Author: VD

Smells Like BRICSX

It appears the maintainers of Linux are dumb enough to embrace the Grand Bifurcation and write off the majority of the human population:

Following yesterday’s news first featured on Phoronix of several Linux driver maintainers being de-listed from their maintainer positions within the mainline Linux kernel over their connections to Russia, Linus Torvalds has today commented on the matter.

Since yesterday there’s been a lot of concern and mixed views over a number of Linux kernel maintainers being de-listed from the kernel’s MAINTAINERS file seemingly over being Russian or using Russian email addresses. In response to the patch posting from last week has also been proposals to revert that prior patch, some of the affected maintainers voicing their surprise over this sudden move, and some being upset over the lack of public clarity into the seemingly new “compliance requirements” imposed on the Linux kernel.

Greg Kroah-Hartman who authored the patch dropping the various maintainers has yet to comment on the mailing list thread, but a few minutes ago Linus Torvalds chimed in with his opinion. Linux creator Linus Torvalds wrote:

“Ok, lots of Russian trolls out and about. It’s entirely clear why the change was done, it’s not getting reverted, and using multiple random anonymous accounts to try to “grass root” it by Russian troll factories isn’t going to change anything.

And FYI for the actual innocent bystanders who aren’t troll farm accounts – the “various compliance requirements” are not just a US thing.

If you haven’t heard of Russian sanctions yet, you should try to read the news some day. And by “news”, I don’t mean Russian state-sponsored spam.

As to sending me a revert patch – please use whatever mush you call brains. I’m Finnish. Did you think I’d be supporting Russian aggression? Apparently it’s not just lack of real news, it’s lack of history knowledge too.”

It’s not as if the Russians are simply going to throw up their hands and start using Windows 11. This promises to be the Mother of All Forks, and given the recently expressed position of BRICS on the illegality of Western sanctions, I doubt any of the BRICS countries are going to stick with the original Linux version.

This is where the fatal flaw of having a weak central figure like Torvalds in charge inevitably comes into play. Succession plans are difficult enough for strong Alphas to accomplish successfully, but when a mild-mannered Delta is the man in charge, some sort of future debacle is all but guaranteed.

Linus, it’s not that anyone thinks you’re supporting Russian aggression. It’s just that we assumed you wouldn’t be retarded enough to publicly endorse the division of the global Linux community and the creation of a Sino-Russian alternative operating system. But we were wrong.

DISCUSS ON SG

When Science is Silent

JK Rowling summarizes the scientific philosophy of the wicked:

‘We must not publish a study that says we’re harming children because people who say we’re harming children will use the study as evidence that we’re harming children, which might make it difficult for us to continue harming children.’

One of the many reasons that the science can never be trusted is because scientists will actively avoid publishing any results that contradict the current Narrative they call “the scientific consensus”.

DISCUSS ON SG

Booster Patrol Goes Pro

If you’re a backer of Booster Patrol, we’ve completed the necessary permissions to get the 10-song e-album out to you. As part of that process, we put some of those songs on Spotify, so if you happen to use that app, you can now fire up some proper boosting on demand now. The available songs are:

  • Possession
  • Don’t You Want Me
  • More Human Than Human
  • God’s Gonna Cut You Down
  • Thought Contagion
  • Wow

That’s pretty much more guitar solos than were recorded in the 1980s, so it should keep you a while. I understand our first original effort may be done soon, which features Rachel on vocals, so you’ve got that to look forward to as well. In case you missed it, there’s now a video for Wow, which is a very boosted cover of the Kylie Minogue song.

In other music news, here’s the first live performance of Babymetal and the two guys from Polyphia playing Brand New Day, which is a really nice and well-written song in the From Dusk Til Dawn vein.

DISCUSS ON SG

France Shuts the Borders

At this point, Schengen is essentially dead. The EU and its “free movement of peoples” will eventually follow:

France is set to ramp up the intensity of border controls with European neighbours amid fears of uncontrolled migration and terror threats just weeks after Germany announced a similar policy. French authorities informed the European Commission last week that its borders with six of its neighbouring Schengen members – namely Belgium, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, Spain and Switzerland – will be reinforced with increased checks as of November 1 for at least six months.

We’ve definitely passed the peak of the pendulum. And given how far it reached, it’s going to snap back with a historical vengeance.

DISCUSS ON SG

Please Don’t Go!

NATO is begging Türkiye to stay in NATO even if it joins BRICS:

Türkiye has the right to cooperate with the BRICS economic group without undermining its status as a NATO member, the secretary-general of the US-led military bloc, Mark Rutte, has said.

The NATO chief’s remarks came at a press conference in Estonia on Tuesday. He was asked by the Estonian Public Broadcaster whether Ankara’s desire to become a member of BRICS, which the outlet described as a “Russia-dominated organization,” should be a cause for concern.

