Category: Uncategorized

The Toad of Tor returns!

It’s going to be beautiful seeing how the SF-SJWs react to the coming collapse of Tor Books. They are just horrible little creatures. The Toad of Tor is still so bitter about her husband’s muting by Macmillan that she is after anyone who dares to so much as speak well of me.

This week I launched Flying Sparks, my beautiful superhero comic of a hero and villain in love, and the mantra of Jon Del Arroz “isn’t really a bestseller” continued. The publisher’s wife and employee of the company Teresa Neilsen Hayden launched an attack on me because I spoke positively of fellow author Vox Day, who has recently taken a generous amount of time actually criticizing some of my work in a constructive way and guiding me to help me become a better author, something no one from Tor has ever come close to doing in their childish namecalling and gaslighting attacks.

But the Nielsen Haydens still have just enough influence within the creepy little SF fandom community to put on a show for the Twitter Trust & Safety Council at the expense of the leading Hispanic voice in science fiction. Based on my experience, this is the prelude to Jon Del Arroz’s eventual banning from Twitter.

I don’t know about you, but I’m truly going to enjoy Arkhaven and Castalia House crushing these evil grotesqueries. They have already failed, they simply aren’t fully aware of it yet. Once the full extent of what we’re now in the process of doing becomes clear to them, they’re going to need to seriously up their medications. And speaking of Jon Del Arroz, I can confirm that Dark Legion Comics will be publishing the retail editions of his successfully-funded Flying Sparks comic.

Deals with the devil

The problem mortals face in striking deals with the devil is that eventually, time will run out. This blind item from seven months ago on CDAN is almost certainly relevant to Ronan Farrow’s expose of CBS and Les Moonves.

Make that definitely relevant, as this prophetic comment on the blog post demonstrates: Ronan Farrow is on this. He’s doing a major profile for the NY Times and has been calling people all over the industry–causing a panic at Viacom and CBS. Remember, both the post and the comment are from January, 2018.

Tick tock, tick tock.  That clock is ticking loudly as a chain of events and a metaphorical deal with the devil can bring down this entire media corporation and their now-struggling studio within the coming year. This one has been a long time coming, and is thankfully about to come to an end for the perpetrators of some of the modern entertainment industry’s worst long-time institutional abuses of underage actresses.  For many of the long-time CDAN regulars this one won’t be a shock, although the details might.  Many people in Hollywood and out have been waiting to see when this Producer at this cable network is going to be called out, publicly accused, or charged for his many years of abuse behind the scenes.  Many have wondered why – with so many others being brought down – he’s managed to escape almost unscathed? It’s because of his Protector.  His Protector is the mega-wealthy big boss of the studio and corporate parent, and he wields a lot of power over many types of media, in both Hollywood and New York.  Many years ago the Producer got himself in serious trouble over his perverted abuses of several of his actresses.  Not just those he abused himself, but those he encouraged his writers, directors, and co-producers to sexually abuse.  This was not a one-time thing, but an ongoing constant pattern which led those actresses to drugs, self-destruction, self-abuse, mutilation, destroyed dreams, wasted careers, damaged families, and even insanity.  Made more disgusting by the complicity and apathy of the parents, “momagers”, and guardians who just wanted fame and money.  All so that some jolly perverts could get their rocks off living out their sick unfulfilled tweenage dreams.  At that time, the Protector still had most of his marbles and was going to live forever.  Many believe he still may, although he’s now alive in name only and the flames are lapping at his legs daily.  Back then he still had his iron grip on his business and he’s never been afraid to sue, threaten, harass, or destroy others as his favorite sport.

Back when the abuses emerged as whispers at the corporation, the executives and The Protector sat down with his corporate bean counters and realized the massive cash cow this Producer was for them.  Huge. Very huge and big in every way. In fact, probably one of the three biggest revenue generators in the corporate parent’s entire history (especially in the coveted target demographic for ads, merch, and licensing).  When that much is at stake, they don’t want to rock the boat or kill the golden goose (Or cow. Or even a giant pig.).  Anyway, on the other hand? It is a public corporation, and that means things can get leaked and revealed just through statements and financial reports.  What then evolved was a corporate game of chess that nobody could imagine.

The Producer was no dummy, so he personally hired investigators to provide ammo for his case.  He then hired top financial experts to lay out the revenue he and his cronies represented to the corporation both in the past and in future revenues.  So when the Protector summoned him? The Producer showed the Protector a huge financial report to validate his power and worth to the bottom line.  Then he showed a massive dossier of files going back 50 years of the powerful Protector’s own misdeeds.  From New York, to Hollywood, to Boston, to London – a trail of abuses, perversions, thefts from his company, abuse, stealing from his own family, and even outright felonies.  By the time he got down the list to mention offshore banking, the Protector knew he’d met someone on his level.  Thus the two twisted men forged a strategy and agreement to protect each other and the corporation.

