Tag: jack blood

Setting It Aside

Alex Jones is made fun of for viral marketing.

Thomas Holbrook II | The *Nixed Report

As can be seen by looking at this site, there hasn’t really been much in the way of activity for some time. The reason why was life in and of itself. It happens. I won’t go into details, but I had to take a break from the site.

While I was thinking about finding ways to revive the site yet again, something occurred to me.

I wasn’t having fun with it. Combine that with the fact that we’re in a political environment in which we aren’t as willing to think outside the box, and we have what’s called a no win situation.

Then we have individuals who are Revolution for Sale®.

The funny thing is, there are plenty of things to hit a certain radio talk show host in the head with, yet people are going with things that are so weak that it makes me virtually face palm and head desk myself. There are legitimate things that can be used to expose this individual for the person he really is.

Case in point:

I can try to point these things out, but the audience may not be in the mood to listen, and who can blame them? We’re in an environment where we’ve been yelling at each other for so long that we can’t see the forest from the trees.

The perspective of there only being things that are Black and White is what has been hurting us more than anything, and I don’t want to be in that environment at the moment.

I want to have fun again, and give people something to smile about.

What better way to do that than to do something that is actually fun? That is why I started RetroX86. I have been looking at the history of personal computers for some time, and was excited for the first time for some time.

So this isn’t goodbye or see you later.

I’m just setting this site aside for the time being. You’ll still be able to access past content, including the podcasts and magazine issues. The part that said, “Entertain Yourself….” is something I take seriously.

If your heart isn’t in it, don’t do it. My heart is somewhere else at the moment, so I will be doing that.

Thank you for visiting, and please check out the new site.

Let’s make this fun again.

 

 

P.S. Fuck Paul Isaac Jr.

Friday Roundup: April 28, 2017

Thomas Holbrook II | The *Nixed Report

With the so called “government shutdown” delayed until next week, the roller coaster of 2017 is still building momentum, which brings us this week’s Friday Roundup.

Unix

 

FOSS Force announced the improvement of their news wire. In addition to headlines and authors, excerpts are now included. DistroWatch Weekly has a review of Ubuntu 17.04, the final series that will use Unity for the desktop environment before switching back to GNOME in the next LTS release. Jesse Smith noted an issue with Snap packages in conjunction with DEB packages.

I think it is worth mentioning that to install Snaps from Ubuntu Software, we need to have an Ubuntu One account. Sometimes, when trying to install Snaps, I would encounter authentication errors with my Ubuntu One account and I found closing Ubuntu Software and then re-opening the software manager and trying to install the Snap again would work around the issue.

I also feel it worth pointing out that Ubuntu’s three software managers (Ubuntu Software, Snap and APT) each work with a subset of the available packages. Snaps, for example, cannot be managed using the APT utilities. Likewise, we cannot use Snap to manage traditional Deb packages. The Ubuntu Software application tries to bridge this gap and works with desktop applications provided by both Snaps and Deb packages. However, Ubuntu Software does not work with non-desktop software or some games, requiring a trip to the command line to manage those items. This situation may get better in the future and we may get an all-in-one software manager, but for now we need three different utilities to manage software on Ubuntu and that makes for an awkward situation.

The CEO of Thinkpenguin Inc was arrested for filming the police at a police checkpoint and may face up to a year in jail. Christopher Waid had this to say:

I was essentially arrested for filming a police checkpoint in Manchester, New Hampshire (police invoked non-existent law to interfere with recording, made multiple contradicting and confusing requests, and were quick to obstruct and damage video recording equipment). Papers please. I don’t think I’ll be posting this to the ThinkPenguin blog as its irrelevant to free software / the company / etc. However I thought people here might be interested in following the case. The entire trial will be highly publicized, recorded, etc. One of the officers humorously threatens me with a motor vehicle violation. To be clear I was not drinking, not driving, had no car nearby (got there via another driver which had his car parks two or three blocks away), and in no way under the influence of drugs or alcohol.

The Debian Project is shutting down their public FTP service, though developers won’t be affected. According to SoftPedia:

This means that the upload queues for both the main (ftp://ftp.upload.debian.org) and security (ftp://security-master.debian.org) archives will be accessible to them. The rest of the world won’t be able to access ftp://ftp.debian.org, nor ftp://security.debian.org starting November 1, 2017.

Overlooked Pop Culture

 

Comic book fans may have a reason to rejoice with the upcoming Marvel Legacy one shot. It includes multiple characters telling a story of the glory days. The story will relate to future of the Marvel Universe going forward.

Podcast co-host Stephen Kelley has a review of the 2017 release of Ghost in the Shell. He does pose a warning to the Internet Outrage Machine before the review is underway:

Let’s get this first part out of the way:

If there is one thing I’m tired of in the realm of film and television, it’s pre-emptive complainers trying to de-rail everything before it even comes out. with any review of this live action American/Chinese Ghost in The Shell film, everyone has drawn battle lines in regards to the elephant in the room of “Hollywood whitewashing”; in fact, I would say you were almost expected to take a side, and if you took a side that many didn’t like you’d get lectured by the other. It’s annoying that folks are getting in fights and “unfriending” each-other because of opinions over a goofy sci-fi film, but that’s our modern society I guess. Some popular reviews from major sites didn’t even talk about the film, they just reviewed everything that was in some way perceived as racist to stoke the outrage fires, this honestly comes across like they never actually watched it.

