Ignorance does not make you cool.

What a surprise after reading the title. Anyway, on this first of the 2009 December “blogathon” right here on Sure, Why Not?, I want to blast those idiots who are under the impression that being unfamiliar with certain knowledge or technology somehow makes them superior.

It’s yet another issue that adults always blame teens for doing while in reality the adults are way worse about it. The stereotype is that teens don’t want to admit to their friends that they know about history or that they have good grades or what have you. Yeah, right, five minutes on NYRA’s forums will kill that mindset quite nicely.

In the case of adults, it is often in the form of their pride in being luddites. They often say “ooh, I don’t know anything about Facebook, hahaha” as if it’s amusing and at least they’re not among the inferior beings that do have the extra knowledge of what Facebook is. Replace Facebook with Twitter, YouTube, or any other similar site, and the responses are the same. Because, despite the fact that all of these sites are being used more and more by older crowds, those older crowds usually avoid admitting it, or passing it off as being necessary for work or in order to appeal to younger people for a business or something lame. You know, because, gasp!, how could a mature adult use a tool that is supposed to be aimed at young people?! You’re all growed up so you don’t use things those little (read: under 30) people use. Don’t you feel special?

And at times when I inform the proudly ignorant adult of the benefits of social networking, no matter how well I point out the helpfulness of it for whatever issues they’re having or ways they’d like to make things easier, I’m met with denial or indifference. Because Twitter could spit gold out of the monitor and they would still refuse to try to learn it for fear of being uncool in the adult realm.

Of course, this is hardly limited to websites or technology in general. Some of this I’ll rant on separately later (hey, I’ve got 30 more consecutive days to fill here!).

Anyway, first I commented on the ACLU’s Blog of Rights, where they condemned sentencing juveniles to life without parole. Here’s my comment:

It is sick, especially when you consider how very few rights teens have. Everyone is always talking about how they can’t handle responsibility and that they shouldn’t be voting or driving or outside past a certain hour or whatever other unjust stereotype-based regulation, yet for some reason, if one were commit a heinous crime, then everyone suddenly thinks they’re fully developed and accountable and should get the harshest punishment. Can’t have it both ways, folks. Don’t treat them like kids and punish them like adults. As Dr. Mike Males said in on this subject in one of his books, we treat teens as kids when doing so is convenient for adults, and we treat them like adults when doing so is convenient for adults. Adult convenience and privilege should not be the basis for our justice system.

Awesome.

Then just a bit ago, NYRA-SEFL posted on Twitter an article about how Rochester, NY just got their youth curfew law struck down by the court. Score!

And here’s my comment:

For those who think a curfew is to protect young people from being victims of violence, I have a question. Why are you blaming the victim? If a young person is attacked at night, the REAL question should be “why are your streets so unsafe from violence?” not whether someone under a certain age is out past their bedtime! Arrest the CRIMINALS, not the potential victims! The worst thing you can tell a young victim of a violent crime is that it was her own fault because of her “improper” behavior, and that is exactly what curfews do. Glad to see this one gone and I hope Rochester keeps it gone. Hope all other curfews see an end sometime soon and people wise up and realize we have to treat young person with more respect and to come up with REAL, non-discriminatory ways to control crime.

Mmmm, yeah. (Despite them both containing typos I’m rather pissed about.)

Want to be awesome like me? Or at least as close as you, someone who isn’t me, can get to my astronomical levels of awesomeness? Then go leave a comment yourself! Only thing more annoying than a vocal youth rights opponent is a silent youth rights supporter.

And I totally got this in in time for this week’s Youth Blog Tuesday! Which is chock full of more blog entries you should totally comment on. Power to the Youth Rights Blogosphere!

This has been Day 17 of the 100 Days of Summer, Round 9.

A lot of his ideas are good. Some of them scare the hell out of me. Some of them I would need to look more into since I’m far from having a set opinion on every or even most political issues. But there is one thing about him that is consistently irritating. That thing, of course, are his die-hard supporters: the Paultards.

The Paultards love their candidate and will fight tooth and nail if you say anything close to a disparaging word about him. In other words, they need to learn how to fucking work. They seem to be far more interested in boasting about how they are smarter than everybody else for supporting the “best” candidate than actually making people want to join them and also support their candidate.