Rutte stressed that Türkiye remains “a very important ally in the alliance” as it is “one of the best equipped military forces in NATO” and plays a “vital role in its part of the NATO geography.”

“Obviously within the alliance, being a democracy, 32 countries, there will always be debates on this and that,” the secretary-general admitted. However, he insisted that Ankara has “the sovereign right” to work towards a BRICS membership and cooperate with its members.

The real question is if BRICS will permit the Turks to join if they remain in NATO. And the jury is still out on that one.

DISCUSS ON SG

The Strangest Tools

Although I believe President Trump to have been the greatest US president since Andrew Jackson, his many failures and his various retarderies on an irritatingly broad range of topics have certainly diminished my enthusiasm for the prospects of his eventual return to the White House. Nevertheless, and despite the obvious electoral frauds past and future, there is some reason to retain at least an amount of hope in the man. Because, for some reason that is hard to explain, the truly wicked fear him.

Want proof that God is with Trump?

Literal Witches are complaining on Reddit that they are trying to launch demonic attacks against Trump, but “he seems to have some kind of protection around him.”

Trump is even winning against witches!

“A thousand may fall at your side, And ten thousand at your right hand; But it shall not come near you. Only with your eyes shall you look, And see the reward of the wicked.” – Psalm 91:7-8

God is using Trump to help set the world straight. Only Christians with a sanctimonious attitude refuse to understand this. God doesn’t choose the qualified. He qualifies the chosen.

I’m sure more than a few Christians were highly skeptical of the Apostle Paul. And there are people who were so shocked by the fact that a certain author wrote a certain book that they regarded it as genuine evidence of the existence of God.

Hope is a virtue, not a weakness. Never forget that. The actual weakness is fearing to hope due to past disappointments.

DISCUSS ON SG

The End of Bioware

Mark Kern reports on an interview with a tester that appears to spell doom for Dragon Age Veilguard, and possibly, Bioware itself:

@nuhre_ gets the scoop in her interview with a game tester who reveals all. Alleged rumors from testing in 2023 build highlights:

  • Game is super woke. Pronouns in your face.
  • Qunari companion literally introduces themselves with immersion breaking modern language “I identify myself as non-binary.”
  • Romances were, and still may be gender locked UNLESS you choose a pronoun other than he/him, you MUST be pansexual or you were/are restricted to TWO romance options (Neve and Harding) while other choices may romance anyone. (this might have changed due to BG3 success and influence).
  • Solas is SIDELINED HARD. Made into a minor character with little importance or development until suddenly important at end of game, and that ending is “Baffling” and not in a good way, (but no spoilers revealed.)
  • The story is “disappointment after disappointment.”
  • Facial animation is “Andromeda all over again” and “plastic” which I assume is a lot of “my face is tired” quality.
  • Inquisitor and Inquisition is corrupt and may not be of any help even if you didn’t disband it. Choices don’t matter “It’s Mass Effect 3 again.”
  • Rook SIDELINED, backstory wasted. Just a guy in a bar, very much diminished.
  • Tester feedback IGNORED. Boss said “It’s very good feedback, but I can’t send it to them (the devs). It’s very good but …” Basically you can’t talk about how the woke stuff is making the game worse. It’s not something you can talk about, even if it is ruining the game.
  • Grey Warden Davrin, a newcomer who never finished his training, gets to influence and make important decisions for the Grey Wardens solely because he is a PoC. “Gets to decide everything.”
  • The segment of gameplay in The Fade is a boring “walking simulator” with just some fetch quests. Completely wasted opportunity.
  • Other major characters like Varric, turned into mere “advisors” and pushed to the back of the story.
  • “It’s so far removed from Origins, that it’s crazy that it’s in the same universe.”

“THIS IS THE END OF BIOWARE” the interview concludes. Final nail in the coffin of a once great studio and franchise.

I liked Baldur’s Gate, and the investment company for which I worked helped fund Neverwinter Nights, but I generally considered their games to be overrated and more than a little derivative. The fact that they went full SJW and embraced the Diversity Initiative didn’t surprise me in the slightest. If the failure of DAV causes the studio to go down, I wouldn’t care at all. It’s not like losing Origin Systems to the graveyard of developers.

DISCUSS ON SG

The Intellectual Limits of Thomas Sowell

I like Thomas Sowell and his work. It was a minor influence on my intellectual development in my youth. But he has always been limited in his willingness to depart from conservative orthodoxy, as evidenced by his unwillingness to accept the relevant aspects of human genetics as they relate to societal development, or the lack thereof.

Sowell is the leading conservative proponent of the cultural explanation. In regard to race differences in the US, his idea is that black Americans adopted a dysfunctional culture from white rednecks in the South. A different culture would have, and in the future could, set blacks (as well as southern whites) on a different path. While he mostly avoids ad hominem attacks against hereditarians, he portrays most of them as bumbling half-wits with a history of making baseless and contradictory claims.

