Cracking under pressure

Brian Niemeier is more than a little amused by John Scalzi cracking under the combined pressure of his big, beautiful book contract and the God-Emperor’s presidency:

Scalzi’s “the dog ate my homework” post is yet another indication that #1-selling indie author Nick Cole is about to be vindicated once more. To quote Nick:

Okay.  As I’ve talked about before this before… this is what happens next:

  • Big Pub reduces its Author List down to servicing Cadillac Clients.  Many authors who think they’re something are about to be shown the door in the form of un-returned emails, unanswered calls, and not talk of future projects.  Already happening.
  • Amazon Opens Book Stores.
  • Trad Pub Authors attempt to seamlessly bring themselves, and their mojo, into Amazon and fail badly because they’re not used to the volume of work.  Marketing, Formatting, Editing, Social Media, and most importantly now: a tight release schedule of every 30-90 days.  Also Amazon picks the winners and its more interested in New Talent.

A cataclysmic paradigm shift is underway that will soon overturn the publishing landscape as we know it. Indie has been overtaking tradpub for years, and now the Big Five New York publishers’ sole advantage–their paper distribution monopoly–is about to collapse.

When B&N goes, it will take the tradpub midlist with it. You’ll know the old era is over when current tradpub authors start trying to go indie. But as Nick forecasts and Scalzi confirms, former tradpub darlings are woefully unprepared to handle the increased workload.

And that’s just on the writing front. Factor in the additional responsibilities of being your own publisher and marketing department, and consider how a guy who can’t finish a novel in ten months with the backing of sci-fi’s biggest publisher will fare in the new order.

Here’s the truth: Scalzi’s ongoing nosedive has nothing to do with who’s president or the current weather. It has everything to do with the fact that Patrick Nielsen Hayden handed him a golden ticket. Scalzi has never had to work in this business without Tor propping up his career. Now he’s losing favor to N.K. Jemisin, his last book underperformed, and he’s falling behind on his contract–all in the looming shadow of B&N’s failure.

I prefer to characterize my friend Nick Cole as a bestselling Castalia House author, but otherwise, Brian has described the situation rather well.

I’m sure you will understand that I found this comment to be particularly entertaining.

“The worst part of all this is that Vox called it when he was given the deal in the first place. And Scalzi, in his arrogance, set about to prove him right.”

The thing is, I wasn’t making the prediction out of any malice or SJW-style magical thinking. It was entirely obvious to me that an author whose primary skill was marketing himself to editors was not going to be successful once they stopped devoting excessive resources to propping him up and maintaining a false narrative about his skill and his success. Scalzi is, and has always been, a mediocre mid-list author with a penchant for juvenile vulgarity. If he submitted a manuscript to us under a different name, there is virtually no chance we would accept it for publication.

That being said, John Scalzi is very highly skilled and he is extraordinarily successful, just not at what he wants you to believe he is. The challenge facing him is that while those particular skills were integral to his success in a traditional publishing model that required currying favor with SJW editors and the pseudo-media of SF fandom, they are considerably less useful in the brave new world of publishing today.

Losing is good for you

Ed Latimore explains why losing can be beneficial, even losing in a public and humiliating manner:

Despite my obnoxious posting about my fight on Showtime this last weekend, I hope you had something better to do than watch. If you didn’t, then I’ll fill you in. I got stopped in the 1st round.

It’s heavyweight boxing. When you have two men over 200 lbs throwing hard shots, someone is bound to go down. My opponent (quite the affable fellow outside the ring), landed a great short right over my jab and the fight was short lived after that.

It’s a terrible way to lose. Worse, it was live for the whole world to see. It’s awful but it’s part of life. I move on and become better from it.

In many ways, I learned more from this 3 minutes (technically speaking, the referee called a stop to the contest sometime after the 2-minute mark) than I did from the rest of my 9-year career in boxing. Life is funny this way.

If you can look at things the right way, you learn more from failure than success. Jay-Z once said, “I will not lose for even in defeat, there’s a valuable lesson learned so that evens it up for me”.

Here are 8 valuable lessons I learned from losing on national television.

Embarrassment is the worst emotion to feel 

It’s miserable because there’s no real way to confront or conquer it. You can face your fears. You can cheer yourself up if your sad. Embarrassment is just a burden you bear until it heals. The one fortunate thing about embarrassment is that like all other negative emotions, it is extremely susceptible to the power of gratitude.

