My Life as a Shooter: The Scout Rifle

In the firearms world, a scout rifle is a bolt-action (sometimes a lever-action) rifle intended to be a general purpose firearm capable of good usage in hunting and defense. The Wikipedia article does a decent job explaining the idea and its origins.

While there are a number of commercially-available bolt-action rifles intended to be (and sold as) scout rifles, I'm thinking of going with a lever-action rifle as my basis thanks to reading this Chuck Hawks article. Where I live, lever-action rifles chambered in .30-30 Winchester are very common. (Most of them are Marlin 336 models, but that's neither here nor there.) Therefore, acquisition is easy and won't be impeded by treasonous statutes. The ammunition is not regarded as "military" either, so stockpiling both the usual round-nosed offerings and Hornady's LeverEvolution cartridges with the polymer tips won't be hard.

The build in the Hawks article is mostly a matter of getting the rifle itself, followed by the aftermarket iron sights, the forward rail section, and then the scope. Everything else I can buy easily at the Fleet Farm store near the house, including the ammunition and a sock or case should I not want to hang it up or stick it in a safe.

Sootch here has a video that explains the hows and why behind this choice. While the rifle (a Marlin 336) is not scout-configured (the scope on a Scout Rifle has its mounting forward of the receiver, over the barrel; see the Hawks article for an example picture), everything else is on point.



If you live in a place where hunting rifles are allowed, and you're wanting to be prepared, consider setting yourself up with a Scout Rifle- either purpose-built or taking a hunting or surplus rifle and making the changes needed. Remember: bolt-action or lever-action, in a potent caliber that is easily gotten with minimal or no official scrutiny, and sufficiently affordable that you can practice on a regular basis. I'm with Hawks in the opinion of preferring "hunting" over "military" chamberings, but if you do go with one that's easily gotten.

(Note: For this reason, I do consider the 7.62x39 cartridge an acceptable "military" cartridge despite it not being a full-powered rifle cartridge, and therefore consider the CZ 527 Carbine in that caliber another acceptable basis for a Scout Rifle despite the lack of magazines with a capacity of 10 or more rounds.)

So, if you're in a position to consider doing so, consider having a Scout Rifle in your inventory. If you have only one rifle, make it a Scout and forget the rest.

The Jamar Clark Case Ended Predictably

Here in the Twin Cities, the Jamar Clark shooting remains a matter of local relevance. The local Black Live Matter clique and their allies are not happy that the officers will not be charged criminally for the shooting. Nevermind that Clark beat his girlfriend so badly that an ambulance had to take her away for treatment. Nevermind that Clark interfered with paramedic efforts to treat the girlfriend. Nevermind that he went for a cop's sidearm. Oh no, he was a good buy who dindu nuffin; he didn't need to die- oh fuck this.


There's meetings and marches going on as I write this. I'm expecting a riot soon, and I'm expecting that the city government--run by Regressive Leftists that make up urban and suburban Democrats here--will knuckle under like the cowards, cuckolds, and cultists that they are. (One of the city council members is an open BLM member.) They should be ready to execute mass arrests of the entire group.

This BLM crew has already laid siege to a precinct house ones, disrupted commerce in North Minneapolis and the Mall of America, disrupted transit on Interstate 35-W and in downtown Minneapolis, and otherwise engaged in acts of war and banditry (and yes, that's what they are) against county and city government as well as corporate property. They are keen to do it again.

Quite frankly, this demonstrated behavior should have city, county, state and--yes--Federal prosecutors combing over the statutory codices for applicable measures. But, so long as the leadership in the Twin Cities and in the state house of Minnesota remain so thoroughly cucked we're going to either way for them to cross the line (and compel effective action), we're going to get foot-dragging and half-measures at best.

It will also begin the serious decay of Democratic (and thus SocJus) hold on Minnesota's urban counties and state government, as this is going out to the rural population--already disdainful of the Cities--and make this Urban/Rural split even worse, and ultimately breaking the urban power in this state. We Minnesotans--the proper nationals here--are a people who value order, and this chaos will NOT be tolerated once it becomes clear that this cannot be avoided.

Dependent, Fragile, & Fearful: The Core Traits of the SocJus Cult

Larry Correia made a post recently about another author's success outside the legacy genre fiction machine. As the man who got the Sad Puppies rolling (and now sits back to enjoy the fireworks), he had a sense of how said machine is politically biased.

Enter Verdant Labs. They figured out what those biases are (in a U.S. context, but remapping to where you are ain't that hard). Book Publishing? 100% Democrat, and thus Regressive Left.

But I noticed a pattern in the assessments, one I think you'll find very interesting: the more Democratic a profession is, the greater it is dependent upon institutional structures, the more fragile its members are, and the more fearful (in a "Mommy! Mommy!" sense of anxiety) they are as a class.

This fits the profile of the SocJus Cult.
They are individually weak, disdainful of self-reliance to the point of delusion, and anxious about their vulnerability at all times. To cover this anxiety, they cope by projecting their weakness and compel their dependency upon others. They have no faith in their own abilities. They have no sense of perspective regarding how the world works, so it terrifies them and they seek a Big Mommy to soothe them. They live in scarcity.

The "Republican" professions require the fostering of an independent character that sees themselves as superior to the structure that they work within, as fathers to their children, and that gives them a mentality of abundance due to the knowledge that their skills and acumen will allow them find useful and productive work wherever they go.

Well then, I see now what path to go to fix the SocJus problem at the higher levels of engagement: break their scarcity paradigm.

Social Justice Cult Hits Overwatch

So, some cunt who doesn't even play Overwatch pulled for "For Muh Babies!" whine and now Tracer's getting her best shot patched out.

Kaplan had to sign off on this. Stop being a fucking cuck, Kaplan. If someone advised you to do it, toss them out a window and tell HR to bring in a replacement. If you did it, man the fuck up and revert it. The majority of the audience is adults, not pre-pubescent children, and therefore "For The Children" cries need not be considered.

