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"Our fears of impending Molotov cocktails may be overblown."

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at 09:02 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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It makes sense that I ought to look into automatic content generation.

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Posted by: The Brickmuppet at 11:02 AM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
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 Oh.

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Remember BoatyMcBoatface?     Well, Hi-Point didn't.

Behold, the YC-9. 

Disclaimers: May not be strictly accurate representation of referenced weapon. 

Art by Danielle Brindle

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Someone takes a moment from twirling his broomhandled mustache long enough to provide an interesting review of Innocents Abroad .

Dustbury points us to ...this...

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at 01:23 AM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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Take with a grain of salt, it is after all, Google, but this is rich.




I suspect that the reason Fauxcahontas is at the top of the search queries The Sooner State (and nowhere else) is not reflective of any groundswell of affection for her by the locals.



Gabbard must have done pretty well though.

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at 12:43 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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Houtengeki provides us with a convenient visual representation of today's fast-evolving terminology.

Global Elf

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at 10:46 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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In bowels of the previous post we snarked briefly about that Tifa non-troversey and how it was distracting from potentially worrisome issues with the game. That post hyper-linked to an article that had the character designer explaining that the decision was forced on him by the company ethics department in order to conform to 'Global Standards". Curious as to what "Global Standards" were, our crack team of fact checkers did a cursory search and lo-and behold it's a thing.

Interestingly, this policy was implemented by Sony in in 2018, which was about the same time that a wave of censorious shenanigans descended upon the internet in various places. That timeframe is significant because looking for info on "Global Standards"turned up this rather long but fascinating article at Medium, which deserves your full attention.

Let’s take this timeline for example; In, July of 2017, Stripe announces a partnership with Chinese Companies WeChat (Tencent) and AliPay. What happened less than a quarter of a year later? Well, Patreon (who as stated earlier relies on Stripe for processing), had their guidelines updated with further scrutiny paid to adult content, seemingly out of nowhere. As time went on, Patreon would be on and off with the adult content they allowed, eventually allowing it as long as the outward page being presented was not itself explicit. The NSFW community on the site was left in a cloud of doubt about what the official position was when it came to terms of service; much akin to what is currently happening on platforms like Steam. Are there any other examples of this, however? The archived list we used notes that Circle, which was at one point accepting of this content, apparently changed their mind.

  ...there’s been an oddly increasing number of incidents related to so-called "problematic content” being stripped from or outright barred from a number of sites. However, when looking into it deeper, there seems to be a simple, central trait shared by all of these incidents; Chinese Investment, or entrance into the Chinese Market. All of this also corresponds to reports that cross-border investment from China is reaching new levels, as there is proof of China actively attempting to move their money overseas. What’s terrifying about this revelation is, as you’ll see, the issue with censorship does not come simply from Chinese companies buying out firms so they can censor them; it comes, sometimes, from companies simply wanting to expand into the Chinese market themselves, and be compliant in doing so.

On one hand essentially, tech firms are bending over to please the ideals of the Xi Jinping Doctrine, in hopes of courting favor with the party — leading to their eventual approval to begin operations within China.


On the other hand, tech firms are pleasing the ideals of the Xi Jinping Doctrine — without being told to, simply because they already ideologically align.

  "bank deposits and government securities in currencies from stable and reputable central banks."

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Oh good. My login works in this universe. Fancy that.

So. Due to automotive problems and some ill-considered decisions, I have, for the last four days, been in a North Carolina swamp with spotty cell-phone connectivity and no internet whatsoever.
Today, after returning "home" I've discovered that I've returned not to my home, but someplace....else.

It's a dystopian alternate universe where Facebook is actually issuing its own online currency with the backing of multinational corporations, some of whom have a reputation of freezing the bank accounts of people they find politically suspect. This will make the Chinese Sesame Credit System a reality throughout the U.S.A. and the world...like it's some Walter John Williams novel.

In this dark reflection of my world, the news media is CREDULOUSLY reporting that cellphones are causing young people to grow horns out of their heads. Weekly World News must not exist in this universe...(checks Wikipedia)....aaand it went out of business here in 2007.
On the one hand "Yay! Draphs!" on the other hand....Bullshit. Surely it's bullshit? (does a modicum of checking) Yes it's bullshit.

In THIS reality the anti-war left is catatonic with rage that Trump...did...not...start a full blown war...
 
This grimdark science fiction novel has the poorly written, mustache-twirling, cruel and decadent aristocrats in the cities cutting off power to those in the rural areas just as the hottest days of the years approach...no doubt to maximize the impact of loosing refrigeration, air conditioning and access to home medical equipment.

In this sequel to Harrison Bergeron a beautiful, strong, competent, independent, heroic, mixed-race woman was forced to get a partial mastectomy because the Handicapper General demanded it so that the woman would meet approved global beauty standards.

Akshually that last paragraph consists mostly of snark as the non-story is not, in itself, of any importance...This most inconsequential of udder utter non-issues only becomes an issue because the media in this Orwellian Hellscape I find myself trapped in is, for some reason, literally trying to tell us that this non-event is not happening and that the new design has exactly the same bra size as the old...we're not seeing what we're seeing because 2+2=5.
The actual character design of this Tifa cosplayer is gorgeous (a 9/10 or better if one needs a numerical representation),  it's like the Megacorps of this alternate world are hyping largely non-existent outrage in order to distract from the fact that the game is being released in 3 to 5 separate games, over years, looks very much like it may have pay to win issues, will be entirely online and fully embraces the media-as-a-service cancer to the extent that no one will ever really be able to own their game and will always be at risk for loosing it if one crosses the ever changing threshold on speech standards.

 
In this world, far from being over, the Jussie Smollet case is just getting started.

It seems that Kaiju are real here: The Kyushu shinkansen nework was taken out by a single slug.

This universe seems to have diverged from mine around 1984, because here Atari has a new console coming out.

So. I find myself trapped in an alternate, and slightly crazier world

However, this worlds version of my blog (curiously) is unchanged.
Perhaps this isn't really an isekai situation.
After all. All those years of wasting my life on comic books, video games and playing D&D didn't prepare me for squat in this place..

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at 06:09 AM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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That's how many people need to march to get the Chinese government to pause and reflect.

I did not see this outcome, and I am happy to be wrong.

It's no doubt a short reprieve, but that the citizens of a city of 8million  could achieve this in the face of a a totalitarian nation of 1 and a half billion is nothing short of amazing. Outnumbered about 180 to 1, they successfully staved off further erosion of their liberties. This should serve as both an inspiration and moment of humiliating self-reflection to those of us whose political movements  have yielded liberties for generations in the face of similarly minded totalitarians, but at odds of roughly 1:1.

Cdr. Salamander has been following this shamefully under-reported story and, as always, his take on it is well worth your time to read the whole thing.

Finally, there's this....

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at 01:22 PM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
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This tweet means something, but the tweet's existence suggests it means something other than what is tweeted.

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Well, 5 and a half years after we first reviewed it here, Pixy has started to watch Log Horizon and seems to be liking it.

I can only caution him that when he gets to the cake episode not to give up.  This show remains interesting and different in all sorts of ways.

^{To Wit: In any other show, 'Bouncing Kunoichi' would have different implications..}

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at 05:55 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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