What grinds my gears

Some spoilers ahead! While I won't be spoiling every single detail of the movie, I will not judiciously avoid all spoilers either, so if you haven't seen the movie and want to see it without knowing anything about its contents, you might want to avoid reading this blog post until after. I am a huge fan of the Terminator movie franchise, and I consider particularly Terminator 2 not only the best movie in the series, but in fact one of the best action sci-fi movies out there. I have seen that movie probably a dozen times by now. (Perhaps somewhat ironically, I'm not a huge fan of the first movie, something that most avid fans would consider heresy. I just find the first movie too low-budget, too low-quality, too "early 80's" (in a bad way), too cheesy, and too full of inconsistencies and annoyances, to be all that enjoyable. Sure, many people take all that as precisely what makes the movie so charming, but I don't, really. I mean, it's not a bad movie ...

Disney announced recently that they would not be including a previously planned "trans" scene in an upcoming episode of the Pixar animated series Win or Lose . Unsurprisingly, far-leftists threw a hissy-fit, accusing Disney of "erasing" trans people, and "not allowing them to exist". Sigh. Just because a TV series or movie does not explicitly state some personal characteristic is not "erasing" anybody nor "not allowing them to exist". If you see a movie and, let's say, nobody states being an architect, for example, does that mean that the movie is "erasing" architects and "not allowing them to exist"? Of course not. Or a TV series never explicitly mentions, say, stamp collecting. Does that mean that the TV series is "erasing" that hobby and "not allowing it to exist"? Obviously not. Just because a piece of media does not explicitly mention some characteristic does not mean that it's set on...

I have written many blog posts about the absolute disgrace that's the American police and their police culture. American cops literally consider their own safety more important than the safety of citizens, which makes them absolute pathetic cowards, and there are many, many examples of this (one blog post about this here ). Way too many times they also assault, injure, maim, paralyze and even kill people who have done nothing wrong (an example blog post ). They also have an astonishing ID fetish, often going to absolutely insane lengths to get the ID of a completely innocent person who has done absolutely nothing wrong (such as, for example, dispatching a whopping 7 police cruisers and 9 police officers in order to get the ID of a completely innocent bystander , and nothing else, in a completely non-threatening non-dangerous situation where no crime of any kind has happened or is even suspected of having happened. They just wanted his ID, that's it. It goes beyond insanity. Co...

All the way since the early 1980's and even much earlier there was, at least in many parts of the world, this widespread notion that some movie producers had at least considered inserting a form of subliminal advertising into the movie reels that they were sending to movie theaters, in the form of showing an advertisement picture (eg. for a brand of soda, or whatever) during one frame of the movie, eg. every 24 frames, ie once per second. The widely believed claim was that since the picture was only shown for one single frame, it would go too fast for anybody to consciously notice, but the subconscious would notice it, especially since it was shown repeatedly once per second during the entire movie, and thus it would create a subconscious craving for that particular product in the viewers. This notion was so widely believed that, in fact, many countries outright passed laws banning this from being done. The funny thing is that many people believed that claim, ie, that you wouldn...

I recently wrote a blog post about the recent video game Concord , which is not only arguably the biggest failure in the entire history of video games (because it took 8 years to develop, cost hundreds of millions of dollars, and was completely shut down in less than 2 weeks, all purchases refunded), but was even more of a failure than at first seemed. How so? Well, Sony, the company that had purchased and thus owns Firewalk Studios, the development company that created the game, envisioned Concord to not only "revolutionize gaming" but in fact become their flagship franchise, the video game franchise that would be most associated with Sony. Where "Mario" is the flagship franchise of Nintendo, and "Final Fantasy" the flagship franchise of Square Enix, "Concord" would be the one for Sony. They planned it to not only be an entire series of games, with new entries coming out for the foreseeable future, they wanted this flagship franchise of theirs...

