Android's update model is broken. It's a good, powerful, customizable operating system, but there are way too many hands in the pot in determining whether or not you'll get an update. And even for critical vulnerabilities, the update process takes too long.
I bought a Note 5 in September 2015. Right about that time, Android 6, Marshmallow, came out. Marshmallow FINALLY made it from Google, to Samsung, to AT&T, to me in June of 2016, right in time for Android 7, Nougat, to come out. As best as I can tell, I will never see Nougat on the Note 5.
And Samsung phones are now explosive ordinance.
Whereas iPhones and Windows Phones get OS updates directly from Apple and Microsoft, respectively, Android is too complex and long, and even a fairly new "flagship" phone isn't always likely to get a new OS update.
Last week, my job sent me to a Security + class. I now have to study and take the test for the certification.
The instructor reminded me of the Golden Rule of Security: I will not spend more (money/effort) to protect the asset than the asset is worth.
When you're dealing with an enterprise network, you may need advanced encryption and security features. But you also have (hopefully) enough properly trained and qualified employees to carry it out. You can also configure your workstation images so most of it is an abstract to your users. They don't have to think about it.
A home network is a different story. I'm an IT and cyber security professional, but my wife and children are not. I also don't have the resources and budget or an enterprise network. But the majority of my equipment and data don't require that budget or resources either.
I once locked a home network down too hard. While still married to my ex-wife, "somebody" was getting into my accounts and sending nasty messages from my accounts to hers. Taking everything at face value, I overreacted and locked everything down. I set an overly complex password to access the wireless router. I changed several passwords to a much more complex schema.
And of course, it only worked for me. At the time, I was a geographical bachelor living and working in Virginia while my family stayed in New Jersey. The job market up there sucked, so I went where I could get a decent enough job. So while I was away, for some reason, other devices couldn't access the network. They'd have to wait for me to come home every other weekend. I think my ex's parents just bought a new router and set it up.
During all of this, my ex received another message from my gmail account, signed with "Sent from my iPhone". When I have an iPhone, I never leave that line in the signature.
I consulted with several cyber professionals, and the best they could come to was that it was an inside job. I realized that my ex knew my common passwords and PINs. I changed them, and the next time I went "home", I took every possible device she could access and use out of the house.
The "hacking" stopped. I can't prove it, but it does seem like an inside job. I still don't completely understand why, but I have several theories. All I can say is, once a woman turns on you, there is no going back.
So, I've learned to apply an appropriate level of security to my network. I lock it down as best I can, but not so hard my family can't use it. My wife, at times, can't tell the difference between her Yahoo!, Google, Microsoft, and iCloud accounts. I have to accept that and account for it. I also can't expect my children to understand MAC address filtering.
One neat thing I learned in the class, for those of you fluent in the OSI model, is Layer 8. Layer 8 is the user or PEBKAC layer. And you have to account for it. Some people are completely ignorant of technology, and are proud of it. They refuse to learn. They're proud to still have "flip" phones. They don't know the difference between Windows XP, Vista, 7, 8, or 10. And they don't care. They install Weatherbug and every stupid toolbar that asks to be installed. And people like us have to clean it up when they complain their computers stop working.
A friend of mine used to have his network locked down as hard as possible for a home network. He didn't broadcast his SSID and had to manually approve every MAC address. He finally realized that when you lock it down too hard, people start wondering what exactly you're protecting. Then, having become curious, they'll try to break in. He relaxed his posture somewhat.
Yesterday, Return of Kings writer Donovan Sharpe posted A Redpill Perspective on the Existence of God. While the article is decent, he brings up the usual points about how the behavior of Christians turns people off from Christianity. I've known several of these people, and I guess when I was younger, I too refused to give any consideration to Christianity based on the actions and behaviors of Christians.
Even today, as a Christian myself, I am sometimes appalled, turned off, disgusted, ashamed, and many other negative emotions by the ways other Christians act and talk. When I was going through my divorce back in 2013, evangelical Christians were my LEAST favorite people to talk to. I eventually gave up mentioning it around them, except for some really close Christian brothers and friends who knew me for a long time and were familiar with my situation. I eventually got a little sarcastic and almost abusive in my responses to the others.
