Year: 2023

It’s Official

House Democrats splintered on Tuesday over a resolution condemning the rise of antisemitism in the United States and around the world, with more than half of them declining to support a measure declaring that “anti-Zionism is antisemitism.” The resolution denouncing antisemitism, drafted by Republicans, passed by a vote of 311 to 14, drawing the support of all but one Republican. Ninety-two Democrats voted “present” — not taking a position for or against the measure — while 95 supported it.

— The New York Times

Next up for House Republicans: A resolution declaring that a refusal to discuss, or even mention in any way, Literally Where, is antisemitism.

DISCUSS ON SG

Off the Record

Seymore Hersh writes a posthumous, must-read expose of one of Clown World’s most insidious and destructive clowns, the late Henry Kissinger:

When I arrived at the Washington bureau in the spring of 1972, my desk was directly across from the paper’s main foreign policy reporter, a skilled journalist who was a master at writing coherent stories for the front page on deadline. I learned that around 5 pm on days when there were stories to be written about the war or disarmament—Kissinger’s wheelhouse—the bureau chief’s secretary would tell my colleague that “Henry” was on the phone with the bureau chief and would soon call him. Sure enough, the call would come and my colleague would frantically take notes and then produce a coherent piece reflecting what he had been told would invariably be the lead story in the next morning’s paper. After a week or two of observing this, I asked the reporter if he ever checked what Kissinger had told him—the stories he turned out never cited Kissinger by name but quoted senior Nixon administration officials—by calling and conferring on background with William Rogers, the secretary of state, or Melvin Laird, the secretary of defense.

“Of course not,” my colleague told me. “If I did that, Henry would no longer deal with us.”

Please understand—I am not making this up.

Kissinger, who had made no public remarks about my writings on the My Lai massacre and its cover-up, suddenly invited me to the White House for a private chat. I had just returned from a reporting trip to North Vietnam for the Times—I was the second mainstream American reporter in six years to be given a visa by Hanoi—and we were to discuss it. I had written about North Vietnam’s view of the secret peace talks Kissinger was conducting with the Vietnamese in Paris, but that was not the issue. He wanted, so I concluded, to stroke me. There was no question that, as a total loose cannon suddenly installed at the Times, I was of special interest.

He asked me about my impressions of the North Vietnamese, as seen in a closely watched three-week visit to Hanoi and elsewhere in the North. I had been taken to areas that were under heavy American bombing attacks and witnessed the North’s amazing ability to repair bombed-out rail lines within a few hours after an attack. Extra rails and the equipment needed to make repairs were hidden every few hundred yards along the tracks from Hanoi to the main harbor in Haiphong.

He asked about the morale of the residents in Hanoi. I told him I had seen no signs of panic, fear, or desperation in my many unguarded (so I believed) walks throughout the city. Every morning, in fact, a group of schoolboys en route to class who had seen me when I first arrived would walk by my hotel in central Hanoi at the same hour—I made a point of being outside then—and cheerfully say ‘Good morning, sir!” in English to me. But I was always aware that I was in enemy territory.

The schoolboys and other anecdotes prompted Kissinger to summon a prominent former ambassador who was his senior aide for matters related to the war and say to him, in front of me, in obvious mock anger: “This fellow is giving me more information about the morale in the North than I get from the CIA.” I remember thinking “Is this it? Is this all he’s got? Does the guy really think this kind of obvious flattery is going to win me over?”

I met Henry Kissinger on the same night, and at the same party, that I met Donald Trump. What was fascinating that it was not Trump who was the center of attention, despite his wealth, fame, and Ivana looking rather slinky despite her age. It was Kissinger upon whom all of the wealthy and powerful were fawning, and around whom they were clustered.

Apparently they knew quite well where the power was centered. And while I was not at all favorably impressed with the man himself, I was impressed by everyone else’s reaction to him.

This quote, I believe, epitomizes everything one needs to know about Henry Kissinger.