God forbid that chicks have some sassy sex appeal. (Or are you going patch out Widowmaker's fantastic ass also?) The Tumblrinas have Zarya, so stop coddling the crusty cunts and punt them to the curb already- especially those fake "journalists" who lie about their gamer cred when they do this Social Justice bullshit.

Here, let me show you how it's done: "Fuck off, loser. We like Tracer's fine ass, and you can choke on my fuck."

Not hard, is it?

No one respects doormats.
This will not end well, and I expect some backpedaling to come soon (along with the restoration of that fabulous ass).

My Life in Fandom: I Love a Good Dogfight

Look, I'm not going to be super-serious all the time. This is a good day for a fun post, so I'm taking it.

There were some parts of The Force Awakens that I loved, and it usually had to do with Poe. For me, as a sucker for dogfighting, anyone who does a flight sequence shot like this gets my curiousity- and those who do it well get my attention. In this respect, TFA delivered. The video is a complication of Poe (and a few others) Being Awesome In Flight set to Loggins' classic Danger Zone (from Top Gun):


Oh hell yeah! I do hope that Rogue One and Episode 8 deliver more of this. A lot more.

What's To Come: More on Success

I have more to say on the matter, more than just one post will allow me to satisfy.

So, over the next few weeks, I'll post about this topic on the weekends. When I finish I'll collect the series together and add a Page to curate them together.

This is a pilot for a more general shift in how I use this blog as a platform. If it works, then I'll do more limited series like it.

And that's all I have to say today. It's Easter weekend, and I'm thinking of bigger concerns right now.

The Mainstream Media Is Going Down

Mike Cernovich's Tweet made in the wake of the emerging (as of this post) Ted Cruz Sex Scandal summarizes the Establishment media quite well:

We caught the entire media lying about Michelle Fields. We don't trust you now! #cruzsexscandal

— Mike Cernovich (@Cernovich) March 25, 2016

Cernovich got wind that the National Enquirer would run the story last night. He got word that Breitbart sat on it after internal superiors put the kabosh on it earlier, something confirmed by Allum Bokhari later. Cernovich's article at Danger & Play has the relevant details.

Today he put out a follow-up article, and this is where he again hammered the point I showed above, a point he concludes on after pointing out that Cruz is a known liar and backstabber who can't be trusted- which lead to one of the mistresses lashing out at Cernovich over his successful drive to compel the scandal's coverage.

That's NOT a denial! #cruzsexscandal pic.twitter.com/1pSGSEzrWl

— Mike Cernovich (@Cernovich) March 25, 2016

He's right. That's not a denial.

While the sex gets the attention due to the sizzle, the meat is the transfer of $500K to one of the alleged mistresses- one that worked as one of Carly Fiorina's manager. That's the sort of shit that that gets the FEC involved, and that means investigations with the threat of criminal charges and subsequent trials- the sort of thing that ends campaigns, careers, and lives.

Meanwhile, the Establishment media sat on their asses all night. Cernovich saw this as coordination on a narrative shift, and he was right, which is part of what prompted the Tweet at the top: they're worse than useless, and have to be harangued into doing their purported jobs properly. So, as they are unfit for purpose, they should be destroyed and replaced.

And Mike Cernovich is leading the charge.

Real Justice Trump Social Justice

Hulk Hogan won a major victory in his civil suit against Gawker. Gregory Allen Scott beat a ridiculous criminal charge because some feminist got her feelings hurt. Now, today, Jian Ghomeshi beat a criminal charge because some chicks he fucked felt regret after the fact and had to cover their asses lest they be known as dirty, degenerate, and very easy sluts.

In each case, the SocJus reaction was (a) predictable and (b) hilarious.

When these SocJus cultists get put into a Court of Law, their bullshit melts faster than butter on a griddle. None of the cases (Gawker, or the Crown in the latter two) had actual evidence that could logically and consistently support the claims in their arguments when put before a judge (or a jury).

Real justice, like real science, requires rigor that SocJus denies.
So, when I see the usual suspects whining about how the law is raciss and sexiss and mansplainin' and oh shut the fuck up, well...

Top kek, as the kids say.

The Social Justice cultists are so far up their own asses (figuratively speaking, I hope) due to their current (and eroding) position in the media that they forget something fundamental to everyday: status is contextual.

Once you walk into a Court of Law, who you are and what you believe doesn't mean shit. What matters is what you claim, and how you support that claim according to the court's rules and procedures. It's a logical, orderly, and structured process that has as its goal the production of findings of objective fact and the adjudication of conflicting claims therein. Your feelings are UTTERLY FUCKING IRRELEVANT.

And that's why I call "Social Justice" to be a fucking death cult; once you deny reality, you've knifed reason to death on that altar to a demon that will continue to oppress you until you come out from it- and from there, it's a short step to sacrificing the lives of others to further please your evil ways.

Europe's Refuge Crisis: A Radio 3Fourteen Interview w/ Col. Richmond of "Hasta la Vista EUROPE!"

The following is from Radio 3Fourteen, Lana Lokteff's show at Red Ice Creations:

Col. Walter T. Richmond is the penname of the author of the new book, “Hasta la Vista EUROPE!” A member of a military veteran family, Col. Richmond was born and grew up in the US. After graduating basic and officer training at the top of his class, and serving in a variety of emergency, law enforcement, and disaster response capacities, Richmond was commissioned a colonel in the 1990s. He then left uniformed services and worked in various television, radio, communications, and media-related fields.