Your candidate and ideology could have the best ideas ever thought of, but no one will want to align with you if you’re nothing but dickholes. You know why most people are Democrats or Republicans? Hint: it has little to do with platforms. It has almost everything to do with what sort of people you feel like you fit in with.

Paultards never seem to grasp this concept. They somehow believe that if you insult people enough and ridicule them that they will decide “hey, you’re right!” You can’t make yourself out to be a radical, but rather make people think they have to change as little as possible. Contrary to the infectious slogan that won the presidency for Barack Obama, people are terrified of change. They just think they want it. See, Obama knew how to work with that, and that’s how he won. He led an all-around feel-good campaign. Was it just empty political bullcrap? Of course it was, but that’s what works. Paultards make themselves out to be elitist headstrong nerds, and that just isn’t appealing to very many people.

You catch more flies with honey, you know. In other words… stop being a dick!

Or, well, most of it. Certainly not all.

I wander over there one day all like “hai, u guise!” in my normal way. “Dude, I heard about this 17-year-old girl who got raped by her uncle. But at least they caught that sick fucktard and he’s rotting in prison taking it up the ass from his inmate.”

The Snipers seem less than amused. “What, just because she’s 17 that makes it rape?”

So I’m like “No, it’s rape because it’s rape.”

And they’re like “Why is it rape just because she’s under 18 and she was with a much older man?”

And I’m like “Uh, it’s not. It’s rape because it’s forceful sex she did not consent to.”

Then they’re like “What, just because she isn’t 18 yet she can’t consent to sex?”

And I say “Are you retarded? Of course she can consent to sex. She just didn’t consent to THIS sex.”

And they come back with “Oh, just because he’s her uncle she can’t have consented to it? What’s so wrong with incest? Only our idiot society thinks it’s wrong.” (Eddy: “w00t! Wincest!”)

So I’m like “I didn’t say anything about incest. I said she did not give her consent to having her body ravaged, thus it is rape.”

Then they’re like “Her body ravaged? Is that what you think sex is, you fucking prude?”

And I’m like “No, that’s what rape is.”

And they’re like “You mean you think all sex is rape?”

And I’m like “No, I think rape is rape.”

So they’re like “So what you’re saying is, because you think sex is harmful and ravaging to the body, you’re pinning your negative views of sex on this couple’s activities?”

Leaving me all like “LOL WUT?”

They add “And what do you mean believing the uncle deserves to be in prison? Why would he deserve that just because he has a sexual relationship with his niece?”

I then say “Because the niece didn’t want it.”

They’re like “What, just because she’s his niece and only 17 you think she didn’t want it?”

And I’m like “No, I think she didn’t want it because she didn’t want it and that’s a good enough reason to not have her body violated.”

And they’re like “There you go again acting like sex is a violation of the body. Sex is good. Maybe you should actually have sex so you wouldn’t condemn this couple like this.”

So I say “And the fact that the girl herself reported the uncle for rape, which she didn’t want, means nothing?”

They say “She’s just been brainwashed by the media thinking she must be a victim.”

I then say “She is a victim. He harmed her. She turned his ass in. Do I need to draw you a diagram?”

Then they come back with “She’s not a victim just because she had sex. That’s just the media making her think she’s a victim because she’s underage.”

I’m like “No, it’s a girl, despite being under 18, still having the ability to know she was being harmed and that it was wrong and that she should turn his stupid ass in rather than hiding it for years thinking it’s all her fault and cutting herself, while he gets to run free.”

And they’re like “No, that’s what happens after he gets caught and she’s forced into counseling where she’s told over and over that she’s a victim and she falls into emotional despair for the rest of her life. You think that’s a good thing?”

I say “So you think her being raped was better than some shitty counseling sessions that, given that she’s 17 rather than a lot younger, she might get through okay?”

They reply with “There you go again. Why do you think all sex is rape?”

Et cetera… et cetera…

Good times.

For four years today anyway.

Now, I was quick to tell this person that he needn’t worry since it was just a random blog entry some place, not even a high-profile blog or anything. If any random blog entry changed the world, goodness! Nonetheless, it got me thinking.

Plenty of webmasters don’t like the idea of youth reading their sites, even if there’s nothing inappropriate there. As I’ve many times pointed out, the presence of “children” offends a lot of people, whether or not they’re consciously aware of it. What scares them even more is with online anonymity, they really have no way of knowing if the person they are interacting with is a lowly 15-year-old or a respectable 35-year-old. No, no, they can’t take away from the experience that age doesn’t matter. They must cling to the artificial importance of years lived and decide the youth are wrong for not being labeled as such and having the audacity to even for a moment pass as adults.

