#i actually had a huge post from august in drafts about this but i cannot be assed to finish that

[gutfaced]

by the way if you happen to think that haymitch, katniss and peeta are all found family you are sorely wrong and they do not have a familial relationship by any sense of the word. they do not have the care and love that family do, even if katniss “considers” haymitch as family in a way. he's not a replacement parent for them, he's simply an adult figure in which went the extra mile to ensure their safety. furthermore, a lot of the time peeta was an afterthought to him unless it had anything to do with katniss (you know. his star tribute.)

whether you like it or not, katniss and peeta bare importance for both the reason that haymitch is attached to them and wants them to live their lives (as their mentor,) but they're also his success story. those two ideas to exist. they don't have to play happy family when if they had died, they'd of been another 2 children to list off.

[jjheejz]

About Internet Water Army in the case

This is an ongoing update about the case from start to development. List of all related posts can be found on this blog's pinned post (link provided at bottom of each post as well).

19 August 2021 update: Added the scale of his success for reference, before bonus below

18 August 2021 update: Added timeline of events, orange title in post, found out the official English term for Immoral Media = Internet Water Army)

Major updates since first draft: Added bonus, added disclaimer, certain info details

Originally posted on 16 August 2021

[The purpose of this post is to provide a perspective as to why the Media is raised/blamed regarding the issue. Especially for international fans, as all the encounters happened on Weibo. Also, those who were on weibo, do read through if you will. So although it's lengthy, do try to read all, at least if not the last two parts].

The Media referred by most, is not the common perception of the Entertainment Industry (celebrities, directors, shows, channels, staff etc), but the dark side of the Entertainment industry: Antis, toxic fans, toxic marketing accounts. They are called Internet Water Army💧.

Toxic Marketing Accounts is one of the things they do, these accounts on Weibo has millions of followers, each of their post likes are in the hundred thousands (buyable) to give credibility to passer-bys. Some use similar names to Official accounts, some use similar logos. Their posts are usually subjective or aims to steer view points of a certain celebrity/movie/show. Before the latest update of this post (18.08.21), I just group them all together and term them as Immoral Media*.

*Below is my original post using my original term because at point of first draft, I did not know the official term (so have changed/added the term from Immoral Media to Internet Water Army in content below but retain the content based off first draft).

If you have chased before celebrities, or just simply passed by an article about certain celebrities, recall how some title that caught your attentions were like. Clickbaits is one of the many things they do. If GZ is your first and you do not have Weibo, then this read(link) is good enough.

Just as the term Immoral Media (Internet Water Army), it’s immoral and unethical, but they exists because they are paid to do so. Who pays them? Entertainment Companies, and maybe other Organisations

Normal Media/Marketing vs Immoral Media/Toxic Marketing/Internet Water Army

When a show or movie comes out, the normal Marketing department will generate outreach and buzz so that people know a show is airing soon/know the show exists etc. Official announcements are not enough, because there isn’t much context (limited content to put up as well) so having some other Marketing accounts do the buzz in a planned period to gain awareness through posts, some articles about the casts, the plot summary, the production details etc is normal. This is Marketing, bigger companies will probably have stronger Marketing departments (aka influence) and can hire more Marketing accounts to generate buzz. Celebrities (aka casts) themselves, are also Marketing point.

Then we have the Internet Water Army/Immoral Media, these are what they mainly do:

Create Fanfiction-rumors: Creating rumors about celebrities to shift audience perception of them. [eg. XX was seen with XX leaving a hotel, XX was drunk on Event Y and did ZZZ to AA, XX is dating BB and has been in a relationship for N years etc]

Honing their brain degrading skills: Come up with titled clickbait headings/ trending topics with negative written contents. For articles, exceptionally out of heading content related to the celebrity. [Refer to Baidu, it’s a winner of these, feel free to Google Translate]

Regressing their common sense and understanding skills: Take everything a celebrity does completely out of context in a negative way and create a topic out of it [eg. XX said AA is a ---, “XX raised his finger, a sign of ---?”, XX pushed BB aggressively on Variety Show Y - A competition variety show, XX is in beef with CC because XX was caught giving CC the eye]

Using their fingers to stir shit and bathe each other in it: Escalate all smallest form of possible tension created by fans/themselves into a huge thing by acting as the fandom's fans/lurk in fandom chat groups, and voicing their disguised opinion to spread tension/exaggerate severity of the issue [eg. XX fans mocked AA - in groupchats: tbh I've never liked AA before, AA just gives off a vibe that I dont like and now this? It just disgusts me even more > Yea, i feel this way too. AA has problems / XX Lurkers expressing views on XX about NN, slowly to NNMHFXW - XX did NNMHGT - I cannot accept NNmHfHw, I'm leaving = multiply by 1000++]

Epitome of a self-deteriorate: Creating something out of nothing and react to that something negatively to gain massive attention/reaction [eg. “XX raised his hand on show Y” - dk what XX fans are thinking, are they literally blind? XX fans are tasteless just like XX hahaha / “XX did community service” - they are acting / “XX breathed” - From the start, i thought XX was NN, but I am so ZZZ that XX breathed. Goodbye fandom, i’m leaving. Those who still want to stay I urge you to rethink your life choices] - if I may add, Xiao Zhan’s fanfiction case as well. 

Metaphor - Ability to use bare hands to collect paychecks from the urinal/toilet bowl where their boss/client peed in: Doing all of the above.

Apologies for any term offense, but not apologetic of the term context. This is what they do for a living. Any normal human being who do not like anything, will generally not be interested at anything about it in the first place, so to have some antis/toxic fans knowing certain things and inside jokes/references in their posts questions their goal.

On involved in Internet Water Army/Immoral Media 💧

Fans on weibo during these few months witnessed many of the above on GZ. From rumored girlfriend (spammed with articles) to mean and nasty comments on trending topics, to bouts of insults and fake emotional cryouts by certain fan accounts that GZ's office has to release a number of Lawyer’s letter to them. 

Aside from WOH there were also a few other BL adaptation films that were actually released this year but they did not reach exponential success like WOH. BL adaptations are so highly followed by because this is the key to wealth. Literally. Successful BLs like The Untamed and  Dao Mu Bi Ji saw the amount of wealth fans are willing to spend on the celebrity as compared to say BG or idols (younger fan groups). This is why when WOH shot up exponentially, Immoral Media start to sweat.

Major anticipated adaptations were supposed to air this year eg. Hao Yi Xing(HYX), Sha Po Lang(SPL) etc but was severely held back due to the stricter change in BL adaptations submitting their scripts for approval regulations (WOH manage to submit earlier before the change). Because of this, most final films were rejected and they have to keep re-editing, by then WOH was already months into reaping tonnes of major brand endorsements, shows/movie casting, variety show appearances etc, something that is seen as too successful in the Immoral Media’s eyes, because they have to create buzz for other celebrities, some are specific celebrity oriented and thus circulate rumors about having endorsement opportunities shifted from celebrity X to GZ (think fanfiction-rumors and shit stirrer) causes tension in celebrity fandoms. - A real event just in July:

The Untamed’s cp fandom is called BJYX which had always been in the Top 1 of Cps for 2 years dropped for awhile to Top 2, over taken by LLD. Both of them had a war and hated each fandom, one fandom is somehow not allowed to like the other fandom even casually after everything broke out because it started out with some BJYX toxics photoshopped GZ on of portraits .

Also another case of which he wore the same costume as WYB did in a previous photoshoot and it became a useless comparison of who wore better, who looks better, degrading the other. (Finger stirring shit).

Now apply all of the above things the Internet Water Army do and we have them earning money, while both fandom reacts and hate each other.

In LLD, our own fans started suspecting each other on who is a spy from BJYX and what not.

The first few months of Internet Water Army saw LLDs mostly mocking them because the average age is 30-40s, they know and see through all of their intentions so nothing was big. They were trumpeting and LLDs didn’t even care, what with all the doing tedious stats was not even important to them.

