretty similar; Honey Ryder, Tatiana Romanova and Pussy Galore were all basically young bleached blonde beauties with a similar build. But growth and complexity of their personalities starts even in these first three films.

Honey Ryder, the beach combing shell hunter from Dr. No, is an interesting character, in theory. She’s capable and independent when we meet her. She’s easily kept out of harm’s way and snuck around Dr. No’s island more than anyone else before Bond shows up and can guide him around the SPECTRE patrols. She’s armed with a large knife which she seems to know how to use. Almost immediately however, she becomes frustratingly useless. If you were to ask your average Bond fan about Honey Ryder, few would be able to name a single thing she did in the course of that film after her dramatic entrance. She’s merely there as a shoe-horned love interest and provides little to the story. Which is a travesty, an utter crime. Because her personal story, which is expressed via dialogue in the film, is something you would believe to be memorable. Her father dies when she is young, and she’s raped by the local landlord. A man she later assassinated using a Black Widow spider, planted in his bed. A rape victim who gets vengeance on her attacker in the slowest, most painful way she could devise? Does that sound like “damsel in distress” material to you? The original novel by Ian Fleming of course, uses this backstory to inform a much more interesting character. The classic film though, thoroughly wastes the opportunity to create a strong female lead.

Tatiana Romanova was an improvement, if only slightly. In the film, From Russia with Love Tatiana is a Soviet Intelligence clerk, manipulated by SPECTRE into believing she’s being sent on a secret mission by her government. She is to contact a British agent, and inform them that she will defect and provide them with a Soviet encoding device called a LEKTOR. But only if James Bond personally comes and helps her escape from Istanbul. She claims, as part of the plot, to have fallen in love with James Bond via merely a photo and his reputation. This plot is to lure Bond out and have an assassin named Grant kill him. There are a couple of notable things which improve Tatiana over Honey Ryder. First, she’s manipulating Bond as much as he is using her and they both know it. The first time they meet, she seduces him and is aware her government is filming it, in a plan to “embarrass MI6″ (Oh for the days when a sex tape was a national embarrassment instead of a career path). Second, the plot of the movie revolves around Tatiana and her actions. At first she’s bait, but her decision to switch sides is the turning point in the plot. It’s true she eventually does “fall” for Bond, but only after she’s made aware that her “superior” at Soviet Intelligence was a SPECTRE agent. It’s made clear that she resents being manipulated, but is not genuinely interested in treason. She even saves Bond at the end of the film, shooting the SPECTRE agent sent to kill him. Tatiana is not a “strong” female lead. She’s flighty, mostly there for her looks and not terribly bright, even by the film’s own admission. Lots of stereotypes to shoulder, there. She does however, have agency in the plot and reasonable motivations. A marked improvement.

Then we come to Pussy Galore. Perhaps the most famous of the “blatantly sexual” named Bond Girls. To be fair, Jill Taylor’s famous death (covered from head to toe in gold paint and left to suffocate) comes first, but she’s hardly in the movie beyond as an example of Goldfinger’s ruthlessness. Galore, despite not showing up in the first half of the film, is far more integral to the story. She’s a trained circus pilot. She’s a mercenary. She knows Judo. She’s wholly unimpressed by Bond’s looks and demeanor and she’s smart enough to not trust Goldfinger. Here, finally, we have what might be considered a “strong” female lead. The actress, Honor Blackman, was 39 at the time of the film’s release and already played a strong female character in the the English series “The Avengers”. Plus, she really knew Judo. Pussy Galore’s character arc is admittedly rather rushed. She falls for Bond too quickly and it’s not clear how she got roped into working for Goldfinger in the first place. Still, Pussy, ridiculous name notwithstanding, shows agency, skills, brains and strength. Her beauty is secondary to her piloting talents and wits, both to Bond and to Goldfinger which is pretty refreshing. Also, Pussy’s story in the film is a serious improvement of the novel version. In Fleming’s original text, Galore is a career criminal, which better explains her connection to Goldfinger. However, her gang is not an all-female wing of stunt pilots. Instead, it’s an all-lesbian team of acrobats, and Fleming (in what I’m sure was progressive for his day but reads like psychotic dribble to modern eyes) attributes her lesbianism to being sexually assaulted by an uncle at age 12. Because clearly her sexual orientation had to be the result of trauma. Sigh. Still, the movie version is a pretty good heroine. We’ve got from beach bimbo to ass-kicking pilot in 3 movies.

There’s like 30 or so more Bond girls to do and this already too long. There’s plenty of interesting things to talk about, though. Maybe I’ll come back to it.

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crunchyenglish · 9 years

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The Angry Lunatic’s Scientific Journal of Stuff I Just Made Up Vol.1

So, sometimes, in moments of boredom or weakness, I go to Reddit. More than I should, really. And I’m on Facebook a lot, even though I don’t really *do* anything on there. I am thankfully not on Twitter, but I do get linked there and I do see some people I like retweet stuff on those little widgets on their websites. I don’t actually Tumblr, but I am writing this on Tumblr and in order to do that I had to look at a bunch of Gifs.