Don’t worry about those insecure losers. If they want to judge someone by their birth year and hold onto that right so hard, they have bigger problems. Keep your dignity and move on, and you’ll find more allies than you imagined.

Like me! Of course I welcome all ages onto this site. You could be 3 or 93. True, for those who are younger, there are some wretched souls who don’t think you should read what I write. I use “foul” language. I speak truths contrary to what the adults in your life what you to know. I shed light on alternative viewpoints and lifestyles. I consider you a respectable human being, no less than your elders. That is perhaps the most dangerous message of all that I convey. That the adults in your life are not always right and, intentionally or not, will often deceive you. Not even I claim to have all the answers. You shouldn’t just obey everything an adult says, but rather give it some of your own thought. Take it with a grain of salt.

Take Wikipedia for example. It has many critics, that you can’t trust an encyclopedia that any loser can just come right in and edit, notwithstanding the obsession of the admins to correct it quickly if obviously ridiculous. There is also the viewpoint that because anyone can edit it, it’s the most truthful source out there. If there’s false information there, you can go in and correct it or at least discuss it with the other users. After all, the writers for Encarta or Britannica can just as easily be wrong about something or be biased, and often they are. Not to mention they don’t update immediately as new things happen, so you have to wait like a year or two for the next edition. But the reader won’t take this into account, believing these sources to be canon, to be completely accurate, and will thus accept every word of it. After all, it was infallible professionals writing this, correct? That there is dangerous thinking. Wikipedia has the rather important edge here in that you already know to take it with a grain of salt, while other sources don’t have such a warning, despite it still being an issue.

That is the issue here. Accept no one word as gospel. Hell, even the New Testament needed four gospels instead of just one! Trouble is, kids are taught the exact opposite. They should listen to just one viewpoint, or at least one set of virtually agreeable viewpoints, and ignore the rest as being wrong or even harmful. Why? Because adults generally see kids as helpless humanoid beings who exist for their own personal gain. They believe they can mold these unsuspecting young people into believing and perpetuating whatever they believe. They believe the kids’ hearts and minds are their own personal property. And we see private and public institutions always clamoring for who gets to have more control over these pristine hearts and minds for their own benefit.

So you believe a “separate internet” for kids somehow protects them? Hardly. It’s in fact an enormous form of exploitation. Which, contrary to what adults believe and what they want kids to believe, exploitation is not the reason kids exist. If you believe it does, go remove your balls and ovaries right now, please.

This has been Day 79 of the 100 Days of Summer, Round 8.

Open it in a new window!

Holy crap, I haven’t written an entry in a while! Oh, well, here’s a new one. Be happy.

You know what pisses me off? Sometimes there’s a program on your computer that for some reason or another needs to go to a webpage. Perhaps to download an upgrade. Whatever.

Oh, did I mention you already had your browser open because you were in the middle of reading a page on the Fortress and admiring its awesomeness? Yeah.

So you click the link in the program to bring up a browser window with the page it must visit. But you see no new browser window. You are confused.

And then you realize.

The stupid program made the page open IN THE BROWSER WINDOW YOU ALREADY HAD OPEN!

What the shit?!

What the hell is the purpose of that?! No, don’t open in a new window in a nice unobtrusive way, a way that doesn’t interrupt anything you might already have going. Just move the page you’re already on into the other page.

Go die in a fire.

I searched through iTunes and Yahoo and Amazon to see what they had. iTunes has like three times as many songs as the other two. Weird. I checked Amazon for the songs I was looking for, and for the ones it didn’t have, I found the rest on iTunes. So I went ahead and bought those songs from iTunes. And then I had a suspicion I had about it confirmed.

The download is not an mp3 file. It’s m4p. It’s a proprietary Apple file that is made to work ONLY in iTunes or iPod.

So here’s what I did! Went ahead and got the five or so songs that were on iTunes but nowhere else. Then got my camcorder and switched it to sound recorder mode, played the songs really loud, and held it up to the speakers. Uploaded the wave file, converted it to mp3 with software that came with my Zen, opened it in Windows Media Player to edit the tag info, and I had myself an mp3 of the song! Me > iTunes

Except, as my sister pointed out to me later, why the hell did I have to do this for a song I PAID FOR?! I could have just downloaded it for free off Limewire without the hassle.