Over time, as the issues they create became more and more serious LLDs did start to care, reporting Toxic Marketing accounts/toxic fans became a daily task, go vote for GZ at certain polls etc, solo fans, and LLD fans also split apart. Solo fans think cp fans use GZ to furnish their fantasies, and cp fans thinks they are the ones furnishing their dreaming-girls fantasy with (aka my boyfriend).

There was also a period where LLD had a habit of continuously mentioning “we are in the 30-40s so we can see through everything about the media, we are all fans for the first time, we are good at spending money (because of purchase power compared to other fandoms)” it was prevalent for so long it felt odd, ‘chasing celebrities the first time’ in particular sounds more vulnerable as a weakness than a strength / sth to be proud of.

Gradually, more secretive/insider confirmed ‘sweets’ were flying around. Fans advised each other to not circulate, and the mindset of “if you know, you know, dont tell.” (This is a problematic mentality, of which fans will still be curious to know and search for it themselves, but this secretive hook is unhealthy. Over the long term, it becomes hard for existing fans to know a lot of things properly to judge for themselves, especially those who knew and publicly reacted, but blasting those who ask and telling those who know to keep quiet, this did not help some to understand why on certain things, even so for international fans, dont know and dont understand, causing misunderstandings. Yes, certain information should not be shared, so why should you react about it publicly in the first place? - Internet Water Army effect)

The last few months (for example the July fan war) created a tonne of seriousness and anger. A period even broke out with a tonne of ‘insider confirmed sweets’ (which is LLD’s daily dose of happiness), it was hard to tell what was real and what was fake. Trending topics became negative and everyone warned each other not to enter because it will give the trends ‘views’ and trend statistics, in reality entering there is to enter an exhibition by the self-deteriorates, collecting the fandom's traffic data (it's a sure lose for fans each time they enter the topic). Everyone even starts thinking that the trend’s popularity was caused by each other (it's true but it can be bought daily and not caused by fans). There was a raise in the number of fans who were getting emotional because they want to protect but Internet Water Army kept coming and got worse, because fans, tbh, not just GZ fans, every other celebrity’s fans are always fighting with an Army, getting played and plotted in that Army's calendar.

Even so, despite all of these, LLD is actually a fandom Internet Water Army may find the hardest to break because they understand GZ so much, they could tell what are fake news regarding GZ, because among everything above, there are still plenty of logical fans to stop many fans from drifting too far and debunking them. Why? 30-40s are grown up adults.

Why 13.8.21 and the Japan issue is plotted?

First of all, in the political climate of China, there are many political dates in a month that is NO-Entertainment news. Because it’s the honoring of certain important political events. It’s like Remembrance Day, thus the sensitivity is higher. On these days, there are usually no news and even the Internet Water Army zip their pants. This year also marks the 100th year of the Chinese Communist Party(link)

Secondly, he had no work schedule on 13 August 2021. A great full day to focus on any other news (because if he had schedules, everyone will turn their attention to his events, what trumpeting outside is just bird chirps). 

Thirdly, when the news broke out, especially about the shrine, the reception was actually quite serious within the fandom so the scale of this might be big but to what extent in reality?

Lastly, 15.8.21 marks the 76th anniversary of the announcement of surrender of Japanese in World War 2(link). Also a day of NO-Entertainment news. 

Timeline of events:

13.8.21 - [His rest day, Eve of Chinese Valentine's Day, Japan News broke out] His rest day, no schedules = increased attention about him online. Lowered guard among fans because they are getting ready for tomorrow's Chinese Valentine's sweets = Caught off guard = Huge break out of fans' reactions

14.8.21 - [Chinese Valentine's Day, Eve of the 75th Anniversary of the announcement of Japanese surrender] Keep a wishful and happy demenaor to not destroy the mood, suppressed thoughts about ZZH's Japan news

15.8.21 - [75th Anniversary of the announcement of Japanese surrender, Official announcement of ZZH's boycott and all China social media account ban] NO-Entertainment news day, Solemn day, not allowed to voice anything so the fandom can only wait for tomorrow to start voicing out/debunking but before they can wait out, the boycott and social media ban happened, every official accounts about him was gone overnight, fans had no time to react

17.8.21 - [All official fandom accounts related to ZZH and JunZhe were locked/removed]

Forced to be silent since the day his matter broke out, over the course of official news release with everything taken down in a day because of the Japan correspondence, his accounts banned overnight across the Chinese media and the overnight cancellation, fans could not speak anything about it. Overnight cancellation like this scale happened for the first time in China, leaving no time to react by the fandom, by the time they can, they are silenced.

When the period of events occured within a set of special dates, it’s not coincidence.

Conclusion

Because he was too successful and had many actually honorable past things, and a hard to influence fandom, Internet Water Army view him as a huge threat enough to want to destroy him, because it’s hard to defeat. With a chance they have, they will hold it till the end, bringing up this issue to the Government during this period also shows a sign of how scared they were of him and perhaps his fandom to plot something like this.

Updated on 19 August: Here's a screenshot of assumed calculation on the scale of GZ success for reference while chatting with a fellow fan, assuming GJ also has 27 brands, and there are 1000 brands. Rationale of numbers used: Only big brands can hire big celebrities.

Bonus

Mentioned in the first post, will mention again in case. After the news broke out within 2 days, there was a drop on his weibo followers from 18.9mil to 18.7mil. 200k+ drops, if the politics was such a big national issue, there should at least be a huge drop, even at least a million right? Because weibo is a China-Chinese majority right? Nope, we get a puny 200k drop.

What's funny? The self-deteroriates:

Translation: "Are his fans bought? Why didnt he drop fans? Those people got brainwashed to this point?" / "I've never entered his weibo and today i feel like having a look yet it showed I've followed him. All his fans were bought right? It disgusts me, i immediately unfollowed. This kind of process is worse than WYF..." / "i dropped fans because of him...no...I just reposted 2 posts and I've dropped 4 fans?"

Isn't the tone and regressing brain cells, all too familiar and same?

//

Added above, will remind again to read this link. It has an even more in-depth knowledge on who are paying them.

So what should we do? Link here

Related posts 🛏️:

[jswdmb1]

Pain

“I've been pulling on a wire, but it just won't break I've been turning up the dial, but I hear no sound I resist what I cannot change And I wanna find what can't be found”

- War on Drugs

A lot of people ask me how I come up with ideas for this blog.  Well, that’s not really true.  People rarely ask me questions about much of anything, and when they do it’s usually to ask if I know where the bathroom is.  Still, let’s pretend they do ask me about my writing process because it’s a good lead-in to this particular post.  So, I’m glad you asked how I get ideas for these posts!  Let me tell you all about it!!!

The reality is that I don’t really know what makes a good post and what doesn’t.  I probably get a couple of dozen ideas a day for posts but most just float away from my brain into the ether and are long forgotten. This whole blog came out of an exercise I started a year or so ago of daily journaling so a lot of this is just me writing my thoughts and once in a while I say to myself, let’s post that. I have written lots of stuff that has never seen the light of day and never will (believe it or not this is the filtered stuff).  Sometimes, a post starts and then sits on a shelf forever until something makes it gel later and then it becomes a post.  Other times, I just sit and write it out and hit post without thinking much at all about it.  Those are the ones full of spelling and grammatical errors but are usually the purest thoughts I have about that topic.  Then, there are the songs.

I will often hear a song, or more specifically a lyric in a song, and immediately want to write something about it.  Problem is that sometimes I don’t understand why.  I may not even know what possible subject it could be tied into.  I’ll write the song and/or lyric in a notebook, or maybe even start a post with it, and then it will just sit there.  There are a few of those sitting in my draft queue now and until today, this was one of them.  The song came out about a year-and-a-half ago and I immediately knew it was going to be a favorite of mine.  After playing it a whole bunch, I knew the lyrics were reaching me, but I didn’t know how.  It got cued up in my draft folder and I waited.