These are the lessons that gammas never learn, because their fear of failure and the humiliation they wrongly believe it necessarily entails precludes them from putting themselves at risk of failure. They don’t understand that the lessons one learns from losing not only makes success more likely in the future, but that there is no shame whatsoever in a defeat in which one genuinely did one’s best and was simply overcome by a superior opponent.

The most ferociously competitive team with which I was ever associated was the kid’s soccer team I coached about ten years ago. Their first year, they lost every game, and usually badly. As a result, they developed a total immunity to any fear of losing, and, much to the confusion of the other teams, would celebrate every rare goal as if they had won the game. Two years later, they upset the provincial champions who were affiliated with the main professional club in the region by beating them in the championship games of both of the major tournaments. The next year, they went undefeated, won both tournaments again, and this time, only allowed a handful of goals the entire season.

They weren’t particularly big or particularly skilled, but the combination of their intensity and their total lack of fear was intimidating, even to the parents watching them. “They are wolves with a taste for blood,” one opposing coach memorably said, shaking his head, after a game in which I put our leading scorer into goal to prevent him from running up the score, started talking to one player’s father, then looked up to see the kid bringing the ball up past midfield to send a perfect cross to a teammate for another goal. The kid was so goal-hungry that I practically had to tie the kid to the bench to keep him from putting the ball in the net.

And it was their season of “humiliating failure”, all those 13-1 and 10-0 losses, that forged them into an extraordinarily successful team.

Read the rest there.

UPDATE: Paperback #2 and Hardcover #2 now available

And Dynamique is considering her options. We’ve got some very interesting new Alt★Hero developments we’ll be announcing soon, including at least one new stretch goal, although I understand it is going to be a few days before we’ll able to add the various add-ons that people have been requesting. Don’t worry, we’ve got more than three weeks left, so there is plenty of time to straighten these things out.

I’m also interested in learning what size figurine between 8 and 10 inches would be of most interest to the Rebel backers. Remember, you can back the project for only $15 and you’ll receive the first SIX volumes of Alt★Hero in their digital format.

UPDATE: In its fifth day, Alt★Hero is already in the top 5 percent of all Kickstarter projects ever. Back the project and help us move into the top one percent!

UPDATE: We’ve made some changes to the Rewards and stretch goals. We’ve decided not to wait to greenlight Paperback and Hardcover #2, both of which will include Volumes IV, V, and VI, so the two stretch goals are can now be considered preemptively reached. Both editions can be ordered now via the appropriate Reward level; Add-On: Paperback #2 is $30 and Add-On: Hardcover #2 is $65. Neither comes with anything else, but shipping is included.

We’ve also replaced the $70k stretch goal as follows:

Alt★Hero Novel
Castalia House will publish the first Alt★Hero novel, co-written by Vox Day and an author to be named when this goal is met. The book will be published in ebook, audiobook, and trade paperback editions.

The death of the cloud

This sort of thing is why we don’t use the cloud. Frankly, I don’t understand why anyone does.

Yahoo said a major security breach in 2013 compromised all three billion accounts the company maintained, a three-fold increase over the estimate it disclosed previously.

The revelation, contained in an updated page about the 2013 hack, is the result of new information and the forensic analysis of an unnamed security consultant. Previously, Yahoo officials said about one billion accounts were compromised. With Yahoo maintaining roughly three billion accounts at the time, the 2013 hack would be among the biggest ever reported.

“We recently obtained additional information and, after analyzing it with the assistance of outside forensic experts, we have identified additional user accounts that were affected,” Yahoo officials wrote in the update. “Based on an analysis of the information with the assistance of outside forensic experts, Yahoo has determined that all accounts that existed at the time of the August 2013 theft were likely affected.”

The information taken in the heist may have included users’ names, e-mail addresses, telephone numbers, dates of birth, passwords scrambled using the weak MD5 cryptographic hashing algorithm, and, in some cases, encrypted or unencrypted security questions and answers. Yahoo said investigators don’t believe the stolen information included passwords in clear text, payment card data, or bank account information. Yahoo also provided updated figures in a press release and in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

As if there is any chance – any chance at all – that they didn’t know that all of the information had been taken. Who trusts anything these Big Tech companies say anymore anyhow?

Sure, I use Blogger and Gmail, but always in the full knowledge that everything on this blog and in my email could go public one day. There is no such thing as “security” in social media.

So what is the matter with that?

In 2008, the Dalai Lama warned of the “danger” of one million Chinese immigrants increasing Tibetan GDP and enriching Tibet’s culture:

The Dalai Lama claimed yesterday that Beijing was planning the mass settlement of 1 million ethnic Chinese people in Tibet after the Olympics with the aim of diluting Tibetan culture and identity.

