Some piece of yard trash who wants to buy writing work on Scriptlance, wrote:
Please be mindful with your bids. Gone are the days of $1/100 words. I estimate paying $525 for 300 articles/web content of 450 words each. Please note this work will be available to you every month.
Mister or madam, you can suck my dick. You're asking for someone whose native language is English, to work full time, all month, for $525, which is less than half a cent a word.
You get what you pay for, and at that price, you ain't getting me, or for that matter, anyone worth having.
The Phelps family of Westboro Baptist Church are the only real Christians in all of popular culture, to my knowledge.
Let me put that in plainer language for people who've never heard of the Phelps people.
The god of the bible hates fags and America.
If the Christian god was to decide that now was the time to act on his views of America, then America would be reduced to smoking rubble from sea to shining sea, and the only people left alive would be psychotic, genocidal fringe cults.
The Real Christian
Ok, I have to clarify a couple of things. I am aware that the Old Testament was pre-Christ. I am also aware that if a person believes in the Old Testament, but without mentally editing the Old Testament for statements that are disputed in the New Testament, then that person is not a Christian. That person is either a Jew or a Muslim or something else, since those are the religions who believe in the Old Testament but not the new.
Now, with that being said, Christ's teachings did not address nearly enough of god's evil nature to eradicate that evil nature.
The real Christian has no legs to stand on, if that Christian tolerates gays. To my knowledge, Christ never said anything to contradict the commandment that all practicing gays should be executed by public stoning.
The real Christian has no legs to stand on, if that Christian tolerates atheism or religious freedom. To my knowledge, Christ never said anything to contradict the commandment that all atheists, and all other non-Judeo-Christians, should be executed by public stoning.
The real Christian has no legs to stand on, if that Christian is opposed to slavery. To my knowledge, Christ never said anything to contradict his god's word concerning the doctrine that slaves were permanent property, and that any abuse, short of outright murdering that slave, was perfectly fine, and free of any moral ramifications.
The real Christian has no legs to stand on, if that Christian is opposed to rape. To my knowledge, Christ never said anything to contradict his god's law, concerning the matter of rape. To that god, a rapist isn't doing anything wrong UNLESS he fails to then buy the woman he raped from her father.
America: Get it Right
If you're going to be a Christian, then you need to acknowledge what that means.
We in America have been conditioned to believe that there are all kinds of ethical truths contrary to the bible's teachings. As Americans, or as people living in any modern society, we are expected to believe that murder is always wrong, rape is always wrong, and that persecuting or attacking people because of their beliefs or lifestyles is wrong.
That view is not compatible with Christianity. Christianity orders you to murder atheists, gays, and a whole lot of other people.
You cannot add secular American values to the bible just because you are both a Christian and an American. Recognize the difference. The bible is roughly 2000 years old, in its current form. America is only 233 years old. If you think that new ideas about ethics suddenly "came from Christianity" just because they work for you personally, you're deluding yourself.
Christianity says that their god is eternal, unchanging, and perfect. So, in whatever ways our current society differs from the values taught by the disciples 2000 years ago, our current society must be wrong, to the Christian view point.
Anybody who is tolerant, anybody who believes that humans have inalienable rights despite their views or lifestyles, anybody who is horrified by the Phelps "God Hates Fags" clan... those people are not real Christians.
The only real, faithful, truly devoted Christians are:
People who band together to murder gays.
People who deal in slavery, including child slavery and sexual slavery, or, who aren't bothered by it.
People who believe that 99% of the world's population deserves to be murdered and then tortured for all eternity.
In short, if you want to call yourself a Christian, then you will either do one of two things:
Decide, and loudly proclaim, that the American standard of human rights, and the laws arising from them, are abominations before the sight of god, with which all good people should be at war.
Delude yourself into believing that Christianity created moral standards that were, in reality, created by secularists.
Enjoy your blood-obsessed death cult. I am done pretending that "real Christians" are the good people and "fake Christians" are the psychotic murderers and rapists. It's the other way around.
PS: Before anybody quotes scriptures where Christ said things such as "Don't allow the little children to suffer," and especially before someone makes the trite response "love the sinner and hate the sin," realize this: These general statements are meaningless without an interpretation. This is important because again, the only way to use those vague statements to retract specific biblical laws, is to apply modern secular morals to a doctrine that was perfect and permanent long before those secular views were made popular. The moral view which says, for example, "the murder of a child who blasphemes is an unjust action," comes from outside of Christianity. Once again, you can't apply modern, secular moral judgements from more than 1000 years after the bible, and say "that's what they meant." If Christ didn't say "god was wrong when he said [insert whatever here]," then it's still a part of the Christian doctrine.
