If you're ugly … forget it

As you might have gleaned from some of my more recent posts, I've been going down a bit of a rabbit-hole when it comes to incels, lately. I've listened to a lot of stuff with people talking about the scientific research that's gone into determining what people look for in a potential partner. Success? Wealth? Education? Personality? Ethnicity? Culture? Religion? Politics? Familiarity? What I've learned is that, apparently, it's not all that complicated.

The factor that apparently blows everything else out of the water is good old physical attractiveness. Now, that's not to say that it's the one and only factor that ever comes into play all the time ever. What it means is that your looks determine the size and quality of the pool from which you can draw a potential mate in a way that no other quality is even comparable to. Even the people who say they don't care about looks—it turns out that subconsciously, they actually really care about looks. Not only that, but if you find someone really good looking, chances are, you're also going to think that they're funnier and nicer and more competent and trustworthy than they actually are. And get this—not only are good looking people more likely to cheat on their partner, it's also more likely that their partner will forgive them for it.

I remember years ago, I had a conversation with Squib, where I posed the question—how is it that relatively intelligent women (of which I include myself) can get into relationships with blokes who are complete dickheads, but not realise they're complete dickheads until months or years down the track. Apparently the answer is, people are hard-wired to overlook a lot of shit when they're physically attracted to someone.

Oh, and apparently, this doesn't just end with the mating game. If people find you attractive, they're likely to value your work more highly and be more forgiving of your mistakes. In fact, in a lot of first world countries, attractiveness now elicits more bias than things like race or sexual orientation—eg: if you're trying to work your way up the corporate ladder, it's better to be an attractive black woman than an ugly white woman.

Now, there is one caveat to all this—apparently there's a small subset of the population who actually legitimately don't care about physical appearance when looking for a potential mate. Unfortunately almost all of these people are fucked in the head, and end up being paranoid, insecure, manipulative, controlling, abusive, etc, etc.

Which brings me to the following video, which was posted on YouTube by a Scandinavian incel, and apparently went viral at the start of the year. It's about twenty five minutes long. There's no point in watching the whole thing, but I would definitely leave it on and listen all the way to the end.

https://youtu.be/1n5nOEJtrYA

*sigh* How does that TISM song go? If you're ugly, forget it.

Update

I am currently spending every waking second of my life writing JavaScript code.

Exciting? Not so much.

But it pays the bills, I suppose.

Cyber Security Update

There's been a flaw found in the code that Android uses to render .PNG images. What does this mean in non-techie terms? Well, basically, it means that a malicious person could write a little program and embed it in an image file, and either embed it in a website (or an ad on a website), or send it out via an email, or MMS message, and if your Android phone or tablet receives that message, or tries to view that website, it will run that malicious program, which could potentially take over your device.

What can you do? Well, you could just do nothing. The chances that you're going to come into contact with an infected image file is considerably less than 50%. However, if you want to be on the safe side, you can disable MMS messaging, and turn off image rendering in your phone/tablet's email client and web-browser (provided you're using a browser and email client that lets you do that). Then you have to hope that your device's manufacturer can be bothered pushing out an update that fixes the issue.

This is not the first such flaw to be discovered in Android, which is why I have had MMS turned off for years. However, I also understand that for a lot of people, sharing photos is one of the main things they use their phone for. At the end of the day, you'll have to decide for yourself, if you want to take the risk or not.

Not perfect, but what is?

If you asked me what my favourite genres of fiction are, I'd probably tell you I like sci-fi, fantasy, horror, etc. But the truth is, there's nothing inherit in those genres that interests me. I'm not a nufty when it comes to monsters, or magic, or futuristic tech, or anything like that. What I really like, is explorations of society, culture, politics, morals, ethics, emotions, motivations, and the human condition; and it just so happens that those particular genres tend to give a writer the freedom to explore those things in ways that "reality-based" genres don't.

There was a lot of hype around the Black Mirror episode "Nosedive" (the Facebook one). While I thought the idea was good, I wasn't a huge fan of the execution. It's hard to describe, but it felt very … American—and not in a good way. But that's not to say everything that comes out of America is bad. For instance, I saw The Orville the other day.

If you were ever a fan of Star Trek: The Next Generation, I highly recommend checking it out. As most reviews of the show have noted, there are some issues with the humour. It's obvious that the creators wanted to make their own Star Trek, but the only way they could do so without getting sued is to make it a parody. Hence, a lot of the jokes come off as stupid, forced, and out of place. It's by no means a deal-breaker though.

Getting back to my comparison with Black Mirror, there's an episode of Orville towards the end of season one that covers exactly the same ground as Nosedive, and in my humble opinion, does it in a far superior, and more satisfying way. Also, I thought the episode on child genital mutilation was particularly well done; and I was pleased to see that, not only did they not take the easy way out, but the events in the episode are continuing to have major repercussions in the show. It even managed to do a fine job of highlighting the insurmountable problems that emerge from the unrealistic ideal of multiculturalism.