The point is, despite my best efforts at being morally and intellectually superior, I do spend a fair amount of time on social media. It’s trashy and loud and mostly useless, but it does kill a slow day at the office.

When you spend any amount of time on Social Media though, you’re going to come across some amount of stupid people, saying stupid shit. We, as an internet savvy population, have developed tools to manage these random outbursts of moronic dreck. Sometimes we laugh and share it so our friends can point and giggle at the dummy. Sometimes we get angry. Sometimes we shake our heads and facepalm. But I’m here today to recommend a more...scientific approach. This journal will be a place to test these ideas, publicly and through experiment. Science should not be hallowed halls locked off for only the elite after all. Even bad ideas deserve their moment in the Sun. Full Disclosure: I’m not a scientist or a science student. I am primarily an “enthusiast”, and a pretty lazy one at that. I suspect my rigor will be faltering and usually faulty. I will try to cite my sources as often as possible and I will try to follow loose protocol, but I expect mistakes will be made very frequently. But don’t fret! Scientific Journals, even fledgling ones like the Angry Lunatic’s are made up scientific communities. If any “real” scientists (or just folks who know more than me) would like to take a stab at writing a paper for this Journal, I would welcome that in a heart beat.

So without further ado I now present our first paper:

“An Introductory Study of Wireless Internet Signals (Wi-Fi) and It’s Cumulative Effects on the “Blood-Brain Barrier” and Toxic Metals.”

Uh...yeah. Strong start. Real strong. To give you an idea of what in the living hell that word salad up there means. Check out our hypothesis, direct from the Facebook group “Things Anti-vaxxers Say”:

I’m going to write that out. Both to turn it into something we can use as our hypothesis, and just to make sure I’m not currently having a stroke.

Hypothesis: Being in the presence of wireless internet signals causes “opening” in the blood brain barrier. Corollary: These opening allow the passage of “toxic metals” and “toxins” to be enter the brain, where they reside permanently.

Got our work cut out for us, don’t we? Let’s start with defining some of these terms.

Wi-Fi - a facility allowing computers, smartphones, or other devices to connect to the Internet or communicate with one another wirelessly within a particular area. - Easy right? Wi-fi works on the same radio signals radio and television do, but at a much higher frequency to transmit way more data.

Blood Brain Barrier - The blood–brain barrier (BBB) is a highly selective permeability barrier that separates the circulating blood from the brain extracellular fluid (BECF) in the central nervous system (CNS)

-This definition is a bit more complicated, hence it being pulled directly from Wikipedia. Trust me though, that’s the laymen’s terms. I read a few abstracts from actual medicine journals and had to sit down holding my head. Studies into the BBB are on-going and scientists (actual scientists) are looking at the BBB’s response to things like metabolic poisons, anesthetics, and electrical impulses. Hey! If work like that is actually being done, maybe our friendly face-booking idiot up there isn’t so far off the mark?

Toxic Metals - Many metals, particularly heavy metals are toxic, but some heavy metals are essential, and some, such as bismuth, have a low toxicity. Most often the definition of toxic metals includes at least cadmium, lead,mercury and the radioactive metals. Metalloids (arsenic, polonium) may be included in the definition.

-Ok, so this one SHOULD be pretty clear. We’ve all read about lead poisoning and people treating leprosy with mercury. We know about heavy metal poisoning, but our “contributor” up there tried to connect these heavy metals to vaccinations. Why would he do that? That’s because...holy shit they are actually in there?! What?! Oh man, Crazy Anti-vaxxers are right and the government is killing our...oh, no wait, that’s stupid.

Turns out that toxins found in vaccines are often in amounts <0.01% of a harmful dose. The amount injected in every vaccination a person has in their entire lives wouldn’t put them at any risk. This info was pulled by me from a highly readable and very clear article on sciencebasedmedicine.org from 2008, was common public knowledge for 50 years before that and it’s been reiterated constantly, on a loop, by every medical professional working today for the 7 years since. Turns out vaccinations are completely safe, extremely effective and there’s no real debate to be had. But we’re not here to talk about vaccines! We’re here to talk about Wi-Fi rotting your brain!

Experiment

Ok, so for those who don’t know (like the me of about an hour ago) the Blood Brain Barrier does EXACTLY what you think it would do from the name. It’s a semi-permeable barrier that stops the stuff in your blood (which your brain needs for all that tasty oxygen) from entering into your more vulnerable Brain Extracellular Fluid, or Brain Juice for the scientifically illiterate like me. This is pretty serious business. Nearly every neurological disease at some point hinges on a failure of your Blood Brain Barrier. Either from it allowing the disease that was in your blood to effect your brain such as in late-stages syphilis or meningitis, or by successfully repelling antibodies and antibacterials that would be used to treat infected brain tissue. Some studies even link disruption of the barrier to Alzheimer’s although the jury seems to be out on that one for now.

Basically, your body wants to be able to keep the blood pumping to your brain without risking your most vital organ to whatever crappy diseases and bacteria your immune system is still fighting or suffering from in your bloodstream and this barrier acts as another level of defense.