Tibet’s exiled spiritual leader also claimed that some of Asia’s most important rivers which flow from the Tibetan plateau are being polluted and diminished by careless industrialisation and unplanned irrigation.

The Dalai Lama made the claims in an interview with the Guardian after a meeting yesterday with Gordon Brown at Lambeth Palace. He said the talks had been detailed and the prime minister had been helpful “in spite of his difficulties”. The Dalai Lama said: “He met me and he showed genuine concern and he wants to help.”

Downing Street said the discussion focused on talks due next month on Tibet’s future between Tibetan representatives and Beijing officials. The prime minister is said to have stressed the importance of the Dalai Lama’s pledge to oppose violence, not seek Tibetan independence, nor support a boycott of the Beijing Olympics.

The Dalai Lama said he feared the Chinese authorities could take a tougher line on Tibet after the Olympics, and possibly flood it with Han Chinese, the world’s largest ethnic group.

The Dalai Lama said he had been informed by Tibetan residents that large areas of empty land had been marked out, as if for construction, in the past two years. “Then last year we received information – after the Olympics 1 million Chinese are going to settle in the autonomous region of Tibet,” he said, adding the information came from a “military source” in Tibet.

“There is every danger Tibet becomes a truly Han Chinese land and Tibetans become an insignificant minority. Then the very basis of the idea of autonomy becomes meaningless.”

What was the matter with that? Is Tibetan dirt any less magic than American dirt? Won’t those Han Chinese become true native Tibetans, just indistinguishable in every way from other native Tibetans, in precisely the same way that a Han Chinese immigrant is every bit as American as the Daughters of the American Revolution?

I just don’t see any problem here. We’re are just one human race. Everyone is equal. What on Earth was the Dalai Lama complaining about?

Fake gun control converts

The media is attempting to build a false narrative around people being magically converted to gun control by the recent events in Las Vegas.

The lead guitarist of a country music band playing Route 91 Harvest festival, where a gunman murdered 58 people on Sunday night, has said the horrific experience of the attack has changed his views on gun laws in America.

“I’ve been a proponent of the [second] amendment my entire life,” Caleb Keeter posted on Twitter. “Until the events of last night. I cannot express how wrong I was.”

In the chaotic hours after the attack, which began around 10pm, the members of the Josh Abbott Band were eventually able to post a message on social media, saying that the band and crew were safe. “I’ll never unhear those gunshots; and our band [and] crew will never forget how that moment made them feel,” singer Josh Abbott wrote on Twitter. “Our hearts are with all the victims.”

But Keeter went further, describing the deadliest shooting in modern US history as a revelation. He said that members of the band’s crew have concealed handgun licenses, and legal firearms on the bus.

“They were useless,” he said. “We couldn’t touch them for fear police might think that we were part of the massacre and shoot us. A small group (or one man) laid waste to a city with dedicated, fearless police officers desperately trying to help, because of access to an insane amount of firepower. Enough is enough.”

The feeling, he wrote, “was enough for me to realize that this is completely and totally out of hand. We need gun control RIGHT. NOW,” he added. “My biggest regret is that I stubbornly didn’t realize it until my brothers on the road and myself were threatened by it.”

There are two significant problems here. First of all, the band’s concealed handguns weren’t useless for fear of the police, but because the shooter was 300 YARDS AWAY. Knives, fists, and other close-range weapons were also useless, but then, very few criminal engagements take place at a range of 300+ yards. As for the “dedicated, fearless police officers” who took 72 minutes to not engage a single shooter, the less said the better.

Second, Caleb Keeter is a liar, as proved by his own archived tweets. He always was a gun control advocate, he simply happened to be dubious about the federal government’s ability to do so effectively.

18 December 2012
The Feds can’t even balance a checkbook and we trust them to deal with gun legislation? Gotta be done at a state level, if you want it folks

18 December 2012
We’re talking about a Federal Government composed of scummy, awful people. Contact your STATE representatives if you want gun control.

6 Jan 2013
Maybe they should have psychological tests for gun purchases?

On a related note, I think this guy won Twitter today and it’s not even 9 AM Eastern.

FlyingSkillet‏ @flyinskillet
Hey @Calebkeeter the Dixie Chicks are looking for a guitar player for their Pyongyang show.

72 minutes

While the media once more goes through its futile routine of attempting to push gun control on a population that absolutely is not having it, the more important lesson to be learned is the incredible tardiness of the police response. It seems the old joke about how when seconds count, the police are minutes away needs to be updated; in an emergency situation, you can be certain the police will be there to pick up the pieces in just 72 minutes.