"You need to FIGHT for your marriage!" - Oh, where were you 5 years ago, you would have made all the difference.
"Have you considered praying?" After realizing that telling them I'd been praying and fasting for years over it had no effect (because obviously, if I had been praying, the divorce never would have happened), I eventually started responding "No shit! I never even thought of that!"
Then there was the inevitable advice about the various legal strategies I should follow, especially regarding custody. Most of it would have required tens of thousands of dollars as well as being able to work from home 100% of the time. I finally just started asking them "How much money are you willing to contribute?" They'd shut up and walk away at that point.
I'm sure they all meant well, but this is exactly the kind of thing Sharpe mentions in his ROK article. You mom dies. And the Christians around you all say "I guess she's in a better place now! It's God's will!" And all this does is piss you off. How do they NOT know this? Are they trying to piss you off?
Christians who have not faced trial, adversity, and loss are pretty much useless to you. Avoid them.
Back to my original question, should you base your entire opinion and acceptance of Christianity on the behavior of 21st century American Churchians?
No.
Let's use one of my favorite examples: Agile. If you work in or around IT, you've probably heard of Agile. The very word makes me cringe.
Agile Software Development is a set of software development methods in which requirements and solutions evolve through collaboration between self-organizing,[1]cross-functional teams. It promotes adaptive planning, evolutionary development, early delivery, continuous improvement, and encourages rapid and flexible response to change.
If only. Based only on my own experience, Agile is a meaningless buzzword that, depending on context, can mean:
1) No planning
2) No documentation
3) Whatever the speaker wants it to mean at the time.
Two jobs ago, I was a Systems Engineering manager. I was in a meeting with my engineers and people from the Applications group. Our job was to build the server VMs, the network infrastructure, and allocate space on the Enterprise SQL cluster to host the program and associated database they were building.
I asked them what specs we should build the servers to for the development phase. The answer I got back was "We don't know. We're using Agile to build the program."
I replied "You still have to have an idea of what you're building toward. We can't just start with a quarter core of a processor and 2MB RAM and build from there. What target are we shooting at? We can always scale later, but we need to know where to start with the infrastructure."
I finally told my engineers to just use the specs from the last project. These guys were so damned intent on using "Agile" that we couldn't get an answer out of them.
Based only on my experience with Agile, I should reject it and consider all Agile adherents to be insane and/or stupid.
Or, I can go back to my education, I can read about Agile, I can research Agile related projects that were successful, and I can practice Agile the way it was intended in those cases where it is the appropriate tool to use.
Similar to Christianity. You can reject it based solely on those Christians you encounter, or you can:
1) Read the original documents (The Bible), the Didache, etc,
2) Study the early adherents - the 12 Apostles, the early fathers, Martin Luther, etc
3) Study this history of the Church (in 2000 years, it's been through many phases, trials, and parts of the world. Did you know there was a Bishop in China in the 9th century? Probably not, because you don't know shit about church history)
Then you can accept or reject it from an actual, informed perspective.
After Thanksgiving dinner, my mother in law pointed out to me how everybody (but one) on their street changed their porch lights to green during Veteran's Day to "support veterans". I smiled, nodded, and said "that's nice". I knew it wasn't the place to say what I was actually thinking, which is "I'm a veteran. What the hell does a green porchlight do for me? What if I were a homeless veteran? Or suffering from PTSD? And/or suicidal? What the HELL does a street full of green porch lights do to help me?"
I never would have done that, and I"m certain my mother in law won't find my blog.
Slacktivism is doing something utterly pointless, and believing it will actually make some changes in the world or support somebody else, while the only thing it does is make the person doing it feel better. I tried to explain this to my wife on our way out. I've long since made my distaste for those stupid "like and share if you agree" Facebook posts. It does nothing, and even if I do agree, I refuse to click "like" or share them.