What finally broke the ice on it was a separate thing I had been thinking about a lot this week. Some of you have been following my travel blog about my recent trip to Las Vegas (if you want to read it go to jswrollthebones.tumblr.com) and you know that I have been searching for meaning about why I felt a need to take that journey and then take the next step to document the whole thing.  I began to think that there really was no reason and that I just went to have fun (I tend to overthink lots of things), but I sensed there was more to it.  I then thought about the lyrics to “Pain” and how my last two trips out there went.  The trip I took out there in 2015 was the last time my Dad went there.  He was pretty sick at that point, but still able to get around, so I wanted to get him back to a place he had loved his whole life.  I remember talking to him as a kid about it and won’t ever forget the spark in his eye when he would talk about a recent trip to Vegas.  When I graduated college, he paid for airfare and hotel for my first ever trip there myself with my buddies.  After that, we spent numerous times there always really enjoying it. It became a location that I readily associated with good times but more importantly times I got to spend with my Dad when everything else could be left behind.  That last trip in 2015 provided us one more opportunity to do that.

When we got back from that trip, I knew that we would not be able to take another one.  His physical and cognitive skills just wouldn’t allow it. At the time, I didn’t necessarily think about him dying, but I knew that things were not going to improve from that point forward and his ability to handle such a trip would be gone no matter how much longer he lived.  Needless to say, I felt some real pain after we got back.  I vowed to never go back unless somehow, someway, my Dad could go with me.  Of course, that wasn’t meant to be and he passed away early in 2017.  As a tribute, my family wanted to go back to the place he loved to celebrate the first passing of his birthday since he died (August 12th).  It seemed like a good plan, and I did enjoy some fun moments with my family during some sad times, but the pain was real.  And it wasn’t just after the trip, but I could feel it happen as I was there. I immediately turned to the substances I readily had available to numb the pain (alcohol and Ativan).  I kept it pretty under cover during the day, but once everyone went up to bed for the night I would really get rolling.  I would sit at a gaming table and order one “free” bourbon after bourbon until that pain went away.  Sometimes I got lucky and won some money, but other times I just let it go not really caring about results as long as the booze kept coming. It was an awful way to act in a place that my Dad loved so well and it certainly was no tribute to him.  Once the booze and drugs wore off, the pain was still there and I had made it worse.

After I got back from that trip, I felt awful.  It wasn’t the start of my downfall, but it certainly made it clear to me that I was in trouble.  I went into a very deep depression for a few weeks not hardly getting out of bed on some days.  When I did get up, I usually would hit the bottle or the pills after a few hours when the reality of my situation hit me.  I hid it well from friends and family, but it became clear to those close to me that I needed help.  As most of you know, I ended up in the hospital on an outpatient basis and it at least changed my life if it didn’t save it.  I came out of there with a new outlook and some better tools to deal with my problems.  I also decided while there to give up alcohol and drugs to allow my treatment to continue without interference.  In a couple of weeks, it will be almost a year since that all happened.

So how does this tie into my trip last week?  When you go through a period of sobriety, certain milestone events can be hard. Holidays, birthdays, parties, family events and the like can be hard to face sober for the first time.  Then if you are mourning a recent death like I was you will have to get through their milestone days (birthdays, anniversaries, Fathers’ Day, etc.) without a drink or anything else to help you forget it. For the first time on this particular trip, I was letting myself feel the pain head on versus deferring it through numbing agents to avoid feeling what I really was feeling.  A couple of months ago when some good friends suggested a trip to Vegas, I realized that was one of the last places I would need to go to conquer some of my demons as a sober person.  I knew it would be a huge challenge, which is why I booked a few days ahead of time to be there by myself to work through whatever process I needed to work through before they showed up.  I kept myself busy with fun activities that kept me away from some of the temptations, but most of the time I just allowed myself to feel happy when I was having fun, and sad when I started thinking about my Dad.  Once a feeling passed, it was amazing to see that the pain started to fade.  Before I wasn’t able to tackle it head on, but now I was letting it have its moment and then I was done with it.  By the time my friends got to town I felt refreshed and ready to enjoy their company. We had a great time and I’m happy to report that my sobriety stayed fully intact.

When I got home, it took me a couple of days to put this all together.  Part of the reason for that is that I came home so relaxed and didn’t understand why.  I came back the last couple times such a mess, but this time, through some perseverance, I turned that around.  For the past few days, instead of regretting my time spent in Las Vegas, I am instead relishing the week-long sabbatical I took there.  It’s an odd place for sure to have such and experience, but it worked for me and it was worth the time and money spent to do it.  As for the journaling of the whole thing, that was just a way for me to hold myself accountable and not let the experience float away (or worse allow me to devolve back to my old ways).  One powerful lesson that I learned in the hospital was through an exercise where we journaled and then they made us read it out load to the rest of the group.  This blog, and the Vegas blog, serve that purpose and allow me to basically read my journaled thoughts out loud to whomever decides to read this.  It's just another tool in dealing with the pain.

I never know when I’m done with one of these posts if this is going to make sense to anyone and I am particularly unsure about this one.  But I am going to post it anyway as I think that it is necessary for me to be open and honest about my feelings as I come up on a year of sobriety and a commitment to treating my mental health issues as well as I possibly can.  It seems indulgent, just like the whole Vegas blog did, but I take solace in the fact that no one reading this has been forced to do so.  If anything, I hope you can take away from this that while facing whatever pain you have head on my sound scary or even insane, it is actually the best thing you can do for yourself.  The process may not always be pleasant, but I’m confident you will be pleased with the end result.  I’m not suggesting you can make all pain go away, but by at least acknowledging it exists will allow you to begin to understand why you hurt.  Without that, there is no chance you’ll ever make it go away. It took me many years and a lot of pain to figure that out, but hopefully you can get there quicker than I did and start living life as pain-free as you can.  Or, at least understand what to do about pain the next time it shows up at your door and learn to coexist with it.

As always, thank you again for letting me do this and for those of you that read the Vegas blog and put up with my silliness over there.  I don’t say this enough (not at all actually), but those that read this blog mean a lot to me even if I don’t really know who you are.  My goal with this is to continue to try and spread the hope that life can be enjoyed and celebrated whether the times are good or bad. We just have to learn how to deal with what comes our way and I continue to find it my calling to bring that message to as many people as I can.  

Enjoy the rest of your weekend,

Jim

[davidjjohnston3]