So then, if Wi-fi signals somehow damaged your barrier AND your blood had a high level of heavy metal poisoning, then technically our “contributor” could be correct. You’d have to already have the lead or mercury in your bloodstream, but letting it reach your brain is serious bad news.

It also explains away the most obvious way to disprove this theory. I have NO IDEA if this is correct or not, but it would seem to logically follow for me that just because we are all, everyday constantly exposed to a wireless signal (you are, by the way) and not dying of deadly infectious brain diseases doesn’t disprove this theory, because the Blood Brain Barrier is actually a second level of defense. You’d have to have an infected blood stream for your Barrier’s failure to affect your brain’s health. In other words, the destruction of the barrier puts you at risk, it doesn’t make you necessarily get sick. Sort of like an immunodeficiency.

Well damnit. I can’t use the anecdotal evidence of “everyone you’ve ever known has been saturated in wi-fi signals for the past ten years without getting brain damage”. Maybe all those people would die instantly to a low amount of heavy metal poisoning or at serious risk of rare brain parasite? And since “Real Doctors” keep telling me to stop cutting into people’s heads for unlicensed neurosurgery, I’m going to have to get pretty creative to manufacture an experiment or observation that might disprove this theory.

Hey, here’s a thought. What about making comparisons to countries that DON’T have endless wi-fi beaming into their brains all the time? Do they have stronger, healthier BBBs?

A quick Google helped me stumble across what might be the most depressing thing I’ve ever of. Eritrea. To quote Bloomberg.com:

“That’s because Eritrea, a Pennsylvania-size nation of 6 million, is the least connected country on earth, according to data compiled by the United Nations’ International Telecommunication Union (ITU). For the past six years, Reporters Without Borders has ranked Eritrea the world’s worst in terms of press freedom. “

Less than 1% of citizens in Eritea have access to landline phone, nevermind internet. Only 5.6% have a cell phone and those are heavily restricted by a government controlled communications division. About 1% of their citizens have access to incredibly awful dial-up internet well-below 56k modem speeds. This is all so the oppressive government can keep complete control of the lines of communication and shut down organization and rebellion. The Wi-Fi numbers, if they exist, are so negligible no one can count them. They are a nation without Wi-Fi. An awesome control for our research. I mean, a human rights travesty and a country suffering in abject poverty which I’d never even heard of. But aside from that, awesome.

Unfortunately, medical statistics made public about Eritrea were mostly about far more pressing issues for that country, such as malnutrition, infant mortality rate and HIV epidemics. HIV in particular ruins our control because it makes neuroinfections far more common.

However, we’re in luck! And once again that luck is the terrible, awful luck of people born in Eritrea. Eritrea is actually part of something called the “Meningitis Belt”. See it’s over there on the right!

This particular strip of hell on earth has routine cyclical epidemics of meningitis and the highest outbreak frequency of any part of earth. The cycles are actually matched to vaccinations and falters in herd immunity. In other words, all of these countries are poor, HIV-riddled and deal with a disease that can take advantage of a damaged or disrupted Blood Brain Barrier. But only Eritrea has a significant lack of telecommunications and therefore no Wi-Fi! All other factors being equal, and compared against nations in the Meningitis Belt, do the people of Eritrea suffer less severe complications with Meningitis?

NOPE! Meningitis rates vary from country to country with each cycle of outbreaks but Eritrea does not consistently have fewer cases or fewer fatalities as a ratio compared to other nations in the belt.

Turns out that just because they’re not swimming in Wi-Fi signals like Nigeria or South Sudan, doesn’t make their brains any safer. Sure, South Sudan only has 21% of their population connected to the internet, only 16% have wi-fi but that’s an astronomical jump from the the poor folks over in Eritrea. Nigeria has 37% and their brains don’t appear to be any more or less vulnerable to the effects of meningitis either. There are a billion factors that influence vulnerabilities of our bodies to disease, and this is far from conclusive but...

Conclusion

Well. That was fun right? In this highly unscientific attempt at science I think we reached a pretty solid conclusion: Wi-Fi isn’t rotting your brain and you don’t have to be a neurosurgeon to figure that out. We all already knew that, but you know what? I learned a lot by trying to prove it.

I learned about a whole new country! I learned what a Blood Brain Barrier is and does. I learned about something call the Meningitis belt. I learned that internet rates in Africa are obscene and that Eritrea is suffering in silence under a despot, with no way to communicate to the rest of the international community. Ok, so I didn’t learn happy things, but hey, learning is learning.

If anyone else wants to write up a “scientific” article disputing something stupid they heard online, by all means give it to me, I’ll include it in Vol. 2.

I really enjoyed this. I took the ramblings of a mad idiot and just pulled on strings until it led me somewhere. If there’s “point”, it’s not that some people are stupid (although they are) it’s that seeking truth and knowledge can start from absolutely anywhere and the facts are all there to find online. We have this incredible tool at our disposal to find the truth. It’s waiting there for us to go looking, all the information of all civilization. Yes, we can use it to look at cat pictures, and youtube videos but when you think of the people of Eritrea, who are kept completely in the dark and ignorant by an oppressive regime, don’t you think we have a moral imperative to do more with it?

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