SoylentNews

I still remember the bad feeling I had on 11/8 that convinced me to vote for Hillary Clinton. I considered Gary Johnson, but at that time I had started to seriously question libertarianism. I wanted to vote my conscience and vote for Dr. Jill Stein, MD, who was qualified to unlock the female head of state achievement. It was one of those bad feelings.

We all know what we woke up to on 11/9.

Then we learned that 53% of white women voted for a pussy grabber. I thought that maybe that would mute the identity politics to come, but it did not.

As Collins Appears to Side With Kavanaugh Over Assault Allegation, Group Issues Warning: Women Won't Forget:

"Guess who is perpetrating all of these kinds of actions? It's the men in this country," Hirono said. "I just want to say to the men in this country, just shut up and step up. Do the right thing, for a change."

"I expect all of the enlightened men in our country, cause there must be millions of men out there who are enlightened, who also will rise up to say we cannot continue the victimization and the smearing of someone like Dr. Ford," Hirono continued.

This is now about holding everybody assigned the male gender at birth, men and trans women (because let's be clear—we're talking about wombs), accountable for the actions of others, especially for the 53% of white women who obviously don't care about abortion. It is now about completely letting those 53% of white women who voted for Trump off the hook.

I nearly threw up after reading that this morning. (Had a PTSD-like reaction I had to manage for a couple hours while at work.) There is nothing that can prevent Kavanaugh—or somebody worse—from being confirmed. The Democratic Party doesn't even have good chances of gaining control of the senate. There is nothing that can be done until 2020.

And every person who does not have a womb is collectively and severally accountable, and every person who does have a womb and voted for Trump is off the hook.

I'm sorry I voted for Hillary Clinton. I will never vote for the Democratic Party again.

I knew it would be this way. But now that I am present in the moment when it happens, I am having a lot of emotional difficulties.

Just had this video flung at me. Video link below the Wikipedia blurb. Norah Vincent did a thing!

Vincent's book Self-Made Man retells an eighteen-month experiment in which she disguised herself as a man. This follows in the tradition of undercover journalism such as Black Like Me. Vincent was interviewed by Ju Ju Chang on the ABC News program 20/20 and talked about the experience in HARDtalk extra on BBC on April 21, 2006, where she described her experiences in male-male and male-female relationships. She joined an all-male bowling club, joined a men's therapy group, went to a strip club, dated women, and used her knowledge as a lapsed Catholic to visit monks in a cloister. Vincent writes about how the only time she has ever been considered excessively feminine was during her stint as a man: her alter ego, Ned, was assumed to be gay on several occasions, and features which in her as a woman had been seen as "butch" became oddly effeminate when seen in a man. Vincent asserts that, since the experiment, she has more fully realized the benefits of being female and the disadvantages of being male, stating, "I really like being a woman. ... I like it more now because I think it's more of a privilege. She's also stated that she has gained more sympathy for and understanding of men and the male condition.

"Men are suffering. They have different problems than women have but they don't have it better. They need our sympathy, they need our love, and they need each other more than anything else. They need to be together."

— Norah Vincent

Feminist Pretends To Be Male.. And Learns Important lesson.

Rekt Feminist Videos, of course, fails to compensate for brain sex (uses assumption that gender is 100% a social construct) and extrapolates too much from the eventual “detransition” as it were, so read their commentary with a saltlick. (I did not view the comments section itself, because I think the State of California has determined that Youtube Comments may cause cancer.)

All of what Vincent reports checks out (including differences in the way sexuality is experienced). I don't have any caveats or disagreements with her analysis in the video.

One thing I want to highlight. If a cisgender lesbian develops mental illness due to living as the gender contrary to her brain's sex....

This is written from the perspective of a Gentoo user.

So, my trusty if not pedestrian Logitech 3 button wheel mouse started giving out. It's not quite dead yet, but it'll be stone dead any moment! So last weekend I went to Best Buy to see what they had. The Corsair Glaive stood out: not overly complex, good weight, and only slightly too big for my hands. Eh, nothing's perfect, but it was good enough.

I grabbed it, got home, plugged it in, and was promptly disappointed as nothing happened! After having flashbacks to the bad old days—I can barely remember the last time I had something as basic as a mouse not work under Linux—I accepted my fate. I had purchased a mouse that was not supported under Linux. It even works in my EFI BIOS, but not Linux! Depressed, I skulked over to Windows, turned the mouse LEDs pretty pink, and realized while playing $current_waste_of_time that this mouse was awesome. I simply could not return it!