About two weeks ago, the "National Policy Institute" held its annual conference in Washington, D.C. They apparently do every year. They're led by a man named Richard Spencer. I know little about him and the NPI, except that Matt Forney attended the last two or three years and wrote about it. I've never met Matt Forney. I've read and reviewed some of his work, and he's sent me blog traffic. I survived his Facebook friend purge, and interacted with him online. I believe Matt and I would get along great and look forward to someday meeting him and having a couple of beers. I consider him a friend and like-minded ally. I greatly respect his work as an author and independent journalist and I have supported him through buying his books and a PayPal donation to cover the primaries and conventions. If you value honest, independent journalism, I recommend you do too, unless you're happy with a media that is nothing more than an arm of a Democratic campaign.
Recently, our God Emporer (yes, that is facetious, but I like it), Donald Trump, met with the New York Times (a disastrous, failing institution) for both an off the record, and on the record meeting.
Of course, the NYT had to bring up the NPI conference, during which some participants, including Spencer, exchanged "Roman Salutes" and said something like "hail" (a play on the National Socialist German Worker's Party) "Sieg Heil!" NOTE: The National Socialist German Worker's Party did not refer to themselves as Nazi's. That was a western press invention. They were the NSDAP (German translation of the acronym for National Socialist German Worker's Party).
This is apparently the video they were referring to, although there are several breaks in it, so I don't know what was edited out:
Although the NSDAP did use the raised arm as a salute, so did the Romans 1900 years prior. And they were saying "Hail, Trump", not "Seig Heil!"
In any case, I'm sure ANYBODY with an understanding of context or humor would be able to conclude that NOBODY AT THE NPI WAS PLEDGING ALLEGIANCE TO NAZISM. Either the press really is that stupid, or it plays into their hands. It's hard to figure out. After having listened to them long enough, I think they really are that stupid.
And, related to the NPI conference, was this snippet:
UNKNOWN: Mr. President-elect, I wanted to ask you, there was a conference this past weekend in Washington of people who pledged their allegiance to Nazism.
TRUMP: Boy, you are really into this stuff, huh?
PRIEBUS: I think we answered that one right off the bat.
UNKNOWN: Are you going to condemn them?
TRUMP: Of course I did, of course I did.
PRIEBUS: He already did.
UNKNOWN: Are you going to do it right now?
TRUMP: Oh, I see, maybe you weren’t here. Sure. Would you like me to do it here? I’ll do it here. Of course I condemn. I disavow and condemn.
Why are these liberals so obsessed with Nazism? And racism?
The funny thing is, it's only Trump who is asked to disavow. When were either of the Clintons asked to disavow Jeffrey Epstien, owner of a private jet to Pedophile Island? When were either of the Clintons, or even The Obammesiah, asked to disavow the late Senator Robert K. Byrd of West Virgina, a real-life former KKK recruiter? NEVER. It only works one way.
This is the problem with right-wing political movements. The press manages to get a wedge in there to drive them apart.
What a beautiful piece of propaganda! It immediately starts with a white man shouting “Hail” to the new President of the United States, whom the media viscerally hates, while a small minority of attendees exuberantly throw up the Roman salute. Even if you are a conservative, you have been programmed to feel revulsion at this display of “Nazism” and immediately condemn it because of its racism. Not long after, the media forced Donald Trump’s hand and he did disavow Spencer. One viral video, one mission accomplished.
Many men I follow did disavow it, starting with Mike Cernovich, who stated that because of what Spencer did at the conference, he was controlled opposition (i.e. an agent of the FBI, Democratic party, or media). Paul Joseph Watson and Stefan Molyneux supported Mike’s decision. First, I must state that I greatly respect Mike as a journalist, narrative “hacker,” and book author. If he is attacked at any point by the establishment, I hope he knows that I have his back. In this case, however, I think he rushed to judgement. In order to separate himself from Spencer and signal against him on Twitter, we allowed the media to put up an easy win on their scoreboard. At the end of the day, the optics of the situation was that those who were previously considered alt right aided the media in forcing Trump’s hand at disavowing an alt right figure.
Let’s imagine a different scenario. When the viral video came out, instead of attack Spencer, we attacked The Atlantic for taking scenes from the conference out of context. We forced them to reveal the truth of attendees being assaulted by violent liberal thugs. We disseminated the truth of the conference far and wide. And most importantly, we defended the right of attendees to put up whatever salute they want as part of their free speech at a private event, even if we find it abhorrent. If we did all this with the same vigor that we attacked the media when helping Trump get elected, what would the result have been? We would have put them on the defense and possibly prevented Trump’s disavowal and damage to all alternative spheres. At the very least, the media would not have gotten an unequivocal win.