I’m not going to dwell on this topic too much because I can see both sides and don’t think arguing over whether or not Scarlett Johanson should or should not be cast as The Major actually addresses the actual problem that Hollywood has with representation. The internet witch hunts and rage were nearly identical to what people attempted to do with both recent Star Wars films, and even last years re-boot of Ghostbusters, and I honestly don’t care anymore. I’d rather discuss a film based on an anime/manga property that I’ve loved for upwards of 20+ years, and how it turned out.

/end rant

On a lighter note, Causecon has started today and will run through Sunday. All proceeds will go towards the local Women’s Resource Center in Beckley, West Virginia.

Political underground radio talk show host Jack Blood has made his return after a lengthy hiatus. He has a Patreon page for those who have followed him over the years and want to support him. On said page, he indicated the following:

At this time, the show is 100% commercial free! It will be up to you if it stays that way.

That ends this week’s Friday Roundup. We’ll be back next week.

Corporate Media Doesn’t Get Alex Jones

Thomas Holbrook II | The *Nixed Report

Alex Jones is made fun of for viral marketing.
He is a master of viral marketing.

In the passing weeks, there have been a plethora of stories regarding Alex Jones and his “performance artist” defense used by his attorney during his divorce hearing. Since that defense was used, it was assumed by most corporate owned outlets that he doesn’t believe what he’s selling to others.

Once again, they’re way off the mark, and this is part of the reason why so much trust has been lost regarding these established outlets.

The issue at hand is that he uses certain shock jock tactics which are really not that different from that of Rush Limbaugh or Howard Stern. He has an audience to build and maintain. The sense of urgency that he has always displayed has been a part of his viral marketing.

There’s a reason he kept encouraging his followers to copy his films and give them away for free.

That is also why I would be able to use his work for certain benchmarks in any future reviews. His discs aren’t region locked. That is a hallmark of viral marketing, and Canonical has also successfully used that tactic to make Ubuntu a house hold name.

Furthermore, when one actually looks into other venues that have covered him at length, a more complicated story appears.

However extreme and paranoid and downright cartoonish his unending stream of alarm can be, Jones believes every word he says and can prove it with a personal stash of food big enough to last three years. And if they bothered to look without prejudice, these righteous leftists would see that Jones covers issues like the drug war, the growing security state, and Monsanto’s genetic modification of food exactly the way they do, just as many of his themes were echoed by the Occupy movement. –John H Richardson for Esquire Magazine

Jones has since changed tone since Trump was elected as President of the United States, but he did cover a lot of points of view that the anti-war crowd would have agreed with during George W Bush’s time in office. As for further evidence that Jones believes what he says, look no further than Joe Rogan.

This isn’t to say that I entirely agree with Jones or his tactics that are used. What I find irritating is the mindless group think that keeps echoing each other when a misleading headline comes across the eyes of the masses.

If people are to oppose Jones and those similar to him, they need to have all their facts straight and be able to back up what is being argued.

Oh, and before anybody cheers for the ex-wife of Jones, you may want to listen to Jack Blood and what he has to say.

When one digs deeper, they find the story of an individual who doesn’t like competition and who may very well have sold out depending on the point of view. Those are points in which criticism would be valid as opposed to saying he doesn’t believe in what he’s selling.

Wednesday Weekly Links: November 20, 2013

In one week, we’ll be having Thanksgiving.  We go old school on the technology side of things, take a satirical look at a popular form of food, and delve into our inner geek a little bit.

Unix

  • The NSA DID ask Linus Torvalds to leave backdoors in the Linux kernel:  This one shouldn’t be too surprising, but we’ll throw this one out there all the same.
  • 6502.org: The website that talks about the processor that was used by Apple and other companies in their computers and electronics.  Their Google+ page circled ours after publishing the previous Throwback Thursday.
  • Oldcomputers.net: Hat tip to Stephen Mudd for bringing this link to our attention.  This site explores older computers, the hardware specifications, and more.  For historical reference as well as nostalgia, feel free to check it out.

 

Overlooked Pop Culture

  • Pepperoni is for idiots, according to Maddox: This one’s a bit older, but with Thanksgiving just around the corner, this is more than appropriate.  Sometimes certain forms of food just aren’t satisfying.  Maddox breaks down why pepperoni isn’t real food.
  • Deadline Live: Jack Blood is a radio talk show host who talks about a variety of topics that are not often mentioned in the mainstream.
  • Bulbagarden: For those PokéMon fans out there, this site’s encyclopedia is extensive.  Detailed information on each PokéMon and characters from the video games, manga, and anime are all available.