What people get wrong about vaping

Electronic cigarettes aren’t new. They have been around for over 10 years, but there is still a lot that isn’t properly understood. This is even more apparent following the “vape lung” craze of 2019, not to mention the Australian delusion and the movement to ban flavored vape juice.

Let me start by giving the finger to the dumbest ideas of them all, the bans. This really doesn’t make sense on any scale, or from any viewpoint. I understand how flavors can make e-cigs more attractive to teenagers, but at the same time we already have laws in place to stop teenagers from getting their hands on cigarettes and other nicotine products. The logical thing to do is to acknowledge that these laws need bumping or reinforcing and go from there. Banning flavored vape juice for this reason is like banning cider and alco-pops to keep kids from drinking. Prohibition didn’t make alcohol consumption safer — up to 10,000 people died from drinking denatured alcohol.

“But why?” you ask, “Why should anybody vape?” The answer might not be as simple as you think. There are reasons why you should vape, and there are reasons why you shouldn’t vape!

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The left will be our bane, but the right is no solution

When I was little, I was a proud anti-fascist. The worst people around at the time was the right-wing extremists, with their signature bomber jackets and boots. But the ones I encountered, although maybe not being that extreme weren’t that bad. They had opinions, but they wouldn’t resort to violence to get their gibberish heard, and the debate was encouraged. Many were the hours spent intensely debating points presented by both sides, and I think in the end it left us all the wiser.

Fast forward 20 years. I’m still strongly against fascism, but just like the label feminist has been hijacked, so has the label anti-fascist. The worst people around today are the left-wing extremists, and society is bending over backwards to accommodate them. The anti-fascists have become the new fascists. And they aren’t afraid to use violence to silence the voices they don’t agree with.

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Fair Use and Copyright Strikes

A few days ago I posted about how Universal Media Group filed a takedown notice against a remix I made almost 3 years ago, resulting in SoundCloud removing it from my profile. In this post I thought I’d expand on the concept of fair use when it comes to remixing, from a legal aspect as well as my own thoughts on the matter.

But first an update on the matter. I just received another e-mail from SoundCloud, informing me that my account just received its first copyright strike:

We contacted you recently to let you know that we’d received a report of copyright infringement. Unfortunately, because you’ve been unable to show that you have the rights to post this track, we’ve had to issue a strike against your account. […] A strike is a warning. We issue a strike whenever someone makes a claim of copyright infringement against content in your account that is not successfully disputed.You have one strike, which does not affect your use of SoundCloud. If you receive a second strike, you will no longer be able to make tracks available for download. If you receive a third strike, your SoundCloud account will be terminated in accordance with our Terms of Use.

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Universal Media Group just filled a takedown notice against my remix

Some of you may know that I produce music. If you have browsed my site before, you have probably found the music section. It’s one of many hobbies, including programming, electronics, and photography. I guess I got cursed with the creative gene. Some of it is original stuff, while some is remixes of other songs. In my world, a remix is the ultimate compliment, and they usually pop into my head when I hear something catchy or interesting on the radio or the internet. In the end, I always credit the original artist, and I consider it free promotion for the artist in question.

I have been posting my remixes online for years, with the ones I feel are the best ones ending up on SoundCloud. A few days ago, I received a message from SoundCloud telling me they had received a direct copyright claim from Universal Music Group on a two year old remix I made of Rihanna’s tune “Only Girl” and had removed the song from my profile.

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Beware of the evil words!!!

Can books be evil? Will that crime thriller you got for Christmas light your house on fire after cooking meth in your bath tub and chasing the neighbourhood kids with your snowblower?

I would say no, but it seems there are people out there that are of a different opinion. “Mein Kampf” is back in print in Germany, and some people are horrified; Afraid of the written word, just like how Muslims seem to be afraid of cartoons and women.

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Religion: Still washing brains clean from logic and critical thinking

We tend to refer to the current times as “modern“, and in many aspects that is a suitable term. Yet still, we have to battle superstition and ignorance from religious nuts that rank ancient books above scientific knowledge. A grand example is the lot that claim the theory of evolution is just a theory, demonstrating the lack of the knowledge you normally gain in elementary science class.

Although I don’t think that anybody that follows this blog would make this mistake, but just for the sake of completion let me point out that a scientific theory is not the same thing as a “normal” theory. In science, the term theory is used for something that has been repeatedly proven and explained.

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