Manipulation of Consent

Consent in itself is not a very complicated subject, and yet people seem to get confused by it. Mainly, people seem to get confused about the concept that it can be revoked. If you order a burger, and then that burger arrives at your table, you are allowed to change your mind about eating it, just like you are allowed to revoke consent.

If you start having sex with someone and they decide they want you to stop, you stop, because the consent was revoked. If you continue after that person has told you to stop, that is rape, because they told you to stop, and now you're continuing against their will.

It is also important to pay attention to your partner during sexual activities. If it looks like something is wrong, ask them if they want you to stop. Seriously, if your partner doesn't say to stop, but starts crying, they probably want you to stop. Body language counts just as much as verbal language, and that means both parties, regardless of gender, are responsible for the actions that are happening, and for the communication involved. Sometimes it's hard for people to say no. Give people more opportunities to say yes instead of no and you will know without a doubt that you have their consent.

However, just like any other action-related topic in existence that involves multiple people, there are going to be some people out there who try to twist rules designed to protect people into ways to attack people. This is not okay, but this also doesn't mean that the previously stated guidelines for consent should be ignored.

And because of these disgusting people, this is where it gets complicated.

In the cases of rape by fraud, I think it's definitely wrong to deceive someone in order to get sex from them. I think it's a bit of a gray area of whether the deception itself should actually be called rape, however, as I believe rape is defined as un-consenting sexual activity. Deception to get them to consent to sexual acts feels like it should have a different word. No less serious an accusation, mind you, it just feels to me like including both under the same word's definition can cause issues. I'm going to call it "manipulation of consent," because I feel that sounds more accurate.

Let's say for example a man gave full consent and slept with a woman because of an assumption he made about her bank account, and she never even tried to act rich. Then let's say the man later regretted that decision because it turns out she's poor. That's not rape on her part, that's classism on his part. And yet, to my understanding, if rape by fraud legislation passes in New Jersey, the woman would lose the court battle. (This is, of course, in a world where rape against men were treated as equally as rape against women.)

However, this situation would look very different if the person who was assumed rich and powerful was actually trying to appear that way to manipulate the other person into sleeping with them. I think it's inaccurate to call that rape, because the actual sexual acts were consented to on both sides at the time. However, it would be perfect example of manipulation of consent. Though I feel sleeping with someone just because you think they have lots of money in itself is wrong, and this whole situation sickens me.

But I guess my point is that I believe having two separate distinctions between rape and manipulation of consent would help the more complicated manipulation cases to not affect the direct sexual assault cases. And laws could pass helping to shape the manipulation cases without impacting the sexual assault cases. It would also help this issue we're having where everybody is calling everything rape, and as a result rape gets delegitimized.

It really gets under my skin when people abuse a system of protection for personal gain... Fuck these people and fuck this system. But only after asking its consent...

We Live in Middle Earth

The War of the Rings actually took place in the real world, many years before our current method of recording history, and before our Gregorian calendar system.

Arda was once one large continent. It split during the War of Wrath, and over time, long following the fourth age, the land mass changed heavily into what we know today. 

The western continent, once known as Valinor, is now known as north and south America. The eastern continent split into various pieces. Harad became Australia, most of Middle Earth became Europe, the northern wastes of Forochel formed into Greenland, and Asia was formed from Khand, near the border of Mordor, into Rhún and Hildorien.

The Elves all diminished after sailing into the west, as their time in the world was ending, they spent their final days with their creators. The power of their rings failed with the destruction of The One Ring, causing their lands to wither.

The Dwarves lingered, ever strong and hardy, but they are now few in number, and their secrets and culture are lost in the flow of time. Much breeding with the race of man (now called human) has changed their appearance and diluted their lust for riches. The only remnants of their forgotten language has been confused and intermingled with Sindarin to create Rún, the old Norse runic alphabet.

The Hobbits, like the Dwarves, still remain, but are very few in number. Since The Shire and Ered Luin was mostly destroyed when it was ripped from the west coast of Middle Earth, the Hobbits have survived in few, coexisting in the world of the big folk. In breeding with humans, their height had gradually increased through evolution. But occasionally you will still see a Hobbit whose dormant genetic traits came through.

The Shire, after breaking off from Eriador, eventually floated off and formed New Zealand. The structures, gardens, and Hobbit holes were all destroyed and biodegraded into dirt and dust. Much of the terrain had changed in the catastrophe. But the party tree, the lake, and the hill of Bag End all managed to survive the test of time to this day, and Hobbiton was rebuilt in the early 2000's of our current calendar shortly after its rediscovery.

It is estimated by J.R.R. Tolkien that were we to keep the old Gondorian calendar, we would currently be in the seventh age.

For those of you wondering if this is legitimately canon, a lot of it is not, but the whole thing is a fan theory of mine based on canon material. I think I've made a strong case :P

Hard Drive APM Freeze Stuttering

I've solved an issue I've been having with my laptop since I got it years ago. It sometimes did a weird random 1-3 second freeze during gameplay, and even sometimes when using it for simple web browsing and file management.

Turns out it's a power saving feature built into the hard drive called APM (Advanced Power Management). The stuttering is because the hard drive actually stopped spinning and had to quickly resume, despite the fact I was actively running a game off of it. This also explains an issue I've been having with the laptop hard drives I'm using in my desktop.

There are no settings in Windows that I can find which control a hard drive's APM settings, other than the unrelated OS power settings, but I did find a lightweight and portable piece of software called Crystal Disk Info that can control it without needing installation.

To fix the issue, simply download and run the Crystal Disk Info software, find the APM controls in the menu, slide the APM slider all the way to the right, and click enable. This changes the APM to performance (FEh) mode.