I've always loved you. My brand loyalty is so strong that you are literally the only corporation that I trust to take over the world benevolently.
That CAN change, you know.
Maybe it's a change we need. Especially when you start taking down YouTube channels like CSPANjunkieDOTorg.
Now, I need to be kind of clear about something. I ... I really don't give a flying fuck what your rationale is. This is just one of those issues where there's no room for discussion. Reinstate CSPANjunkieDOTorg's YouTube channel. You fucked up, and you need to apologize and make it right.
CSPANjunkieDOTorg has been posting snippets of CSPAN and other networks' government coverage, for years and years and years. It's an important public service.
Now, I'll concede that, contrary to popular misconception. the public does not own C-SPAN. It's a public service provided by our cable and satellite companies. Weird, huh? It's a weird situation, because although it's not being published as public domain content, it's also not for-profit content. It's sorta "just there." People like CSPANjunkieDOTorg do a great job of managing the overwhelming noise-to-signal ratio so we can just get interesting and important highlights in a nice, quick video.
Look, Google, if I'm rambling, it's just because I'm upset. I can't imagine, and won't care, what your rationale could possibly be. Those 6,500 videos constitute a basis for public discourse that rises above your Faux News fodder, above CNN's imaginary mirror universe where both reality and bullshit share equal credibility... and you killed it.
YOU ARE HURTING AMERICA, GOOGLE. 6,500 videos, that's a goddamn free university course on civics. Hey YouTube, when you added that little "turn out the lights" button, were you talking about saving a little electricity by dimming video brightness?
OR WERE YOU SUGGESTING IT'S A GOOD THING THAT AMERICA IS DRIFTING BACK INTO THE FUCKING DARK AGES?
Old vs New Branding, and Why it's Important, part 1
This is a long, quasi-educational rant about branding, marketing, businesses as cultural institutions, and why I am falling out of love with Star Trek, Final Fantasy, and Doctor Who. It's every bit as self-serving as you could accuse it of being, but I expect it'll resonate with a lot of people. And, more to the point, I just need to say it.
I used to temper my fandom rants by saying things like this: no matter what else I might say about, for example, the new Final Fantasy games, they are ultimately the final word of what Final Fantasy is. No matter what I might mention to compare old vs. new Final Fantasy titles, when it comes down to it, Final Fantasy X and the more recent games are the very definition of what Final Fantasy is now. So, it naturally follows from that logic, that if I don't like the new Final Fantasy games, then I just don't like Final Fantasy anymore.
Well, a new rationale has crystallized in my mind, just now.
Let's say you're a huge fan of Dairy Queen. You love the fact that you can get hundreds of different varieties of flavor, preparation, presentation and added goodies, any time you want. You eat Dairy Queen whenever it strikes your fancy. You know their stuff inside and out, and you couldn't imagine anything ever being any better.
How to Violate Brand Loyalty
Your friends say to you, "Oh-ho-ho! But here is something that IS better!" But you try it out, and you have a meh response, and you go buy a Peanut Buster Parfait to wash the unsatisfactory taste test out of your mouth. And, thanks to Dairy Queen's immense success, you know you're not alone.
Think about that success for a minute. Millions of fans might get a little ice-cream-stiffy the second they see a DQ logo, but it's not the logo, or the brand name, or even the parent company they're into. It's the pleasing qualities of the product. It's the shape, taste, ingredients and texture, which they're so fond of.
Then imagine one month: Every DQ in the world stops serving soft ice cream and starts serving sherbert, and nothing else. Oh sure, they'll coat the sherbert in candy that hardens into a shell. They'll cut up a banana and give you a sherbert banana split. They'll take all their recipes and update them for sherbert. The menu will look basically the same, with some updated graphics, and oh yeah, sherbert instead of ice cream.
Now, here's the question: When the classic DQ fan says, "Blah! This isn't DQ anymore!" ...is he right? Yes.
When is DQ Not DQ?
DQ isn't just defined as "whatever the company which owns Dairy Queen decides to put on the menu." It's also defined as the experience, and the essential ingredients of that experience, which gave rise to the fan base and the name recognition. Once it's gained a reputation and a loyal following, the company loses control over that definition, and I mean completely. DQ is a popular cultural institution, more than it is a brand-named product. To whatever extent loyal customers are a priority, then this second definition needs to be the exclusive top priority for the continued identity of that brand.
