Sunday 27 July 2014

Vice.com Declares that Sexual Harassment is Totally Fine

Is this woman dressing up a) for fun, b) to pay homage to an aspect of popular culture she enjoys, or c) because she wants to be groped by inadequate losers?

I thought the answer was probably (a) or (b), but according to Vice.com, it turns out that I might be wrong.

From one of the worst articles I've read in some time:

'Comic-Con, it turns out, isn’t exactly the safest place in the world to be a broad wearing a Sailor Moon outfit. In years past, many women have reported being groped, stalked and photographed without their consent at the event. A group called Geeks for CONsent (get it?) is demanding Comic-Con organizers take sexual harassment seriously by posting signs in the convention halls that tell dweebs to keep their hands to themselves.Comic-Con ain’t goin’ through with it, though, which makes sense. I mean, if all them broads who got their ruffled panties in a twist didn't want to be sexually harassed, they shouldn't have dressed like fictional characters from cartoons made for children. Y’know what I mean?'

Even if it is meant "ironically" - which would not make it much better - this 'women who dress like [x] deserve to be groped' s**t sounds like it came from the 1930s. Cutting edge, daring stuff Vice, well done. The "authors" Dave Schilling and Megan Koester should seriously consider never writing again.

Friday 25 July 2014

Guinea Pig Remake: (Gore-Free) Photos




On set images from Stephen "Unearthed Films" Biro's upcoming remake of Guinea Pig, which is currently in production. Looks every bit as cheap as the original. I'm disappointed that the image below shows two women strapped down: what would have been wrong with replacing one with a male victim? I want some equality in torture, dammit! The "make the girlies scream" ethos is so last century...


I Have Seen the Future of Metal

...and it is these two kids. The guitarist is obviously awesome, but the singer is even better.

Wednesday 23 July 2014

Offcom Press Release on ISP Filtering

Offcom have announced that only about 12% of new customers who were offered ISP-level filtering took up that offer. Apparently, blanket state censorship of adult Internet content is a minority interest.


Ofcom has today published a report for Government outlining measures the UK's largest internet service providers have put in place to help parents protect children from harmful content online.

This follows an agreement between the Government and BT, Sky, TalkTalk and Virgin Media, the four largest fixed line internet service providers (ISPs), announced in July 2013. Each ISP committed to offer new customers 'family-friendly network-level filtering' by the end of December 2013.

This is the second of three reports the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) has asked Ofcom to produce on internet safety measures to protect children. The DCMS asked Ofcom to look at the approach taken by each ISP to implement family-friendly filtering services which block content that may be inappropriate or harmful for children, rather than assess the effectiveness of the filters.

The report also describes measures taken by ISPs to present a pre-ticked 'unavoidable choice' to new customers on whether or not to activate the filter, and includes initial take-up data among new customers offered filters.
The filters apply to all web based internet content, on any device that is connected to the fixed broadband network in the home.

The report finds that the four ISPs now have a network level family friendly filtering service, which is offered to new customers. New subscribers receive a prompt from their ISP during the broadband set-up process, describing the filtering service and offering the consumer a pre-ticked option to use the filtering service.

The filters allow a user to manage access in their home to a range of internet services, helping parents to prevent their children accessing content that is not appropriate for them.

There are a number of filtering categories common to all four ISPs. Suicide and self-harm, pornography, file sharing, crime, drugs, violence and hate are covered by each provider's classification systems.

By the Government's target of December 2013, BT, Sky, and TalkTalk each offered a filtering service allowing parents to restrict categories of online content, and presented new users with the unavoidable choice of whether to activate the filters.

Virgin Media launched its network level filter in February 2014. When it launched, it was not able to implement an unavoidable choice for all new customers, and estimated this was offered to about a third (35%) of new customers. To help address this shortfall, Virgin Media implemented additional ways for the customer to choose filtering, after the initial set-up.