Instead, we have given up our own ability to do a Roman salute, even as a joke. The media can now tear down anyone who does it and anything similar, because we did not attack them when they used it to distort Spencer’s conference. In other words, we have voluntarily constricted our behavior, all to marginalize Spencer, a man who is on the leading edge of free speech. If Spencer “got away” with these Roman salutes, they wouldn’t be able to attack us for anything.No rape joke, fat joke, or meme would be extreme compared to it. Our free speech would have expanded if we helped Spencer, but that opportunity is lost. We now get to wait for an energized media to attack us, and it most certainly will be for less than a Roman salute. We gave up ground for no gain to ourselves.
It’s also unfortunate that we are still stuck in the establishment frame of defending ourselves as not being racist. Paul Joseph Watson’s latest video can in fact be summarized as “Democrats are the real racists,” a failed Republican strategy that has not converted even one black man to the party. By attacking Spencer, we are announcing to the world that we are scared of being called a Nazi and racist.
Roosh also points out:
The proper response when the fake news tells you you’re a Nazi is to say “Fuck you.” The proper response to when they call you a racist is “So what?” The proper response when they call you a rapist is to say, “I certainly wouldn’t rape you.” The only way we can take away the power from these terms is to not immediately deny you are one. If a crazy old bag lady approaches you on the subway and loudly says you are a murderer, would you take the time to deny it? No, you would laugh and say, “Get out of my way, you crazy bitch.” This is how we must react when the media confronts us, because if you don’t have a fear of being called a Nazi, racist, or rapist, the power of the media establishment will quickly diminish.
That doesn’t mean that Spencer did not commit an unforced error. We have to agree that Spencer’s decision to let in the media and frame the conference any way they saw fit was a considerable mistake, but not one I will eternally hold against him. He is not an establishment talking head that has been “groomed” to be good with the media, and his first major interview was less than a month ago. I was a media newbie too. I got shellacked when I went on Dr. Oz and got embarrassed by the Daily Mail when they showed up to my parents house until I finally understood the game and humiliated the media myself in a press conference. I’m sure I will make a mistake in the future, since I am not a media professional who does interviews every month, and I hope my allies don’t disavow me because of it.
Roosh knows better than anyone what it feels like to be under media assault. I have never seen anyone attacked so viciously in the media, and to make it worse, with so little cause. And he's right to say that we should not disavow anyone under media pressure, because that is nothing more than their usual game of divide-and-conquer.
Anyhow, it is good to see that Roosh is a man of integrity. It has been fascinating to see him evolve from petty pick-up artist to an increasingly impressive philosopher.
That being said, I don't believe there is a genuine schism, because the Alt-Lite has never been, and will never be, the Alt-Right proper. It is, rather, a large pool of newly awakened conservatives and liberals who are only beginning to shed the lies of the propaganda in which they have been steeped for their entire lives. Also, it is neither disavowing nor attacking someone to criticize a specific action they have taken. I've been criticized by my social media allies before, and while it wasn't public, it was certainly every bit as direct as most of the criticism that has been directed at Spencer. The criticism was justified, I appreciated the criticism, and most importantly, I learned from it and adapted my behavior according to their advice.
Perhaps the most impressive thing about the Alt-Lite to Alt-White spectrum has been the ability of the various parties to bury the hatchet and avoid the virulent divisions that the media, and occasionally, some of the followers, would like to see. Everyone is excited about the ascension of the God-Emperor Trump, so it should not be surprising that a few of us managed to go a little overboard, after all, we have had far too political successes to celebrate for most of our lives. But the tide is turning, so it is time to learn how to discipline ourselves and be prepared for the larger-scale challenges to come.