So, I scoured DuckDuckGo and even begrudgingly took Google out of my hosts file temporarily. I upgraded to sys-kernel/gentoo-sources-4.12.6, but no such luck. The hid-corsair module did not even attempt to load, but at least I was getting HID errors in dmesg. I found the ckb-next project, a fork of app-misc/ckb in my Portage tree, but still no support for my new mouse!

Without attempting to learn too much about Linux's HID system, I noted that hid-corsair has support for other Corsair mice, such as the Corsair Scimitar. So I rolled up my sleeves and gave the first obvious thing a try: compile a kernel that sees my Glaive as a Scimitar.

Have a uuencoded patch! (Note: This is after the Gentoo patches have already been handily applied by emerge. Follow cafebabe's usual instructions or install app-arch/sharutils for uuencode/uudecode.)

begin 644 glaive.patch.gz
M'XL(".79F5D``V=L86EV92YP871C:`"]5NMNVC`8_9T^A;5)5<N28#MWJE8*
MD%*K@;`$NE7;9'5)*-$JZ!+8JG5]]SF!%$*!CG2=!8%\]OF.+^?8#J+!``A^
M#*K3)*XFL5^]B4;3.T$6$195X3H<3<;C:A!'/\(XJ0ZC(/T*_C@.17\K1KB^
MN6*@#="]2J52AI+#$&D"9!\,D%&#6@UB$>8%"%"&<$\0A!=T;4ZA"Q@"A&NR
M7)-U49,E%4J2AN<4E6+)AH,,+/'LH8,LE/8B#QF`O0E[`+R-!H!XU.J8==MJ
M'C2<SBEIT3/2I`W']4SB'K)&W#U((WVO3IO6!6E8!^G?"ZO3=%RZ:,J#18NE
M,#TWX"%XX%^>R&N0-NF9+NVZ#G5;]2SKNY=F;=DFN;`*.=F\A*,@&FR?H"Y&
M"/_5_%RV.J;]A#^+YFE2VJ"L]I.K*"XO_QFZE`-FT-<V08'ET0=*3=%%`ZF&
M9"CR-A^HAL%K4%ZX8!90<@]P'*A4L]_D9S3QA^!@&(0_A)/;>!Q,_<DAN,\J
M_:LD_$MAUE)5;@,4-5?+\G-,:0>5.(E^A>#D&"#F[?U]$`=AXG_2E"_@^!C`
M.Z0L!;4\J,X2+&KT>0W3TR)HS(-PD`^)X]@,TV@T&&=#YL&;T^@N&EV#Z2V(
MP]MQ/`$I-(YN)^/X\^C-X=':"=:0QFL8+R980SH++$TP!V8E'W_?L])M@=;-
MQKE-6F>]W?:'/5`HK[);L*;/<ZS=.[C[!_9\.&*/DI:.@D0<EG)+AMS=RAGL
M56V\S/!H8:DF(U$RV%$&5=G88F&L*SPVX$)ALP!Z/,:"<!"--KGM7(-L=:AK
M=DGSE+@62#WS5=*?!ZK*.J#Q+'!5>W-@R$2U'5@4U!PFITHJ4B[IU;7,'L/8
M9MWCF+EE%&[NWKPM95&GW2'4Z[NNT^\TJ8(85L+8+Z'8:?(U7^7OTRC^EI0X
MBM;DV$W%:Q*\FIXW<RU=TI`F,L5B5==4;8NR=9G7C86NV2N3>;YOWJ^N]3,7
MK16=\]E.][Y/W'/:<2CID!YUK:[C]CSP>ZG.M#^8EQ[M.K;]N`_O1KSBD_]&
MO.JSDL3O=B8N^O0?CG?)S4^XM[BWV(.6U=N0OVG93RZB:8QVR4?3[67'HM/M
AD0:[F;8==DSS.W6_V29/LK<)NSTWUG;P#S>UH6/M#0``
`
end

Hmm, should that be GLAIVE instead of GLAIVE_PRO? Anyway, after rebooting with my fresh kernel, I noted that I still received errors in dmesg:

