Dumb Phones
"You know they are listening to us this very moment?" - said Jake to Tom on a party one night. "What are you talking about?" - Tom was obviously confused. So Jake had to continue - "You know the Facebook app and the Google app on your phone is constantly recording what we have to say to each other, forming an opinions on us. They claim it's for advertising. But they can use it for anything they want. You know?". Tom looked at Jake with a slight smile. He knew he had a very good comeback. After a short pause Tom said - "I use a dumb phone." - and went into the party. But Jake didn't stop feeling bad. Jake didn't use no phone at all.
Moses 40 Years For This Kind of Trip Is Too Much
In 2014 Ridley Scott made a very controversial, seems to be - religious movie - called "Exodus: Gods and Kings" about the life of Moses and his subsequent adventure of saving the Jewish people from slavery in Egypt. Religious people were mad about the movie, since it tried to show a plausible, realistic way the entire thing could happen. It didn't show God, for example, simply appearing in front of Moses as a burning bush. There was a burning bush and there was God. But before Moses saw those he got hit in the head very severely. So you have a possible explanation for why he saw God in the first place.
Democracy Is Not Enough
People tend to think of Democracy and Freedom as one and the same. And yes, in the modern world you can expect more freedom from countries practicing democracy. And less freedom in any other form of government. And it's because the two are very much linked together. But since people do not understand both: what are the differences between the two; and what Democracy is really trying to achieve, they get sometimes very confused.
The Ultimate Paradox Of Freedom
Is it freedom to be rebellious? Or is it just an uncontrollable reaction? There is this concept called Reverse Psychology which suggests that sometimes to obtain a wanted result from somebody it's better to push that somebody in the opposite direction. But reverse psychology doesn't work always. Only when the person feels like his or her freedom is at stake. For example when a parent doesn't allow a teenager to engage in a particular activity. The parent might not be an inherently evil person. He might not desire to exercise any kind of power. He maybe just really wants to protect the teenager. But the teenager feels like his or her freedom is being betrayed and taken away. So they rebel. Is it freedom to be rebellious, though? Or is it just an uncontrollable reaction? Is there freedom at all? Or is it just a big paradox?
Julian Assange vs Josiah Mizukami
Imagine being locked up in prison for something that's legal. And not even merely legal. For something that is a human right. There is this very small human right, I don't know if you know about it, it's called the Freedom Of Speech. An ability to express your opinion without being persecuted for it. And it's more than essential. It's the cornerstone of things like Freedom in general. Sometimes though bad people that are trying to persecute you for this anyway - are smart. And they will look for any other way of shutting you up if this one is not available for them. Good example is Julian Assange. Not so good example could potentially be Josiah Mizukami.
X Agents
X Agents was a project I had when I was about 10, maybe 11 years old. Which died because of my realization that there is such a thing as copyright. You could call it a fan fiction extension upon the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
Is The DeVault Report a Spiteful Metajoke
Oh god, I'm trembling right now in anticipation of hate coming my way for this article. If you want to attack me, you should look no further than at the article I wrote about the subject matter a few articles ago. Or look no further at my stance on the whole matter which many times I had brought up in various things I do. The plots of my films Moria's Race and I'm Not Even Human directly or indirectly deal with the subject matter at hand.
Baby Driver
If you expect Baby Driver to be anything like Hot Fuzz. Don't! If you expect Baby Driver to be anything like Scott Pilgrim Vs The World. Don't! If you expect Baby Driver to be anything like Last Night In Soho. Don't! The director of Baby Driver, Edgar Wright set for himself a challenge to make every next movie he does in a different genre. Therefor you get absolutely different effects from his movies. Even though there are obvious Edgar Wright tropes in every one of his movies.
The Nightmare Of Paying Online
Cryptocurrency should have been the savior of the world from over-reaching control of governments and banks. But while on paper it could have worked. The reality is way worse. There was a store next to where I live that until a few years ago advertised that they can be paid with Bitcoin. The notice is now removed, probably due to the bursting of the crypto bubble, which lead to a rapid decrease of value of many cryptocurrencies.