A far-leftist bigot working for the game developer company The Initiative got recently some flak for several completely unhinged tweets that he has posted attacking "gamers", in other words, his very core audience, the people he is helping to develop games for. Among several other such tweets he has posted these: They repeat the same strange narrative and lie that far-leftist bigots have been repeating for well over ten years now: That "gamers" hate female main characters in video games, and whenever a game is announced or published that has one, the "gamers" throw a hissy-fit and temper tantrum and start furiously attacking the game online. This is such an obvious untruth, such an obvious lie, that it's just incomprehensible why they just keep repeating it over and over and over. This very thing has been going on for over ten years now, and is not showing any sign of stopping, no matter how obviously false it is. Where was the backlash and anger when ...

I have written earlier about the video game Concord, which is arguably the biggest flop in the entire history of video games, surpassing every other (in)famous failed video game by a large margin, by any metric you may want to use: It took about 8 years to develop, cost several hundred million dollars to make (the 400 million dollars figure is the most commonly cited), and it was recalled by its publisher, Sony, less than 2 weeks after launch, all purchases refunded. Reportedly the game had sold a few tens of thousands of copies by that point (which is a small fraction of the typical sales numbers of such high-budget games, which are in the millions, and obviously nowhere even near enough to even break even), and the maximum number of concurrent players on Steam was something like 600, which is abysmal (in contrast, typical video games of this kind of budgets get hundreds of thousands of concurrent players, sometimes even millions). With a budget in the several hundreds of millions of ...

I have for years wondered about one of the biggest mysteries of life: Why is everything that the government does so expensive? And to be more precise: Why is everything that the government does that's something that private citizens/companies also do, always so astonishing expensive? As a private citizen, go to a sculptor, for example, and commission a hand-made human-sized statue or wooden carving. Depending on the quality and status of the artist, it may cost you anywhere from some thousands of dollars/euros to maybe a few tens of thousands, at the very most, if it's a really professional high-quality work. However, when the government commission that exact same thing , it will invariably cost at a minimum ten times more. In the hundreds of thousands dollars/euros. Heck, even millions being spent on such a sculpture doesn't even bat people's eye. As a private citizen, hire a company to fully renovate and modernize your home? Again, you might have to spend some tens of...

I have touched on this very subject in the past in this blog, but I think it deserves repeating, because this concept invented by American leftists of "black history" just keeps being repeated over and over, year after year. The very concept of there being some kind of "black history" is racist. How so? Because it treats every single black person in the world as a monolithic group, as if they all belonged to the same group with a shared history. Just Africa alone is a vast, vast continent that has historically had literally thousands of completely different and independent cultures that go back literally millenia. Take one group of people with a common historical background from somewhere in the continent, and it may be vastly different than another group from a different part of the continent. It's a very diverse and culturally rich continent, with thousands of peoples with their own backgrounds, their own cultures, their own histories, which are completely in...

For pretty much the entirety of his role as the President of the United States, Joe Biden repeatedly stated that he would accept and respect whatever sentences the justice system might impose onto his son, Hunter Biden, and how "nobody is above the law". That was, apparently, the biggest lie ever told by a politician. On December 1 of 2024, less than two months before he is stepping down, he gave blanket pardon, and I quote, "for those offenses against the United States which he has committed or may have committed or taken part in during the period from January 1, 2014 through December 1, 2024, including but not limited to all offenses charged or prosecuted (including any that have resulted in convictions)". That's right, he gave a full unconditional pardon for all crimes that he has or even may have committed during the past ten years. If they later find out that he, let's say, murdered someone in cold blood, or raped someone, or kidnapped and tortured so...

Not often, but sometimes some people are highly critical of the modern far left for years, in other words, they are what's commonly called "anti-SJW" or, more recently, "anti-woke" (for some reason I don't really understand it seems that the term "SJW" has fallen out of fashion and most have stopped using it), and then stopped being so, and either just stopped presenting any political opinions at all or, much more commonly, swung to the other side, sometimes even to the extreme other side. I have seen some videos made by these people, and there appears to be one thing in common with most if not all of them: And that's the sheer lack of rational arguments about why they decided to switch sides (or, even in the best case scenarios, just stop being "anti-woke" political and move to something else entirely.) In one such case an ex-Jehova's Witness, who makes tons of videos criticizing that religion, made a video about how when he a...