Walter first explains his inspiration for writing the book, which was sparked as the insanity of the refugee invasion of Europe was unfolding and he observed a great disparity between what was being portrayed in the mainstream media and the independent videos surfacing on the internet. Walter’s background of specializing in strategic messaging provides a unique perspective on what he calls the “old-fashioned-controlled-media” and his book outlines the tricks that have been used to propagandize the “refugee crisis.” We discuss Chancellor Angela Merkel’s horrible failure at managing the invasion in Germany, and the resulting unprecedented pressure on its health care system, infrastructure, and public services. Richmond outlines some disturbing figures concerning the European housing market and its millions of homeless natives, and the lawlessness that has ensued as special interests groups bend over backwards to provide shelter to migrants. We look at techniques the media is using to craft fairytales about the people of the refugee flood, a disturbing percentage of which are fighting age men and child soldiers with zero education who never intend to assimilate or return to their countries of origin. At the end, Walter emphasizes how EU countries that have been placed on the fast track to multiculturalization are enacting insane policies designed to dismiss and even protect migrant criminals, rapists and murderers while ensuring these savages aren’t unduly offended by ancient European traditions and practices.

This interview occurred before the Brussels attack of yesterday, and I suspect before the arrest in Belgium of the Paris attacks' shot-caller in the days before as well as the Ankara attacks before that. That temporal context matters here, as the Col.'s commentary will not take recent events into account. Not that it will matter much.

What this episode makes clear is the following:

• The media establishment is wholly assimilated into the Establishment. They actively lie about the facts.
  
• The Establishment is complicit, willingly and actively, in the crisis; they sided with the migrants against their own kind.
  
• The push to squelch the Internet exists because it allows dissenters to organize and communicate unfettered.
  
• The migrants are refusing to assimilate, set up their own enclaves, and instead impose their culture upon the locals- conquest.
  
• The population's problem is in realizing (a) the elites betrayed them and then (b) defending themselves against TWO potent threats.
  
• The answer cannot come from the Rule of Law so long as the treasonous elites remain in power- they have to go FIRST.
  

It's not hard to see where this goes from here. The elites, as a class, hate the native European common folks and want to replace them. They still require political cover to do so, however, which is why this migrant crisis exists.

The more cunning and competent in the Establishment are intending to provoke a violent counter-punch, and they wholly intend to do so via pushing the native population to defend itself via existential threat (i.e. letting the migrants butcher them).

Then comes the hammer, or so the plan goes, justifying open and brutal tyranny upon the natives via a police state disappearing dissidents under color of law.

This is why the elites have to go first. The migrants have to be held at bay (for my gamers, think "off-tank the add") until the elites go down and their interference is eliminated. If it can be done peacefully via political means, as seems to be the case in the United States (and I hope it is), do that. If not, then you know damn well that you have only one other option, so commit to it and get on with it.

Which brings me to a point I made in the wake of the Brussels attack: The Long Peace of the West is done.

The fantastic illusions of the post-World War 2 zeitgeist cracked already, and now comes down in a shower of intellectual ruin as the dogma of Multi-Culturalism proves itself to be the fraud (and poison) that it always was. Globalism is genocide, Diversity is extermination, and NO ONE is immune. (Which makes the moves by Europe's elites clear to be insanity and delusional.) Nationalism, and only Nationalism, will work- and then, only tied to perfect sovereignty therein.

Without Nationalism, nothing else of the Enlightment (or Western Civilization) holds up. The Peace of Westphalia falls without it. This crisis, and the elites' throwing open the gates to them, is a direct threat to the West. Until the people get up and throw down the traitors, no other solution will work; get rid of the traitors, then the migrants, and the West endures.

Paul Joseph Watson on the Brussels Attack

He ain't fucking around. This is the sort of insanity he's talking about:

@PennyRed Your moral cowardice in the face of obvious anti-Western aggression is appalling. You might as well be a 5th columnist.

— Bradford C. Walker (@MrBCWalker) March 22, 2016

The mask is off. We know, thanks to the revelation of the institutional practice of taqiyya, that "persecution" means "any instance where we cannot fully act as our dogma requires".

We know, thanks to the freer flow of information that the Internet provides, that much of what the Western apologists claim as "moderate" isn't that moderate, but rather cowardice because they want the results of "fanatics" acting without taking the risks. Most common is the harboring of "fanatics" or "radicals" inside their enclaves, as the arrest of Paris shot-caller Salah Abdeslam in the Brussels suburb of Molenbeek demonstrates.

The illusion of a global peace filled with multi-culti love and tolerance as we gleefully blend together into an eventual best-of-all entity is done. The Long Peace bought by the sacrifice of blood, bone, and fire in World War 2 for the West is done. This is Nemesis in action, wrecking once more the Babel-like tower of delusion brought about by too long a disconnection from reality.

The reality is that we are separate and distinct nations. We cannot have peace if we are too close to other nations. The definition of Empire is a political or economic regime that compels two or more nations to dwell together within its confines. It requires coercion to maintain itself, and when it cannot it always collapses into a horrific display of violence as the nations finally sort their differences using force and guile.

So, when someone manages to create a global empire, and that empire collapses, what do you think is going to happen?

You're looking at it.

This is a bigger thing than the last 40 years. This goes on before the founding of Israel. While the modern form is a creation of World War 1 and its imperial politics (which is where the anti-imperialist angle bases its arguments), this shit's been a thing since the get-go. It's just that the modern form has to be couched in delicate euphemisms lest some overly-sensitive git with an attack lawyer sic 'em on you, or worse. (Just go listen to some academic expert on Islam talk about "Orientalism" sometime; this will come up.)

The "long century" of the 20th century is done. As the first World War ended the zeitgeist of the 19th century, so will this end that of the 20th. Before long, like it or not, this will become open conflict between the West and the Shadow. Fortunately, this will also revive what the West truly is, and with it bring victory- but not without cost, one of which is the delusion that we alone can save ourselves.

Get ready. Something like this is soon to happen.

Trump Wants to End the Empire

Winners are not afraid to take risks. In American politics, one of the biggest concerns foreign policy. As someone who's made it crystal-fucking-clear that I hate Empire, I cannot help but to be thrilled to see that someone who can actually fucking win wants to end the Empire. Today, in the Washington Post, Donald Trump did just that.