If the DQ logo gets hijacked by a new vision, and the fans of that institution get abandoned by that new vision, then what you get is neo-DQ. Anybody who likes neo-DQ is a newcomer. Neo-DQ will talk about its past fan base, to paint the picture that the DQ brand can do no wrong. Neo-DQ fans can do little else but believe it, despite hearing that these same past DQ fans are offended and moving on to, I dunno, Baskin-Robbins.
Why Would DQ Jump the Sherbert?
The sherbert might appeal to a type of customer who spends money more freely, or who lives in a safer neighborhood where the neo-DQ locations won't get robbed at gunpoint so often. These are the kinds of reasons why a company will re-brand like I'm describing. From a business standpoint, reasons like this make perfect sense. It's hard to justify staying the course, if it results in employees being stabbed or shot, and, oh yeah, pathetic sales figures. In this case you're still violating the trust of millions and punishing their loyalty in a sense not unlike taking an investor's money and then completely changing the business model ... but from a logical standpoint, a move like this does have legs to stand on.
Another reason is not nearly so good. Imagine DQ has had a back-burner project all along to make sherbert products popular. They just think it would be cool, especially because sherbert is classier and more expensive and carries an air of snobbery. Then one day, the product purchasing people at DQ corporate are offered a long-term contract to buy sherbert at affordable prices. The new prices are so much lower than the old prices, it takes the sherbert plan off of the "forget it" shelf and into the "hmm, we could actually do this" pile.
Oh, but, one little problem - they have to buy so much sherbert to get this discount, that they can't afford to do business both with sherbert, and with ice cream. If they wanted to do both, they'd have to double up on serving machines, double up on employee training, double up the costs of shipping product to stores. They really have a choice: sell sherbert, or sell ice cream. They don't have the money to do both.
Faced with an amazing history of profits and decades of time-tested success with ice cream on one hand, and the shiny newness of their potential future of sherbert ... some dumb fucks actually go sherbert.
Dumb fucks like Square-Enix, Paramount, and the BBC.
Nuking Our Laurels
It's been speculated for decades that the stewards of the Star Trek brand are caught in an impossible situation. The speculation goes like this: the fan base knows the product too well, far better than even its own producers; plus, the fan base is not unified, so that passionate arguments and deal-breaking complaints are all over the spectrum. The speculation says that satisfying one group, will require doing things that will drive another group to burn down Paramount studios on Christmas Eve.
Take a look at the Star Trek movies that came out before the latest Kirk reboot: Generations, First Contact, Nemesis, and Analsuc... I mean Insurrection. The fan base was unified about one thing: Almost all of these movies were horrible, and not one of them was really great. We fans tend to decide which one we hate the least, and choose to love it because, goddamnit, we have to love something after Undiscovered Country, or we just aren't fans anymore.
At a glance, that would seem to confirm the speculation above, and gives Paramount every excuse to roll out a summer action flick that leaves the hardcore fans feeling like we've been raped. But in fact, what the entire string of Trek movies since the 90s represents, is that Star Trek is nuking its laurels.
"James T Kirk was a great man... but that was another writing staff!"
To me, the conversation between Kirk and Spock at the end of the new reboot movie describes what I'm talking about perfectly. I'm talking about the scene while the Romulan Nero was being swallowed into a black hole, and Kirk sent a message offering to rescue him, albeit so Nero could be brought to justice instead of simply killed. Allow me to paraphrase:
Spock: "Captain, what are you doing?" Kirk: "... offering help to a fallen enemy, Spock. You know, peaceful coexistence. I thought you'd like that." Spock: "Yeeeaahhh, but we keep failing to pull that off in a satisfactory way. Just shoot 'em." Kirk: "Fire all shootems!"
Back when Star Trek: The Next Generation was becoming popular and was still on the air, staff writer Jeri Taylor was promoted to co-Executive Producer status. In an interview, she said - again, I'm paraphrasing:
"We don't want to show you things that you could get from another show. If you can get it from another show, it's not a Star Trek story. That's because Star Trek is based in a world where anyone who's a tedious, small-minded asshole simply gets their grandparents deleted by time travelers. The paperwork for that really isn't as bad as you've heard."
