A war on nerds? Could be.

Fixing your shit for you, because you Normies can't read the manual.

I've noticed, over the years, that everybody likes to push the nerds around. We're "weirdos." We act "funny."

Yeah, we do. Because our fucking brains work different than the Normie brain. Usually, better in most respects. We actually know how to program the VCR. That absent-minded dork you're making fun of? He's doing calculus in his head, trying to figure out how to make your friggin' iPhone work better.

But we can be annoyingly dense in social situations. Its true. We actually annoy each other.

Normies like to pretend that our failings are some kind of choice to misbehave, a moral failing, the result of Mommy Issues or some other need to be nonconformist square pegs in a world of round holes. But that is not the case, my friends. The difference is literally bone deep. We have different DNA than you Normies. We're built to be this way from the ground up.

What's that like? Its like being a Ferrari Dino, living in a world made for Volkswagen Beetles. Everything moves too slow, the speed limit is too low, all the other cars are sluggish and they get in the way. The best part of life is when you find a piece of open road. Then you can put your boot down and hear that engine roar like the raging beast that it is, eating up the miles and leaving the little piss-can Beetles in the dust.

Beetles don't like that. They gang up and trap you in traffic. That's what its like. Thanks, Normies. You pricks.

So how far would the Normies go to be rid of the annoying Nerds?

Two fairly scary news items tell the tale when you put them together.

First, a very large scale DNA survey study claims to have found genetic markers unique to ADHD.

Geneticist Ditte Demontis and her colleagues used data from more than 20,000 people with ADHD, comparing them to a control group of 35,000 people without an ADHD diagnosis. They found 304 points where tiny differences in DNA—like single letter swaps—were distributed across their two groups in a statistically telling way. If any of those variants were very close together, the researchers counted them as representing the same stretch of DNA, grouping them together into 12 important regions.

The authors of the study emphasize that there is no "gene for ADHD," but they have found that in their study population genes common in ADHD were also common in other disorders, like Autism and Schizophrenia.

Which sounds about right. People with Aspergers or more pronounced Autism often are also diagnosed with ADHD. Twenty or thirty more years of research in that direction, they may be able to isolate all or most of the markers for a wide range of behavioral neurology.

Nerds will be instantly identifiable with a cheek swab. How do you like that?

Second, the Chinese have been gene-editing humans. Link to Nature article here.

They finally hatched two that lived.

A Chinese researcher claims that he helped make the world's first genetically edited babies — twin girls born this month whose DNA he said he altered with a powerful new tool capable of rewriting the very blueprint of life.
If true, it would be a profound leap of science and ethics.
A U.S. scientist said he took part in the work in China, but this kind of gene editing is banned in the United States because the DNA changes can pass to future generations and it risks harming other genes.

Taken with a grain of salt, this claim is a bit questionable. Nobody really knows if they actually managed it. But the thing is, they clearly want to, and eventually they will manage to gene-edit human beings and bring them to term.

Therefore China will be the first country to discover just how bad an idea it is to meddle with the Human genome. If they really did bring two baby girls to term, my prayers go out to those two babies. I really hope that the eggheads didn't frig something up. But they probably did, and nobody will ever know exactly what.

Well, so what, Phantom? What's that got to do with nerds?

If you can identify nerds with a simple test, and you can modify DNA at will, how long before nations (or companies!) start demanding citizens weed undesirable nerd traits out of their offspring? 

Particularly tech companies. They've shown a fine disregard for privacy and basic human rights, and they really don't like depending on guys like James Damore to create their products.

Damore is a great example. He's a huge Nerd. He's famous for being the guy who put his foot wrong in a typically Nerd way, by pointing out the elephant in the room at Google. They need his Ferrari 500hp brain to solve their problems, but they can't stand the way he doesn't know to shut up like any Normie would. He uses his brain to discover Truth in places where they don't want him to. But they NEED him, because they are all just fucking Volkswagens where it counts.

(And you better believe that every Nerd in Silicon Valley was watching that whole thing. If there's one thing nerds all know, its bullies. Like nerds everywhere they made plans to deal with it. Are you watching Google and Facebook stock prices tank? That's what happens when you piss off the Nerds. They are subtle and quick to anger.)

Wouldn't it be nice if the authorities could chop and channel that nerd-brain into something a little more Normie and a little less annoying and loose-cannon? Wouldn't China, and probably Google, love the chance to -make- people get their children edited?