[ 1344.597093] usb 10-2: new full-speed USB device number 5 using xhci_hcd
[ 1344.893040] usb 10-2: New USB device found, idVendor=1b1c, idProduct=1b34
[ 1344.893045] usb 10-2: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=3
[ 1344.893047] usb 10-2: Product: Corsair Gaming GLAIVE RGB Mouse
[ 1344.893050] usb 10-2: Manufacturer: Corsair
[ 1344.893052] usb 10-2: SerialNumber: [redacted]
[ 1344.896435] input: Corsair Corsair Gaming GLAIVE RGB Mouse as /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:07.0/0000:04:00.0/usb10/10-2/10-2:1.0/0003:1B1C:1B34.000D/input/input28
[ 1344.896962] hid-generic 0003:1B1C:1B34.000D: input,hidraw0: USB HID v1.11 Mouse [Corsair Corsair Gaming GLAIVE RGB Mouse] on usb-0000:04:00.0-2/input0
[ 1344.898989] hid-generic 0003:1B1C:1B34.000E: item 0 1 0 8 parsing failed
[ 1344.899004] hid-generic: probe of 0003:1B1C:1B34.000E failed with error -22
[ 1344.899012] corsair 0003:1B1C:1B34.000E: Fixing up report descriptor
[ 1344.900019] input: Corsair Corsair Gaming GLAIVE RGB Mouse as /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:07.0/0000:04:00.0/usb10/10-2/10-2:1.1/0003:1B1C:1B34.000E/input/input29
[ 1344.954935] corsair 0003:1B1C:1B34.000E: input,hiddev96,hidraw5: USB HID v1.11 Mouse [Corsair Corsair Gaming GLAIVE RGB Mouse] on usb-0000:04:00.0-2/input1
[ 1344.955015] usbhid 10-2:1.2: couldn't find an input interrupt endpoint

The errors reported by hid-generic and usbhid are the same as before (highlighted), but then corsair fixes up the report descriptor and (almost) all is well.

My mouse is at least working as an input device. I was surprised that the button under the mouse wheel to adjust sensitivity works as well.

The only major problem left for me is that by default, the mouse LEDs have this sickly neon piss yellow color instead of pretty pink! This is where ckb-next will come in to the picture.

I did some quick hacks on ckb-next using the same strategy of trying to interface with the Glaive as though it were a Scimitar. It sees my Glaive, shuts off the LEDs, and then promptly disables the mouse! So that's not quite working yet. Turning it off and on again (unplugging and re-plugging) restores the mouse to working order. If I can figure this out, I'll post a part 2.

Spoilers ahead!

I couldn't resist so I skipped through a camrip. (I'm sure the Correct the Record AC will come out of the woodwork and flame me for missing the brilliance of this film because I was skipping scenes.)

If this were any other bad movie (say for example Terminator: Genisys), I would have been happy just deleting the torrent and moving on. I'm putting this here so I can lay out exactly why I'm a big womyn-hating racist misogynerd that “can't get laid” who had the audacity to dislike this film and link it when the topic comes up instead of writing a mini-review every time. Also note this is a review, not a plot analysis.

The ending is a real WTF clusterfuck. The whole film tries too hard. It's not bad…. It had poor pacing—they spend too much time in academia—and a weak final boss that's a drawn-out, pointless CGI sequence that I'm sure will thrill kindergartners. There was also this weird frenemy thing going on between Gilbert and Yates.

Here's one concrete contrast between this film and the original. In the original, we have 3 chums who get unceremoniously evicted from academia in the first, what?, 15 minutes of the film, and they take it in stride.

In this film, we have a serious professor (Gilbert) who's about to become tenured (and close to discovering a Grand Unified Theory) whose career is in question because some book she wrote with the other protagonist (Yates) many moons ago goes viral on the internet, which is a gaping plot hole in unto itself. It just goes viral, for reasons. Then a Youtube video published presumably by Yates or maybe Holtzmann ends Gilbert's academic career. And we spend at least half the film moping about this. GET ON WITH IT!

There is one scene in particular where Gilbert petulantly stomps off campus that demonstrates this contast perfectly. I felt that scene did a lot of damage to her character.

It was trying, really trying to establish that all men hate women Ghostbusters. And that's its major problem. It's not four women taking on a supernatural evil using science!. The bad guy isn't even supernatural. He's just some dweeb with inadequacy issues that can summon ghosts with… a machine.

