Category: Uncategorized

SUPER★HERO

Thanks to the U.S. Trademark Office, it may be time to consider changing the name of Alt★Hero. Or, even better, introducing a new line with our new superhero universe.

A U.S. Trademark Office tribunal has canceled a set of “Super Hero” trademarks jointly owned by comic giants Marvel and DC at the request of a London-based comic book artist, according to a Thursday order. The USPTO’s Trademark Trial and Appeal Board ruled for S.J. Richold’s Superbabies Ltd, opens new tab after DC did not file an answer to Superbabies’ request to invalidate the marks.

Spokespeople and attorneys for Marvel and DC did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Superbabies attorney Adam Adler of Reichman Jorgensen Lehman & Feldberg said in a statement that the ruling was “not just a win for our client but a victory for creativity and innovation. By establishing SUPER HEROES’ place in the public domain, we safeguard it as a symbol of heroism available to all storytellers.”

Rivals Marvel and DC jointly own four federal trademarks covering the terms “Super Hero” and “Super Heroes,” the oldest of which dates back to 1967.

Richold writes comics featuring a team of super-hero babies called the Super Babies. According to Richold, DC accused his company of infringing the “Super Hero” marks and threatened legal action after Superbabies Ltd applied for U.S. trademarks covering the “Super Babies” name. Marvel and DC have cited their marks in opposing dozens of superhero-related trademark applications at the USPTO, according to the office’s records.

Superbabies petitioned the office to cancel the marks in May. It argued that Marvel and DC cannot “claim ownership over an entire genre” with their trademarks, and that the two competitors cannot own trademarks together.

We need a name for the universe of Black Warrant, Red Hornet, and our other new heroes. That just might do…

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Stretch Goal 2

Now that the campaign has blown past its first stretch goal, it’s time to announce Stretch Goal #2. And that is a six-page introduction which will include all of the original HYPERGAMOUSE cartoons. This will increase the length of the regular editions to 124 pages and the coffee table book to 234 pages. Stretch Goal #2 is set at $60,000; the campaign is currently at 65 percent of that.

Below is an image of Mari as she was first conceived by the original artist on the left, and Mari as she was subsequently illustrated by Lacey Fairchild on the right. This introduction will make Volume 1 a comprehensive historical collection, and one well worth backing in order to add to one’s library. Imagine if an original first edition of PEANUTS had ever been produced in this manner and what that would be worth today.

Fandom Pulse recently published a nice article on the history of Arkhaven and the Hypergamouse campaign:

While Eric July and Ethan Van Sciver often dominate the conversation of the ant-woke sphere in comics, Arkhaven Comics has been building infrastructure and systems to produce thousands of pages of quality content in a host of different genres. Their Webtoon competitor website has reached over 15 million views, and their latest Kickstarter campaign, Hypergamouse, is a huge success after its first day live.

Arkhaven started in 2017 as a response to the woke nightmare that Marvel and DC Comics had become. Writer and publisher Vox Day created a crowdfund that shook the comic industry, with Alt-Hero raising more than $250,000 in its initial offering, which spawned a whole line of comics. Creators like Ya Boi Zack and Ethan Van Sciver saw the incredible amount a company could make on crowdfunding and ventured into their own books the year after Vox Day launched the first ComicsGate project, capitalizing on the momentum here.

But Vox Day didn’t stop there. He teamed up with many creators, including industry veteran Chuck Dixon, who’s been creating an incredible amount of work through Arkhaven’s site, including fan favorites such as My Sister Suprema and Something Big.

Another hit on the Arkhaven website has been Lacey Fairchild’s Hypergamouse. A comedy strip focused on the socio-sexual hierarchy, Fairchild combines the anthropomorphic slice-of-life humor of old newspaper comics with modern theming, making Hypergamouse something special for readers.

In the interest of precision, I would point out that calling Alt-Hero the first ComicsGate project is correct in the original sense of the term that referred to a consciously anti-mainstream independent comic. Obviously, it predated both the term and the trademark, and the only Arkhaven project that was even tangentially related to ComicsGateTM was the original publication of Gun Ghoul, which was very briefly produced under a ComicsGate imprint. Old school gamers will immediately recognize the significance of the colors.

I think it’s also worth noting that Arktoons will hit 16 million views in October. And speaking of Arktoons, looks who’s back and rolling with a new chapter on Arktoons again.

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The Expansion of BRICS

BRICS will be growing significantly next month.

The next wave of BRICS expansion will be announced at the group’s annual summit in the Russian city of Kazan in October, Belarusian Foreign Minister Maxim Ryzhenkov has claimed. Speaking on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York, Ryzhenkov predicted that BRICS could add at least ten new members, while expressing optimism that his own country’s application for membership will be approved.