After the uprising of the 17th of June
The Secretary of the Writers' Union
Had leaflets distributed in the Stalinallee
Stating that the people
Had forfeited the confidence of the government
And could win it back only
By redoubled efforts. Would it not be easier
In that case for the government
To dissolve the people
And elect another?

We could actually live to see that. And the terrifying Revenge of the Nerds that inevitably followed. It would be legendary.

Dear Normal People: please realize that the last guy on Earth you want to toy with is the guy that designed everything that keeps you alive. There's no more dangerous creature than an engineer with a grudge. So cut us weirdos some social slack and get the fuck out of the way. We've got stuff to do.

The Phantom

Update! In case some of you think I was a little harsh lumping Google in with the Chicom government as a force of diabolical oppression in the world, guess what? You're wrong. I was not harsh enough:

https://dailycaller.com/2018/11/28/google-employees-chinese-surveillance-tech/

Google employees unhappy with the project, which would extend China’s surveillance state by creating an application that would further censor Chinese search engines, renewed their protest in a new letter published Tuesday by Medium, which has about 435 signatures.
 “Dragonfly would also enable censorship and government-directed disinformation, and destabilize the ground truth on which popular deliberation and dissent rely,” the open letter reads.
The signatures on both letters objecting to Project Dragonfly reveal a growing internal concern among employees who do not wish to be part of a company that allows governments to censor its citizens and enable a surveillance state.

However, around twice as many employees signed a letter in April opposing Google’s involvement in a Pentagon program, Project Maven, that aimed to improve drone analysis to better identify civilians, thus reducing the amount of accidental civilian casualties.
This opposition letter was signed by between 3,100 and 4,000 employees between April and June and included dozens of senior engineers, according to another Times report.
Thousands of Google employees addressed their letter to Sundar Pichai, the company’s chief executive officer, asking that Project Maven be canceled.

 Now, I don't know about y'all, but in my school days 4,000 is more than twice as many signatures than 435. 4,000 is an order of magnitude larger than 435.

An order of magnitude more Google employees object to working for the United States government than object to working for the Communist Chinese government.

Upperdate! The Chicom government blinks!

China’s government ordered a halt Thursday to work by a medical team that claimed to have helped make the world’s first gene-edited babies, as a group of leading scientists declared that it’s still too soon to try to make permanent changes to DNA that can be inherited by future generations.
Chinese Vice Minister of Science and Technology Xu Nanping told state broadcaster CCTV that his ministry is strongly opposed to the efforts that reportedly produced twin girls born earlier this month. Xu called the team’s actions illegal and unacceptable and said an investigation had been ordered, but made no mention of specific actions taken.

 I would like to think that this move was brought on by a sudden attack of conscience on the part of the Minister of Science and Technology. I would like that a lot. But the cynic in me suspects it may have more to do with the Party being made to look bad in front of the international community.

The cynic also suspects that Dr. Evile was spirited off by the Chinese Secret Squirrel Squad to a secret lab on a mountain peak somewhere, and set to work making more CRISPR tots.

Self-driving hotel room?

Some things simply demand to be mocked.

Robotic self-driving hotel room, dream version.

The robotic hotel room on wheels - is this the future of travel? Self-driving suite can ferry guests from place to place - and drones deliver room service through the sunroof

• Toronto-based Aprilli Design Studio has designed a hotel suite housed within a self-driving vehicle 
• Renderings reveal how the battery-powered hotel-room-on-wheels includes a double bed and shower room
• The vehicle's designers note that travellers would simply specify the route they wanted to take via an app

Yes friends, the "future of travel" is a camper van.

Actual robot hotel room after 15 years of service.

Also, these geniuses think that "room service" can be delivered by a quadcopter to a moving vehicle that is driving down the highway. Because that will totally work, right?

But best of all:

So that travellers wouldn't miss out on the usual perks of staying in a hotel, Aprilli says it plans to install dozens of hotel facilities across road networks.These stop-off points would house 'public amenities such as food and beverage, meeting room, spa, pool, and gym along with housekeeping, maintenance, and charging services for the travel suites'.

Hotel faclilty with public amenities, dream version.

Trailer parks.

Actual version. Good luck getting room service, bro.

Enchanted Forest Robot Hotel, 2045. Clem cooks meth in the red one.

You know what kills me? Artists and designers got paid good money to come up with this bullshit.

The Phantom

Goalposts have moved again.

It is no longer enough to remain silent on the subject of gay marriage. If you do that, they'll come for you.