If you're in Australia, or can fake coming from an Aussie IP, you can check out the entirety of season one, and the first part of season two on the SBS on-demand website. Squib, if you're keen, I can probably send you the episodes the same way I did with The Book Club.

And back to thots again

Last night, I was downloading the newest videos from my favourite ASMRtists, and I noticed one of them was actually a live-stream. Normally, I'd skip over something like that. Live-streams tend to be fairly low in quality and involve the host performing supposedly sleep-inducing actions by request—most of which I don't find sleep-inducing whatsoever. This particular ASMRtist, however, is someone I consider to be a good all-around entertainer. She's a better-than-average actress, and a lot of her videos are quite funny, often in ways that seem very natural. In fact, I'd say she kind of has the air of a young Jennifer Saunders about her. So I decided to have a look at this live-stream and see what it was about, and I'm glad I did, since it turned out to be rather fascinating indeed.

The first half hour was the usual introductions and pleasantries, and the last hour was a discussion about how social media seems to have descended into a parody of a witch trial, with everybody looking for an excuse to brand everyone else a racist/sexist/homophobe/islamophobe/etc. The middle hour, however, was this young lady—who makes videos I use to get to sleep—having a direct discussion with the people who watch her, on the subject of whether or not she should go down the road of thottery.

The situation as she described it, is that she is a twenty-six-year-old woman, working in a crappy retail job, in a rural village, in Norfolk, England. She doesn't drink, smoke, or take drugs, and yet she still doesn't earn enough to move out of her parents' house—such is the state of the rental market in the UK. Her audience on YouTube has stopped growing, and while she thinks she might be able to pull new viewers in by taking her clothes off, she's worried that she might also end up alienating a substantial part of her existing audience. Interestingly, very few of the replies she was getting seemed to be all that negative. In fact, there were audience members sending in messages that were flat out saying stuff like, "Hey there. Big fan. Just wanted to let you know I masturbate to ASMR videos, and I really like you, and I would love to masturbate to videos of you doing ASMR in a bikini". An eye-opening experience to say the least.

In the end she decided that while she wasn't ready to go full-bikini, she might try wearing some low-cut tops, just to test the waters. Also, she completely ruled out showing her bare feet—which seemed odd to me. I know foot-fetishists are kind of looked down on, but you'd think that if you were negotiating taking your clothes off for other people's entertainment, footwear would be the easiest thing to give up?

Anyway, what do I know? Watching this thing play out has made me feel very old and very out of touch. What say youse?

A friendly reminder

Since I guess I'm doing tech-reporting (sort of) on here now, I thought I should mention that one of the major companies that sells smart, internet-connected, surveillance cameras for your home, has been caught allowing their employees to download camera footage without customers' knowledge. The employees in question were supposed to be working on improving facial-recognition technology, but of course, because they're human beings, they immediately started sifting through the archives, looking for sex, nudity, and anything else that was remotely salacious. And of course, because they're human beings, they were also sharing this stuff with their friends.

And this is not new news, but I'd also like to point out that Tesla vehicles are full of sensors that feed data back to the parent company; and Elon Musk has not been shy about publishing the details of Tesla owners who have publicly criticised his cars in the past, especially journalists.

I just want to remind people to be careful when incorporating internet-connected cameras, microphones, and other devices into their daily lives. That is all.

I dunno what you think of our pick for Eurovision …

I didn't get to see all the acts because the phone kept ringing, but I wasn't all that keen on the winner. Don't get me wrong, I love operatic metal, and I'm quite fond of operatic pop; but that song tonight … it didn't have any body to it … or something.

… It was just … meh.

Also, I really miss Steph Zemorano. The energy between Myf and Whatsisface … I dunno … somehow it just mad the whole thing seem fuckin' dull and tedious.

On the bright side, since I don't like the winner, there's a good chance of us doing really well this year.

From trannies to terfs

Ever since I covered the Patreon boycott, which—as you might remember—revolved around a Pommy cunt named Carl Benjamin, I've started listening to Benny boy's videos on a semi-regular basis. Now, I don't share CB's opinions on much, and I'm not overly interested in debating his take on things; however, I did think the little series he did on transgenderism covered plenty of ground that was not only interesting, but somewhat relevant to what we've been discussing here recently.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y7ShPagA8Ns

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AZq9jqD5xeM

While I don't live in the UK, I have heard anecdotal stories about how sensitive the police have become to the subject of hate crime over there. Specifically, I have heard that if your property is defaced by graffiti artists, your best course of action is to grab a can of paint and spray "Paki scum out of Britain", along with a swastika or two, on the already vandalised surface; then ring the police. Somebody will usually be sent out to clean it up within a period of about 24 hours. Have you heard anything about this phenomenon Squib?