Facebook Insomnia 7.25.2021 1. I am still sad to conceptualize life in terms of fiction and the condition of fiction rather than Christianity undivided.   Today I had a lot of images of Japan in my mind.  I heard the phrase 'Japanese Breakfast' which is the rock-star name of the author of 'Crying at H-Mart' a famous book. I remembered someone who once dated someone who became my enemy. This person I respected I now realize and I am happy that I didn't say anything excessively stupid that would have implied I look down on her, saw her as easy, saw her as 'material to work on,' someone to have a plan for etc.   I asked her once for help getting someone to interview at Deloitte for consulting only this person was in Accounting. I never really saw this person as in my league or anything to me except as a 'Curriculum Developer' I guess I outranked her and so wasn't shy of talking to / with her in official functions.   Later we drank together and I said a few random things like that I stress- / binge-eat apples, like 5 apples a night. My friend once did a funny imitation of her that in retrospect sounded a little like my Taiwanese ex-girlfriend's imitation of Kaori Mochida from Every Little Thing; the funny thing I now realize is that he too had lingering affection for her despite everything.  I feel he became anti-Korean racist and I don't know where he is now but in retrospect he definitely never crossed a line with her that I know of except for asking questions I would never ask.  He called her by her Asian name which was something I never did in those days feeling it pretentious.   'The mysterious maiden of the Moon...' - It's a line from Yi Kwangsu's 'The Soil' in which a married man is comparing his wife with someone else like his former student.  In good Korean custom since his former student once had a puppy-crush on him and gave him some corn, when her husband finds out, he kicks her to death in her pregnant stomach and this is why I oppose many things in principle such as tribalism, marriage, and for all intent and purposes the nuclear family. Yi Kwangsu is a problematic figure and as a Christian or aspiring Christian / 'Christianist' I don't recommend it.  It has incredibly exquisite descriptions of women that could make you brain-dead.  Yi Kwangsu also supposed Japan's occupation of Korea so that to this day talking about Yi Kwangsu can get you crucified.   I also seem to recall something like '_ _-ya, you got run over by a train you one-legged prostitute; now you have to love your husband even more.'  But I don't remember the context. Ironically or not 'The Soil' is the title of a Knut Hamsun novel the author of which supported Hitler; I do not.   I wonder where she is now. This person got shot at a lot and I regret adding to her burdens with my sin-eater-type confessions or just shooting my mouth off when stuff happened.  I had a crush on someone else and started saying I was sad I lost my virginity in college; IDK why I said anything. This person also had high alcohol-tolerance - extremely high for a female Asian - and although I could also drink a lot I always did bad self-destructive things. In the Middle Ages one form of 'trial by ordeal' was to reach your hand in to boiling water to pull out a pearl and if the boiled skin healed well you were exonerated or sth.   She must be 'somebody's everything; my impossible girl.'  IDK why she talked to me and I made fun of her and all my fictionalized versions of her and theories of her were derogations.   Like me she played the piano. She once said '_ _ is popular' which was a burn I appreciate since I'm anti-popularity and anti-personality-cults. She went to a school part of which is Victoria College where a literary critic I admire(d) taught for many years. I am stuck in America, hounded by Satan through the personages of my Maoist biological family and 'family tree' of America torn between past and future, un-death and life; due in large part to my excessive tendency to defend myself, to lash out, to wash my hands on the outside without cleaning my 'interior mentality' to paraphrase the 'Da Xue,' or to blaspheme the Spirit in some respects, I feel. I regret talking about her and at the same time why would I talk about lesser maidens? IDK what her favorite piano-piece was as I never endeavored to enage her in discourse about art or aesthetics given she is not a 'kisaeng' or 'geisha' and I am not a museum-curator or whatever.  Other people would be like 'Oh!  You lke the Grande Valse Brilliante; I know you spent the summer of 2003 teaching yourself repeat-notes.'   Everyone wants to drag everyone in to their mud or graves these days.  Am reminded of Endo Shusaku's 'Silence' about why Jesuits would apostasize in medieval Japan.  His conclusion was that the 'swamp of Japan' was too full of sensualism, the Portuguese Jesuit wanted a Japanese mistress or wife.  I once yelled 'swamp f-ggot' at someone due to their tendency to emotionalize and 'contextualize' everything which was an underhanded way of trying to make me change my sex as well.  In an effort to mitigate some of the tempting evil pornographic things I said about KR over the years I said a few more but this is a person, whose name means 'Pearl' as in 'the pearl of great price for which oe sold everything else.'  It is said that AAPI Twitter, America, house-slave Am-Kor own-goal Korean self-exploitation honor-killing squadsters, etc. want to these people in the trash. I found my Gideon Kor-Eng NT Psalms with the 'victory song' that sounds like Mandarin in its Revelation, that I had worried I'd lost.  That might be the 'most grateful' thing that 'happened.' I also remembered what my Mandarin name used to be though I had many in different classes I took. I was going to say many things, but in the end: the mystery of Charity.

*

I never considered the full implications of socialism or mental socialism till today.  I assumed that it was valid mitigation.  Some are born rich, some are born poor, it's wrong to let the latter starve on principle alone.   I don't even know how to say this.  I remember during the Iraq War being struck by how much the government - like my mom - was asking outsiders for advice about how to fight.  Dick Cheney got in trouble.  Years later I was skeptical of the F-35 because a lot of idiots with no skin in the game wanted to build it here or there. Wisconsin wanted to build the 'Littoral Combat Ship' which who cares. It made people worse and worse. The only thing is, the CCP - who ultimately serve I dare not even say whom, but clearly not the ghosts of Karl Marx or Vladimir Lenin or perhaps even Mao Zedong - figured out awesome killer ways to troll Republicans like Scott Walker w/ their 'FoxConn Fallujah hokey-pokey' whereby they got an avowed capitalist to promise socialists something that actually came from-post-hyper-anti-socialist hyper-capitalists with a plan to kill all white people or something. My father used to talk about the University of Chicago School of Economics all the time and it made me sulkily ask myself why 'Poor Dad' is talking so much about stuff that supposedly makes people billionaires while Jacob's English major dad is Bloomberg's 'chief of staff.'   I say again it's just like Biden saying all the right stuff, 'knee on the neck of the American soul, bone of our bone, winter of peril, hey dumbfuck, articulate, they're killing people.' Writing grant-proposals to the government to fund private research in to brain-injury that is itself applied by the government to veterans sent to get brain-damaged by a government that said good things and did retarded things based on their readings of the good things they said a bit like Karenin in 'Anna Karenina.'   I remember when George W. Bush said 'I'm the decider.'  I once told my dad to get out of my face so he got really sloshed up and vapored, 'I'm in your face!'  I'm not even saying that to defame someone but welcome to reality. Every so often every male seems to try to man up then they defend themselves like, 'No that is not the way in which I meant that I was manning up.'  You could call this 'self-draft-dodging.' It's ancient history but if I had been wiser I would have tried to predict the future for myself rather than visualize it as an abstract spectatorial notion.  At day's end mental socialists can literally not understand why it is wrong to steal.  Stealing is compulsory under socialism - I again come back to 'Pearl' since her ex-suitor and I used to reflect on how Korean collectivism drove people into themselves.  Similarly mental socialists cannot but hoard 'capabilities' so that in the end they'll falsify anything, steal anything; the only limit I guess is living with themselves.

I keep giving myself to fantasy and coping of all kinds like a 'mental Changrae Lee novel, mental David Guterson novel,' or ultimately Vergil (Virgil).  There has to be a new music, a new dream, something, a new city, though it is odd to think about pre-Christian times and a legend of what came before Rome in a Christian moment amid realignment in 'late Roman history.' My favorite YAL book still perhaps is 'The Giver' since it deals with the uses of history, with abortion, and with escape or exile.   I was going to say a while back something about 'Light in August' which relates to escape - as well to complacence - and to interracial relationships, pregnancy, the right to live.  I was in Minneapolis but mind was on Japan, on all these swords, not the Olympics but histories of swords and strange armor, halberds.  There was a huge sword called a 'field sword' in translation. I don't even want to see these people again; I sincerely pray the Japanese Prime Minister, the men and women of their armed forces, Tokyo's apparently amazing counter-terrorism and response capabilities for NBC / WMD / etc. attacks since the Aum Shinrikyo Sarin subway attacks and maybe their counter-nuclear or ability to respond after a nuclear blast will be enough.  People in America are trying to live by a little of the old, a little of the new, but it seems utterly impossible. When people abuse me I get really dreamy.  I read Virgil in high school; I was thinking of 'post-Covid YAL' or so in which people are just on the run, harrowing themselves, not even nostalgic for Babylon or anything in it.  It is almost like 'the meaning of the soul.'  I realized that in addition to new churches and new government laws Covid will engender new birth-defects and there will have to be new medicine.  Japan is a country that I said bad things about especially when in Korea but she never did anything bad to me - I remember playing 'Final Fantasy' and thinking someone out there loves me; they made an investment in children worldwide.  The only thing is I'm too old for such adventures and I fall apart quickly. All these birds in Japan, colors of red - people get obsessed with the Otherness of Japan and want to abnegate Belial-like (a demon or fallen angel of sensualism, to my understanding).  

I took so many notes and voice-notes yesterday that I devoutly hope my visions will pass to someone.  The future is going to be so beautiful for somebody but I have lost so much faith in my ability to mitigate or restrain evil.  Those who I had thought were simply stupid but were diabolically opposed to my existence - whom I did not wish to understand and whom I had 'fancied' I could placate or appease through offerings - turned out to be radically evil, unconditionally evil.  I feel that my father (biological) would steal my soul if he could; would eat it in a way.  My mom is always sitting on the porch and gives a look of hope like I could change her mind but it'll never happen.  I want to kill myself; I think things worldwide will get worse before they get better; I don't trust Biden or anyone who says the right things without showing exactly what they are doing.  Christians seem so petty sometimes like melanin, hairy legs, in Japan this therefore that, Native American Indian manhood rituals.   I just want to know which pastor has the 'batting average' I can believe in but it has to be John MacArthur doesn't it?  