In February of 2022 I made a blog post about " what do 'gender studies' graduates do for a livin g", where I noted how back then there were several examples of people getting fired for doing almost no work whatsoever in the companies they were hired, while still marking and billing full 40-hour weeks and even more, essentially defrauding the company of their money, hoping to go under the radar unnoticed in big companies that have thousands of employees. In other words, that's one way how "gender studies" graduates make a living. Recent whistleblower leaks, especially from (but not restricted to) big video game companies, have revealed that this problem has only gotten worse over the years (and was probably already in effect back in 2022, although not as publicly known). Unsurprisingly, over the years more and more "gender studies" diversity hires have gotten into management positions, making more and more decisions on who gets hired and how thi...

Suppose that in a republic with representative democracy, ie. a form of government that has a so called "parliament" where parliamentary representatives, who are voted into that position by people, have the people's mandate and power to decide on legislation, there's a parliament of, say, 100 representatives. How are these 100 representatives selected for parliament, after an election? One would think it's a pretty straightforward thing: Just take the 100 candidates who got the most votes, and put them into parliament. That only makes sense: Select the people who got the most votes. How else could it be, duh? The problem is that that kind of system doesn't work, and would rather ironically go against the principles of democracy and majority representation. How so? Well, suppose there's a really popular candidate who represents the will of 90% of the population, and thus receives 90% of all votes. The remaining 10% of voters all vote for people who represe...

Having seen lots and lots (way too many) videos showing American far-leftists throwing temper tantrums, I have noticed somewhat of a curious pattern: Cross-dressing far-leftist men who "identify" as women tend to be extremely aggressive and often act in a very exaggerated hostile manly manner, while far-leftist men who "identify" as men tend to act like stereotypical women, ie. they are very meek and emotionally fragile. Not all of them, of course, but it seems to me to be a very common trend. In other words, leftist men (especially in America) are like their own opposites: If they "identify" as men, they behave like woman stereotypes, and if they "identify" as women, they act like man stereotypes. That's how you get so many videos of cross-dressing men (who "identify as women") screaming at and assaulting people they don't like, and "normal" leftist men crying in front of the camera because their political candidate d...

One of the core pillars of a free democratic country is freedom of speech. The level of freedom and democracy of a country can often be at least partially measured by how it deals with free speech of its citizens. One very particular aspect of this is how such a country deals with criticism against the government itself, against those in power, including the politicians, parliamentary representatives, ministers, law enforcement, and so on. It is a well established principle of democracy that the government, and the people in it, are particularly free to be criticized, even more so than regular citizens who are not in power. In other words, politicians who are in power are in a certain way even less protected against harsh words than regular citizens (in other words, what constitutes illegal defamation has a significantly higher threshold for politicians in the government than it does for regular citizens.) It is very typical of totalitarian regimes that criticism of the government is ...

The answer is quite simple: Because you control your own speech, nobody else. You should not allow other people, especially complete strangers, to control your speech, to dictate what words can and cannot come out of your mouth. The main reason why the modern far left is so keen on "preferred pronouns" and forcing people to use them is because it's a form of control: It gives people power to control other people's behavior, and to force people to conform, and punish those who refuse to conform, instilling a culture of fear and submission. At its core, it's a way to restrict your freedoms, to control you. You decide what words come out of your mouth, not somebody else. Do not let anybody bully you into allowing your speech to be controlled. If someone is clearly a man, just refer to him as "he". If someone is clearly a woman, refer to her as "she". If you are unsure, especially if it's clear that that person has deliberately modified his o...

Earlier this year I predicted that if Trump wins the presidential election, the Democratic Party and, especially, the Biden administration would fight it to the end, perhaps even going so far as to outright refuse to leave office, maybe even declaring martial law and occupying Washington with state troopers. Render me genuinely surprised when not only did they publicly announce that they would transition the office smoothly to Trump, but in fact recently Biden met Trump at the White House and shook his hand and talked about this smooth and peaceful transferral. Not even a sign of animosity, hostility, wariness, criticism or reluctance. Of course the actual transfer of office will happen in January, so there's still plenty of time for them to do something completely stupid (and a small part of me wants to think that this might just be some kind of ruse). However, at least at this moment render me genuinely surprised, and giving credit where credit is due.