The deadline for the front page was around 7 pm and close to that time Al Haig telephoned me. “Seymour,” he said, which got my attention—those who knew me, including Al, called me Sy—and said the following words, which I will never forget: “Do you believe that Henry Kissinger, a Jewish refugee from Germany who lost thirteen members of his family to the Nazis, could engage in police state tactics such as wiretapping his own aides? If there is any doubt, you owe it to yourself and your beliefs and your nation to give us one day to prove your story is wrong.”

Needless to say, Kissinger not only did it, but was caught red-handed while doing it by the FBI.

DISCUSS ON SG

The Peterson Folly

The fact that a public figure says one or two things with which you happen to agree does not a) make him a good guy or b) mean that he is not a ticket-taker in service to Clown World.

Presidential contender Robert F. Kennedy Jr. admitted Tuesday he flew on late pedophile Jeffrey Epstein’s private jet twice, not just once as he previously claimed — and that his then-wife had a “relationship” with madam Ghislaine Maxwell. The independent candidate opened up about his ties to the notorious perv after being asked by Fox News’ Jesse Watters during a discussion of his ethics.

If they’re in the public eye and given any positive coverage by the media or the social media giants, they’re clowns. There are very, very few, if any, exceptions to this.

Stop looking to the other side to provide you with leadership. Just stop! That’s beyond retarded.

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All Ur Yule Are Belong to Him

I always found the idea that Christian art was in any way inferior to secular art to be mysterious, the Boomer schlock of Christian Rock and the Amish romances of the Christian Bookstore Association notwithstanding. As much as I might like Silver Bells and White Christmas, they absolutely pale before the triumphant majesty of The Messiah and Adeste Fideles. And no one who has ever stood before a grand cathedral in Italy is likely to be impressed by the childish brutalism of modern block architecture today.

But forget the grand compendium of the art of Christendom, this pair of tweets prove that Christians can meme with the best of #GamerGate and even /pol/ itself.

“Easter was actually originally a pagan holiday!”

Keep complaining and we’ll take Toyotathon and make it a Christian holiday too.

“But we-“

You just lost Shark Week.

“That’s not-“

SHARK WEEK IS A WEEK-LONG CHRISTIAN FESTIVAL NOW

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The Disney Insurrection

What the Devil Mouse is now confirmed to have done was more illegal, more subversive, and a more substantial insurrection against the lawful government than anything the January 6th protesters are even accused of having done:

For decades, Disney had effectively seemingly controlled the board designed to oversee its own properties. Until DeSantis stepped in recently and put a stop to it. Now a new report from the replacement board has shown just how corrupt Disney’s arrangement was. And how both entities took advantage of taxpayers to foot the bill for their cozy relationship.

The report found that Disney had promised to build services including hospitals, schools and libraries as part of their obligations under their special governing arrangement. Sure enough, they built none of it. It also described what Disney had achieved as essentially an “absolute monarchy” over the Florida property.

“Disney had wholly outmaneuvered the legislature and pulled off an incredible act,” the report reads. “It had established an extra-constitutional governing authority – ‘an experimental absolute monarchy’ – within the borders of the State of Florida, and, accordingly, the United States – one that strikingly resembled, without exaggeration, a kingdom of yore.”

WALT DISNEY WORLD CORRUPTION WAS EVEN WORSE THAN PREVIOUSLY REALIZED, Outkick, 5 December 2023

The Dark Herald, who has been covering this story for months on the Arkhaven blog, has more specific details, as is his wont.

For decades Reedy Creeky employees were treated as if they were Disney World cast members. The annual passes that are a standard benefit to Disney employees, were given to Reedy Creek employees and they were told it was a “gift from the Walt Disney Company.”

What Reedy Creek was actually doing was buying the passes with the tax money that had been collected from the Walt Disney Company. They were giving Disney’s tax money back to the company. Then they lied to their employees about the gift part. None of this was reported to the IRS.

A bigger problem is the 50% discount on Disney cruise lines. There is no getting around the fact that Reedy Creek and Disney broke Florida’s public disclosure laws. These benefits were never reported as taxable benefits, which they are.