[getaether]

Aether News & Updates - July / August 2018

Hey folks - this is the Aether monthly. This one is pretty exciting with screenshots, and it is probably going to be the last pre-launch update, because it's about around one week to some semblance of code complete. The app is running fine on my machine now, with all features built for the backend and frontend, and most for the client (user interface) side. There's a few screenshots of the current state below. None of those are design mocks, it's the real thing, pulling data from real other nodes. (The data within them is auto-generated for load testing, so there are no users on the system right now.)

Recap: I'm new. What's this thing?

Hey there - welcome in! There was a write-up on that last month, do check it out here.

July updates

Javascript

July, it was mostly about going deep into the Javascript rabbit hole to build the client user interface. (Quick recap: Aether has three parts, client, frontend and backend. Client is UI, frontend is the graph compiler, and the backend is responsible for distribution of underlying entities and communicating with other nodes.)

The tl;dr is that designing and building user interfaces is fun —to me, at least— but doing it in a world where everybody wants you to use Webpack in their own way with slightly different and subtly incompatible configuration is not.

Packing, unpacking and compilers

There is one general rule that is useful in building most things: to do the simplest, dumbest thing that works. I heard it called the Linus' rule, though it is not entirely clear if Torvalds has ever said it. (Nevertheless, the Linux kernel and its success could be considered a manifestation of this idea.)

Go works well for this mindset, and that's why the frontend compiler and the backend is written in it. It's a place where you can actually control the layout of your structs bit by bit in the memory, and it does a great job of getting out of your way, in that the abstraction of Go is fairly thin: you are working with a CPU and a memory that you can put bits into, and there is a small, helpful, and fast garbage collector provided if you want to use it. That means, in Go, you can have as few third party dependencies as possible, and for the things that do not exist in the standard library, you can efficiently build what you want. It also helps that the core language is very small, and there is usually one way to do things. This is very useful when you actually want to read code on Github on how libraries implement a specific functionality. Everybody has to write it mostly the same, so library authors aren't writing what is effectively a completely different language. coughC++cough

With this in mind, I opted for Vue as the base for building the client. This was largely motivated by my desire to avoid Webpack, and this whole seemingly-always-half-broken part of Javascript ecosystem that frequently picks a favourite son every 6 months and kills it with fire shortly afterwards. Considering past experience of projects that had to be maintained that were still on Grunt (remember that?), others still on Gulp, going into this again with Webpack did not sound enticing to the least bit, especially considering that the main selling point of it (single Javascript file) is not very useful in a local Electron environment. To that end, Vue offers an ability to use it through the old-school way, which is to include it as a `````` file. Very simple! Since my use case did not need Webpack, this made Vue a first and only choice. Much later on, and long beyond the point of no return, however, it became obvious that this was a siren song.

The issue was this — Vue considers the ability to split your code into multiple Javascript files (single-page components) an advanced feature. And the moment you hit this, which is early enough that your project is not yet functional, but late enough that you can't really back out, Vue tells you that you have to use Webpack.

This was a huge disappointment, since the majority of the reason for using Vue was to avoid Webpack. It's not that one cannot get it to work, it's just that it does not make sense to integrate with yet another build system, especially in this specific case, one that offers exactly zero benefits. Ostensibly it makes things easier for library developers (since they can offload a decent chunk of 'getting things to work' part of library-building to Webpack, which, promptly, unloads it onto you), but it would have been very nice if Vue had provided a way to use single-file components in a way that does not require a build step, especially considering even Angular-1 in 2014 had a way to do so, in the form of ng-include directive.

(I know that it is not the fastest, since fragments have to be all loaded before the page needs to render, but in this case, the files are already available on the local filesystem, thus it does not matter.)

Nevertheless, it was a good few days spent on getting Vue, Webpack and Typescript working. To be fair, Vue is awesome, Typescript genuinely fixes legitimate problems with Javascript, and Webpack can help under right conditions. It is a good thing that all three exists. It's just that it is a little sad that the Javascript environment is such a high-churn, high-thrash place, and coming from 4-5 months of writing Go code where the language is sound, the libraries, the very few you need, are of excellent quality, and there is only one specification of the language, one gets to realise why the concept of Javascript Fatigue exists.

I do not want to belabour the point. The one last thing that is quite interesting is that the main three Javascript libraries that is used (Vue, Typescript and Webpack) don't even agree on what is syntactically valid Javascript. There are multiple specs of Javascript floating around, and there is Babel, which is a library that compiles new, not-yet-ratified (often, not-yet-finished) Javascript language changes into old, mostly-valid Javascript that you can run. It is a fun tool to test new syntaxes. Unfortunately, it appears that everyone is so sick of old, standard Javascript that it is a dependency on almost anything, so that library authors can write new, shiny Javascript.

Considering the fact that it implements changes that are drafts, and drafts sometimes do change, the tendency to use the newest, cutting edge, unstable Javascript features ends up in a place where the documentation on the Internet is written in Javascript that you don't understand (because it was created literally a week ago), that does not work, that does not compile (because the spec changed two days ago), and most importantly for most intents and purposes, of negative actual value.

If you are a library author, or if you are writing documentation of any form, please consider writing your documentation in good, old, standard Javascript that actually executes without requiring a compiler set up exactly the same way you have on your local machine.

Regardless, it should be obvious where this is going at this point. Fast forward a month of writing Javascript, and there is more than one million lines of Javascript in the node_modules directory, totalling 2+gb of code that there is no actual dependency on, but is there nevertheless due to how node ecosystem and Webpack in general works. Thankfully, the final end result is only a few megabytes of front-end code, since that is the actual code that is needed. The rest is code that Webpack refuses to compile without, but far as one can see, none of it does go into the final end result.

The fundamental goal was to achieve was a client that was simple to write, simple to understand, and simple to maintain. Unfortunately, it appears that this is close to, in the Javascript world, a yet-unsolved problem. There will be some maintenance to do when Webpack goes the way of Grunt and Gulp. Regardless, I'm happy with the client code given the constraints, and it is as simple and maintainable as technically possible. The hope is that it will only improve.

WebAssembly is something to watch, because it does allow one to completely replace Javascript and its dependencies with another language of your choice (which you can do right now), and have it be able to interact with the DOM (which you cannot, and won't be able to for the next few years). Since what matters is the DOM access, whenever that comes, it will be some welcome competition to Javascript and its environment.

August updates

Current status

As of today, the app is about a week to code complete, there are a few pages that need to be designed and implemented (notifications, status, home/popular views), and a few components that need to be finished (post and thread ranking logic based on signals). I'm also getting an Apple Developer Key, so that in OS X, the app will open without scary warnings, and I will be able to push auto-updates in a way similar to Firefox does. (Download update in the background, install on next start, with an ability to disable it).

I will also be putting out a Discourse forum for user support coincidentally, so that there will be community support available.

Integration testing

The expected code complete is the end of this week, but given the prima facie impossibility of giving accurate estimates in building anything of nontrivial complexity (estimating the task takes full knowledge of the task, and in building tech products, the task itself is 90% getting the full knowledge of the task at hand, and only 10% building it), some skepticism is probably warranted.

Regardless, the goal is to have a pre-release executable for OS X (only because I develop in OS X. The goal is to provide Windows, OS X and Linux versions in general availability, same as Aether 1) as a test to see network function and find bottlenecks, if any. It will be followed by a beta release that is generally available, and from that point on, the auto-update system will keep your app up to date.

In short, by the end of August, the network should be transmitting data in some form.

Feature freeze

A feature freeze is a set date where a product stops adding new features before a launch date. This is an useful cutoff, because trying to cram as many features as possible into a launch can mean biting more than you can chew. There are some features that did not make it to the feature freeze deadline of August 1: the feature set that allows for ongoing moderator ballots in communities. These features are code complete for backend and frontend, but they will ship disabled in the first version until the client (UI and product integration) is complete. After the product stabilises and the network is operating correctly under real load, this is what comes next. The expectation is that they will make it into the first non-beta release.