The forces that have produced the Alt-Right are still at work across the West. They are growing stronger, the stresses on the unity of the international elites are growing, as are the explosive pressures on the popular unity of the various nation-states. What many find unnecessary, impossible, or even unthinkable, will come to be seen as the only possible route forward before long. And when they do, it will fall to those of us who have seen the patterns and trends evolve to do what we can to ensure that there are powerful voices of reason to be heard amidst the madness. I expect Mike, Paul Joseph, and Stefan to continue to ascend to the top too, but not due to any avoidance of a nonexistent taint of a long-dead German political philosophy, but for the reason that is written on the bottom of this blog every day. The times are changing. The rules are changing. The game is changing.
SUCCESS COMES MOST SWIFTLY AND COMPLETELY NOT TO THE GREATEST OR PERHAPS EVEN TO THE ABLEST MEN, BUT TO THOSE WHOSE GIFTS ARE MOST COMPLETELY IN HARMONY WITH THE TASTE OF THEIR TIMES.
I will participate in the refusal to disavow. I don't know Richard Spencer. I know little about him. Apparently, he coined the term "alt-right', which Vox Day and other clarified.
I have been searching for a "political home" for a while. I grew up as the son of a U.S. Air Force veteran, largely during the Reagan years. Of course, it was almost certain I would be a Republican. I PROUDLY voted for George W. Bush in 2000. I GRUDGINGLY voted for him in 2004. By 2008, I was no longer a Republican. I even emailed the GOP to tell them to subtract 1 from whatever number they used to calculate their support base. (I never actually joined the party). I wrote Ron Paul on the ballot in 2008, and abstained in 2012 because I figured whether Romney or The Obamessiah won, I lost. Plus, I was still registered to vote in the People's Republic of New Jersey, but lived and worked in Virginia, and it just wasn't worth taking a day off to drive all the fucking way up there to vote for either of those communist globalists
As Vox Day and John Red Eagle so well documented in "Cuckservative", most "Conservatives" would rather lose than be labeled a "racist". And that is not good enough. The "liberal" or "mainstream" media is going to call you a racist or neo-nazi as long as you don't fall in line with their Narrative, whatever it happens to be that day. And the proper response is not to back away, but as Roosh says, to respond "Fuck you!" Or as Vox Day said in an interview I'm too lazy to find, "If they call you a racist, you call them a pedophile." Because this fucking media would rather cover up for pedophiles than actually report what is going on in this world.
I grew up in the Air Force. I was born in Spain, on Torrejon Air Force Base. In 1980, we moved to Germany. My dad was stationed at Ramstein Air Base, which was mixed. My entire developing life, all of my friends were from all races: black, Chinese, Korean, or whatever else. I also served in the United States Navy, where again, I served and lived with people from all kinds of backgrounds and races. I have never understood racism, because I grew up and lived in a mixed environment. And I refuse to be called a racist by mother fuckers who live in gated white communities. That includes our current lame duck President, The Obammesiah, or his former pastor, the "Reverend" Jeremiah White. And all the assholes and Jews who live in the Upper East side of Manhattan and work in the "liberal" media.
I concur with Roosh: Fuck you! The media is so obsessed with racism. As Vox Day so well documented in "SJWs ALWAYS Lie":
When the "liberal" media accuses anybody outside of The Narrative of ANYTHING, they are
1) Lying
2) Doubling down
and
3) Projecting
And considering how the young are rebelling against The Narrative, and how the "liberal" media is so fucking obsessed with comparisons of Trump and Hitler, let's just imagine a young one reading all this crap and coming to this conclusion:
Our society has a lot of obsession about alien life. In our movies and TV shows, there are only a couple of outcomes:
1) The aliens are much more evolved and peaceful than we are. They come in with advanced health care and technology, and use it to benefit us and make us better. They share their star travel with us, and let us explore the universe.
2) The aliens are only interested in enslaving us, or eliminating us and taking our planet (V, Independence Day).
Occasionally, another type of story will slip through, such as Defiance, where the enemies are mostly peaceful, and while our planet didn't have civilized life thousands of years ago when they began their journey, they try for the most part to live alongside us in a post-apocalyptic society. Or in Contact, where Jodi Foster is given blueprints for some weird capsule that allows her to go to a space beach and meet with an alien in the form of her father.
Earlier this year, Anonymous Conservative applied his r/K theory, or "The Evolutionary Psychology Behind Politics", to the concept of alien life.
