Facebook's Foliage Changing Color

It's a time of vast social change. Facebook has jumped on the bandwagon to try and change things up in a different way.


Recently, CEO Mark Zuckerberg saying that after years of thinking about it, they are now developing and will soon ship out a Dislike button.



But, a big thing to note is, unlike YouTube, or Reddit, it's not supposed to be a system where it takes down a video for being promoted; it's intended to just be a different way someone interacts with the video.

Usually if you see something, you want other people to see it, you hit like. It's weird very few people want to click like on a Holocaust article.

So, after this ships out, you can convey your point of view on something without having to automatically look like you like it. Zuckerberg saying not every moment is a good moment and he wanted people to be able to convey empathy.

The Prosthetic Penis Perplexity

There’s a woman suing her partner, someone that she was with for two years — that she was engaged to — because she claims she didn't realize that her partner was a woman. And that woman, 25-year-old Gayle Newland, denies the five counts of sexual assaults against her.


As far as the alleged victim not realizing that she was a woman, it was because everytime they met in person, she said that Gayle would make her wear a blindfold whether watching TV or having sex — that's when Gayle reportedly used a prosthetic penis.

And as far as why the alleged victim wore the blindfold and wore it for so long, she said Gayle — who she knew as Kye — told her he was recovering from a brain tumor and didn't want her to see his scars.


Also saying that the first time they met in public, Kye had bandages across her chest and covered her hair with a woolen hat.

And finally saying that the reason it took her so long to take off the blindfold and realize was that she was so desperate to be loved.


I don't know how this is not a story on The Onion.

Social Media Awesome

While Instagram and Facebook were crashing, Twitter decided to go ahead and release Video for Twitter — where you can actually post a video directly from Twitter and not just Vine.



The videos could be 30 seconds long; unlike Facebook they don't auto-play.



And now you can do group DM.

Censorship

Video games have always been an easy target for censorship, even moreso than movies. And of course, recently, Grand Theft Auto V was in the news again because of its re-release.



But now, there's another video game in the news this week, or rather last week (today's Sunday). A video game called Hatred.



Hatred is an indie game developed by Polish developer, Destructive Creations. It was recently pulled by Greenlight a section of Steam that Valve uses to gauge community interests in software and video games.

And it appears the reason for this is the game is that you take over a character that's on a genocide crusade where [quote]:



The description for the game reading:



So Steam pulls the game, Doug Lombardi of Valve says, “Based on what we’ve seen on Greenlight we would not publish Hatred on Steam. As such we’ll be taking it down.”



Destructive Creations then responds:



The newest update after all of this is the game is back on Steam.

According to Destructive Creations, Valve co-founder Gabe Newell apologized in an email he posted on Facebook.



The email read:



And how it breaks down for me is that Hatred as a game seems disgusting. It appears to glorify mass murderers who commit terrible atrocities. Much of it seems to be gore for the sake of gore.






And it is very likely I will not get this game. But at the same time, I get Valve bringing it back. They don't have to; they appeared to be under no legal obligation. They are a private company. But at what point are you going to tell grown adults what they can and can't have?

A child who this game is not intended for, yes, will end up getting this game but that is not the fault of the developer. And even the best equipped parents can't keep everything from their kids.

Personally, as an adult, I can tell the difference between video games and the real world. I've opened fire on people in public, in GTA V. I've just killed people doing their job and going about their daily lives, in Far Cry 4. I saw a beautiful, majestic bear by itself in The Wilderness, and I shot it with a goddamn rocket launcher! There's a difference between video game me and real me, and anytime someone says I — an adult who is not a stupid, stupid, crazy person — cannot have something because a decision has been made and it's very reactionary, it's stupid. Don't treat me like a child.

Also, there will always be that kind of person that will want to just kill people!

Games, like any form of entertainment or art are meant to tell a story. It's not always a good story. It's not always a dark story. It puts you more in the driver's seat than other forms of media. But that's my opinion. And yes, inevitably, when there is another school shooting, that shooter might have actually played this game. That hasn't stopped the media or anyone else saying that video games — other video games that are far or less violent than this one — cause something.