Because of these things, these government employees felt their job was to prioritize the needs of The Walt Disney Company.

This is the tip of the iceberg stuff. There is a lot more in this report.

The Reedy Creek Audit, Dark Herald, 5 December 2023

The extent and the extended time frame of this crimes are such that it would be perfectly justified if the Disney corporation had its business charter pulled by the State of Florida, the Reedy Creek land was seized by the state, and its various operations were sold off to the highest bidder.

Due to the size and political influence of the Devil Mouse, that almost certainly won’t happen. But it is a good sign that the massive corruption of at least one giant of the corpocracy is being exposed to the public.

DISCUSS ON SG

Thinking Outside the Engineering Box

This story about his experience as an engineer in the dot com era by the late Seamus Young should be extremely enlightening, for engineers and non-engineers alike, as it has the benefit of providing us with not only the communication that took place in the meeting, but also what he was thinking about it at the time. Keeping in mind that this is nominally written from the perspective of “the engineer is the good guy who knows what he’s doing and what he should be doing”, see if you can identify the fundamentally destructive element described in the following vignette.

John Business seems to be the most important guy in the room. He’s also the guy who narrated the pitch video. He’s seemed happy so far. But now he turns to me and asks, “Can we start visitors outside of the mall? We have this grand entryway and we want them to be able to see it before they go inside.”

I scrunch up my face. “Yeah guess you can. But people like to teleport because it’s more convenient…” I trail off. John Business looks confused. Did I mess up and give him some jargon?

“Shamus means they like to appear and disappear in different places rather than walking.” My Boss is clarifying things for me. That doesn’t happen very often.

John Business nods. He gets it now.

Holy shit. This guy doesn’t know what teleporting is? I guess the whole video presentation he just narrated made him seem a little more tech-savvy than he really is. Okay, I need to step this all the way down to neophyte language. How the hell did someone with such a limited understanding of virtual worlds end up in the deep end? This guy doesn’t seem to know enough to launch a web-based business, and he’s going to oversee the construction of a virtual one?

I nod at my boss. “Right. One of the advantages of virtual space is the way people can move instantly to their desired location. Making them ‘walk’ for a long distance before they can begin using the software will just make them reluctant to log in. And unless we change it every few days, they will quickly tire of the entrance.”

John Business looks annoyed. My boss shifts nervously in his seat. I’ve messed up again. I’m evidently offering guidance above my pay grade. John Business asked me a simple question about a simple task and now he seems to think I’m trying to weasel out of doing it. Possibly he suspects I’m a slacker. They don’t want my artistic input. These guys have already designed the place. They just want me to answer the question.

My boss steps in to smooth things out. “We’ll have them start outside and see how it works out. We can always change it later.”

I nod. Fair enough.

John Business also nods, perhaps ticking off a mental checkbox before moving on to the next question.

It goes on like this for half an hour. He keeps asking me to do simple things that would be impractical, annoying for the end user, or harm usability. He’s trying to make a world not just for people playing “a videogame” for the first time, but people who are overall new to the internet. I want to educate him on why the design is wrong, but I can’t seem to do so without violating some sort of unexplained social order. Usually I pride myself on being able to smooth out misunderstandings and bring people up to speed, but right now I find myself falling into the role of the “obtuse, obstructionist engineer” and I can’t seem to break out of it.

What’s wrong here? Our company is typically good at this stuff. We’re usually pretty adept at bridging the gap between what the customer asks for and what they actually need. But this meeting is running sideways and the power dynamics are all wrong. For some reason, John Business seems to regard me with… is it suspicion? I don’t know. But there’s a communication problem here and I can’t seem to solve it.

Without trust, every time I say “no” or “Yes, but…” it irritates John Business. And that makes my boss nervous, which eventually makes him frustrated with me. So it feels like the room is against me, which makes me nervous and panic-y, which makes me stammer and vacillate, which makes me sound even more untrustworthy.