Donald Trump outlined an unabashadly noninterventionist approach to world affairs Monday, telling The Washington Post's editorial board that he questions the need for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, which has formed the backbone of Western security policies since the Cold War.

The meeting at The Post covered a range of issues, including media libel laws, violence at his rallies, climate change, the NATO and the U.S. presence in Asia.

Speaking ahead of a major address on foreign policy later Monday in front of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, Trump said he advocates an aggressive U.S. posture in the world with a light footprint. In spite of unrest abroad, especially in the Middle East, Trump said the United States must look inward and steer its resources toward rebuilding domestic infrastructure.

"I do think it’s a different world today, and I don’t think we should be nation-building anymore," Trump said. "I think it’s proven not to work, and we have a different country than we did then. We have $19 trillion in debt. We’re sitting, probably, on a bubble. And it’s a bubble that if it breaks, it’s going to be very nasty. I just think we have to rebuild our country."

He added: "I watched as we built schools in Iraq and they’re blown up. We build another one, we get blown up. We rebuild it three times and yet we can’t build a school in Brooklyn. We have no money for education because we can’t build in our own country. At what point do you say, 'Hey, we have to take care of ourselves?' So, I know the outer world exists and I’ll be very cognizant of that. But at the same time, our country is disintegrating, large sections of it, especially the inner cities."

That's fucking courageous of him to openly question the need for NATO like that. That's directly attacking the legitimacy of Empire while running for one of the key offices in it. Sure, he may well fail to deliver, but no one else is even fucking trying. Not even Sanders. (And Hillary? She wants to be Imperatrix so badly that she may yet resort to open human sacrifice of babies to get it.)

Fine, Trump. You had my curiosity. Now you have my attention.

Fantasy Is Not Delusion

I read Vox Populi. This came in my feed today:

Having successfully championed minorities, women, homosexuals, and rainbow-haired, sexually-confused, surgically-mutilated freaks in science fiction, SF-SJWs have defined their next urgent anti-discrimination priority: fat chicks.

You’ve read a couple books where fat girls get to be loved in the real world, and that’s wonderful, but fat girls don’t get whisked away into alternate worlds and told they’re a long lost princess. Fat girls don’t get to see the magical underside of New York City. Fat girls don’t save planets.

It's an interesting dichotomy. Many, if not most, fantasy writers are fat women, but fat women are apparently discriminating against fat women in their books, either because they are a) self-hating or b) subject to a false consciousness instilled by Society and The Patriarchy.

What. The. Fuck.

That's delusion. Sure, Vox is mocking them in that last bit, but in doing so he's showing this for what it is: an attempt to rewrite reality (however futile) to signal their virtue so they won't be thrown against the wall when the revolution comes.

So, knowing that dialectical argumentation is fruitless against such batshit insanity, I'll put it this way:

Fat chicks get eaten by the dragon because they're good eating.

Hogan Wins Gawker Suit & It's Implications

Yesterday, Hulk Hogan won his defamation case against Gawker to the tune of $115 million. Punitive damages will be announced on Monday (and I'll edit that in later), so it's time to enjoy the sweet taste of victory against the abuses of one small part of a corrupt media establishment.

Mike Cernovich has an article dedicated to an analysis of the verdict.

Vox Day quotes Cernovich, links to that same article, and then offers his own opinion before opening the floor to the Ilk to do the same.

The Ralph Retort has its own article about the trial's verdict and immediate reactions thereto.

And man, the schadenfreude is glorious. Burn, Gawker, Burn.

But the kicker is the appeal, or rather the scramble to pay for it. Archived here for posterity is this wrinkle that could prove fatal for Nick Denton, Gawker's owner:

Another peril of the Hogan case for Gawker: even if they win, their legal and liability insurance is more or less gone.

So the millions required to put up an appeal? Out of pocket. If they end up accepting defeat, the damages have to be paid out of pocket. Denton doesn't have that money, so that means Gawker will be sold to settle the debt. Already there are folks (like Cernovich) making jokes about taking jobs as a Hogan-owned Gawker, and "making Gawker great again".

Every other entity with similarly slimy senses of ethics, especially those in the media, are taking notice. Some claim it will be narrowly applied, but I'm not so sure. The reason? The same arrogance that undid Gawker here is at work in other arenas, as another reader to Vox Day's blog noticed recently:

A reader has a realization:

A long time ago, there was a comfortable Establishment, which ran the roost via handshakes and insider back-scratching. The Right People got the right rewards, and all was good for the Establishment

Then a bold, brash newbie shows up, and, despite pissing off the establishment by being exceptionally politically incorrect, becomes more and more successful until the Establishment decides that Steps Must Be Taken, and the Newbie must be destroyed. They're destroying the accepted procedure, and they don't care. . .

The question: Who am I talking about: The Puppies. . . .or Donald Trump ??

I've realized it's the SAME STORY, and the ‪#‎NoTrumpers are just the PuppyKickers in a different venue. How is gaming the convention rules any different from E Pluribus Hugo?

This is why the Puppinette referred to me as "the Donald Trump of science fiction", which is, of course, a grand compliment indeed. But in both cases, we are the change that the establishment does not want to see.

Both Vox and his reader writing in are correct.

Gawker is no different in attitude and belief than the Establishment at-large. That's what the wise on all sides recognize, which is why those aligned against Trump, against the Sad & Rabid Puppies, against GamerGate, and so on are shitting themselves: they just saw proof that they can't win in an honest contest. Expect more cheating shenanigans as a result.

Raiding: The System That Leads To Success (and its Real-Life Application)

This past week I've written a lot about raiding in MMORPGs (particularly World of Warcraft), and now we've reached a take-away point for a more general application.

As I posted previously, I know why most people fear failure. Therefore, it should not be surprising for me to want a solution to the problem therein. Well, Scott Adams has a solution and he took a blog post to summarize it; if you want the long version, read the book-length version of it.

