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Let them eat cake…

I skimmed this => http://qz.com/1015011/supreme-court-cases-if-the-court-decides-cake-baking-is-free-speech-it-will-affect-far-more-than-same-sex-weddings/ <= article from Quartz. And ugh.

The long title is “If the US Supreme Court decides cake baking is free speech, it will affect more than gay weddings” – and the article is all about how the US Supreme Court is hearing the case of  Masterpiece Cakeshop vs. the Colorado Civil Rights Commission.

Which sounds like a fight you might be behind — “Fuck the Colorado Civil Rights Commission. Small businesses forever!” — except the cake shop is owned by assholes and I hope they lose. Plus, civil rights are a big deal and everyone should 100% support them.

Because the cake shop says that while they SELL cakes and cookies to LGBTQ customers as they are required to by law, they should not have to bake specialty cakes for them, ESPECIALLY wedding cakes.

Which, you know, whatever. A wedding is a recent legal construct crafted so men can keep women as chattel. That or it’s a beautiful lifetime event that one cake shop should not be allowed to ruin, so fuck them, take your business elsewhere, and leave them a review mentioning the lack of service.

“I went to Crappy Anti-Humanity Cakeshop and they gave me a cake covered in frosting dicks” should never happen.

Neither should “I went to Crappy Anti-Humanity Cakeshop and they went on-and-on-and-on about how my lifestyle choices are against God. So I told them to suck a dick and went to Dairy Queen.”

You know why? Because if you have a business and you want to sell to the public, you should put on your Customer Satisfaction hat, not your hateful Dangerously Unbalanced Religious Zealot hat.

Otherwise, shut down your storefront. Lock your doors. Cover your head with a purple blanket. And wait for the moon men to come take you away.

It is almost 2020. You don’t want hindsight to show that your business failed not because of a lack on the customers’ part but because of a moral failing on your own.

Out of all the people that PROUDLY protested the desegregation of schools… how many of them are seen as heroes now? And how many are viewed with the contempt of our modern society?

Something to think on.

~Pax

Fortress in the Eye of Time at Amazon

You know, I’m getting tired of people telling me what I am and am-not concerned about, especially when it comes to my personal security.

“Look, nobody cares about my taxes.” Does something that’s equal measures wacky, horrifying, and war crimey. “See, nobody cares about taxes.”

“Nobody cares about their personal security.” Sells everyone’s metadata to Russia, but not China, since China already stole everything by state-sponsoring the Yahoo hack. “See, everyone’s information is out there. Nobody cares. Everyone’s still alive and operating normally. Ignore those dudes using your private information to steal your identity and spoof your friends. It’s cool, bro. The coolest.”

“See, somebody hacked the Social Security information of all federal employees, and look, nobody cares!” Waves hands wildly above head to show just how much nobody cares. “It doesn’t matter that you were born while your father served in the Army so your social security number was on file too. It’s not like anyone’s going to use that and your mother’s maiden name to steal your identity or the identities of your children. It’s cool, bro. Let it go. There’s nothing you can do to fix the problem.”

Our government fucked up. And now they’re fucking up again.

But don’t worry. They say everything’s fine. Keep drinking the Kool-Aid, it’s delicious, don’t look at the man behind the iron curtain, and certainly don’t question that individuals in the highest levels of government have ties to a hostile foreign government. Certainly don’t wonder if they’re being coerced to betray the American people.

Everything’s cool.

They’re just going to be selling our metadata to private companies, injecting malware into our browsers in the form of directed advertising, and maybe even slowing our Internet speed whenever we look at sites they don’t approve of. Everything’s cool.

It’ll be just like having a nosy parent that doesn’t feel any compunction or shame about sharing all of our personal details with a bunch of strangers.

It’s super fucking cool. >_<

*

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Fortress in the Eye of Time at Amazon

I’ve been making a browser story-game and I thought I’d give you a peek at what I’m doing.

HVU – http://www.kimichee.com/games/HVU.html

There’s nothing much there right now, but I’ll be actively adding to it and updating the infrastructure. I guess I would say it’s in “Pre-Beta”.

I just really wanted to share what I’ve got so far because you would not believe how hard it was to enable the reader to be able to pick out a hero/villain name, or to even save their progress!

I was pulling my own hair out for sure.

Anyways, now that I’ve got the basics in place, I’ll be adding story and structure to HVU. Then in March I’ll begin making scheduled updates on Tuesdays and Thursdays. If you try HVU, you can save your progress, and later I’m going to be turning the Index back on so you’ll be able to visit previously played sections.

Plus I’ve got this thing where you can unlock bonus characters. I had a lot of fun turning Darkstar on and off 😛 With a bonus character on, you can replay already done levels or continue playing from where you’re at as a canon superhero or supervillain.

What’s up:
– Bonus characters and the Index are currently off. I’ll probably be bringing them (back) online on Thursday. It’s a lot easier to futz around with the Index on, believe me, but I’ve got a few things to move around.
– Only the tutorial/Start is available right now, and it’s not complete. But you can pick out your hero/villain name and save your progress. With the Index up, you’ll be able to play back through the tutorial section, but you won’t have to bother with the naming again.
– There are four save slots: Starburst, Blue Ice, Caspian Dukes, Darkstar. This enables you to have four characters to replay the game with, each with a different metability.
– You can choose your character’s gender pronoun, hair color, hair length, eye color, height, and body type.
– You cannot choose your legal name. Your character is only 14 in the tutorial section (early-20s in Chapter One). There might be a name change option later, only enabled when the character is 18+.

I’m really excited about HVU because not only will sections span events between “Heroes & Villains”, “Allies & Enemies”, and “All That remains”, but also with the Kanonverse (“Tuesday Night”, et al.).

There will be unlock codes and hopefully it’ll be a lot of fun. As well as a good introduction to the H&V universe for people that haven’t read the novels.

Witch King at Amazon

I saw this on Cracked =>http://www.cracked.com/blog/how-to-lose-your-entire-career-in-two-minutes-twitter/<= and it gave me a “Well, of course” moment.

Of course you police your language on the Internet, especially if you’re using your fucking WORK profile.

Or if you’re the public FACE of your company. — You don’t want the face of your company to be spouting out hateful things on the Internet. That’s bad for business.

Especially when your activities online have the real-world consequences of a social media shitstorm.

That whole “Free Speech” thing only really applies when you keep your speech in your own social sphere.

The shit you say at home, should be your own business.

But when you go online and make a dick of yourself on someone else’s timeline…

Dude, you’re like “Hey, look at me!” And guess what, they fucking looked at you!

Social shaming is a natural part of a smoothly flowing society.

When you broadcast your rage!shit to the ENTIRE world – don’t be surprised that people can see it, and that they might have an opinion.

Most especially when your rage!shit involves you mouthing off about a celebrity’s deceased love one. Directly to the celebrity!

That’s a very low place to go. And if that person has a lot of followers, you’re going to get a lot of blowback.

The current political situation has had a very polarizing effect on the public. People are heated.

It’s better to be diplomatic, and if you’ve got something controversial to say – wait an appropriate amount of time, reread what you wrote, and make sure you’re not about to say something unforgivable.

Though honestly, if you fuck up online and it’s not super bad, you can just say “Whoa. That was too far. I’m taking that one back. I’m sorry.”

Because sometimes, all people want to hear is an honest apology.

A simple acknowledgment that you’ve done something wrong and you’re not going to make the same mistake in the future.