Next steps

The ISPs are currently working towards meeting their commitment to Government to contact all their existing customers and present them with an unavoidable choice about whether or not to install the family friendly content filters by the end of 2014.

Ofcom is due to produce the third in this series of reports in December 2014. This will review Ofcom's Media Literacy research from 2014 on parental strategies for protecting children online.

Specifically, it will look at how take-up, awareness of and confidence of parents in relation to parental controls has changed since its first report published in January 2014. It will assess the broader strategies parents may adopt to improve children's online safety and will provide a more complete set of data on which to draw clearer conclusions.

Trailer Trash: Turn Me On, Dammit! (2012)

I really hope the vibe of this trailer is characteristic of the movie itself

Tuesday 22 July 2014

Faux Fulci Videogames

Some of the graphics are clearly more 16-Bit than they are 8-Bit, but this is still lovely work. What could be better than a video game of The Beyond, in which (presumably) the player wanders around aimlessly because the game MAKES NO SENSE AT ALL? The music is fantastic: I'd love to see a cut of City of the Living Dead with an NEScore.

Monday 21 July 2014

Why are People Into That? Podcast

Anyone interested in why people are into various fetishes might be interested in a new podcast by Tina Horn called (appropriately enough) Why are People Into That?

Check out current episodes here: 

Saturday 19 July 2014

Zizek Accused of Plagiarism


Prominent moist cultural philosopher Slavoj Zizek has been accused of plagiarism. Apparently, the passages stood out because they conveyed meaning clearly. Ha ha.

Here is a side-by-side comparison of the passages:

To make matters worse, the original text is apparently from a "white supremacist journal": http://gawker.com/slavoj-zizek-sorta-kinda-admits-plagiarizing-white-supr-1604590014

Oh dear. Zizek has since offered an apology of sorts. Given that the clarification is also uncharacteristically lucid, maybe another accusation will surface in the next few days...

Here's the lesson, folks: try to write comprehensibly in the first place, that way, nobody will spot your plagiarism... no, wait...


Wednesday 16 July 2014

Behind the Scenes Feature on Scanners' Head Explosion

For anyone interested in how they pulled off the effect, here is the video.




Although this one is better:


Saturday 12 July 2014

Journal Retracts 60 Articles

jvcI have encountered the occasional retraction, but the Journal of Vibration and Control have just announced that they are retracting SIXTY articles. Some careers may be over...

'In 2013 the Editor of Journal of Vibration and Control and SAGE became aware of a peer review ring involving assumed and fabricated identities that appeared to centre around Peter Chen at National Pingtung University of Education, Taiwan (NPUE). SAGE and the Editor then began a complex investigation into the case during the rest of 2013 and 2014. Following an unsatisfactory response from Peter Chen, NPUE was notified.
NPUE were serious in addressing the Journal and SAGE’s concerns. NPUE confirmed that the institution was investigating Peter Chen. SAGE subsequently uncovered a citation ring involving the above mentioned author and others.
We regret that individual authors have compromised the academic record by perverting the peer review process and apologise to readers. On uncovering problems with peer review and citation SAGE immediately put steps in place to avoid similar vulnerability of the Journal to exploitation in the future. More information may be found at www.sagepub.co.uk/JVC_Statement_2014.
The Journal and SAGE understand from NPUE that Peter Chen has resigned his post at NPUE.
The following articles are retracted because after thorough investigation evidence points towards them having at least one author or being reviewed by at least one reviewer who has been implicated in the peer review ring and/or citation ring. All authors have had an opportunity to respond to the allegations and proposed actions.'

Wednesday 2 July 2014

See No Evil 2 Set for DTV Release



The Soska Twins' sequel to the WWE mediocre-fest See No Evil is looking up insofar as Danielle Harris and Katharine Isabelle are in it. However, I am not sure that it is great news that See No Evil 2 is headed for a Direct-to-Video release in the Autumn. Time will tell.