A leading Australian bridal magazine has shut after being ditched by advertisers for refusing to feature same-sex couples, one year after the country changed its marriage laws.

The Christian founders of "White", Luke and Carla Burrell, said they did not feature gay weddings in their magazine as they had "no desire to create a social, political or legal war".

In a farewell blog on Saturday, the couple said they were targeted by activists because of their stance and forced to "pick a side".

As a result, several advertisers withdrew their sponsorship making their publication "no longer economically viable", the pair added.

In another fit of "if you're not with us you're against us!!!" the gay mafia managed to get the magazine closed down. Not because the publication or the owners were anti-gay, but because they refused to bow to the Don and kiss the ring. It is no longer sufficient to just be quiet, now you have to actively go along and promote the cause.

I predict this will not end well for anyone.

The Phantom

Orangutan extinction: blame Kellogg's!!!

Are there any greater liars than Greenies? I have my doubts.

Cadbury bars and Oreos are among products from TWELVE companies driving orangutans to the 'brink of extinction' with the use of palm oil.

Long story short, the Daily Mail has a story that the poor Orangutans of Indonesia are having all their forests chopped down to grow palm oil plants.

Which is true. Palm oil plantations are growing at a huge rate in the tropics. It's a very big deal.

The lie is blaming American and European food companies for this growth. Edible oil is available from a large number of sources. Corn, flax, sunflowers, those are all grown industrially right here in Ontario. World-wide there's plenty of vegetable oil to eat. Big food companies use palm oil because it is the cheapest, not the best. Food consumption of palm oil is a tiny fraction of the overall production.

Why is palm oil so cheap, and why is so much of it produced?

Bio diesel.

Who caused that to happen?

Greenpeace.

Will they come clean and admit that burning food oils in our cars is fucking insanity?

No.

They will blame Big Business for something Big Business has resisted for 40 years, since it was first proposed. They will do this because they are pusillanimous liars.

May their trousers burst into flame. At the gas station.

The Phantom

Update: Welcome Instapundit!

Stan Lee passed away. Yancy Street mourns.

What a revoltin' development.

Stan Lee, the man who co-created Marvel Comics, has died ... Stan's daughter tells TMZ.

We're told an ambulance rushed to Lee's Hollywood Hills home early Monday morning and he was rushed to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. We're told that's where he died.

Lee had suffered several illnesses over the last year or so -- he had a bout of pneumonia and vision issues.

Stan started Marvel with Jack Kirby in 1961 with The Fantastic Four. He went on to create Spider-Man, Black Panther, The Incredible Hulk, X-Men, Iron Man and The Avengers.

Farewell Stan. Yancy Street and every superhero in the cosmos salute you.

The Phantom

The failure of imposed morality.

Here's something interesting I stumbled upon on Drudge today: "How the GOP gave up on pr0nz"

From the 1960s through the turn of the century, pornography played a dominant role in the American political argument—its morality and legality, its restrictions and regulations, its implications and unintended consequences. It was treated as a matter of urgency not just by the religious right, which decried the hypersexualizing of society, but by the radical left, which denounced the objectifying of women. Liberal feminists and conservative evangelicals found themselves unexpectedly allied in vilifying the adult entertainment industry. After decades of intensifying conflict, Ronald Reagan convened a Presidential Commission on Pornography in 1985; two years later, Reagan held a press conference to announce his administration's plan to combat illegal obscenity—and issue a warning to the porn professionals: "Your industry's days are numbered."

And now of course the pr0nz sites have the most traffic of anything in the internet. Top Five traffic sites are all filthy pictures and filthy movies. Kids, adults, everybody looks. Now we joke about Rule 34: if there's a character or an idea, then there's porn of it. But Rule 34 has gone from being a joke to being an actual rule. If you can think of it, there really is pr0nz of it. (I'm not going to give examples, sorry.)

Something else has become apparent, porn is bad. It is bad for the people who view it, and extremely bad for the people who make it. Plenty of high-profile suicides and mental disintegrations in the pr0nz "industry" make that painfully obvious.

The article makes it clear that the author thinks an opportunistic politician could find plenty of grist for their fame-mill in safety issues alone, and lots of "For The Chilllldren!!!" activity. But nobody does.
 

What happened? The pervasiveness of porn is a reminder that politics historically hasn't been much of a bulwark against the most primitive human desires—money, power, sex and, in this instance, a combination of the three. But it's also a window into the mentality on the right, which has surrendered the fight on many social issues as America has moved left. Even with Trump in the White House and five conservatives on the Supreme Court, there is no reversing the cultural tides that have swept away the Moral Majority's footprint on supporting traditional marriage and prayer in public schools. The difference is that some on the right still pay lip service to those lost causes. When it comes to porn—more accessible, more acceptable and less scrutinized than at any time during its history—they don't even bother anymore.