The Producer surrendered his very expensive background report – and the Protector agreed to make all those “pesky” abuse whispers go away.  They also agreed to blame another big corporate executive within the corporation if anything ever did leak out and set him up as a fall guy.  The Protector even targeted one of his corporate underlings to shoulder the blame too, so he could claim ignorance.  None of this was simple, instant, and was NOT cheap or easy.  But the perverted Producer was smart enough to have limited potential witnesses by keeping his rapes/abuses down to he said/she said.  And for more than a decade in the pre-Cosby & pre-Harvey days a reporter, lawyer, or cop wouldn’t accuse in such instances without hard proof.

Whether Moonves is an attempted distraction or a prelude is irrelevant. The evil old Protector can’t protect the depraved Producer any longer, so it’s just a matter of time before the first big crack in the dam of information about the Hollywood pedos appears.

Both CBS and Viacom are going down hard. Nor will they be the only organizations to do so. Neon Revolt has more.

Bad Moonves falling

Ronan Farrow releases his expose on CBS CEO and alleged sex predator (((Les Moonves)))

For more than twenty years, Leslie Moonves has been one of the most powerful media executives in America. As the chairman and C.E.O. of CBS Corporation, he oversees shows ranging from “60 Minutes” to “The Big Bang Theory.” His portfolio includes the premium cable channel Showtime, the publishing house Simon & Schuster, and a streaming service, CBS All Access. Moonves, who is sixty-eight, has a reputation for canny hiring and project selection….

Six women who had professional dealings with him told me that, between the nineteen-eighties and the late aughts, Moonves sexually harassed them. Four described forcible touching or kissing during business meetings, in what they said appeared to be a practiced routine. Two told me that Moonves physically intimidated them or threatened to derail their careers. All said that he became cold or hostile after they rejected his advances, and that they believed their careers suffered as a result. “What happened to me was a sexual assault, and then I was fired for not participating,” the actress and writer Illeana Douglas told me. All the women said they still feared that speaking out would lead to retaliation from Moonves, who is known in the industry for his ability to make or break careers. “He has gotten away with it for decades,” the writer Janet Jones, who alleges that she had to shove Moonves off her after he forcibly kissed her at a work meeting, told me. “And it’s just not O.K.”

Thirty current and former employees of CBS told me that such behavior extended from Moonves to important parts of the corporation, including CBS News and “60 Minutes,” one of the network’s most esteemed programs. During Moonves’s tenure, men at CBS News who were accused of sexual misconduct were promoted, even as the company paid settlements to women with complaints. It isn’t clear whether Moonves himself knew of the allegations, but he has a reputation for being closely involved in management decisions across the network. Some of the allegations, such as those against the former anchor Charlie Rose, as reported by the Washington Post, have already become public. Other claims are being reported here for the first time. Nineteen current and former employees told me that Jeff Fager, the former chairman of CBS News and the current executive producer of “60 Minutes,” allowed harassment in the division. “It’s top down, this culture of older men who have all this power and you are nothing,” one veteran producer told me. “The company is shielding lots of bad behavior.”

It’s time for CBS to clean house, starting with the chairman and CEO.

Insight into the Hollywood cesspool

A guy who works in the industry sheds a little light on the corruption of the Hollywood cabal in the chans:

The A list community is broken down like this:

  • Somewhere around 30{4cf702b8037e739e45d2086f5f97594cb665cfde74596f7ff4ca2f44a7f588d4} are abusers (and that ranges from pedophile/trafficker /sacrificer down to having a casting couch).
  • Somewhere around 30{4cf702b8037e739e45d2086f5f97594cb665cfde74596f7ff4ca2f44a7f588d4} are genuine victims (there are literal slaves who believe they are living the high life, down to people who are raped and pressured into silence).
  • Somewhere around 30{4cf702b8037e739e45d2086f5f97594cb665cfde74596f7ff4ca2f44a7f588d4} willingly trade sexual favors for opportunities (ranges from begrudgingly, but they know how the system works to being a little cabal darling who loves or even gets off to whoring around).

The remaining 10{4cf702b8037e739e45d2086f5f97594cb665cfde74596f7ff4ca2f44a7f588d4} who are not applicable to the above is made up of:

  • People who are self-made and chose never to associate with the cabal. We know them from their own efforts, and they happened to get lucky or strike gold.
  • People who are insanely popular and make enough money for THEM that they have the clout to refuse to participate. They are usually blackmailed by credible threats of violence or ruining their careers into being quiet. Perhaps you could consider these people complicit.
  • People who are extremely diligent in not allowing themselves to be courted by THEM. This means either not going to or leaving early from Hollywood events and parties, and treating every time another person tests their waters like a joke or over reacting to the small stuff.
  • People THEY simply don’t want. Their standards may seem low, but there are hosts of people that the public likes and that came them money, but for one reason or another THEY don’t want them in the group. They’ll allow these people to remain on the outskirts of the group but will never even attempt to invite them to the inner circles.