“The first wave of enlargement, as we all expect – those who have submitted such applications – will take place at the Kazan summit,” Ryzhenkov told RIA Novosti. Russia is “formulating the list of these countries that will be in the first wave of enlargement,” he added.

As the current holder of the BRICS chairmanship, Russia will host the group’s annual summit in Kazan from October 22 to 24. Earlier this month, Belarusian First Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Lukashevich said his country is in the first pool of BRICS candidates, along with Algeria, Bangladesh, Bahrain, Bolivia, Venezuela, Vietnam, Cuba, Honduras, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Kuwait, Morocco, Nigeria, Palestine, Senegal, and Thailand.

Several other countries, including Türkiye, Zimbabwe, and Burkina Faso, have also shared their intent to join. Founded in 2006 by Russia, China, India, and Brazil, the organization accepted South Africa as a member in 2011. Earlier this year, it expanded to welcome four new member states – Iran, Egypt, Ethiopia and the UAE. So far, at least 34 countries have expressed interest in joining, Russian President Vladimir Putin stated at a senior BRICS meeting earlier in September.

The three most significant countries in that first set are Vietnam, Indonesia, and Nigeria. Clown World has been working hard to try to separate Vietnam from China, and “the Prussians of Asia”, as Lee Kwan Yew described them, are historically the most aggressive nation in Asia. Indonesia is the largest Muslim country and is closely tied economically to China, and Nigeria is the most populous and most advanced African state. Between them, just those three countries have 150 million more people than the entire European Union.

The inclusion of Palestine is also significant, as while BRICS is not a military alliance, the economic power it wields is already formidable, and a boycott by BRICS would be potentially be more devastating than the US sanctions regime on Russia have been. The biggest news, of course, would be if Türkiye is allowed to jump the queue, especially if it exits NATO in the process.

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Freedom Wins in Austria

Clown World’s media pretends to be shocked that a party opposing futile permawars and migrant rape should prove to be popular.

Austria’s hard-right Freedom Party has topped the country’s national elections, winning the popular vote for the first time in its history. While the party has been in government several times, it’s the first time it has won the most votes, having gained the support of 29.1 per cent of electors, according to projections based on more than 60 per cent of the votes counted.

But even with the victory, it is still uncertain that the party will be able to form the next government.

Its leader Herbert Kickl, 55, has vowed to transform the country into ‘Fortress Austria’, slamming the current government’s ‘failed migration policy’ as being to blame for the Islamist terror plot on a Taylor Swift concert. Mr Kickl and his party have promoted ‘remigration’, the controversial concept which promotes the expulsion of immigrants of non-European ethnic backgrounds who are deemed to have failed to integrate.

And a reminder, as if any was needed, that conservatives are always worse than useless.

Based on current projections, the conservative People’s Party, led by current Chancellor Karl Nehammer, is on course to become the second largest group, with 26.3 per cent of votes. Addressing his party’s result, Mr Nehammer said it was ‘bitter’ that it missed out on first place, but noted that he had brought it back from lower poll ratings. He once again ruled out a coalition with Mr Kickl, adding ‘what I said before the election, I also say after the election.’

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Don’t Get Too Excited

Israel won a grand victory over Hezbollah, if the reports are to be believed:

It was later reported that the Israel Air Force attacked and destroyed 59 stationary medium-range Fajr rocket launchers positioned throughout southern Lebanon. Operation Density allegedly only took 34 minutes to carry out but was the result of six years of intelligence gathering and planning. Between half and two-thirds of Hezbollah medium-range rocket capability was estimated by the IDF to have been wiped out. According to Israeli journalists Amos Harel and Avi Issacharoff the operation was “Israel’s most impressive military action” and a “devastating blow for Hezbollah”. In the coming days IAF allegedly also attacked and destroyed a large proportion of Hezbollah’s long range Zelzal-2 missiles.

“All the long-range rockets have been destroyed,” chief of staff Halutz allegedly told the Israeli government, “We’ve won the war.”

Those reports are 18 years old, from the prelude to the failed 2006 ground invasion of Lebanon. Assuming that a war is all but over in the aftermath of an initial series of air strikes is reliably wrong. Eliminating Nasrallah is an achievement that one presumes would be positive for the Israelis, but does anyone seriously believe that if Hezbollah was to eliminate Netanyahu, the war would be over?

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Disordered and Unaccountable

Never have any sympathy for atheists, who are the “fools” often described in the Bible. Because atheists aren’t just socially-disabled retards, they’re self-destructive socially-disabled retards who blame everyone else for their own self-destructive actions:

Atheism Has a Suicide Problem

Depression is a serious problem with in the greater atheist community and far too often, that depression has led to suicide. This is something many of my fellow atheists often don’t like to admit, but it is true. I know a lot of atheists, myself included, would all like to believe that atheists are happier people than religious believers and in many ways we are. But we also have to accept the reality that in some very important ways we are not.