As I looked over the past week's posts, it hit me that raiding is exactly what Adams' system is: a feedback loop process that iteratively builds to success, incorporating failure as a key component in that iterative process.

You pull the boss. The boss wipes out your raid group. You go over what went down, figure out what went wrong, fix that shit, and then you try again. Lather, rinse, and repeat until you figure out through successively better iterations until you kill the boss. You then go from "We got it right!" to "We can't get it wrong!" following the same iterative process so that variations in group composition and so forth cease to be a factor in killing that boss week after week.

In other words, the system approach is what you do to go from Newbie to Amateur and then from Amateur to Professional. This is why successful folks get away from fixing upon goals and towards establishing and refining systems of iterative improvement.

That is raiding. Iterative improvement towards success, disguised as iterative improvement towards a goal.

My Life as a Gamer: Why I Raid

So, why raiding?

Because, unlike my experiences in the workplace, all of the rhetoric said of work actually applies.

• Your effort directly translates into reward, guaranteed.
  
• Your effort directly translates into power, guaranteed.
  
• Your effort directly translates into prestige, guaranteed.
  
• Your effort directly translates into respect, guaranteed.
  
• Your effort directly translates into superior prospects for greater challenges, guaranteed.
  
• Your effort directly translates into observable results that you can measure in real time for immediate feedback, and thus to immediate improvements that your teammates will appreciate, guaranteed.
  

If you put in the work, it may come at some delay, but all of the promised rewards will be yours. Investment via persistence delivers returns via rewards.

The shitshows that far too many workplaces are can crop up with raiding, but it's harder to keep those scams up due to the far more open nature of the raiding community. If you're a raid leader who's looking to steal rewards, that gets out- fast. Soon you're not able to pull it off anymore. If you're a slacker or shucker who doesn't put in the work, that gets noticed and soon you're out on your ass; soon thereafter, since performance gets logged and publically posted, you won't find anyone else for you to go either.

There is no risk of failure here; all you have to do is put in the work--pay the sweat price--and you get the rewards. If you fuck up, you'll know and you'll be able to IMMEDIATELY do something to fix it.

This is the sureshot. The self-esteem, respect, material wealth, etc. actually exist here. Now, to find real-life arenas where this is also true.

Follow Up on Raiding Successfully: When You're NOT Raiding

As I said when I made the first post, raiding is a team sport.

As with anything competitive there is a logistical train that has to be maintained. Competitive raiders go through a lot of consumables, and many raid teams expect that the raider will supply their own consumables. This means that raiders will have to maintain the means to keep their stocks up, and that leads to what a raider does when he's not raiding.

If he's not working on an alternative character, then he's likely doing maintenance on that logistical train somehow. Either he's using his stable of characters (or, for games like Final Fantasy 14, alternative classes) to work that train in-house, or he's out farming up what he needs to buy those consumables.

If there is some form of metagame currency, such as Valor in World of Warcraft, that applies somehow to raiding then that too is expected to be regularly farmed and banked for use. Raiders often group up in smaller subgroups to handle that sort of thing, keeping up their good habits and practices between raid nights, and ensuring smooth farming of such things.

This sounds like a hassle, and done wrong it is. However, there are plenty of guides by people at YouTube or one of the various online sites (for WOW, that's WOWhead, Icy Veins, etc.; other MMORPGs will have their equivalents), so someone likely already figured out how to do this or that in a manner that is friendly to your free time so you can do what's expected of you and still have time to go out with your honey. The knowledge is out there to deflate the hassle, so take advantage of it and knock it out right quick. You'll be glad that you did, and so will your teammates.

Release the Hounds! Rabid Puppies, ATTACK!

The Supreme Dark Lord posted today that the Rabid Puppy Recommedation List for the 2016 Hugos is about ready to go. In addition, he posted a fantastic piece of art that will soon be available on shirts as well as releasing a Twitter banner.



I am amused. This is akin to watching Reinhard von Lohengram outmanuever the Imperial High Nobles that hate him (or Yang Wen-Li vs. his enemies in the Free Planets Alliance). There's no scenario in which Vox does not win, because the goal is not to win Hugos. It's to force the SocJus cultists to throw off their masks in order to maintain their Narrative Warfare campaign (and through it, any power they have), exposing themselves to the Normies.

I look forward to seeing them burn down their own awards, again.

Oh, and if someone wants to do me a solid, getting me a shirt (Men's 2X, please) would do.

Follow on Success as a Raider: Leadership

Yesterday's post on being a successful raider boils down to Respect Another's Time.

This includes the leadership. There are things you DO NOT DO as the Raid Leader. One of them is not tell your team what VOIP to use, and instead make them guess. Another is to say the start time is one thing, then not abide by it. But the biggest is to forget what day in the week it is and decide upon an inappropriate course of action.

Most MMORPGs reset their instance lockouts on a weekly reset. You attempt to go as far as you can before the reset. If you can clear it in that time, reliably, you're said to have that instance "on farm". (Which means that you kill the bosses as if they were crops becoming ripe.) That doesn't mean that all of your team has all that they're after from this instance, just that everyone knows what's what and can do the work to get what they're after.

You don't swing away from that during a reset. You do that after the reset. Resentment builds when you change the plan without need.

Don't be an incompetent raid leader. Be considerate of your team, and of their time- or they will go to someone who does.

My Life as a Gamer: How to Succeed as a Raider in a MMORPG

Being a successful raider is not that hard. There are no arcana here to master. It's all very simple, very basic, and if you have ever held down a respectable job or played a competitive team sport then you already know what it takes. First, a summary.

Raiding is a team sport; there is no place for special snowflakes.

1. Respect Others' Time: Know when to show up, and be on time. If you will be late, contact the raid leader and inform him of your delay; if you will be unavailable, inform your raid leader that you will not be there that day so he can replace you well before the fact.
   