Code freeze

A code freeze is when one stops writing any code and focus on bug fixes, finishing existing features, stability, and QA. The pre-release version will be the public QA test, and if everything goes right, the external QA test will replicate the results of the internal one that I've been running on my own local network. The rough code freeze date is August 15.

Pre-release

After the code freeze, the tasks that remain are those of packaging the app into an executable, updating the website, and setting up a bootstrap node so that newly downloaded nodes will have a point to bootstrap from.

Beta launch

This will happen when the pre-release gives enough confidence that the app is stable, and can handle nontrivial amount of users. Here, the major thing to keep an eye on is not that the app would not work (it does now, and it likely will continue to do so), but it is that the network is slow to deliver every post into every participating node. Since this requires fiddling with network variables (such as how often a node checks for updates in a minute) and is untestable in a synthetic environment, the only real way to know this is to actually have real people using it, and getting the real-world data on dispersion speeds.

From this point on, it gets a little hard to say, because it depends on the reception of the app, and the real world usage. If this app becomes a place that we all can enjoy spending our evenings in, I personally would consider it as success, even if it does not succeed in financially supporting me working full time on it. That said, the ideal path that I have in mind is that this would support me and a small core team (which does not yet exist, it's just me, for now) financially enough that we can devote our full focus to offer a mass communication platform that is free of the catches of what's available today. After all, Aether offers what they won't sell you at any price: your privacy.

Screenshots

Not mocks, actual app! 🙂 (It goes without saying that these are all works-in-progress.)

Addendum: Who's funding you / this work?

I'm currently working on this project full time, and I have been doing it for the past six months. I'm funding it through my own savings. My initial plan is that I want to release the full app, and then consider getting a job, because, well, my savings aren't infinite. That lines up nicely with the end of the majority of the development effort for the release, so for the initial release, I don't foresee any problems. After that, it all depends on how many people actually end up using it. If a lot of you guys do, then we'll find a way to make it work.

My motivation is not that there's money to be made out of this. If you're interested in that, ICOs might be a better bet, but I'd still recommend index funds over anything crypto-related, Vanguard is a good provider for that. I find most ICOs to be fairly distasteful (with some very rare exceptions), because I'd rather have my work speak than empty promises, as opposed to what ICOs typically do, hence my starting to speak about my work just now, when 80%+ of the total work is already done and implemented in cold, hard code.

If you are happy with any of the existing solutions solving similar problems out there, you should consider donating to them. There are a lot of open source creations for different kind of needs. They do often suffer from poor user experience and poor usability though, most of the time, which unfortunately renders them unable to gain adoption. If your project requires the user to compile it before running it, it's fair to say that your audience is not the general public. That is in itself not a bad thing, and if any of those projects actually satisfy your needs, consider donating to them. I'm focusing on better experience for the mass public, to provide all of us with more accountability, more transparency, more privacy, and hopefully some real discussion that we all sorely need — as a human society, we've gotten far too good at stifling each others' voices.

The reason I think I can make a difference is that I'm an ex-Google, ex-Facebok product designer with a lot of experience in the field, and while I have some ideas on what can be improved, I've learned through the long and hard way that the best ideas come from people who use the actual thing. I've also learned a second, almost as crucial other thing: people doing something that they genuinely, honestly care about tend to achieve much better results than a team of highly experienced specialists that are just meh about it, even if the first team is relatively inexperienced. I do have experience, and I do feel this problem every day, to the point that I was willing to quit my job and start working full time on it using my life savings. I'm lucky to be able to do that, but more than luck, I also care enough about this that I wanted to do that.

In summary, I think there's a need for it, and it should exist, in some form of another. Nobody else seems to be doing it, so I'm doing it. This won't make you rich, this definitely won't make me rich, but this has, if done right, has the chance to create an open, simple, free, decentralised, and private way of mass-communicating for the next half century — a public online gathering place that also happens to belong to the public, with no catches, and no kings.

If you think this is worth supporting, you can fund me via Bitcoin at: 1K12GwzAtPWa6W864fkm48pc4VNqzHXG4H, and via Ethereum at: 0x3A4eC55535B41A808080680fa68640122c689B45. Your funding will extend the amount of time I can stay working full time on it. I don't need the funding to finish it (I made sure that I can actually finish it with my own savings), and if you are a student, new graduate, or on a budget, you should not — keep your money, use it for yourself and use your money for good whenever you can. But if you consider yourself relatively well-off and thinking about how your money can do the most good in the world, and you're interested enough that you've read this far, I'd offer this as a pretty good bet.

I'll open a Patreon page, eventually, but I'm focusing on actually writing the code and releasing the app right now. The Patreon benefits I have in mind are mostly cosmetic, such as getting a 'benefactor' username class with some visual distinction, and priority in picking from available unique usernames. If you fund me through Bitcoin or Ethereum, you'll get the same benefits as Patreon supporters.

Lastly, if you're in San Francisco, and you're excited about this, have questions, hit me up, always happy to go for a coffee. Might take a while to schedule considering that I work 14-16 hour days, but we'll probably find a time.

As per usual, feel free to reach out to me with any questions at burak@getaether.net.

[junker-town]

What the hell is Ray Lewis talking about?

The Hall of Famer linebacker is America’s most confusing motivational speaker.

Ray Lewis deserves all the credit we can give him for his football career. Middle linebacker isn’t a position that lends itself well to sexy stats, but if you need a number to explain to the people at your fantasy draft about Lewis’ bona fides, use this one — the only player in NFL history with at least 30 interceptions and 40 sacks.

The doughy, old gatekeepers who decide which players get into the Pro Football Hall of Fame actually did something right when they decided Lewis was worthy of enshrinement on the first ballot.

The only downside to their decision is that it subjects us to another awkward public display of another thing Lewis is famous for — inspirational speaking.

Rousing locker room speech is really the practice of finding the right cadence and tone. The words don’t have to matter as long as there’s some mix of important terms like “our house, brotherhood, God, momentum,” etc. Lewis’ sideline speeches were apparently very powerful and complete nonsense, as pointed out by Joe Flacco. And yet, somehow Lewis has managed to make a career of speaking his mind.

Here, without further commentary, are my own picks for the most confusing, problematic and uncomfortable things Ray Lewis has ever said.

His Hall of Fame speech

It hasn’t even happened yet, but we got a sneak peek during Thursday’s Hall of Fame game.

Also, it’s going to last at least 45 minutes, AT LEAST.

Here’s what he said when NBC let him filibuster instead of showing Lamar Jackson play:

“This is why I never change, that moment always — and you’ll hear it a little bit tomorrow — but that moment always ends with the honor of God. It always does. So when I throw out my chances, it’s like ‘gah we did that ... we did that.’”

Huh?

Can’t wait ‘til Saturday!

On the subject of momentum

“People don’t really know how huge momentum is. Momentum is huge.���

It really is.

Ray Lewis prevents crime

Lewis has some zany sociological theories:

Ray Lewis said the contagious positive energy surrounding his induction reminds him of his playing days. "When I played, crime went lower in Baltimore," Lewis said. "It’s like, nobody needs to be mad now. It’s like everybody wants to be happy and celebrate."

— Jamison Hensley (@jamisonhensley) August 3, 2018

The NFL also prevents crime

With a player lockout putting the 2011 season in jeopardy, Lewis laid bare the dire consequences, as he foresaw them.

“Do this research if we don’t have a season — watch how much evil, which we call crime, watch how much crime picks up, if you take away our game,” he told ESPN’s Sal Paolantonio.

“There’s nothing else to do Sal.”

Well, there’s baseball ... okay, nevermind.

So much for solidarity

I can’t imagine Lewis’ fellow union members loved the sound of Lewis stumping for owners with that whole crime warning. I’m sure they were absolutely thrilled with what else he had to say about players fighting for a new collective bargaining agreement.

“It’s simple, we really got to remove pride. Seriously. There’s no other reason the issue is going on. That’s why I don’t get into words and all that other stuff, because it takes away from life ... itself.

I know the main reason players didn’t hold out longer was not because of Lewis’ admonishment, but it certainly doesn’t help the cause of his fellow players, especially since most players who pass through the league never get the kind of contracts Lewis signed during his career.