There are of course many valid reasons why atheists are sometimes more prone to suicide than religious believers. Interestingly enough, one of those reasons is religious believers themselves. We live in a world dominated by people who often fervently believe ancient superstitions and who many times demonize, harass, ostracize, and disown those who lack belief in those ancient superstitions. Atheists on the receiving end of this treatment are understandably stressed and isolated. They often experience anxiety and depression as a result.

Atheists want to believe they’re happier and smarter while by every single measure of mental health, they are observably unhappier and unhealthier. They’re less likely to ever get married or to have children, while they’re much more likely to be depressed, to be gay, to take illegal drugs, to be on antidepressants, and to kill themselves. And then they blame the religious for their own intrinsic flaws.

If atheism was a disease, there would be a pill for it. At its core, it is an anti-life pseudo-philosophy which scientific mental disorder that prevents the sufferer from recognizing the marks of the Creator in His Creation. This is why, as I was the first to hypothesize, multiple studies have found that atheism is very strongly correlated with mental disability: “neurotypical subjects were 10 times as likely to strongly endorse God.”

The lesson is this: one should not take the arguments and assertions of atheists any more seriously than one does those of any other mentally-disabled individual. There is a very good reason that the arguments put forth by their greatest champions are uniformly inept.

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Late-Stage Retardery

In which we are reminded that societies don’t fall to outside conquest as often as they collapse due to self-inflicted suicidal retardery:

The Minneapolis Police Department has just sworn in its first non-citizen officer, in addition to its first Somali female officer.

Ikran Mohamed and Lesly Vera were among nearly two dozen officers who were recently onboarded to join the police force, with the former being the department’s first Somali female to be recruited and the latter being the first non-citizen officer. The report states that Vera is originally from Mexico but has resided in the US since she was 4 years old, calling Minneapolis her ‘home’ despite never becoming a citizen.

According to ABC News, MPD Chief Brian O’Hara cited a new change in the law, which now states that a ‘permanent resident’ who is a non-citizen can join the police department. “There may be people who question it, but that’s completely ridiculous.“

This should turn out about as well as the “first Somali police officer” and the “first Somali to chair Minneapolis Public Housing Agency” have.

  • Mohamed Noor’s arrival as the first Somali-American officer in his Minneapolis police precinct was celebrated three years ago as a cultural bridge, a way of building trust between the police and the city’s large refugee population. The mayor even attended a welcome ceremony for him. Mr. Noor was sentenced to about 12 and a half years in a Minnesota prison for the death of Justine Ruszczyk, an unarmed woman he killed while on patrol in 2017.
  • Somalian immigrant to the U.S. who chaired the board of the Minneapolis Public Housing Authority (MPHA) pled guilty to federal wire fraud charges on Wednesday. Sharmarke Issa of Edina, 40, facilitated a money laundering operation and gained millions through fake vendors for the Feeding Our Future (FOF) scam, according to prosecutors.

I don’t know exactly how things will go catastrophically wrong with these two ground-breaking new officers in the Minneapolis Police Department. But I’m very, very confident that they will.

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Head of the Snake Strategy

Israel is pursuing an essentially non-military strategy of attacking the enemy’s leadership rather than attempting to defeat them on the battlefield:

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has claimed it eliminated Hassan Nasrallah, the Secretary-General of the Hezbollah paramilitary group, in a strike on Beirut, Lebanon. In a statement on Saturday, the IDF confirmed media reports that the top official was killed in the bombing of an underground compound belonging to the militant group in the Dahiyeh suburb of the Lebanese capital. “Hassan Nasrallah will no longer be able to terrorize the world,” it added.

According to the IDF, Nasrallah “was responsible for the murder of many Israeli civilians and soldiers” as well as numerous other “terrorist activities.” “The IDF will continue operating against anyone who promotes and engages in terrorism against the State of Israel and its people,” the statement warned.

Hezbollah has confirmed the death of Nasrallah.

The reason most military strategists don’t recommend utilizing this strategy is that it usually doesn’t work very well outside of circumstances where the king, or khan, exerts sole control over the military and its use. Russia, for example, could have easily eliminated the Kiev regime’s leadership in a similar fashion, but has elected not to do so. China could do the same to the leadership of its estranged island province, if any such leadership were to exist.

I should probably explain that’s a bit of a diplomacy joke. You see, China’s foreign ministry recently informed reporters that the new Japanese head of the LDP could not have visited “the leader of Taiwan” as he was reported to have done in the past because “Taiwan is a province of China and there is no ‘leader of Taiwan.'” This is why I don’t do stand-up; I’d have to schedule an additional half-hour to explain why the jokes would have been funny if the audience had only possessed the information required to appreciate them.