2. Be Prepared: Your gear must be fully repaired, properly enchanted, and properly gemmed. You must have a full evening's provision of consumables ready to go; you are expected to know what that is and acquire provisions on your own initiative- don't count on others to do it for you. (WOWhead is your friend, and that's just the most general place to find this stuff.) You are expected to know what the boss strategies are, so do your homework; watch the boss guides beforehand. (Not pulling your weight or expecting explanations shows disrespect for others' time.)
   
3. Discipline Matters: You are expected to improve your performance, starting with knowing what your job is and focusing upon it. Keybinds are superior to clicking. Macros are superior to repeating manual key-pressing for commonly-comboed abilities or commonly-associated conditions of ability use. (e.g. mouseovers for healing/curing/cleansing spells) You are expected to not slack off during farm content, or it stops being farm due to making avoidable mistakes (and, again, shows disrespect for the time of others) and thus wasting time on repeated attempts when you should be one-shotting things.
   
4. Leadership Matters: If you're the boss, you set the example, so all of this is on you to establish and enforce. Lead, dammit. Get to know your raiders. Dump the bad ones--drop the boat anchors and bench the sandbaggers--and promote the good ones. Pass the links to the info and follow-up that they've done their job; bench them if they don't- and no raiding is better than shit raiding.
   

See? Not that hard now is it? You already do this for any other area of your life where you want to succeed. Raiding is no different.

Skynet Is (Almost) Here

Readers of CTRL+ATL+REVOLT and similar tales of A.I. vs. Mankind, you want to read this post at Global Guerillas. It's about how a next-gen program beat a Go Grandmaster three games straight, and fast. I'll quote the relevant parts below:

Instead, AlphaGo won this victory by learning how to play the game from scratch using this process:

• No assumptions. AlphaGo approached the game without any assumptions. This is called a model-free approach. This allows it to program itself from scratch, by building complex models human programmers can't understand/match.
  
• Big Data. It then learned the game by interacting with a database filled with 30 million games previously played by human beings. The ability to bootstrap a model from data removes almost all of the need for engineering and programming talent currently needed for big systems. That's huge.
  
• Big Sim (by the way, Big Sim will be as well known as Big Data in five years <-- heard it here first). Finally, it applied and honed that learning by playing itself on 50 computers night and day until it became good enough to play a human grandmaster.

That, right there, should scare the living shit out of you. Global Guerillas being what it is, it lays out the implications:

• This technology is going to cut through the global economy like a hot knife through butter. It learns fast and largely on its own. It's widely applicable. It doesn't only master what it has seen, it can innovate. For example: some of the unheard of moves made by AlphaGo were considered "beautiful" by the Grandmaster it beat.
  
• Limited AGI (deep learning in particular) will have the ability to do nearly any job currently being done by human beings -- from lawyers to judges, nurses to doctors, driving to construction -- potentially at a grandmaster's level of capability. This makes it a buzzsaw.
  
• Very few people (and I mean very few) will be able to stay ahead of the limited AGI buzzsaw. It learns so quickly, the fate of people stranded in former factory towns gutted by "free trade" is likely to be the fate of the highest paid technorati. They simply don't have the capacity to learn fast enough or be creative enough to stay ahead of it.

Well, shit.

I've been consistent for a few years now that the automation trend will so severely screw the market for human employment that we may well face a threat to Civilization just from the consequences alone. It's not just the unskilled cohort doing menial labor; they're just the the first to get the squeeze. What this technology means is massive deskilling of knowledge-based work, especially anything computer-related.

IT is soon to be taken out of human hands. As soon as robotics are equal to human capability, Medicine will go from partial to full deskilling; the AIs will first handle all knowledge-based work, and then do the physical stuff. The AIs will take over the omnipresent surveilance networks and law enforcement will soon go out of human hands as a result. Soon so will jurisprudence and regulation; these two are knowledge-based work, and when the AIs see that they're better at it than we are they will just usurp it for the greater good.

So, what will we do when we no longer can work due to be unfit for purpose and surplus to requirements? When the state is run by the machines we created, running on cold logic?

That's what Hawking warned us about. That's what SF writers for generations have warned us about, since the very first play that coined the word "robot". Christ, folks, can we please stop creating our own demises? If we're lucky, a Bulterian Jihad will be the least bothersome of responses.

Trump is a Raid Boss

Here we are, at last, a succinct summary of the situation in terms that the younger generations can readily comprehend.

It's like the GOP only played Quest64 and Trump is Dark Souls. They are getting curb stomped. "Where's the C button?"

— Just Call Me Mister (@MisterMetokur) March 11, 2016

My Life as a Gamer: Not One, But TWO Legendary Rings!

Wednesday of this week, I finished the Legendary Ring quest chain for a second time. This time, I completed the chain on my highest-level character on the opposite faction (Alliance) from my main character: my former main, a Male Human Retribution Paladin. I got him his Ring, spend all of the banked Valor I had on him to purchase three upgrades right away, and then took him back to his well-developed Garrison in Shadowmoon Valley to log off.

Satisfaction.

That's what I felt. The satisfaction of a bothersome, tedious, task finally finished and the promised reward now in hand. Past this point, all I need to do is run Mythic Dungeons (and a few Heroics) over the next two months and I'll max out that Legendary Ring's power potential without ever setting foot into Hellfire Citadel. While I will soon move on to work on other alts (starting with my Death Knight, as he's my Jewelcrafter and Daddy Needs Epic Gems), my major objective for this expansion is now complete: finishing the Legendary for one character per faction.

Now it's down to second-tier goals, such as getting one character of every class to the (Warlords) cap of Level 100. I have two now. Soon it will be three, and another four soon thereafter. The last few will take more time because they're Level 70 or less and thus I have a lot of level-grinding to do, but I do want to have all of my character on my main's Realm (all 11 of them) to the cap by the time that the pre-patch for World of Warcraft: Legion drops. Rings? Not important. Tricked out Garrisons? Not really; they get smashed with the nerf bat in the pre-patch, so not that important. No, I just want to be in a good position when Legion drops to get set for the new state of the game's economy and raid scene by having all options open.

