Soylent Gold

The Rules of the New Aristocracy

If one of you takes a hundred dollar bill from the cash register, you will go to jail. If we take billions out of the savings of ordinary people then crash the economy, costing thousands of jobs, not one of us will ever be prosecuted. Because the New Aristocracy is above such things. So we’ll just keep on doing it. Enjoy the ride.

Your local police belong to us now. We have militarized them into soldiers who treat you like terrorists. If you speak against us, we will ensure that you are tear gassed and beaten and handcuffed and caged into “free speech zones” designed to make you forget that the whole country was supposed to be a free speech zone. But now you have free speech only when and where we say you can have it. Meanwhile, we can say and do pretty much anything we want, to you or anyone else, and get away with it.

If you happen to figure out our game and talk about it, we will accuse you of Class Warfare, in order to distract anyone from realizing that yes, there was a class war, that it was against you, that the war is over, and we won.

Related:

Who Bullies the Bullies?

Don’t think about where the lines are drawn, think about who draws the lines.

Go To Hell, Superheroes

Building a Bigger Action Hero

Brando never did crunches. Al Pacino didn’t slurp protein shakes. Cary Grant had never even heard of burpees, BOSU balls, or human growth hormone. But not one of today’s leading men can afford the luxury of a gym-free life. You simply don’t get your name on a movie poster these days unless you’ve got a superhero’s physique – primed for high-def close-ups and global market appeal. Getting there takes effort, vigilance, and the dedication of the elite athlete: high-intensity training, strict diets, supplements, and hormone replacement. If that fails, there are always drugs. Today’s actors spend more time in the gym than they do rehearsing, more time with their trainers than with their directors.

And I grew up as a huge comic book fan.

Not anymore. I can’t stand the fucking movies they’re doing.

I’ll take Jimmy Stewart fighting the entire country with only his voice in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington over any goddammed actor in a latex costume with steroid-assisted bulk.

I again quote Nikki Finke, who saw it all coming back in 2008:

Pretty soon, every single fucking Hollywood film is gonna be based on a comic one way or another. Ugh.

Now HP Mimics HTC One Design

Upcoming HP tablets

Orphan Black: Season 2, Episode 3

Visual spoilers after the break.

Huawei 4G UltraStick Coming

According to a report about the MeeGoPad (shown running Windows!) at PadNews, Huawei will launch an UltraStick card that will be 4G-capable within the next two months [Google Translate]:

According to leaked before Huawei UltraStick product planning point of view, Huawei will launch 4G LTE network support UltraStick data card in the second quarter of this year, the product sizes and interfaces are consistent with previous UltraStick, that MeeGoPad F10 can also follow Huawei UltraStick 4G data card, upgrade to 4G networks.

Shocker: HP Slate 8 Pro For US$180

HP Slate S8-7600US 8-Inch Tablet with Beats Audio (Snow White)

Click images to enlarge.

iFive Mini 3GS: More User Reports

The first guy is not particularly happy about a screen issue.