While Stephen Hawking has the right idea, the lady in that article holds the popular rabbit belief that alien life will be beneficial to humanity. Hawking believes we should go to the stars because this planet can't sustain us for 1000 years. This in itself is not scientific. Maddox provides a helpful review for us on the Scientific Method:
Maddox gets a little snarky, and I don't agree with ALL of his conclusions, but he is right on the basic method.
Hawking's claim isn't scientific because you can't create a test controlling for all the variables. At one point in the past, when wood was the only fuel available to heat homes, Europe was going to run out of trees. Then coal was used. Then the world was going to run out of coal. Then they found whale oil. Then we were going to run out of whales. Then oil was found beneath the Earth's surface. Then we were going to run out of oil, but we keep finding more and more of it. Hell, in my 6th grade Science textbook (1986), I clearly remember a paragraph that predicted the world would be completely out of both coal and oil by the year 2000. I'm still waiting, science book.
Hawking can't control for population variables such as disease, war, or turning the surface of the planet into a giant city like Coruscant in Star Wars. While he may be a brilliant physicist, his apocalyptic predictions are on par with his philosophy: unqualified and out of the scope of his abilities.
Michael Crighton addressed this kind of thinking in a speech he gave at Caltech called "Aliens Cause Global Warming." An excerpt:
In 1993, the EPA announced that second-hand smoke was "responsible for approximately 3,000 lung cancer deaths each year in nonsmoking adults," and that it " impairs the respiratory health of hundreds of thousands of people." In a 1994 pamphlet the EPA said that the eleven studies it based its decision on were not by themselves conclusive, and that they collectively assigned second-hand smoke a risk factor of 1.19. (For reference, a risk factor below 3.0 is too small for action by the EPA. or for publication in the New England Journal of Medicine, for example.)
Furthermore, since there was no statistical association at the 95% confidence limits, the EPA lowered the limit to 90%. They then classified second-hand smoke as a Group-A Carcinogen.
This was openly fraudulent science, but it formed the basis for bans on smoking in restaurants, offices, and airports. California banned public smoking in 1995. Soon, no claim was too extreme. By 1998, the Christian Science Monitor was saying that "Second-hand smoke is the nation's third-leading preventable cause of death." The American Cancer Society announced that 53,000 people died each year of second-hand smoke. The evidence for this claim is nonexistent.
In 1998, a Federal judge held that the EPA had acted improperly, had "committed to a conclusion before research had begun", and had "disregarded information and made findings on selective information."
The reaction of Carol Browner, head of the EPA was: "We stand by our science; there's wide agreement. The American people certainly recognize that exposure to second hand smoke brings a whole host of health problems."
Again, note how the claim of consensus trumps science. In this case, it isn't even a consensus of scientists that Browner evokes! It's the consensus of the American people.
Meanwhile, ever-larger studies failed to confirm any association. A large, seven-country WHO study in 1998 found no association. Nor have well-controlled subsequent studies, to my knowledge. Yet we now read, for example, that second-hand smoke is a cause of breast cancer. At this point you can say pretty much anything you want about second-hand smoke.
As with nuclear winter, bad science is used to promote what most people would consider good policy. I certainly think it is. I don't want people smoking around me. So who will speak out against banning second-hand smoke? Nobody, and if you do, you'll be branded a shill of RJ Reynolds. A big tobacco flunky. But the truth is that we now have a social policy supported by the grossest of superstitions.
Essentially, Crighton suggests that the same flawed science behind alien life is also behind "Global Warning", or "Climate Change", or whatever the hell they're calling it this week. It was "Global Cooling" in the 70's. If AlGore and DiCaprio and other celebrities actually believe this, they should give up their private jets and mansions, move into an efficiency studio, and attend all their circle jerk meetings through Skype or Google hangouts.
Back in February, I was a guest on a program called "Navigating Netflix" to discuss "The Hunger Games". It was based on a post I wrote in 2013. Over Memorial Day weekend that year, I read all three books. By the time of the interview, I'd seen three of the movies. I watched the final movie last week.