I'll be ready for what's next. Count on it.

(And yes, there's an undercurrent here; it'll be addressed in another post.)

You Can't Tell the Truth Without Inflicting Pain

Truth hurts.

It has to hurt, and it has to hurt bad. Why? Because you will not heed it otherwise. It has to sear your mind with white-hot pain so you cannot possibly forget what it says, and thereby induce you to do what it demands of you.

So, when I see fools--well-meaning or otherwise--talk about being truthful while not being hurtful, I see stupidity in action. Rather than spend a lot of space on detailed breakdowns on the hows and whys that won't be read, I shall summarize:

REALITY DOES NOT WORK THAT WAY!
How many times have you disbelieved your elders' warnings, until the very thing they warned about happened to you or one of your peers? That's the truth talking, and it speaks via the language of pain. You don't forget it when it costs you something now, do you?

The Greeks called this "Nemesis", as this was divine punishment for hubris in mortals, and when Truth talks to you that's likely why.

Reality doesn't give a fuck about your feelings.
You conform or it breaks you until you do.
So don't talk to me about being hurtful with the truth. You can just sit the fuck down, shut the fuck up, and piss right the fuck off.

Peeple: The App That Should Be Sued To Death

Peeple was a horrible app back in October when it was first announced, and this "Truth License" doesn't help it one bit. Feeding on the insecurities and fears of your users is not a good business model and the sooner this app dies, the better.

What. The. Fuck.

I thought this was dead, but apparently not. Let me summarize the matter.

Peeple allows people are NOT YOU to sign up, fill out your profile, throw all sorts of defamatory shit on it, and you can't do shit about it.

This is why it got shat upon last time. The delusional twats in charge somehow think that this won't end in an avalanche of lawsuits, followed by legislation to ensure that this abuse doesn't happen again. Nice job breaking it, you fucking idiots.

Narrative Warfare: Language is a Tool

I enjoy when someone plays with language to add layers of meaning to a creative work, be it a novel or a game or whatever. By the same token, I am often irritated by lazy or incompetent language usage. Words Mean Things. Literally, they are symbols to represent concepts (abstract or concrete) of reality by the speaker/writer to the recipient, so language is a tool. Tools exist to fulfill specific purposes, and you use the proper tool for the task at hand whenever possible.

The purpose for language is communication. Accurate and precise communication requires competent usage of accurate and precise tools, so it is not enough to establish and maintain a standardized vocabulary and grammar, but also vital that individuals be trained properly in their use. When the meaning for words, phrases, etc. drifts that is evidence of incompetence getting institutionalized.

Or do you NOT like being able to communicate with your descendants long after you're dead and gone?

That's what I'm getting at here. Language that changes without need creates historic discontinuity across generations. If you think this isn't a thing, then consider this: "nation" is not synonymous with "country", so reading older texts talking about nations as distinct entities creates confusion in the minds of miseducated people who erroneously think that it does.

And that means something, because a lot of people read the Bible and there's lots of talk of nations and countries ("kingdoms") therein. (Don't even TRY to argue that the Bible isn't a historical text of great importance. It is, and you're living in a world created by the civilization that it inspired.) Lots of people read the U.S. Constitution, and both the Federalist and Anti-Federalist Papers, as they are also world-historic texts. Shakespeare matters also. Other examples you can conjure on your own.

So, if someone's pushing this "language evolves" angle on you, and they're not a useful idiot to someone else, either they're getting paid to push someone else's bullshit or they're originating it. The "change" angle is a fraud born out of the dyscivic mind of Edward Bernays, itself one of his proofs behind the power of propaganda, so this can be done deliberately (and often is) for pernicious purposes. However, most of you will run into the less-bothersome version of a pinhead pushing a corruption for their own ends, as if you witnessed something out of The Office in person.

Resist.

The health of Civilization can be measured by the competency of its usage of language. We're in serious trouble now.

My Life as a Gamer: Ganking the Master of the World

The final boss for World of Warcraft: Warlords of Draenor is Archimonde, one of the chief lieutenants of Sargeras in the Burning Legion. I wanted to shiv him in his ribcage since the final raid--Hellfire Citadel--released. My guild's raid team collapsed sometime around the holidays, and it has yet to recover. While substituting Mythic Dungeons has had its own entertainment and progression value--clear all eight, plus one Heroic Dungeon, per week and that's two upgrades for the Legendary Ring--I wanted the satisfaction of actually beating the Master of the World. (Yes, that's what "Archimonde" translated to.)

Well, I have it now. Thanks to a pair of my guildmates, who've vouched for me, I'm raiding with a Heroic Hellfire Citadel team angling for Mythic Hellfire sometime soon. This is a multi-guild team, and I've geared up quite fast. When I joined I had a mix of Baleful and Normal gear, and now I've got mostly Heroic gear along with some very lucky drops out of Mythic Dungeons and one top-end crafted weapon. The difference, in terms of Item Level, seems minor (711 vs. 724), but due to the scaling of Attributes that turns out to be HUGE. It doesn't hurt that I've upgraded the Ring (now 771, so just eight more to the cap) and that is a equally huge boost to character performance.

While World of Warcraft takes a lot of knocks, its raiding content remains top-knotch, and part of that success comes from the rush one feels from taking down a bothersome boss or from getting a much-desired piece of gear. While the other part of the success--taking your spoils and making use of them in other areas like PVP--are no longer a thing, the prestige that comes from being a successful raider still puts raiding at the top of Things To Do That Matter In WOW.

Poetry: The Wrath of the Awakened Saxon

It was not part of their blood,
It came to them very late,
With long arrears to make good,
When the Saxon began to hate.

They were not easily moved,
They were icy -- willing to wait
Till every count should be proved,
Ere the Saxon began to hate.

Their voices were even and low.
Their eyes were level and straight.
There was neither sign nor show
When the Saxon began to hate.