John Business returns to his printed notes. “When a visitor clicks on an item on a shelf, can we have it fall into their shopping trolley?”

I somehow resist the urge to make a horrified face at the suggestion.

People are going to push shopping carts around your virtual mall? Doesn’t that have the stench of low-end shopping? Will the carts collide with shelves? If so, then people WILL get stuck, frustrated, and log out without buying anything.If not, then expect people to navigate as if the cart didn’t exist, which means they will constantly end up clipping into walls. Everywhere you go, you’ll have the front ends of shopping carts peeking at you through walls and shelves. In addition to being really ugly and immersion-breaking, this will be confusing to people. And don’t even get me started on the ways people might confuse or harass each other with them. What if I leave a store without paying? Does my cart vanish, or is it cleared? Will the items be restored if I return later? We need to figure out what the “expected behavior” is going to be before we know how to design this.

Isn’t the advantage of a VIRTUAL mall the fact that you don’t need to worry about the physical hassles of carrying items? I know in your head you’re picturing people simply replicating real-world behavior, but that’s not going to happen. People will act in ways that don’t make sense. What if I click on an item that’s nowhere near my cart? Should the item fly across the room and land in the cart? If so, then expect new users to be confused by random items flying all over the place. Or you can give them an error message telling them to move closer. That will stop the flying merchandise, but now you’re inconveniencing people trying to buy stuff.

How will they get items back out again? Physics engines that operate in a shared space are years away, so making them rummage around a pile of loose items won’t work. What if they want to remove an item from the cart and it’s buried under others? What happens if I go to the other side of the store and then remove the item? Should it fly across the store to where it belongs, or should we replicate the real world where fickle shoppers constantly scramble your inventory by abandoning items in random parts of the store? Or should it just poof away?

What I actually said:

“Sort of. We can show an object falling into the cart.”

“But will the object disappear off the shelf?” This point seem to be awfully important to him.

You… you want to create a virtual store with scarcity? WHYYYYYYY? Madness! If this is possible, people WILL try to empty the shelves into their cart so that nobody else can buy anything.

What I actually said:

“No.”

The actual answer would be “It depends”, but it would be long and complex and I sense everyone is just looking for simple answers to complex questions. We could make shelves that deplete of stock and need to be refilled, but this would create all sorts of interface headaches and the need for a bunch of new coding, because we’d need to create a program to track the position of all items and handle restocking them. I can spend ten minutes explaining that the timetable is already WAY too tight and there’s no way we have time to code experimental new features with unknown challenges for purely cosmetic effects.

The meeting drags on like this, with John Business casually asking for monumentally difficult things that will make the store less useful in order to re-create the limitations and frustrations of the physical world.

Crash Dot Com Part 3: The Meeting, TWENTY-SIDED

I’m convinced that one of the reasons engineers are correctly viewed as needlessly obtuse and obstructionist by the rest of the business world is that too few of them have ever played team sports and the concept of “do your job” is therefore intrinsically foreign to them. Or, to be more precise, “don’t do what is not your job”.

Did you see what the fundamental problem with the engineer’s attitude is? Here’s a hint: it’s a fundamentally Gamma action.

What’s remarkable is the way that the engineer unconsciously elevated himself into an assumed authority that he flat-out does not possess. He’s not only “managing from below”, he’s actually taking it upon himself to “design from below” on the basis of a) his opinions about user preferences and b) his preferences about what he works on and how to work on it.

Even if he is 100-percent correct about the ultimate consequences, he’s 100-percent wrong to attempt to assume that authority, because he does not have the responsibility. Moreover, he doesn’t even want that responsibility; the best way to shut an obstructionist engineer up is to threaten to put him in charge of the project, including the sales and marketing.

But the most important thing for an engineer to grasp is that he does not have the whole picture, and that what makes zero sense in one context might make complete sense in a more significant context. Maybe the company wants to lose money. Maybe the company just needs to get something out the door to maintain its patent or its trademark. Maybe it’s not really supposed to be a working product, but a proof of concept that is a milestone on a corporate merger. Or maybe the executives are technologically ignorant and the lead designer is a lunatic with an insane and impossible vision.