What happened, from my perspective, was would-be totalitarians realized they couldn't get any traction with the issue and gave up. The fact that porn may be harmful to everyone doesn't matter to them, what they want is a hot-button to push that will get them votes. But now, porn is ubiquitous. The most freaky hardcore imaginable is no farther away than your smartphone. Everybody has seen anything they want, and probably a bunch of stuff they didn't want. (Important safety tip kids, you can't un-see shit.) People are not shocked by it anymore. Nobody is screaming "there oughta be a law!!!".

So there are no votes there. No money. No leverage they can use to get power.

This leads to an interesting situation. There's nobody telling the populace not to watch the porn anymore. Churches have given up. Even the freaky Feminazis have given up, which is really saying something. If those nut-jobs give up on an issue, it is gone, baby. There is no more candy in that pinata.

From here on, until some new excuse is found, people will be free to view as much porn as they want. That it is harmful, if it is, will become apparent to everyone in due time. But it will still be there, waiting. So, it will be up to the -individual- to exercise restraint. Just like they have to exercise restraint with candy, booze and bacon.

Freedom, my friends. Sometimes it looks funny.

But the culture of self-restraint that grows from this freedom will be far more powerful and effective than the oppressive regulation imposed from above by our social betters.

The Phantom

Lest We Forget

100 years since 1918.

We still remember.

media behavior around mass shootings.

Another mass-shooting atrocity last night, this time in California. Condolences to the bereaved and the wounded.

Of note is the behavior of police and media today. This shooting occurred at roughly 11:20 last night. By 7:00AM this morning the police had released the shooter's identity.

White male, US Marine veteran.

That's pretty fast release of information on a guy that the news says didn't have any ID on him, and was too dead to have given police his name.

Ever notice how the cops seem to take a really looong time to release information on shooters, except when they're white, male and presumably Republican/Conservative Christian?

Maybe its my imagination, but there does seem to be quite a discrepancy in speed. Just sayin'.

The Phantom.

Robot grocery stores, get ready for it.

In my continuing series on job destruction and what inevitably happens when you raise minimum wage to idiotic heights, I give you the robot grocery store.

EINDHOVEN, Netherlands/NEW YORK, Nov 7 (Reuters) - Grocery group Ahold Delhaize will roll out small, automated warehouses to speed order picking and cut delivery times, Reuters has learned, as it revamps its ecommerce business in response to rising competition in a fast-growing sector.
At an investor event on Nov. 13, the world's eighth biggest food retailer is set to showcase a partnership that will allow it to automate order collection at mini "robot supermarkets" attached to the stores of its U.S. chains like Stop & Shop.
Now Netherlands-based Ahold Delhaize is teaming up with Takeoff, a start-up which builds small warehouses that stack groceries to the ceiling to save space and use robot arms to assemble shoppers' orders for items such as beer, milk, bread and fruit.
The warehouses serve as condensed supermarkets that can supply several stores with click-and-collect orders. They cost about $3 million to build, which Takeoff says is less than the cost of a typical store revamp.
"Ahold is preparing for a major push," Curt Avallone, Takeoff's chief development officer who led digital innovation at Stop & Shop until 2003, told Reuters.
"If it goes well, both from their side and our side, the hope is we would rapidly be able to build quite a few."

Lets list the advantages for the vendors here:

No shoplifting (Which is huge)

No employee stealing (Which is huge)

Much reduced breakage (robots don't drop stuff as much)

Much reduced spoilage (Just In Time delivery and stock rotation goes a lot faster.)

Tiny square footage compared to regular market

NO EMPLOYEES means the store can be open 24/7/365, including Sundays and holidays. It's a vending machine.

This is a perfect setup for big cities where supermarkets can't afford the real estate costs. Tiny space stacked two stories high with racking, no aisles, no lighting, no checkout, no cash registers, no samples, no nothing. Order on your smart-phone, all your crap gets spit out a chute into your car, you drive off.

One problem. All those people currently working at stores? They're on welfare now. They can't afford to buy the food at the robot store.

The Phantom

 Update: Welcome, Instapundit!

The American Election is over!

Yes, the American election is over. The world did not end, again.

Yay.

We now return you to the never-ending media meltdown.