The problem is that one has no guarantee that whatever leadership succeeds the previous leadership is not guaranteed to be less capable, or less inclined to escalate the conflict. Of course, if Israel’s goal is to escalate the conflict, as I suspect it is, then it had nothing to lose by removing Nasrallah from the equation since he was both a) capable and b) maintaining a disciplined strategy of attrition through restraint. A younger, less patient replacement who is more enthusiastic about engaging in direct war might be the best result that Israel could reasonably hope to accomplish.

That is why I think it’s too soon to have any opinion, one way or the other, about the wisdom of pursuing this Head of the Snake strategy in these particular circumstances. Sometimes, it’s impossible to know if a given course is the ideal one until a time well after the fact.

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The Corpocracy Devours Itself

I thought the most informative aspect of this IBM employee’s critical rant about the former tech giant is the way it reveals how the corpocracy ends up devouring itself once it makes the shift from production to services. We’re presently seeing this transformation take place in the game space, as the corpocratic-“game developers” seek to capture customers and feed upon them over time rather than simply make good games and sell them to gamers.

And the larger corporations, of course, can’t survive by feeding on individual consumers, so they have to predate upon smaller corporations, locking them into “service contracts” and keeping them dependent upon their increasingly inferior technologies. The inevitable results are exactly the opposite of the theoretical benefits of so-called “capitalism”.

I have been at IBM for a couple of years now and I honestly question why any of us are still here, pretending that this company is going to turn it around. Our best days are long gone and what we are witnessing is the slow, painful death of IBM yet we are still on this sinking ship.

IBM Cloud is an absolute joke. It accounts for an extremely tiny fraction of the market and only because most companies that use it are trapped with IBM’s legacy systems. They’re not using it because it’s good but because they have no choice. We bought Red Hat for $34 billion because we dropped the ball so hard on cloud. Why build innovative cloud solutions when we can just acquire something decent and slap our logo on it? Our hybrid cloud strategy is merging old systems with slightly newer systems. Most of our cloud revenue comes from services, consulting, and managing cloud infrastructure AKA getting paid to help other companies figure out our legacy technology.

This is mostly why Global Services is our biggest revenue stream. We basically sell the solution to problems that IBM products make. Our strategy is to sell complexity and eventually that company spirals into integration nightmares so they crawl back to IBM consultants to fix it.

IBM makes billions from just keeping system Z mainframes on life support because they are the backbone to so many major institutions. We can charge a ridiculous amount for software fees for enterprise software and they have no choice but to pay up in order to stay alive. The complexity and cost to move off these systems that have been built for decades is too high and we exploit that tremendously with insane maintenance fees.

This is exactly how our software licensing works too. We just lock companies into proprietary software hell for decades because our core software products like DB2 and Websphere have become deeply embedded in the infrastructure of large organizations. Companies are trapped when we charge high maintenance and support fees and they have to shell out for upgrades they barely need. ELAs are traps designed to squeeze as much money as we can possibly can.

We fail to integrate our acquisitions within our corporate strategy. We just have a mix of cloud platform extensions, AI solutions, and industry specific solutions. We are not innovating ourselves. This is more to help our consulting sales than it is to make a competitive product strategy.

watsonx is a desperate scramble to pretend that we are in the AI market. Everyone knows that we’re not coming up with anything innovative. We are just riding off the coattails of Meta and other open source models just like what we did with Red Hat. No one new will ever adopt watsonx. This is again targeted for our legacy customers who are trapped. It is all just mostly repackaged algorithms and models that everyone is already doing.

Our workforce rebalancing efforts aka our cost cutting strategy by offshoring and replacing highly-paid employees with lower-wage employees has ultimately damaged our long-term profitability. Employees feel less motivated and valued when we see our peers get laid off for cheap labor in India. Employee motivation, experience, and collaboration are crucial for overall productivity and long-term success, but we do it value any of that. It’s all for the short-term profit gains, which again will be overtaken by the long-term negative impact of declining productivity.

Our future is collapsing rapidly. We are holding onto legacy contracts and mainframe lifelines but once those clients migrate off, IBM is left with nothing but scraps. Microsoft, Google, AWS will destroy us as cloud AI leaders and eventually, they will also perfect mainframe-to-migration tools and our mainframe clients with jump ship. I envision we will be sold off as pieces or die all together.

So again, I ask: Why are you still here? IBM is draining your energy and trapping you in an endless cycle of bureaucracy, outdated tech, and corporate nonsense. Do you truly believe that watsonx or IBM Cloud will save us? There is no growth or innovation and you will either be patching up legacy systems, trying to sell dead AI products, or stuck in consulting purgatory. We are not turning it around. Get out while you can and develop skills in modern technology and work somewhere where the future is bright.

TLDR; IBM monetizes on confusion, legacy systems, and corporate inertia. We sell tech to trap companies in it, then charge them forever to keep it working. The only reason companies are with IBM is because the cost of leaving is higher than the cost of staying and we make billions just off that equation. There is no bright future.

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