This board has become known, and some people keep eyes on it. Some people get briefings on it. They are nervous that people are dedicated enough to dig, draw connections, lay them out plainly, then organize/coordinate to put them in front of a wide audience. These kinds of these used to be relegated to conspiracy boards and easily dispelled by mocking.

Current climate knows to fear drawing the attention of the masses. They also know once the hoard has their eye on you, everything they do is closely monitored, which is incredibly claustrophobic for people who thrive on symbolism and covert communication out in the open.

Immense push back on James Gunn’s firing as witch hunt in specific is an effort to shame the masses out of shaming people out of jobs and not let this set precedent.

Many still think and expect they’ll be able to sacrifice a few of the guilty publicly to preserve the rest. Many believe there will be a few more Weinsteins and Kevin Spaceys, but they’ll be okay. Some are freezing everything until this blows over. Some see the writing on the wall and oppose publicly to try and stop.

I’m not even remotely surprised to hear that the pushback on the Gunn firing is coming straight out of the Hellmouth. It had the stink of coordination to it. This is confirmation that we should be highly suspicious of the mockers, condemn the defenders and enablers, and press on with even more investigations into uncovering the truth, whatever it may be. The more pressure that they feel, the more some will feel the need to come clean while others desperately try to cover things up. And if history is a reliable guide, it is through the attempted coverups that the whole thing will come crashing down.

Weaponized autists may not be the heroes that we wanted, but they are the heroes that we need.

Hollywood values at CBS

Ronan Farrow is exposing CBS Chairman and CEO (((Leslie Moonves))) as another (((Weinstein))):

The CBS CEO, one of the most powerful men in Hollywood, is accused of unwanted kissing and touching in a New Yorker article set to be published Friday. The New Yorker is poised to publish an article by Ronan Farrow that includes allegations of sexual misconduct on the part of embattled CBS chairman and CEO Leslie Moonves, The Hollywood Reporter has learned.

A spokesperson for The New Yorker says, “We don’t comment on pieces we haven’t published.” Sources with knowledge of the article say it delves into the broader culture at CBS and will publish later today on the magazine’s website.

CBS said in a statement that it is investigating the claims made against Moonves. “All allegations of personal misconduct are to be taken seriously,” the network stated. “The Independent Directors of CBS have committed to investigating claims that violate the Company’s clear policies in that regard. Upon the conclusion of that investigation, which involves recently reported allegations that go back several decades, the Board will promptly review the findings and take appropriate action.”

The allegations are said in part to involve instances of unwanted kissing and touching that occurred more than 20 years ago, as well as numerous claims that occurred more recently.

He’s not the first. He won’t be the last. These losers literally cannot control themselves around attractive women. It’s long past time to flush them all out of the entertainment system and the corpocracy.

Outsourcing unemployment

I’ll bet they’re celebrating landing this contract:

Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) (BSE: 532540, NSE: TCS), a leading global IT services, consulting and business solutions organization, and the Wyoming Department of Workforce Services (DWS) are celebrating the launch of a new Unemployment Insurance system this week – WYUI – for the State of Wyoming. The WYUI solution is a fully modernized Unemployment Insurance system that will improve the way claimants interact with the state with a more user-friendly interface and expanded self-service capabilities.

TCS’ WYUI solution is a robust, scalable and repeatable platform with the ability to integrate and control multiple functional requirements, including online claims processing, payments, adjudication, and appeals. The WYUI implementation is also one of the first in the United States to be developed, tested and implemented in Microsoft Azure in such a short time frame, and within budget. Hosting the new system on Azure makes it more scalable than the previous system, and as the data housed in the system continues to grow, the system itself can be expanded.

TCS has already enabled several U.S. states to modernize their systems to support Unemployment Insurance programs, including Mississippi and Maine, as part of the ReEmployUSA Consortium. By partnering with Wyoming’s DWS, TCS has replaced a 34-year-old benefits and appeal legacy system with a modernized system, within a span of less than 20 months.

About Tata Consultancy Services Ltd (TCS)
Tata Consultancy Services is an IT services, consulting and business solutions organization that has been partnering with many of the world’s largest businesses in their transformation journeys for the last fifty years. TCS offers a consulting-led, cognitive powered, integrated portfolio of IT, Business & Technology Services, and engineering. This is delivered through its unique Location Independent Agile delivery model, recognized as a benchmark of excellence in software development. A part of the Tata group, India’s largest multinational business group, TCS has more than 400,000 of the world’s best-trained consultants in 46 countries.

What a truly virtuous cycle! Put American workers out of work, then get paid to process the transfer payments between the state government and the unemployed workers. Imagine how much money can be transferred to Indiasaved by replacing the entire Social Security Administration with Tata Consultancy Services!