Navigating Netflix is a production that came out of the Tragedy and Hope community to discuss the themes behind movies relevant to conservatives, libertarians, and now, the alt-right. I actually mentioned "alt-right" in the interview. I didn't realize I was aware of it at that point.
The fourth movie made me glad they took the time to tell the story right. If they'd tried to cram all three books into a two hour movie, it would have sucked.
I'm glad to see, rewatching this, that my email dings weren't too apparent. I'd commented on one of Vox Day's blog posts that day, and was getting a constant stream of emails from other people commenting. Next time, I'll remember to set "Do Not Disturb".
Windows Phones don't come out of the box with the latest software. After setting up two Lumia 550s, (one for me and one for my stepson), I have the process you should follow down. I hit a few roadblocks and spent hours watching update status sit at 0%.
Here is a process I found after some trial, error, and Google.
First, take the phone out of the box and turn it on. Log in with your Microsoft account, or create one if you don't have one.
Next, launch the Store app. Go into Downloads and Updates. Pause everything BUT the Store update.
Once the Store app updates, reboot the phone. Now, relaunch Store and download the rest of the application updates.
Reboot again to be safe (this is Windows we're talking about).
Now you can go into settings and check for a System Update.
Let that install. Reboot.
Now, you can start using the phone.
Don't know why, but this is the process that works. Unlike iOS, you're not going to get a Windows Phone out of the box with even the newest update to the Store.
But that's not bad news. Victor Pride was a persona for a man named "Nick Kelly". I guess after the release of his book "New World Ronin", he decided to kill the persona he'd been writing under.
He apparently made enough money as "Victor Pride" to never have to worry about money again. That must be a wonderful feeling. I actually started a blog under their BADNet offer, but I've put so much into this one that I'm not sure what to do with it. At least I finally got a website under my own name locked in.
I first came across Victor Pride through Aaron Cleary. Cleary wrote a post about "30 Days of Discipline". I bought the book and read it and tried to implement it. I didn't have 100% success, but as a veteran, I found it inspirational and it helped me reconnect with the discipline I learned in the Navy. At one point, I was up to 100 push ups, 100 sit ups, and 100 squats a day. I've been working my way back after slacking for a while. I hate doing pushups and situps, but pushups pretty much are the perfect exercise as they hit your entire core.
There has been a resurgence of masculinity over the last several years. After decades of "feminism", many of us, even conservatives, were brainwashed by it without realizing it. A group of men started on the Internet with the intention of getting laid, and somehow matured past that point into politics and philosophy. Their work has probably laid a foundation for the future of western men. Vic Pride was part of that.
I'm looking forward to what Nick Kelly will do under his own name.
In early 2014, I bought a Lumia 920. It was a really good phone. It came with Windows Phone 8, and I upgraded it to Windows Phone 8.1 when that became available. Even by the end of the year, the phone never slowed down. Sure, it was Windows, so it crashes and has to reboot occasionally, but it worked well.
As I've written on this blog during that time, the biggest problem is the app support. Sure, you can get Evernote and Waze. There is a Kindle app, but it STILL SUCKS. You can't highlight or make notes. To me, that's a deal breaker. I'm a heavy Kindle user.
Recently, I read about a really cheap, consumer grade phone Microsoft started selling right before killing off the Lumia line: the Lumia 550. The specs are sparse: 1GB RAM, 8GB storage, 5MP camera. But it will take up to a 200GB uSD card. It was selling for around $150 initially, then Microsoft marked it down to $99. One day, on a Windows blog I follow, I saw a special for $69. Then I got an email from my wife that her son's iPhone 5s fell out of his pocket while riding his bike and got run over by a car before he could retrieve it.
For $69, I ordered 2 of them, since my stepson needed a replacement. I'm a tech guy, and I like to have experience with the different platforms so I know what I'm talking about. At one point in my 12 years of blogging, I'd hoped to gain enough notoriety to start getting tech review units shipped to me. Alas, that never happened. But in 12 years, I've never been able to keep up with the blog or a theme consistently. Seems like every time I start to average 100 views per post, I run out of ideas and stop writing for a few months.