APM is supposed to help conserve power. But honestly, given my research, I'll take hard drive longevity and performance with less battery life over random freezing any day.

Hamburger Helper Lasagna Cooking Instructions

I've created a new set of instructions for cooking Hamburger Helper lasagna that not only cuts the length of cooking time in half, but allows you better control over the tenderness of the noodles.

Step 1: Boil some water in a pot.

Step 2: Put the pasta in the water and begin browning the hamburger in a pan.

Step 3: Once the hamburger is browned, drain the fat and dump the milk and water into the hamburger pan, minus 1 cup of the water suggested on the box. Add the sauce powder and mix it all together.

Step 4: In the amount of time browning the hamburger took you, your pasta should be tender enough. Taste test a noodle. If it's done, drain the pasta, dump it into the hamburger pan, and mix it up.

Step 5: Don't wait for the sauce to thicken or for the noodles to cook, because it's done. Start eating!

Android Alarm Clock Issue

UPDATE: 7.1.1 seems to have fixed this issue for me.

NOTE: The purpose of this post is to inform. Hopefully the info contained will help some people to not miss work!

I've been having an issue with my phone's sound randomly cutting out. This issue was first noticed one morning when my alarms didn't have sound. Thank god the sound of my phone vibrating woke me up or I'd have missed work.

A bit of tech detective work brought up the fact that this wasn't just my alarm not working, this was my phone not playing sound at all.

I googled the problem and found that others are indeed having this problem, and not just with three same model phones. This further reinforces that it must be an Android OS issue.

I posted my experience on an Android forum. I will copy and paste that here:

I'm having the same issue on my Nexus 6p. Here's my experience:

When the issue mysteriously presents itself, my alarms don't have sound, my timers don't have sound, playing videos through my media app gives me an error claiming the app cannot play that file type, playing music doesn't work, YouTube videos don't have sound, my phone doesn't make the little blip noise when I lock and unlock it... Basically sound doesn't work on my phone. Period.

As a PC technician (but not an Android expert) I have, of course, instantly deduced that turning it off and on again fixes it. But it happens here and there, seemingly at random. I can always tell when my alarm won't work by listening for the blip sound when I lock my phone for the night.

I have a weird lingering feeling that this is somehow linked to Google Now's "Ok Google" detection. I think it happens as I use the voice detection more frequently. But I may be imagining correlation where there is none. It's hard to say since I have never directly seen what straight up causes it.

Whatever the case, this is certainly not the fault of any single app, this looks to me like a bug in the OS. 

I just updated to Nougat 7.1.1. No issues yet since the update. I saw nothing mentioning this issue in the patch notes, but I'm crossing my fingers that it got fixed somehow.

Star Wars vs Star Trek

I feel compelled to answer an age old question. Which is better? Star Wars or Star Trek?

Star Wars caters to the sci-fi and fantasy action lovers who aren't preoccupied with actual scientific theories and hypotheses. Classic battle between good and evil, plus a prophecy about a chosen one. Can't really go wrong. It's a story we're all familiar with, and it's an easy one to enjoy. The action keeps us engaged and gets us excited. We've seen it in Lord of the Rings too, albeit in a more consistent and detailed universe ;)

Star Trek caters to optimistic theoretical science lovers who want to explore the human condition and grapple with ethical questions of right and wrong, in the interests of creating a better future. It's about understanding ourselves better by seeing our behaviour in different contexts. It's about what our future could hold, ethically and scientifically. It's about relationships, diplomacy, personal growth, discovery, exploration, and learning how to help and understand others.

I think some of the only reasons these two universes are even compared is because they're both successful, both sci-fi, and their names are both 2 words and 2 syllables long, beginning with the word Star. Otherwise, really, there are certainly other sci-fi series that would make better comparisons.

You wouldn't compare Firefly to Star Wars, would you? But if Firefly were named Star Fire and Serenity had weapons, you'd probably start thinking about it ;P

So ultimately no, I disagree that either is "better" than the other. It's a matter of personal taste, and you're comparing two different genres of sci-fi to each other. Is comedy better than drama? Is sci-fi better than fantasy? Are grapefruits better than potatoes? The answer is determined by your own personal taste.

My Other Life?

I dreamed that I found an old crawlspace door somewhere that led to another room full of sticky notes and papers on the wall with memories and quotes from myself, written in my handwriting. It was like each note reflected a piece of a life I never had, retelling a story I had no memory of. Snippets, as though to jog my memory.

I looked at an open cabinet door to my left that was aimed at me as I crawled in. A note written in big letters, in my handwriting, read:

"Josh, read these messages. You want to remember. You need to remember. Remember who I am so you can remember who you were."

As I read that note and saw the other notes everywhere, I started to notice it was a familiar looking bedroom. I started to remember that I used to write reminders to myself on sticky notes all the time and leave them up on the walls, forgetting to take them down. I vaguely remembered writing the big note in a panic, terrified I would forget everything I was. Intense memories of some other life began pouring into my head. It was all so overwhelming I cried out, and as I cried out I woke up.

The memories are almost entirely gone now, but in the instant I woke up, I felt like something was made clear and something about myself made sense. But I can't remember what it was now.

Was this a past life I was remembering?
Were these memories I had blocked off from childhood?
Is this symbolic of my discovering my true self?
Did I make discoveries about myself a long time ago and shove it into my subconscious out of fear?
Are the memories from the other life I lived out in dream years ago?

Or is this just an intense dream, amidst a dry spell of remembering dreams, and it stands out because I haven't had one in a while...