No place for Sarah Silverman

CNN takes note of the Silverman controversy:

A tweet Sarah Silverman sent nine years ago, which she says was a joke, has some labeling her a pedophile.

In July 2009, the comedic actress tweeted, “Hey, is it considered molestation if the child makes the first move? I’m gonna need a quick answer on this.”

On Wednesday, the conservative publication Townhall posted a story about that tweet with the headline, “Disney Voice Actress and Comedian Sarah Silverman Also Joked About Molesting Children.” The article noted that a Twitter user asked Silverman about the 2009 tweet last year, “Was that supposed to be funny? Cause it wasn’t.”

Silverman responded to the controversy on Thursday.

Sarah Silverman@SarahKSilverman
 Some very odd people R saying I’m a pedo, re: a joke from a time not that long ago when hard absurd jokes by comedians were acknowledged for what they were — jokes — not a disengenuous national threat to people fake-clutching their pearls (whilst ranting the country’s too PC)

If it’s not okay to joke about Jews or Nazis or Africans, then it’s absolutely not okay to joke about molesting children. If jokes about Jews mean you’re an anti-Semite, and jokes about Africans mean you’re a racist, then jokes about molesting children obviously mean you’re a pedophile and you should be hunted down, disemployed, banned from social media and payment processing, and rejected by all right-thinking citizens.

Those are the rules. The logic is straightforward and impeccable. So deal with it.

They’re twice as wide

It’s amusing to observe the ongoing failure of the equality principle in every aspect and on every side.

So, the van pulled into an Autohof in Germany and we parked a little distance from the cafe/coffee shop/restaurant/news-stand/playground. We needed to stretch our legs, since we’d been on the road for several hours and would be driving for a few more. As we strolled to the Hof, the driver pointed to the parking slots right in front of the doors and shook his head. There were the usual handicapped places, and then two, pink, “Women Only” slots.

Not pregnant women, not elderly women, not women with small children, just women.

Oh come on! You have to be kidding me. What became of Grrrrrrrrl Power!? What became of “I am woman, hear me roar”? Women are so delicate that we need parking slots even closer than the designated handicapped places?

What became of them? They were nonsense from the start. The sooner everyone finally gets around to admitting that there is no such thing as sexual equality, there never was, and there never will be, the sooner society can be restructured on rational and sustainable grounds.

Introducing the Devstream

A number of people have been asking me to do the occasional Darkstream dedicated to games and game development, so I gave it a shot last night and it appears to have been reasonably well received. Because I anticipate considerably more discussion on this front in the coming months, and because a lot of the people interested in it will have no interest in the other subjects regularly addressed here, I’m not going to post Devstreams here, but on the DevGame blog instead.

The interesting thing to me about Fortnite, and the reason why I consider Fortnite to be essentially the game designers more or less giving up, is because what we have been doing as FPS designers from the very beginning is attempting to provide meaning and structure and story and experience to the action, and unfortunately we’ve been fighting the tendency of a certain group of players – who I am not at all convinced are the majority of players, but there are a lot of them – and they have a tendency to simply run around like chickens with their heads cut off. If you’ve played any online game starting back in the days of Doom and Heretic – yeah when we were playing with 4-player and 8-player networks – what you would see is some people would play strategically, some people would camp, other people would would team up and move cooperatively, but you always had the people who just run around like crazy, blasting away like crazy, and basically behaving in a way that you can’t even possibly consider anything that is remotely approaching anything credible or realistic.

And so, with Fortnite, and I have played it, and it’s a very good example of what it is the Battle Royale genre and so forth, but ultimately there is no purpose, there is no story, the action is the experience. Now that’s ok, that’s fine if that’s if that’s what you want, but you see, for years designers have been trying to hide that, they’ve been trying to keep that under control, and what Fortnite represents – and it’s obviously not the first Battle Royale game, it’s not the only one, but it is the most successful, the most symbolic of the concept – it’s basically the designers throwing up their hands and saying, “you know what, you guys just want to run around like chickens with your heads cut off slaughtering each other, here you go!” And to their credit, they give you the means to do that, so that’s what’s different between that and Call of Duty and Battlefield and all these other FPS games. Almost all the other games were trying to limit that, they’re trying to limit it through the level designs they’re trying to limit it through the ammo drops, and all that sort of thing.

I can’t say more about this at the moment, but there is a very real possibility that we will soon be moving Alt-Hero into the game space as well as the movie space in the not-too-distant future. So, it’s best to be prepared for that.

Damn straight

Never much liked Stereopony, and I’d put Scandal above Doll$boxx, but they definitely got the #1 band right. They’re just spectacularly good. Even the soft poppy new song is well-written and has got the big chorus as well as a nice bass line.