Factoring into my decision to buy the Lumia 550 was a problem with my Note 5: the battery life tanked. If I were away from a charger for more than about 2 hours, it would be completely dead. I finally got a warranty replacement, but if it happens again I'm out of luck, so having a cheap replacement around could be useful. I haven't switched my SIM card over to the 550 yet, so I keep it in my office and play around with it.
Even with cheap and limited hardware, the 550 with Windows 10 is fast. I've had several apps open while using it, and haven't experienced a slowdown or crash.
Most apps will install to the SD card, but some are written to only work in main memory. At this point, I have about 3GB left in main memory, so if I made this a daily driver, I'd have to start watching it.
I've thought about going back to a Windows Phone next time I switch. This gave me a cheap way to keep up with the platform.
One drawback is that although iOS and Android both have "switch to" apps, no such thing exists for Windows. You can't get your text messages switched over, although any settings tied to Outlook.com, Google, iCloud, Yahoo!, etc will sync once you log into your account. And unlike Windows Phone 8.1, Google Calendar will sync to Windows 10.
I came across an article on Lew Rockwell's site from Doug Casey. Casey attended some globalist conference recently. He didn't want to give the name, but a quick Google search turned up Concordia, which took place in New York Shitty on September 19 and 20 this year.
Casey reports Warren Buffet and George Soros (comparable in both evil and appearance to the Galactic Emporer in Star Wars). I've learned from other research that Soros' original last name is Schwartz. His dad changed the name. Soros is some Esperanto word. Esperanto is a phony language invented in the 19th century. I consider it entirely pretentious, as I do Pig Latin. Apparently, in William Shatner's early career, he starred in a movie shot entirely in this idiotic language.
Casey's report is pretty much what you'd expect from these self-appointed saviors of the world.
The program opened with Warren Buffett’s talk about how he didn’t need $50 billion, didn’t believe anybody else did either, and why he was a “philanthropist” who would give it all away. The avuncular Buffett is an investment genius; I enjoyed and agreed with everything he said on investing. But, like his friend Bill Gates, he’s also an autistic idiot savant. That’s someone who is a genius at one thing, and a fool at most everything else.
Most people assume that if you know about investing, you must also know about economics, which is a related discipline. But that’s completely untrue. It’s analogous to thinking that someone who knows how to drive a car also knows how one works. Economics is the study of how men go about producing and consuming; investing is the practice of allocating capital for maximum returns. Buffett’s grasp of economics is shallow, conventional, and unrelated to his success as an investor.
I concur with his summary of Buffet. I've been hearing about Buffet's giving pledge for years. If he was going to give all his wealth away, why is he still worth $50 billion? Just get it over with, Warren. Or follow Casey's advice to continue to invest it, because capital creates wealth, and unlike economics, history, or almost any topic, you actually KNOW investing.
Soros' (Schwartz's) talk was more of the same. Moar migrants to Europe. Moar wealth transfers to Africa, which will end up in the Swiss bank accounts of corrupt government officials.
Much worse was George Soros. He spent his time not just passively endorsing (like Buffett), but actively promoting disastrous policies. In essence, these were his major points. 1) Brexit should be overturned, regardless of the vote. 2) The EU should spend at least $200 billion a year (in addition to what individual countries spend) both to make migrants welcome, and to install a Marshall Plan for Africa. 3) All of Europe should import migrants at least proportionally to the 1mm entering Germany. He recognized that the migrants represent an “existential crisis” for Europe, but believes the solution is to accommodate them. 4) The EU should actively arm against Russia. 5) The EU in Brussels should be granted the right to tax.
As I listened to him I felt I’d been transported to Bizzarro World, or perhaps some magic land from Gulliver’s Travels, where everything is upside down, wrong is right, and black is white.
Just as much of Soros’ presentation was on migration, so was much of the rest of the conference. It’s very much on the minds of the “elite”.
These people are the truly self-appointed saviors or the world. I love how they're so good at spending OPM (Other People's Money). Be the change you want to see in the world, George. Oh, wait, you're financing riots. I guess you are. Asshole.
Many of us consider Trump's election a victory against self-appointed globalist elites. I don't think so. It's a temporary thing. They'll continue on their course of trying to subvert nations and mold the world into their own playground, in accordance with the Georgia Guidestones.