Which, finally, brings me to the main point of this.

These record companies and all want people to stop with the illegal downloads, right? Want to protect their intellectual property? Well, instead of making ridiculous rules saying you can’t even upload songs off your own CD onto your own computer, maybe they should work on making it easier to get music legitimately. And the best way to do that is by having these online music stores. Put in credit or debit card info, and when you see a song you like, clicky, and it’s yours. No risk of a virus or spyware. You know what it is. You’re not breaking the law. Ninety-nine cent download. Why not?

If only it were that simple. The record companies won’t see the ease here, see that this is THE way to decrease all the illegal sharing of copyrighted songs. If they did, they’d jump right in, and make them mp3 files to sell for just under a buck a piece. But they don’t all do it. Even iTunes won’t have everything you’re looking for. And the ones that are on iTunes only have the stupid Apple file that works only on Apple software, as well as other built in restrictions on how many times it can be copied or whatever. Apparently the owners of the song believe this will allow the “ease” of downloading while still firmly protecting what exactly happens to that song file.

You idiots don’t get it!

Why would someone want to jump through all these hoops, for a song they paid for, when they could just bypass all of this and go to Kazaa or Limewire? No, you HAVE to make it just as easy or easier than downloading the mp3 illegally. The file HAS to work in Apple and Microsoft and all other software and devices. When you place any more demands or restrictions on it (other than the price, of course), you’ve made your way much harder than just going to peer-to-peer and getting it for free.

At least Amazon’s are mp3 files. They have the right idea! Not to mention some songs are only 89 cents, hehe. Doing it that way is exactly the same as getting it off Limewire, just costs a teensy amount of money, but it’s legal and safe. Hell, and they even encourage making copies of the file so you have a backup in case of computer issues!

THIS is the way to go! Will this stop illegal free music sharing? Of course not. But it at least gives those who do it significantly less reason. You only encourage the illegal sharing when you make legal music purchases so complicated and restricted. And don’t act like stricter enforcement somehow will do anything. Again, just making doing it illegally more appealing. You’re turning off even the people who would be willing to pay the 99 cents for the song download if you’d make it as easy as or easier than illegal downloading.

And Apple and Microsoft with your retarded little proprietary file formats? Yeah, you can see where you’re getting screwed there. Funny how you think being such huge corporations means the consumer has to serve you, rather than vice versa. Quit the pissing contest over who runs each other’s files, have sex already, and yield a lot of little files that work both. For they are the most valuable and all that is appealing. And they are a good thing.

Alex then saw the Wall-to-Wall between me and Kathleen, so saw this back and forth, so he left a comment on her profile saying he’s always watching. Then the following ensued, read it from the bottom up to get it in the right order: alexkathfacebook.png

So, naturally, I posted that screen cap on the NYRA forums in a thread I’d made not too long ago specifically for memorable conversations.

And just today, I realized that’s true. Alex is ceiling cat. He is Ceiling Alex. And here’s what he does: Ceiling Alex

And here’s what I do: Ceiling Alex and Me

Good times.

SHUT THE HELL UP!!!

These morons who just go on and on about how “dangerous” the internet is for kids. I swear, if I see one more talkshow host or whoever else say something like “get the computers out of kids’ rooms, it’s as if you’re leaving them alone with a stranger!” I’m going to scream.

No it is not, you idiots! A computer, even with internet connection, cannot grab your kid, jump out the window, and take him to a dark alley somewhere to do awful things to him. What the hell is wrong with you?

Oh, what, your kid might talk to people online? Those online people can’t do a thing to him. Nothing he doesn’t bring on himself. If he’s dumb enough to start telling just anyone his name, age, and exact whereabouts, then that’s his own stupidity and your own fault for not teaching him better. A quick five minute conversation about the safety of anonymity will cure that, seeing as such rules apply to a lot of other things in life as well.

I first got online when I was 16, which is a little old comparatively, but still an age that these hysterical anti-internet retards think needs to be protected. I first got involved in posting on message boards in late 1999 and early 2000, originally looking for hints for the game King’s Quest 4, since I’d been stuck in the same spot in the game for a long time. The computer wasn’t actually in my room, but it was next to my room so it was pretty much just mine. I knew not to give out personal information. I had no interest in visiting any “adult” sites, and on the rare occasion I stumbled on one by accident, I hit Back immediately and went somewhere else (I was even more of a prude back then than I am now, LOL).