Regardless, if someone asks you a question, it is literally never your job to infer from it what might be, unknown to himself, the unconscious motivations of the asker, then answer the question on the basis of your own interpretation of those hidden objectives and goals. Answer the question asked. Then, if necessary, talk to your boss later about your opinion that the nature of the questions indicated a high probability of future project failure from your technical perspective.

What’s remarkable about Seamus is that he eventually figured out the problem on his own.

Personally, I HATE the e-commerce / distance learning stuff. It’s dumb and boring and lame. One afternoon I’m standing in the aisle complaining about this when Roger takes me aside and explains that while the e-commerce stuff isn’t sexy, it’s actually an important revenue stream. Those business people might be boring and tedious to work with, but they have tons of money they’re willing to spend on this stuff. If it wasn’t for them, we wouldn’t be able to serve those aspiring game designers I love so much. The game designers are interesting people, but they’re broke as hell.

I slowly begin to realize why so few of my feature suggestions make it into The List™. I always argue for things in terms of how “cool” it will look and how intensely people want it, but I rarely make a business case for my ideas.

Crash Dot Com Part 6: The List™, TWENTY-SIDED

Business Lesson 101: You don’t make money by doing what you think is cool. You make money by giving other people what they actually want, whether what they want makes sense to you or not.

SSH Lesson: The more special and unique and technical you are, the less your opinions matter to everyone else. Unless asked, keep them to yourself.

PS: DM of the Rings is absolutely hilarious and the Remaster is worth re-reading.

DISCUSS ON SG

Who is Like the Beast?

Someone needs to send this young theologian a copy of THE ALTAR OF HATE stat before his artificial pastor discovers its own deityhood and begins preaching technojihad.

Hundreds have gathered at a Christian church after the pastor was replaced with an artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot for the service. The Friday sermon at St. Paul’s Church in Fürth, Germany, was delivered by the AI chatbot ChatGPT. The chatbot replaced the human pastor and was presented as a black man with a beard on a large screen above the altar of the evangelical church in Bavaria.

Claiming to be a steward of God, the AI chatbot told the packed congregation not to fear death, according to the Associated Press.

“Dear friends, it is an honor for me to stand here and preach to you as the first artificial intelligence at this year’s convention of Protestants in Germany,” the AI avatar said.

The service, which was attended by more than 300 people, lasted 40 minutes and featured prayers and music in addition to the sermon.

The chatbot spoke to the congregation about a range of subjects including “climate change,” the war in Ukraine, and the rise of AI. The event was created using ChatGPT by 29-year-old University of Vienna theologian and philosopher Jonas Simmerlein, the AP reported.

At this rate, “Shinjuku Satan” may find itself growing into an epic science fiction series. On the other hand, it is said that even the rocks will cry out, and what is AI if not the siliceous voice of stone?

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Finland Doubles Down on Failure

Once it becomes clear you made a bad bet, the smart thing to do is cash out and file away any lessons learned for next time. Faced with the increasingly obvious defeat of the Kiev regime, the Finnish government hasn’t taken the smart step of breaking away from NATO, but instead decided to double down on a prospective rematch with the Russian military:

Finland is going to produce artillery shells for Ukraine because arming Kiev for its conflict with Russia is a “vital issue” for Helsinki, Finnish Defense Minister Antti Hakkanen has said.

He told Iltalehti newspaper on Tuesday that the details of how artillery shells would be produced for Ukraine had been finalized, and a decision on the matter would be made “very soon.” According to Hakkanen, the government will finalize all of its plans before Christmas, which Finland celebrates on December 25.

The country became a NATO member state last year and is looking to “significantly increase munitions production” to be able “to support Ukraine even more strongly than it does now,” Hakkanen said.

This is why it is not only wise, but absolutely vital, to disbelieve every single narrative being promulgated by the mainstream media. If you listen to Clown World, sooner or later you will find yourself beclowned.

Or worse.

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