So let's talk about Kevin, played by Thor, who is played by incredible hunk Chris Hemsworth. First of all, there needed to be some scenes where he doesn't have a shirt on! But wait… that's not who Janine was at all. Kevin is a complete space case. He attempts to design a logo for the Ghostbusters and completely fails. He fails at being a receptionist—as in he doesn't even realize he's supposed to answer the phone. Then he disappears. Then he reappears during the exciting conclusion going “I wanna be a Ghostbuster!” only to be possessed by the aforementioned dweeb. Then we explore aforementioned dweeb's inadequacy issues with some inane comment about how much he likes that body better. Gah! See why we needed some scenes with him shirtless? There is no reason for this character to even exist!

So, why do we even have a sex object (and a delicious one at that) when the closest the original film gets to having eye candy like that is Zuul/Dana. (I forget, do I put the name of the possessing entity first with these things?) Of course, in that case, Zuul, being the Gatekeeper (along with Vinz Clortho the Keymaster), is a literal sex object. Literally! How was the original a kids movie?! They bring Gozer to New York by fucking!

Paul Feig suffers from a serious case of white knight-itis and needs to show how sympathetic he is that hunnies face such adversity from evil misogynerds who can't get laid (unlike him who I'm sure is such a Big Man)… and to be completely fucking honest, Gilbert, Yates, Holtzmann, and Tolan don't fucking need a white knight. There were so, so many scenes that were forced solely to show how disrespectful ALL men are to women. You can tell that the actresses didn't enjoy those scenes. The scenes where the Ghostbusters shine are absolutely brilliant and demonstrate that yes, women can be funny; yes, women can do slapstick; and yes, women can be Ghostbusters even if they have a shit sandwich of a script and characters that are written to be wilting flowers.

It lacks gravitas not because of Kristen Wiig, Melissa McCarthy, Kate McKinnon, or Leslie Jones; it lacks gravitas in spite of them. It almost feels like this is a new genre of film: (wo)man vs. writer. These actresses aren't held back by some vast misogynerd conspiracy on the internet. They're held back by a writer/director who felt the need to create four hunnies who are sooo victimized and sooo disadvantaged by being women. When he's not forcing yet another stupid scene about how unfair the world is to these women and how victimized they are and how it's not fair! (insert teenage Jennifer Connelly), Feig is throwing in gaudy, tacky references to the first film that are just distractions. Why is the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man here? What's the fucking point of the slimers? Yes, I suppose if you're a braindead idiot Ghostbusters is nothing more than Slimer and Stay Puft.

It's simply disrespectful to put this film in the same category as Mad Max: Fury Road. As a whole, Ghostbusters simply has. no. class.

I'm sure there's a detail here and there I missed, maybe a mention of Tobin's Spirit Guide and the Spates Catalog. After all, those were just mentions in the original film too. I also don't know how much input the actresses had with the writing.

There's obviously going to be a sequel based on the post-credits scene. It illustrates how superficial this film is. Zuul comes up. Why Zuul? Because braindead idiots will remember the voice in the fridge saying Zuul. Everybody knows that scene. It's the scene you reference when you want to telegraph that you've seen the original film but that you're not an icky nerd. Zuul was the bad guy of the original film, amirite? I mean, this isn't a major problem for me, but why not flat out Gozer if they wanted to be obvious? Why not go for obscure like the rectification of the Vuldronaii or Meketrex Supplicants or a giant sloar? (I'll fess up, I had the help of the Ghostbusters Wikia article on Vinz Clortho to get the spelling right.)

In so many ways, this film should have been maybe 40 minutes tops. I hope that they boot Feig off this franchise. Somebody else needs to give our new Ghostbusters something decent to work with. Here's a protip, Hollywood. You love your trilogies. I love trilogies! You don't make a good trilogy by taking the first 40 minutes of a great movie, stretching it to 116 minutes, and then releasing it as its own film.

It was a pretty good quality camrip. I'll probably rewatch it at some point as a drinking game to make sure I didn't miss scene 24, a smashing scene with some lovely acting that will completely change my generally negative opinion of this film. I'm not sure I could watch this film in its entirety while sober. There are just too many… cringeworthy… moments.