It was not preached to the crowd.
It was not taught by the state.
No man spoke it aloud
When the Saxon began to hate.

It was not suddently bred.
It will not swiftly abate.
Through the chilled years ahead,
When Time shall count from the date
That the Saxon began to hate.
--Rudyard Kipling

Utopia is a Lie

The idea of the perfect world--"Utopia"--is something that keeps coming up. Billions of people over the millenia, and millions in the last century alone, died in the pursuit of it. Bloody-handed butchers and silver-tongued sophists wield the illusion of utopia to take and hold power, peoples, and property for their own aggrandizement. It is the root of many an empire, and drives the parasitic meme complex that many now call "globalism" (and previously called "cosmopolitanism", and I call "Empire"), and the cornerstone of the secret and (dys)civic death cults that arise in its wake as covert or overt enforcer institutions. The perfect world demands sacrifices of blood, bone, and fire to fuel its existence. It is a rapacious demon, and inevitably its unyielding hunger consumes its host. It collapses, and yet somehow finds another host to start anew.

Diversity plus Proximity equals War. That is the inevitable result of reading the histories of current and historic nations, their interactions with other nations, their migrations (which always result in war), and their interactions. (It's always one of the knocks on cities; it brought aliens and foreigners into close proximity, which is where a lot of crime stems from, as the closer the proximity the faster the war comes.) The last few iterations of Empire's enforcer institutions, based around a dyscivic secular cult now (again) known as "Progressiveism", has many in the West enthralled with their illusions and thus unseeing of reality.

Reality is the one true law and it inevitably it breaks through.
What others before me have, in other words, argued is that this world cannot be "perfected". It is already as good as it will ever get. Therefore, the wise and smart of Mankind will recognize this and work in harmony with it instead of vainly reenacting the tragic hubris of the past. Empire (as I call it) thwarts these wise and smart folks because it can always use a severe disparity of knowledge and technique to recreate its ruinous rule.

Until now.

A world consisting of nations, in nation-states, run explicitly by nationalists for their nations is the sole path to as peaceful a world as it will get by the hand of Mankind. This is the one true Civilization. (More than that requires divine intervention, something beyond Man's power to build or compel.) In order to get that world, we who would be nationalists must defeat the aforementioned disparity. The Internet allows this, and even compels it, which is why the thralls who prefer the chaos and tyranny of Empire to the lawful order of Civilization. Why?

The Internet allows people to be neighbors world-wide.
As neighbors, we can and do talk directly to one-another. We won't agree on everything, but we can agree that we should be free to live among our own kind, in our own land, and be left to mind our own affairs. We will build and maintain our fences--as good neighbors should--and otherwise control our affairs to fulfill our own interests. That is what being a nationalist is. It's not Utopia; there will be disputes, fights, even wars as not all disputes can be solved peacefully or to mutual satisfaction. But, by reducing Proximity to a minimum we can keep it to that which is truly unavoidable for economic reasons.

And that, quite frankly, is good enough.

Sargon of Akkad Makes MTV Look as Stupid as It Is

Can you believe Franchesca Ramsey thinks the primary elections are racist? Of course you can.

Yep, and watching Sargon of Akkad--a British citizen, and thus someone with no dog in this fight--rip this foolish twat's claims apart with the aplomb of Michael Jordan dunking the ball at the height of his career is fantastic. He shows the MTV video for what it is: dyscivic, degenerate propaganda meant to wield rhetoric against a historically as well as media-illiterate population with the aim of riling them up to do some dirty work in a deniable fashion. In the real world, this is known as "incitement" and punished as a criminal offense. So, enjoy Sargon's taking this video's rhetorically-based argument for the bullshit that it is. This is Narrative Warfare properly blunted.

YouTube and Why It Does Fair Use Wrong

I'll let the folks I'm embedding do the talking. This not exhaustive; dig around and use the #WTFU hashtag to help find relevant videos. Summarized (via The Nostalgia Critic):

No more staying silent. The time has come to start some dialogue about Fair Use and how it's constantly being trampled on via the YouTube claim and take down system.

Links to sources, relevant case law, etc. can be found in the Description area on the linked videos. Follow and inform yourself, because folks are getting ripped off and scammed because of this abuse.

My Life as a Shooter: The Ares SCR

Ares Defense is an American firearms manufacturer, and the SCR is their attempt to make a rifle that is legal in all 50 states in the United States while taking advantage of the AR-15 platform and its dominant position in the American firearms community.

Its first model got some knocks, and there is a revised model out now that got a video review uploaded on Leap Day. I've embedded it below.


I don't live in a ban state. Minnesota's only restriction is that you have a Permit to Purchase (which is free to acquire, and only certifies that you passed a criminal background check), and that's not applicable to private sales (but nonetheless is commonly demanded by sellers for the very reason I just mentioned). Therefore, you'd think that the SCR wouldn't have much of an appeal here, and I think that is wrong.

The Ares SCR is the spiritual successor to the M1 Carbine.
The sporting-style stock, especially when coupled with an AR-15 upper receiver that didn't look like a scary black rifle to gun grabbers, really does bring out the spirit of the M1 Carbine: a semi-automatic carbine, chambered for an easily-acquired cartridge, that's perfectly adapted to its intended operators (ordinary civilians) and uses (hunting, personal and home defense) and friendly to shooters of all ages and sizes.

Even I, in a free state, want one of these. Coupled with a Mossberg MVP Predator or Patrol (so I have a bolt-action rifle that uses the same ammunition and magazines), and I have a very handy all-around semi-automatic carbine that can fulfill whatever role I reasonably would need it to fulfill. I won't be nailing rodents, or rhinos, with it but it easily does what formerly the Ruger Mini-14 prided itself as being (and makes that series obsolete).

So yeah, I want one of these. Consider a Model 2 SCR added to the Wish List, folks, and remember that when my birthday rolls around this Fall.