The Danger Of Good Intentions
Paternalism - a world view that states that sometimes forcing a person against their freedom, if for their own good, is acceptable. A good example is the collapsing bridge thought experiment. A bridge is about to collapse and you know it for certain. You advertise this fact so people will not go onto the bridge. You put signs. You tell people about it. But somebody still walks toward the bridge with what looks like an intention to cross it anyway. You show that person the signs. No response. You yell at the person "The bridge is about to collapse!". No response either. You realize that the person probably doesn't even speak English. Is it okay to force this person, to reduce his freedom, and force him out of the bridge?
Should Paternalism Be Illegal
Sheiny was in Mendel's house that day. She was looking at some random things on her computer. You know... Getting into a yet another rabbit-hole on Wikipedia. She clicked on a link to an article about Paternalism. And on the right side, beside the text of the article, there was a picture with a caption "Child on a leash". The picture is depicting a child with a rope tied to her torso, which is held by an elderly woman. This image infuriated Sheiny to such an extend that for the next few minutes she could not even talk. How dare they?
The Spark
The Spark is great in all the things that graphical artists value. It looks jaw-dropping. But it fails for me in the story-telling aspect of it. What is the story of The Spark? A character falls down a hole and finds there a clue. And because of how utterly bored he is, he decides to follow that clue until reaching a place where he finds grass. A thing that he was programmed to find. Yes, it is not as straight forward as him just walking there by himself and finding the grass. There are obstacles along the way, but non of them make any impact.
Why Morias Race Flopped So Fucking Hard
As you maybe already know ( but actually how would you, nobody reads my articles anyway ) Moria's Race, the movie I've been making for 3 and half years is a worthless piece of shit that nobody wants to see. I could blame people for not wanting to see it. And would be a worthless piece of shit myself doing so, but instead I think I should unleash my deepest fears onto this god forgotten page, so if there is a poor sole actually reading my ramblings, this poor sole could learn how terrible the situation truly is. But to be frank, I am writing it as a form of psychological coping mechanism.
Eyes Wide Shut
Fuck! What a great ending of a great director's filmography. Eyes Wide Shut 1999 was the last film directed by Stanley Kubrick, who died towards the end of post-production of this movie. There are rumors that Stanley Kubrick's death is related to the content of this film. And that somebody wasn't very happy with what he did. At that time Stanley Kubrick had the final cut rights at Warner Bros. Meaning that he would be the person that approves the movie that will be shown to the audience. There was a story of somebody overhearing yells at Stanley Kubrick that he can't show that stuff from one of the executives on the movie. And 6 days later Kubrick was dead. Perhaps just a conspiracy theory. But considering what the movie is about, there might be something to those theories.
Quarantine
It was the beginning of 2020. The model of Neonspeedster for Moria's Race was already done. I was sitting at home on the Quarantine. It was the beginning of the corona-virus mayhem. Everybody was locked at home. I was bored. And so I made a MIDI album.
Annoyingware
Chloe just entered the room where Sheiny was sitting all alone and typing away at her laptop. Sheiny was too occupied with her movie-script to notice the presence of Chloe in the room. Chloe was scratching her head. She just didn't know how to explain why certain programs are bad for Ivan even if they are not strictly malware. He understood why being careful is important. After that day when the vigilante almost murdered him, he never ever questioned the importance of being safe. Privacy was at most important for him. But Free Software? That is far beyond what's needed for just privacy.
Only God Forgives
From my review of Drive you probably know that I like the taste of Nicolas Winding Refn's cock. And in this review I will be sucking his cock once again, while drooping saliva all of his masterpiece Only God Forgives.
Sheiny The Hacker
Sheiny The Hacker is a book long in making. If you read my article about "How I Started Using GNU / Linux", you know that this book originally was started as a movie project. But slowly I realized that this type of material is technically legally un-film-able.
Cameras And Stupid Subscriptions
When hearing that I don't have a smartphone, a lot of people ask me, how the hell then I take pictures. And I always answer that I have a dedicated camera specifically for this. I often argue that it's a way better way to take pictures. You know... The sensor is most likely better. The lens is most likely better. As so on and so forth. And I almost haven't thought about the possibility that a camera can be as bad as a smartphone. But perhaps I was wrong.