Also, there's this, from Mr 'jamin's second channel, where he posts videos that are less thought through and more bombastic and off-the-cuff. Still worth discussing though, I reckon.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rQmJ44qcQlU

Edit: and now there's this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8D-q61G3VqU

From thots, to incels

We've discussed the issues around the "man-o-sphere", and particularly incels, on here once or twice before. Here's a video by some Yank tranny, which I thought put an interesting spin on the phenomenon.

Let me know what you think.

Fucking Cunts!

Okay, so I'm looking through my neglected news feeds, and I see a bunch of articles talking about how Google is deprecating the WebRequest API call in the Chrome browser …

FUCKING CUNTS!!!

Oh, pardon me, I should explain …

See, lots of people, including myself, write browser-extensions—which are little programs designed to run inside web-browsers. Ad-blockers are a type of browser-extension that I presume you're all familiar with—and while they're far from being the be-all and end-all of extensions, they are incredibly popular and incredibly relevant to this topic.

Google Chrome is by far the most popular web browser on the face of the Earth. How did it get so popular? Well, it doesn't hurt that it's a very good browser, but as we all know, quality and success rarely go hand in hand. No, what made Chrome so popular is the fact that Google own the world's most popular search engine, and the world's most popular email service, and the world's most popular video-sharing site, and if you use any of these services with a browser other than Chrome, you will be bombarded with messages along the lines of "This website works better with Chrome", "Upgrade your browser today", etc, etc. Obviously, this is a level of publicity that other browsers can't even buy, much less get for free.

The immense popularity of Chrome means that most people who write browser-extensions write them to run on Chrome, and then, if they've got time, they might—maybe—put in the effort required to make their extensions run on other browsers too. As you can imagine, this helps make Chrome even more popular, since it has all the best browser extensions and the other browsers get left with table scraps. Thus, a vicious cycle is born. It got to the point where, when Google proposed setting up a cross-browser standard for writing extension (which would, in theory, allow all those juicy Chrome extensions to run on other browsers) the other browsers saw little reason not to agree. In theory, this gives all the browsers a seat at the table, and input into shaping the standard, but in reality, it gives Google the first and final say in any and all decisions. So what it effectively does, is put Google in a position where they can dictate what sort of extensions can and can't run in their competitors browsers.

So, what is the WebRequest API and why are they getting rid of it?

The WebRequest API allows browser-extensions to intercept and re-direct requests for web-resources. It's the backbone of every single content blocker in existence—not just ad-blockers mind you, but extensions that block images, javascript, and all kinds of things that might contain malware or viruses. Oh wait did I say all of them? I meant all of them except one; and you guessed it, the one content blocker that doesn't rely on the WebRequest API is the one content blocker that Google officially partners with, and which allows all Google content, including Google ads, through its filter. Oh, and did I mention that Google also owns the biggest advertising business in the world?

Obviously I am pissed off about this. I personally write and use browser-extensions that rely on the WebRequest API, and while I don't use Google Chrome, I'm absolutely certain that it's only a matter of time before the gutless cunts at Mozilla fall into line and pull this vital function out of Firefox as well.

At this point, I don't see how Google could be considered anything other than a threat to the internet. And that's not to say that everything they do is 100% terrible—it's never ever as simple as that. But on aggregate, what they are doing is gradually fucking all of us. So gradually that most people are never going to notice, I'm afraid. I'd love to start telling everyone to switch to Firefox, but the truth is, Chrome is now so dominant, that a lot of websites (including Google-owned sites) code specifically with Chrome in mind. Switching to Firefox means accepting a crappier browsing experience for the sake of some theoretical greater good, that probably won't matter anyway, because things are already too far gone.

sigh

Oh, and yes, I do realise this blog is hosted on a free Google service. No, I can't find a good alternative. No, the irony is not lost on me.

Fucking cunts.

Back from holidays

I thought I was going to be able to check in here over the Christmas break, but obviously I was wrong. Sorry about that. And yes, I do mean the Christmas break. Since my family were all in different parts of the country for actual Christmas, we had a two-week get together over the Australia Day period. This worked out better than you might expect, since my brothers and sisters-in-law all had pupil-free days to contend with, and it meant that myself and my parents were on hand for nibbling-sitting duty.

Oh, and in case you're wondering what my feelings are on "Invasion Day", I think it'd be nice if we had a day that focused more on federation rather than the founding of one colony; but at the end of the day, I'm not going to lose too much sleep over it.

Holiday went well. Much backyard cricket was played, but not enough to offset the amount of home-made rubbish I scarfed, and once again I find myself struggling to get my trousers on. Speaking of cricket though—THE BRISSY HEAT ACTUALLY WON THE WOMEN'S COMP! Absolute cracker of a match that went down to the final over too. As you can imagine, the roof nearly came off at my brother's place, where we had all gathered to watch it. Funny how it was all forgotten on Saturday though, once footy season kicked off. Ah well, that's kids for ya, eh?

Anyway, looking forward to catching up …