Ray Lewis mashing words together is funny. Being shitty is not funny.

Lewis is confused about Kaepernick

Speaking of shitty, let’s not forget the low point of Lewis’ career as a television talking head (seriously, what a terrible idea that was), which came just last year when he once again went to bat for owners, specifically Ravens owner Steve Bisciotti, criticizing Colin Kaepernick for speaking out against police brutality and racial inequality.

He actually started criticizing Kaepernick in 2016, with Lewis-isms like this:

“I understand what you’re trying to do, but take the flag out of it. [...] I think if Colin really just steps back, because to affect change, if you don’t have a real solution, if you ain’t seen as a true activist to go into these hoods and do these things on a daily basis and not just jump up and protest because you’re sick of this one thing …”

He failed to mention the “real solution” of Kaepernick pledging one million dollars of his own money, not to mention the effort to start a national dialogue over the issue.

He teed off on Kaepernick again last fall, following a nonsensical debate on Fox Sports’ Undisputed. He made Skip Bayless look reasonable! Then, posted an even weirder video on Twitter.

“If you do nothing else, young man, get back on the football field and let your play speak for itself. And what you do off the field, don’t let too many people know, because they gonna judge you anyway, no matter what you do, no matter if it’s good or bad.”

Lewis missed the part where Kaepernick WAS trying to play football again, but teams, including the Ravens, were blackballing him.

And that wasn’t even the end of it. Lewis made himself look like a fool over the whole affair, a grandstanding egotist.

Do not mention deer antlers, even with your hat!

That wasn’t the first time Lewis had beef with Kaepernick. He ago was apparently damaged because of a hat — yes, A Hat! — that Kaepernick wore after Super Bowl XLVII, when Lewis’ Ravens beat the 49ers.

Kaepernick wore a Milwaukee Bucks cap. Lewis reportedly took that to be a slap at him because of the whole flap over the whole deer antler spray Lewis allegedly used to help himself get over a torn triceps.

That incident has always been a touchy subject for Lewis. It’s also a good way to get him to stop talking.

Ray Lewis is here for Odell

Kaepernick wasn’t the only player Lewis counseled via the media. He had some words for Odell Beckham Jr. too.

“Where there’s no God, there’s chaos,” Lewis said on The Herd. “Odell has removed God from his life. This is a kid who grew up under the covenant of who God really is. And everything that he’s doing, he’s crying out for help.”

Uh huh. When asked about reaching out to Beckham, it got even weirder.

“It’s not what he said, it’s the commitment he started to make. So we started to make those phone calls, we started to have conversation. And then I started to see [that] he started to distance himself a little more, a little more, and a little more. And the moment — just listen to me, Colin, I don’t care about religion, I’m talking about a foundation. When your foundation is disturbed, when everything you’re doing is the opposite of what’s got you to this place, then you’re making your own bed hard.”

Okay then!

Conspiracy theories!

“I’m not gonna accuse nobody of nothing -- because I don’t know facts,” Lewis said, according to USA Today’s Nate Davis. “But you’re a zillion-dollar company, and your lights go out? No. No way.”

As with everything, Ray Lewis managed to bring it back to Ray Lewis.

“Now listen, if you grew up like I grew up -- and you grew up in a household like I grew up -- then sometimes your lights might go out, because times get hard. I understand that. But you cannot tell me somebody wasn’t sitting there and when they say, ‘The Ravens (are) about to blow them out. Man, we better do something.’ ... That’s a huge shift in any game, in all seriousness. And as you see how huge it was because it let them right back in the game.”

A Tom Brady hot take for the ages

Brady and the Tuck Rule

“The only reason we know — I’m just being honest — the only reason we know who Tom Brady is, is because of the tuck rule. There’s no such thing as a tuck rule,” said Lewis.

Water polo is apparently for weak fools who need hope.

“But we don’t need no hope. Y’all can keep your hope because we’ve got enough hope over here. We’re packing our bags, and we’re not packing our bags to come play water polo,” Lewis said when asked about playing the Jets in 2010.

Water polo is actually a very difficult sport to play.

“Pissed off for greatness”

“‘Cause if you ain’t pissed off for greatness then that means you’re OK with being mediocre.”

That’s what he told the Stanford men’s basketball team before an NIT tournament game.

That was just the main highlight. He opened up with what I can only assume to be one of his rejected Successories submissions.

“If tomorrow wasn’t promised, what would you give for today?”

Credit for quotes he didn’t even come up with

It says something about your reputation as a motivational speaker when long-standing clinches are wrongly attributed to you.

Lewis did not make up “stand for something, or else you’ll fall for anything” but the Ravens gave him credit for it anyway.

Ray Lewis was against Joe Flacco before he was for him

Lewis is either bad TV or unintentionally really good TV. Either way, questioning Joe Flacco’s passion for the game probably got him a quick phone call from Bisciotti. Lewis backtracked on it pretty fast.

Yes, he brought that back to himself too.

“It was just me being frustrated of watching something that I had control over for so many years, which was men and inspiring them to go on and do things.”

He also said this in a confusing direct appeal to Flacco:

“You’re a man, and you put your pants on one leg at a time just like everybody else. Listen, from a man, you’ll never hear it again. Sorry for ever even calling out your name in the context of making you try to be anything that I am or anything that you’re not.”

Weapons, God, you know, that kind of stuff

After beating the Broncos on their way to the Super Bowl in 2013, cameras got an excited Lewis riffing after the game.

“No weapon formed against me shall prosper, no weapon.” He hugged Peyton Manning, and then launched right back into it.

“No weapon, no weapon, God is amazing.”

I’m sure I’m missing more than a few, so if you have a favorite non-sensical Ray Lewis speechifying moment, drop it in the comments.

[uk-news-talking-politics]

This is what happened last time the govt gave itself huge executive powers

By Gordon Guthrie

'Henry VIII powers' sound splendidly English. They acquired this sobriquet by the king's misuse of them, but actually their roots are found in that ghastly European proto-federalist William the Conqueror.

Now we're about to be ruled by Henry VIII powers again, as the repeal bill replaces parliamentary scrutiny with what amounts to ministerial fiat for the duration of the Brexit process. So it's worth taking a moment to imagine how that period will go.

The best way to understand how something will go next time is to look at how it went last time. In this case, it takes us back to a period slightly more recent than William I -  when the UK ran a whole legal jurisdiction on primary 'Orders In Council' in Northern Ireland.

From 1969 Westminster and Stormont tussled over who controlled security. Violence flared through internment in August ‘71 and Bloody Sunday in January ’72. That March, Westminster took control of security and law and order policy. The Stormont government resigned and rule-by-decree was used to avoid an explosive general election.

Northern Ireland (Temporary Provisions) Act 1972 was for one year and it had plenty of safeguards. For a start it had to be renewed annually. And renewed it was, for year after year after year, until the Good Friday Agreement.

This is how the Orders in Council worked. The legislation would be laid before the Commons as a draft order and within 40 days there would be a debate, limited to 1.5 hours and usually in the early hours of the morning – to an empty chamber. There'd be no committee stage and no amendments, just a yes/no vote.

In the mid-80s the Commons spent on average just 21 hours debating Northern Irish Orders in Council per year. The Lords spent 13 and a half.

These were not just regulations, but often very substantial bills. The 2003 Housing Order ran to 98 page, 149 clauses and five schedules. The 1986 Companies Order had 681 articles and 24 schedules. Electricity, aircraft and ship building were privatised by decree. The 'right to silence' - made famous by countless TV cop shows - was abolished using the same method.

So what does this tell us about how the Brexit bill will proceed? Firstly, that these powers usually expand from what was originally envisaged.

There may be up to 12,000 Orders in Council - from minor technical issues to new regulatory institutions. Only the secretary of state for Northern Ireland had this power, but now all do.

Supporters of the government can claim that there are greater safeguards this time. Ministers cannot impose or increase tax, for instance, or create new criminal offenses, make retrospective legislative changes or meddle with human rights.

But wherever EU law has kissed UK law, a decree may be deployed. Given that a single regulation might be smeared across several departments, there is huge scope for turf wars and chaos.