I was recently interviewed for “The Genius of Thomas Sowell” podcast to talk about hereditarianism vs. culturalism, and the host, Alan Wolan, persuaded me that it would be worth spelling out my objections to Sowell in more detail. Here I respond, in turn, to Sowell’s arguments for the cultural theory of race differences and his critique of hereditarianism. I contend that hereditarianism remains by far the most plausible explanation for persistent gaps among groups living under comparable conditions, including American blacks and whites.

Some hereditarians believe that, even if Sowellism is false, it would be politically expedient to promote it as a means of countering leftist narratives about race and racism. I will explain why this is a mistake. Even if (counterfactually) we could convince large numbers of people to accept Sowell’s scientifically incorrect theory of race differences, this would not stop wokism.

While he is a generally admirable man, one unfortunate characteristic of Sowell is his refusal to follow the observable, and even undeniable, truth, at the cost of his personal preferences. Given his identity complications, it is not even remotely surprising that he would prove willing to sacrifice his intellectual integrity on the altars of both race and personal relations.

Sowell is without doubt an effective starting point for conservatives, but at some point, anyone who is geniunely devoted to the Good, the Beautiful, and the True will find they have to move beyond him if their intellectual journey is going to proceed.

DISCUSS ON SG

Why Africa Supports BRICS

While the West has mostly focused on the increased Chinese influence in Africa, it wouldn’t be surprising if the entire continent embraced the BRICS system due to the West’s attempt to protect the pro-Western post-colonial regimes:

Speaking on the sidelines of the BRICS Business Forum in Moscow, which was held on October 17-18, Mantula highlighted the organization’s capacity to counter the influence of Western narratives, financial systems, and the impact of sanctions.

“Now that we’ve seen sanctions being imposed on certain countries, we’ve seen the biasness of some of these international bodies, the BRICS has become a solution,” Mantula noted, reflecting on how the group, which began with Brazil, Russia, India, and China, has grown into a significant platform for cooperation.

She pointed out that countries are drawn to BRICS because of its inclusive approach to diversity and mutual respect, both economically and culturally. Mantula emphasized that BRICS offers its members an opportunity to operate independently of Western structures, making them more resilient to potential sanctions. “Within the BRICS countries we are having a bigger population, more natural resources and if we learn to work independently outside of the Western systems, even the sanctions won’t harm us,” she explained.

Mantula also referenced a speech by Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian during the forum’s plenary, where he spoke of sanctions imposed on certain countries. “Any one of our countries can be sanctioned next,” Mantula stated, underscoring the potential of BRICS to offer a united front against Western pressures.

Most Americans and Europeans aren’t aware that in addition to Russia and Iran, Washington and Brussels have placed economic sanctions on China as well as a number of African nations. This has, quite rightly, alarmed all of the African governments, who realize that they are one regime change, or worse, Western-sponsored attempted regime change, from being cast out into economic darkness.

This is why Egypt, Ethiopia, and South Africa have already joined BRICS, and why it is safe to assume that most of the other countries on the resource-rich continent will be seeking to join it soon, assuming the divide between the anti-Western nations (Russia, Iran, and China) and the neutral nations (Brazil and India) can be successfully bridged at the current summit.

The Endpapers of Empire

As Castalia Shipping reminds us that WAR AND PEACE is starting to ship out from the warehouse and flexes its new pallet jack, Castalia Library has both revealed the unique endpapers for THE CAMBRIDGE HISTORY OF BYZANTIUM Volume One as well as shown off the newly bound-and-warehouse-bound STUDIES IN THE NAPOLEONIC WARS.

The HYPERGAMOUSE campaign is within sight of its third stretch goal and John C. Wright has published the first book in his 12-book Star Quest series, Space Pirates of Andromeda. You can also watch the recent Arkhaven Nights in which we discussed his new book.

Space Opera must be Great! Gallant! Gigantic! Grandiose!
This tale told by a Grandmaster vows to return the glory that was lost!
Remember the days gone by, when science fiction was fun?
Now new hope is here!
If you are weary of weak, wan, woke and wasted works, your wait is ended!
Here is an epic, as grand as any tale of old — here you will hear wonders told!

Of course there is a Space Princess, and Space Pirates galore, and an Evil Galactic Empire.

Of course there is a super-weapon known only as the Great Eye of Darkness!
Here meet Athos Lone, Ace of Star Patrol, in his one-man mission of vengeance!
The Ancient Mariner, like an iron ghost, when slain, seems to rise again!
The mysterious spymaster called Nightshadow walks in dark worlds but serves the light!
An Imperial Deathtrooper must reverse his loyalties, and fight his own clone-brothers!

Fate has set these unlikely heroes against the Four Dark Overlords
An utmost evil the unwary galaxy thinks long dead!
Can Darkness fail and Light prevail?
Read On! For All True Tales are but Part of a Greater!

DISCUSS ON SG