For some reason that I don't really understand (I haven't researched the history of this), the Nordic Countries in particular, or rather, their governments, seem to have a particularly deep hatred of cannabis, over all drugs. In most if not all Nordic Countries you can get a longer jail sentence for growing cannabis for your personal use than selling hard drugs (like heroin, cocaine or meth) to people. In fact, you can get a longer jail sentence than purposefully killing someone. You think I'm exaggerating or kidding, or that this is just some kind of metaphor? Nope, it's literally true. In several if not all of the Nordic countries the judicial system routinely gives shorter jail sentences for manslaughter, even murder, than for growing cannabis for your own personal use. And much, much longer than eg. selling heroin on the streets. In some of the countries the medical use of cannabis is recognized, but it's extremely restricted and regulated. Note that "medi...

When the controversial video game Dragon Age: Veilguard was published, several professional video game reviewers, publishing their reviews for big-name video game publications, gave the game a 9 out of 10, several even a 10 out of 10. Giving a video game full points, a 10 out of 10, is claiming that it's one of the best and highest-quality video games that has ever been made. A complete masterpiece that will be remembered for decades to come. A game that can be proudly listed on "best games of all time" lists for the foreseeable future, among all the other video games widely considered the greatest of all time. Video games that sold tens of millions of copies and shaped the industry and left their mark in gaming history. A video game that even 20 or 30 years from now people will be playing and talking about, and widely praised and fondly remembered. It's extremely obvious that this is complete bollocks. Even if you completely ignore the artificial shoved-in modern-da...

Eight years ago, when Donald Trump was elected the President of the United States for the first time, I made a prediction: If he got to the end of the presidency and none of the insane predictions by the far left came true, the American far-leftists would argue that it was their activism, their protests and their riots that stopped him from doing those things (thus justifying said protests and riots). Their predictions were indeed quite insane. They predicted that if he gets elected, then the United States would essentially become Nazi Germany v.2.0, with stormtroopers, neonazis and hooded members of the KKK marching the streets taking minorities into concentration camps (if not outright just shooting or hanging them right there). They predicted these stormtroopers and federal police kicking people's doors open to take them into prison and concentration camps. They predicted mass deportations. They predicted the removal of all kinds of human rights, the annulment of the Constitutio...

The American left has for many years now claimed that there's a "cult of personality" around Donald Trump, among his voters and followers. Someone pointed out a rather astute and telling observation about this. At many recent political rallies by Kamala Harris, when you listen to what the crowd is chanting, it's "Kamala, Kamala, Kamala!" What does the crowd typically chant at Donald Trump rallies? Do they chant "Trump"? No, they chant "U.S.A, U.S,A, U.S.A!" So, which one has a cult of personality again? (It's also quite telling what these people at the opposite ends of the divide consider most important: The candidate, or the country?)

I have written previously in this blog about the interesting psychological phenomenon that can be seen in many YouTube videos, especially those recorded in the United States (but in no way restricted to that country), where people will come to the YouTuber, who is recording with a camera in his hand in some public place, and question him about it, sometimes quite aggressively so, telling him that he has no permission to record them, and sometimes even alleging that it's outright illegal to do so. Some people may get so utterly upset about it that they become outright aggressive and even physical, and may outright attack the person, who is doing nothing more than standing in a public place with a camera in his hand. Sometimes the police is called (and especially in America it varies a lot what the police does, but quite often if the guy is just standing on a traditional public forum, like a sidewalk or a public park, they don't do anything, because that's clearly not illegal...

Passengers, released in 2016, is a sci-fi movie starring Jennifer Lawrence and Chris Pratt. The premise (and first half) of the movie is very interesting and intriguing, and could have ended up being a really good sci-fi movie, but ends up being a horrendously unethical movie. What makes a movie "unethical"? What makes a movie unethical is how it portrays unethical evil actions by one or more of the characters in the movie. It's not a question of whether the characters, even the main protagonist, do evil things. That's completely normal storytelling and to be expected. The villains and antagonists often do evil unethical things as a matter of course, to create conflict and for the protagonists to overcome and defeat. Some more daring stories are not that straightforward "good vs. evil" and it may even be that the main protagonist of the story is the one doing a completely unethical evil thing. Maybe it was a mistake, maybe it was a lapse of judgment, maybe ...