The Rise of Neo-Star Trek
So how did we get from "there's normal fiction, and then there's Star Trek" ... to watching a little cartoon mouth on Spock's eyebrow hollering "fire all shootems?"
The answer: Paramount, finding itself unable to rest on their laurels correctly, decided to nuke those laurels instead. Rather than find, or re-hire, the writers and producers who speak to the fan base on the fan base's terms, Paramount went with the original definition of "what is a brand." That is, Paramount decided: "Star Trek is whatever the fuck we decide Star Trek is. Because we fucking pwn it."
Key ingredients of the formula have been replaced with something different. Neo-Star Trek has been born. The Ex-Generation of Star Trek fans are figuring out they like action movies with phasers, roughly as much as DQ fans would like a Peanut Buster Parfait made of sherbert. Paramount knew this would happen, but they've made the call. It's time to drizzle Enterprise-shaped, hard candy shells on something easier to sell.
This scenario lies somewhere in the middle between my two justifications above. Action flicks are cheaper to make, easier to make successfully, and therefore it's a little bit similar to the way sherbert would lift DQ out of the unprofitable ghetto. Also, some douche at Paramount had a personal, and misguided, and hopefully painful erection every time he thought about filling Star Trek with nothing but Industrial Light & Magic brand explosions, and leaped at the chance, past success be damned.
The Bottom Line for Today
In order for the real fans to like Star Trek, we're forced to dig deep into the past. In order to like current Star Trek, we're forced to apologize for ourselves in ways that basically say, "My tastes aren't good enough. I guess I'll like what everybody else likes, and thank goodness, Star Trek built me a bridge to nowhere just for that purpose."
Have some fucking self-respect.
There comes a point where carrying a darkened torch starts to look, feel, and be totally silly. The keepsake nuggets of nostalgia and, yes I dare say, superior ideals are good in and of themselves, but if you dive into your memory boxes and dust off your Everything I Ever Needed to Know About Life, I Learned From Star Trek memorabilia, you might just find that ye olde tyme Star Trek logo has been replaced with something that you don't recognize, and can't reconcile. The reality: the man-made media automaton of social progress we used to love, has been reprogrammed to betray us to the enemy camp.
Paramount, the property owners of Trek, have reclaimed control over their logo by peeling away the annoying social messages we loved. It's time for fans to decide what we really care about: the Star Trek logo, or the ideals of progress it used to champion? Because those two entities are now totally divorced.
We can learn a lot from Star Trek, but one thing we must learn is that ultimately, it was corrupted.
North Carolina Agricultural and Technical Institute wants to launch Starfleet Academy. This is apparently not a joke. According to the North Carolina state Representative who sponsored the bill, “the project could help spur science education by playing on the popular science fiction series’ brand.” On cursory investigation, I found the school already has a jet propulsion lab sponsored by the US Department of Defense (search this "energy and environment" related PDF from the school for the word “propulsion,” and you'll see the US DOD sponsorship on page 14.)
Again, it's only been a cursory web crawl, but it's easy to find, for example, filings of research white papers about advanced propulsion systems by the school.
Minimal fuel consumption of electric propulsion space vehicles for deep space exploration Reddy, B.B.R. Esterline, A.C. Homaifar, A. Dept. of Electr. & Comput. Eng., North Carolina A&T State Univ., Greenboro, NC;
The objective of this research is to find a near optimal control strategy of an electric propulsion space vehicle to consume minimal fuel while traversing between two points in space. Micro genetic algorithms (GA) with the concept of Elitism is used to determine this optimal control...
Hey readers! I recently used CommentLuv to completely enfuckify all the past comments on this site. Somehow, people were entering comments as me! So I removed the javascript that runs CommentLuv, and then guess what happened? IT REPLACED ALL COMMENT AUTHORS WITH ME! So, unfortunately it's going to look like I'm talking to myself, and everybody's links to their own sites have been lost. It sucks, and worst of all I have to write this huge header explaining :P
I sell freelance writing services. It's my whole income, and despite the content of this blog, I know when not to use foul, aggressive language and adult themes.
If you think of me when it's time to hire a writer, I'll research your topics, and obsess over everything from grammar and spelling, to cultural impact and brand/voice recognition.
In other words, I won't do to you, what I do in this blog :)
Anyway, you might like my writing services site. Oh, and, rest assured, this little box is by far not my idea of good salesmanship!
About Me!
Nathan Hawks
...is sorry about the incident with the superglue and your children. I was only trying to make a point.
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