Laws themselves will also become uglier and broader. The normal legislative process - with committees, amendments and readings in both Houses - leads to the fine-grained moulding of legislation. But the approval process for Orders in Council is much cruder. A minister can write primary legislation subject to the smallest restraints.

Post-Brexit government is likely to feature legislative congestion and overload. Issues come and go but overwork will be constant – and will condition the outcomes. Given the choice between a bad Order in Council and no Order in Council, the presumption will be to take the bad. That dynamic will lead to poor quality legislation.

Clashes, overlaps and missed complexity will be covered by granting secondary powers - and these will tend to be more like primary legislation.

It is likely that the current two year limit to the powers will be formally extended as well. That's usually how these things go.

Politics will not go away. Like weeds bursting through pavements, urgent matters will arise for which there is no spare legislative time. The choice will be to do nothing, or find somewhere - anywhere - that EU law kissed the problem. That will allow them to use a decree.

The evidence from Northern Ireland is that broad powers like these tend to run out of control once they are introduced. They last longer than planned and are used for a wider set of purposes than originally intended. Whatever safeguards there are in the bill are likely to be rewritten once ministers get used to doing things by fiat.

Gordon Guthrie is a former SNP parliamentary candidate and backroom boffin. He worked at Fortnight magazine in Belfast during the early 1990s.

[shaylynbrooke-blog]

Final Paper Draft

Shaylyn Jaworowski

Final Paper Draft

April 19, 2017

             Over the past couple years, the transgender community has been included in the media much more than it has in the past. This has especially boomed when Caitlyn Jenner, formerly known as Bruce Jenner, transitioned in 2015. Bruce Jenner was known as America’s hero and Olympian athlete, winning a gold medal at the 1976 Olympic Games (Pallardy & Augustyn, 2015). Jenner continued his fame back then by becoming a sports commentator, and star of reality TV show, Keeping Up with the Kardashians, after marrying Kris Jenner in 1991. After having a family and happy marriage with Kris Kardashian, the two split and divorced in 2014. Bruce Jenner soon announced the following year in April 2015 that she was transitioning and would further like to be identified as Caitlyn Jenner. Later that year she came out with a reality TV show called, I Am Cait, which documented and showed the world the journey of her transition (Pallardy & Augustyn, 2015).).

           This announcement shocked the public and the media and this topic was trending for weeks, even months. Many fans of Bruce Jenner overall did not understand what Caitlyn was trying to communicate to the public or understand what she meant by announcing that she identified as a woman. Wendy Hilton-Morrow and Kathleen Battles describe transgender as a disconnect that people experience between their biological sex and their gender identity. This term has changed quite a bit over the years and is now widely accepted as an umbrella term that covers various identities, which includes individual’s denial of the correlation between their biological sex and gender norms in society (Hilton-Morrow & Battles, 2015). Caitlyn Jenner upon making her announcement participated in a coming out interview with Diane Sawyer. A study was conducted to analyze the media and public’s reactions through twitter. Five different research questions were asked regarding certain trends, hashtags, and retweets that were used during the interview. The first question is “What were the most frequently tweeted (a) words and (b) phrases during the Sawyer/ Jenner interview?” (Miller & Behm-Morawitz, 2016). The results for this question were primarily positive because the five most frequently used words on twitter during the interview were bravo, deserve, loved, brave, and love. This indicates that the media responded with support and admiration towards Caitlyn’s choice regarding her gender identity. Of the next ten words that were most frequently used, two of them were “LOL,” and “Whitegirlproblems.” This indicates a negative response from the public. The second question asked is, “What were the most frequent retweets during the Sawyer/ Jenner interview?” (Miller & Behm-Morawitz, 2016). The results for this question were majority positive, including Oprah Winfrey’s tweet, “All of us deserve the right to be loved for who we are.” And Jennifer Lopez’s tweet, “Once a champion always a champion. #BruceJenner #transgender #beyourself #loveyourself #LoveIsLove.” The third question asks, “What are the characteristics of the most retweeted opinion leaders (e.g., celebrities) during the Sawyer/ Jenner interview?” (Miller & Behm-Morawitz, 2016). The results for this question are linked with the results of question #2. The top fifteen retweets from question #2 were celebrities, and three of the fifteen top retweets were tweets made by actors and singers of the LGBT community, including Laverne Cox, Matt Bomer, and Lance Bass. The fourth question asked in this study is, “What are the dominant themes that emerged from tweets during the Sawyer/Jenner interview?” (Miller & Behm-Morawitz, 2016). The most popular themes determined in the study included bravery, journey to truth, family drama, congratulatory, support, emotional reactions, education & awareness, gender, journalism and the interview, champion, god, politics, negativity, and sexuality. The majority of these themes are positive reactions by the media. The last question of the study asks, “Do themes co-occur in meaningful ways in tweets during the Sawyer/ Jenner interview?” (Miller & Behm-Morawitz, 2016).

Figure 1. Theme co-occurrence (dendrogram) (Miller & Behm-Morawitz, 2016).

This figure indicated the correlation between themes used on Twitter during the Sawyer/ Jenner interview. The line that is attached to the theme is called a leaf, while a clade is the branched connections between leaves. The shorter the leaf, the stronger the correlation between themes and the shorter the leaf, the weaker the correlation between themes (Miller & Behm-Morawitz, 2016). This chart overall shows that were a couple themes that were much more related than others, including congratulatory and support which has the strongest correlation, followed by bravery and journey to truth. This study shows how prevalent Caitlyn’s situation was in the media. Another article by the Washington Post supports this, titled, “Actually, Caitlyn Jenner just broke the Internet.” After Caitlyn Jenner posted her first tweet as Caitlyn, she broke the record for the Guinness World Record for gaining the most followers in the shortest time, beating former President Barack Obama (Izadi, 2015). This record has contributed a huge difference by putting the transgender community in the media spotlight.

           An article posted on Daily Mail discusses the transgender community’s reaction to Caitlyn Jenner’s transition. Due to Caitlyn’s fame, she has used her platform to be a public voice of the transgender community. According to the article that explored these reactions, they overall were conflicting reactions both positive and negative. Individuals of the transgender community were asked to express their opinion of Caitlyn Jenner in one word.  The results varied from positive responses such as ‘goddess,’ ‘brave,’ to negative responses such as ‘inept,’ and ‘tired’ (Lankston, 2015). Other reactions included just laughter after being asked to voice their opinion, as well as describing Caitlyn as a trendsetter. Overall, the reactions from the transgender community were very controversial. What made it controversial is that some of the reactions looked at Caitlyn as an ally in their community and others looked at her as having an unfair advantage because of her wealth she may misrepresent the community by making her transition look simple or easy to everyone (Lankston, 2015). Many others were unsure and on the fence about how they felt about her transition.

           Overall, the reactions of the media and transgender community on Caitlyn Jenner’s transition can conclude that her transition in the media has been very controversial, but primarily positive. The Twitter study that took place during the Diane Sawyer and Caitlyn Jenner interview was overall positive and supported by the media. The reactions from the transgender community were very mixed and many were very unsure or on the fence. This source definitely had more negative reactions than the media during the Sawyer/Jenner interview. It cannot be concluded why this may be, but it may be primarily due to Caitlyn’s wealth and the potential doubt that she may misrepresent the transgender community. This entire experience and Caitlyn’s entire journey that has been highlighted in the media could absolutely overall be used as a tool to positively represent the struggles and needs of the transgender community, raising awareness and education to the public through Caitlyn’s platform.

      References

 Dailymail.com, C. L. (2015, August 12). 'Inept... Privileged... Goddess': Transgender people          reveal how they REALLY feel about Caitlyn Jenner in brutally-honest video.

 Hilton-Morrow, W., & Battles, K. (2015). Sexual Identities and the Media.

 Izadi, E. (2015, June 1). Actually, Caitlyn Jenner just broke the Internet.

 Miller, B., & Behm-Morawitz, E. (2016, December 15). International Journal of Transgenderism.

 Pallardy, R., & Augustyn, A. (2015, April 27). Caitlyn Jenner.