Douche Bag Bank Robber Gets Arrested After Posting Submachine Selfie on Facebook

The occasional beauty that I get out of douche bags – and just bad people in general – is sometimes they're so stupid you can't help but smile. And it's definitely the case with 21-year-old Jules Bahler seen here:



He's posted a selfie with a submachine gun. Also, unless you're a 16-year-old girl, stop taking selfies by pointing the camera at a mirror; and then looking directly into the camera. That is usually associated with young age and a low intelligence quotient. For Bahler, it seems low IQ because his crime really wasn't posting this picture. His crime, as alleged by police, is robbing 3 Michigan banks – with a gun that looks like that gun, and an outfit that looks like that outfit. Now authorities say they were able to match Bahler's face from his Facebook pictures, to the robbery surveillance footage.



Why does this hardened criminal have a Facebook page?



Birthday notifications, I guess. That's pretty much the only reason I have one.

According to FBI agent, Sean Callaghan, a man fitting this description, went into 3 banks over 8 days, robbed about $8300.



And they would've not known who did this except for Jules, or as he calls himself online “King Romeo”, posted this picture and captioned it:



But unfortunately, police arrested him before he could follow the advice of a friend who left a comment on the picture:



Lol, always take advice from people that have machete in their name.

Updates on Venezuela and Ukraine

The main thing I want to blog about today is HUGE international news. The first bit is about the protests still happening in Venezuela.



Last we talked, of course, Venezuelans were protesting president Nicolas Maduro's government for over a week – seemingly over the problems of shortages, inflation, insecurity, the lack of opportunities.





Allegedly, Maduro's government has now blocked social media.





International news outlets have been attacked, and as of typing this, at least 5 people have been killed; one of the most recent was opposition supporter (and beauty queen), Genesis Carmona, who was shot by people riding by on motorcycles.



Thousands of Venezuelans are still in the streets protesting.



The footage and pictures coming from this, are very very intense.



And it's going to be interesting to see what does happen; and as things keep developing I will, of course, keep you up to date.

The other international news I want to blog about – I've been blogging about it all week – is Ukraine. The situation continues to get worse and worse, and worse (especially if you've been keeping up with the news, or the live stream link that I've been including). There are many more deaths. As of typing this, 70 people have been killed. That number coming from medic with the opposition; and the AP notes it has not been verified right now.



Protesters have been capturing policemen.



There is now video footage of what looks to be policemen sniping at protesters.



And this is followed by footage of the actual protesters being hit, so you know that it's live ammo and not something else.

The protesters were fighting back with bricks, Molotov cocktails.



There have been reports of small arm fire.



A lot of what I know is happening on the ground, are coming from the people actually there, and non-American sites.



Lol, I typed that because when you go to many American sites, this is what you see:



This is literally CNN.com right now; 'cause who in mainstream media cares about people being murdered in the streets? Those people aren't Americans, you know who's an American? The $19 billion app.



And, on FOXNEWS.com, you don't really care about that, Obama didn't cause that, we're worried about the "government in the newsroom"!



On MSNDC.com, we care what Chris Christie is going to say.



Venezuela and Ukraine aren't even in the top ten things!





I thought for a second maybe HLN was covering it. I was like, "Oh, they're going to sensationalize it!", but then I remembered they're the missing-white-girl/trying-to-use-YouTubers-to-have-some-sort-of-relevance-in-this-day-of-age channel.



And then, ABC, lol, actually ABC News was reporting on it – it was their number one story.



And this is just me venting on it. Genuinely, I hate blogging about stuff like this, because there's no twist to it, or silver lining, or happy thing. But the fact that the other guys with actual journalism degrees don't, or they at least wait until they know that they can make it sexy in some way, that's the reason why I do, that's the reason I will continue. Why? Because I think that it's more important that more people know about this than Facebook acquiring WhatsApp.

I think that's where I want to actually end this article. All that typed, I'd love to know your thoughts too.