So what’s the big deal? What are these internet haters going on about? Sounds to me like typical humans being afraid of relatively new things and assuming that it must be bad for kids. Hence the ridiculous concerns over MySpace and Facebook. Yeah, slutty profile pictures are stupid, but they are not the least bit harmful to anyone. Worried your 13-year-old daughter is putting up a scanty picture of herself and that older guys will be looking at it? How’s that any different from if she were at the pool in a bathing suit? Older guys could very well be looking at her there. What’s the difference?

You can’t doubt these people without being considered immature and irresponsible. I’m an adult, so I guess I’m supposed to be telling these kids to stay away from the internet, right? Screw you. I won’t do it. The internet is like the one place that is the most accepting of people no matter how young, and I will not take that away from them. There’s a lot of crazy shit on it, sure, but it’s also far and away the best informational resource there is and it does them so much good.

Instead, you people would have their time on the computer severely limited, keep them away from any social networking sites (while ignoring the very many advantages to them), be standing over their shoulders, and threatening them if they do something online you don’t like. What the hell makes anyone think this kind of system is good? If you think kids need all this to begin with, you must think they are still developing, in which case such excruciating methods are hardly nurturing.

I moderate the NYRA forums and have for two and a half years, and most of the regulars there are under 18. The forums are for the most part uncensored, so all kinds of language gets used and topics get discussed. And you know what? It’s a haven for them, and we’re happy to provide it for them. We don’t hide them from things because of their age. We talk to them like we talk to anyone else. We treat them like they are HUMAN!

Of course, I can see why you anti-internet jerks are against that. You get offended when kids are treated as human. You know you’re human, but you consider kids to be inferior to you, so you get offended when they are called human. It makes sense!

But, aside from that. The more obvious matter is everyone is making a big deal over nothing, and thus condoning putting kids through very draconian home lives for no other reason than being kids. There is no reason to be hiding the kids from every single informational source. You’d do much better just talking frankly about the very few actual dangers, and then just trusting them, because at that point you’d have no reason not to.

What, you’re afraid your son might see a porn site? Afraid he’ll stumble upon 4chan? Well, so what? There’s some crazy shit there, sure, and that’s about the last place in the world you’d want him leaving his personal information, but other than that, what exactly is the harm? Everyone goes on and on about these harmful things and how bad they are for kids but they never bother to really think about why.

You know? I’ve never met a kid who spontaneously combusted upon seeing porn. I’ve never met a kid who exploded upon hearing or seeing or saying the word “fuck”. I’ve never met a kid who melted because of having an adult online friend. I’ve never met a kid who died suddenly for reading online articles about various cultures and religions. I’ve never met a kid who got eaten by demons for posting a video on YouTube.

And neither have you.

1. when you call then in the middle of the day to just say your thinking of her/you lover her”

Oy. Somebody needs to learn to type. As for the calling, no, don’t call me in the middle of the day. I’m working, and it’s hard as hell for me to stay on task as it is.

“2. Just to hear that we look nice today”

Liar. I never look nice. You’re just reaching for conversation. Fail.

“3. When you remember special occasions”

Meh. I’m used to being the only one who remembers anything.

“4. When you grab her hand to hold out of no were”

WTF? Let go of my hand. Weirdo.

“5. When you talk about her to your buddies”

Oh, dear God, no. Talking behind my back FTL.

“6. When you take control in the bedroom”

I don’t even know where to BEGIN with that one…

“7. When you want to hear about her day/probloms”

WTF is a “problom”? Anyway, don’t make me recite my day. I don’t usually recall much of it by the time I get home, and I don’t want to bore you with my problems. Problems probably involve you anyway.

“8. When you notice the smallest change we made about our selves(We will do just about anyhting to get a guy to take a look)”

Well, I don’t see that being an issue. I change things about my appearance so rarely, it’s impossible to not notice when I actually do it.

“9. when you show emotion”

Ugh, stop crying, you pussy.

“10. When you grab her booty or rub her leg in public( gives her a sexy feeling)”

Don’t make me slug you. Pervert.

Damn these lists are dumb.