A partial transcript of the full scanner audio:

  • Minute 15: they have identified room 135 on 32nd floor. But then reported 29th and 32nd floor. Security officer shot in leg on 32nd floor.
  • Minute 19: they had 4-man team on 32nd floor, another 4-man team arriving. Reporting definitively a 2nd shooter. Problem – police lacked rifles.
  • Minute 70: need roll call of personnel in Mandalay and strike team. 2 strike teams 13 officers total. All units SWAT use tac 1
  • Minute 71: control Zebra 20 – on suspects door – need everyone in hallway prepared to pop door — all units move back SWAT has explosive device — breach breach breach — SWOOOOSH!
  • Minute 72: has anyone covered airport — two shots fired in park area of New York New York
  • Minute 73: Have influx of returning ambulances any other area they need to respond to – Sending two teams Excaliber
  • Minute 74: Control 374 I have medics reporting getting shot at Tropicana — need strike team to the Tropica — announce yourself if you are going there — Unit 20 – entered room have one suspect down – Zebra has one suspect down in room

Deception at Mandalay Bay?

I saw the live reports on European TV. As a result of those early live reports, I remain very, very dubious that a single shooter, shooting from 300 yards away, caused 586 casualties, 59 of them fatal, in that amount of time. Even allowing for the elevation and the large size of the crowd, it strikes me as highly improbable (unless many of the injuries are related to trampling rather than shooting, that is plausible). At any rate, this independent journalist is not buying the Official Story:

SHOOTER COULD NOT HAVE BEEN AT MANDALAY BAY

The gunfire is too loud over the concert, it was happening at the concert . Windows are easy to kick out later.

HERE IS THE KEY VIDEO THAT DESTROYS THE LIE. This is just a file on this site, which you can right click and save. This video is evidence, there is no way the official story holds up against this. The gunfire was simply too loud and too local in reference to the concert for the official story to hold.

THE MOST IMPORTANT THINGS –
1. If it was originating 1500 feet away at Mandalay Bay, it was not close enough to totally blast over the concert loud enough to cause the performers, who wear monitor equipment to block all sound, to stop playing. The concert was LOUD when the shooting happened. You simply can’t outdo a concert from that far away, no one would have heard it over the music, especially the performers, who have equipment that is designed to block the sound of the concert and let them hear only the sound of their instruments, as they are played in reference to the other instruments. The failure of this system is what did Mariah Carey in on New Years, when you are playing that “big” you have to be directly piped to the mixing board with all other sources of sound blocked. This would have prevented the performers from hearing anything. Why did they stop? ANSWER: Gunshots from above them on the same stage would have been loud enough. What happens on stage in the video is a supreme bust of the official lie.

POINT TWO: Audio recording equipment (even on a camcorder) automatically sets the level of the audio to optimal. The concert was LOUD, it is obvious because the crowd cannot be heard when the music is playing. Then gunfire clearly is louder than the concert, even though according to the official story it originated 1500 feet away. The automatic level control in the audio recorder proves the gunfire was simply too loud in relation to the music to have come from Mandalay Bay, it had to have originated above the speakers. That is the only way the automatic level control circuit would not have had the recording level choked back so far that the gunfire would not be heard. The recording should not have had the sound of gunfire so prominent, IF it even managed to record the sound of the gun at all. Obviously after the music cut the recorder would pick up the gunfire from that distance because it would automatically turn the record volume up.

POINT THREE:

Watch the video. The stage crew cuts everything to black, and then takes the stage lighting, points it directly out at the crowd, and turns it back on to illuminate the crowd. The shooting does not resume until this process is complete. This was a deliberate act that no one would have thought of off the cuff unless it was planned ahead of time. Without a doubt, someone on the stage crew was involved in this shooting. Interesting it is that the concert was called the “Route 91 harvest” and took place on route 91!

Here is what I think happened. The shooters were actually situated above the stage. The windows on Mandalay Bay were kicked out for the story line. I have a video that shows it all unfold. I do not think the singer knew what was going on. I believe it was people planted in the crew that did this.

Anyhow, my position is the same as it always is. I don’t know what actually happened. But over the years, I have learned that the truth is seldom all that closely related to the Official Story. The way in which the crowd was illuminated from the stage AFTER the shooting began is particularly troubling. What sort of idiot would ever do that? And who was responsible for it?

A brother’s lies

A body language analyst on the interview with Paddock’s brother.

She concludes that Paddock’s attack was likely political in nature rather than religious, and was more likely connected with Antifa than with ISIS.