Ilkotism

Two IT jobs in North Carolina:

We are looking for two senior level IT positions and are having a hard time finding good candidates.  I would love to see the positions filled by members of the Ilk.

Senior Converged Infrastructure Engineer
In this case we are looking specifically for someone who is an expert in Compute-Unix/Linux specific and Storage-EMC specific.  AIX/Red Hat, VMware, IBM Power, EMC Storage, VCE Vblock.

Senior Storage Engineer 
7+ years of direct experience managing storage in a large enterprise environment.  EMC experience is highly preferred, but possibly not required. 

No remote option.

If you’re qualified and you’re interested, email me with a resume attached and I’ll forward it onto the relevant party.

On a tangential note, we’re going to have an IT-related January Brainstorm session soon. It will be closed; I just have to work out the date with the panelists.

The Game Dev course begins Saturday. I’ll send out the emails tonight.

The art of punditry

Ross Douthat doubles down. He may have been wrong about Trump before, but he’s still entirely confident that Trump can’t win the nomination:

I certainly overestimated poor Jeb Bush, whom I wrongly predicted would profit from Trump’s rise. But for the rest — no, I had a pretty low opinion of the right-wing entertainment complex to begin with, and I’m not remotely surprised that the white working class would rally to a candidate running on populist and nationalist themes.

I am very surprised, though, that Trump himself would have the political savvy, the (relative) discipline and yes, the stamina required to exploit that opening and become that populist. And for that failure of imagination, I humbly repent.

Of course I’m not completely humbled. Indeed, I’m still proud enough to continue predicting, in defiance of national polling, that there’s still no way that Trump will actually be the 2016 Republican nominee.

Trust me: I’m a pundit.

That’s the true art of punditry. Never changing your mind, even while you are admitting that you’re wrong.

No wonder I couldn’t hack it. Meanwhile, Reihan Salam explains what Douthat missed, and is missing, at NRO:

“[Trump’s] emergence as the voice of the anti-immigration Right is a reflection of the failure of the Republican establishment to grapple with lawlessness at the border and half a century of mass immigration. Consider the events of the past two years. Child migrants have surged into the United States from Central America, and working-class cities and towns across the country are struggling to absorb them. Before the federal courts stepped in, President Obama signed an executive order shielding roughly half of all unauthorized immigrants in the U.S. from the threat of deportation, a move he had previously suggested was out of bounds. And now the U.S. is experiencing yet another wave of Central American arrivals. Border Patrol officials report that many unauthorized immigrants believe that the U.S. is going to welcome them with open arms, and who can blame them given the president’s rhetoric?

Interesting to see that even the heart of cuckservatism is beginning to sense that all is not right with open borders.

They owe him

It’s always interesting to see how SJWs continually vacillate between claiming that I am totally insignificant and can’t possibly achieve anything and asserting that I am a dire threat to SJW convergence who must be stopped at all costs.

You All Owe Me

So, you may be familiar with Vox Day, the neofascist scumbag who tried to game the Hugos last year because the award always goes to so-called “social justice warrior” authors. Well recently, after people pointed out that the Goodreads Choice Awards have a wide, wide user base and still award the same type of books as the Hugos and Nebulas, he decided to take action. Over New Years weekend he announced the formation of a Goodreads group with the purpose of gaming the site. Of course the group was set to private so the evil SJWs wouldn’t be able to see what he was up to.

Too bad for him the only thing keeping out the SJWs was a challenge question that could be answered with a simple Google search. By Saturday night I had access to the group. I didn’t know what to do — undermine him from the inside, play Serpico and leak screenshots on a piecemeal basis, or save them up for a big reveal. The last one seemed the best way not to get caught until I had a good collection of dirt, and I was strongly leaning in that direction.

But after reading File770’s news roundup yesterday, which included a story about someone being ganged up on by Day and his goons, I decided it might be better to give warning where I could…. Since Vlad so kindly left a link to this evil librarian who had cut off
his privileges, I decided to contact him with a warning. Within eight
hours Vox Day’s group was gone and VD’s over on his blog whining about
being banned here.

It doesn’t seem to have occurred to Sean O’Hara, the SJW infiltrator par excellence, that I made no effort to keep out SJW entryists; I literally wrote the book on SJW entrysm, after all. And Castalia House has been under nonstop cracking attempts since last April. The supersecret question that Sean managed to puzzle out was: “What is the name of the spokesmanatee”.

The goal had absolutely nothing to do with committing any vandalism on the site. The goal was to see to what extent the SJWs were running amok on Goodreads and smoke them out. I also wanted to learn the system in the build-up to the next Reader’s Choice award, which is not something to which I had hitherto paid any attention, but at least superficially looked less corrupt than the Hugo Awards. We discovered how converged the site is much faster than I had anticipated, thanks to Sean and Rivka, who is not only a librarian, but a moderator.

It should be obvious that if I had any desire to wreak havoc, I would not have formed a public group of around 200 people and permitted anyone to join it. I would have simply unleashed the 466 Vile Faceless Minions sworn to mindless obedience of the Supreme Dark Lord.

In any event, this isn’t over. If you want to weigh in, make a Goodreads account, follow my author page, and rate a few books that you’ve read. It only takes a few seconds, and obviously, it is something the SJWs there greatly fear or they would not have reacted as they did. Once more, we see that whatever they have read, it isn’t Sun Tzu.

Here is an example of a one-star review that Goodreads still deems appropriate and features on its site:

Rhea rated it did not like it
Shelves: 0-stars-not-even-literature, never-ever-read

The author is a bag of shit, a brainless cockroach, a demented baboon. He (or should I call him “it”?) is racist and sexist and writes poorly-conceived, cookie-cutter, Tolkein-clone, wish-fulfillment fantasy to fill its empty life. Fuck you and fuck your mother for not having her priorities straight nine months before you were born.

Also, if you read one or two of its blog posts you will see that it has absolutely no sense of logic. I skimmed over one and apperently Vox says that because women are suffering from sex abuse at workplaces, they shouldn’t work at all because their presence is causing “smart capable men” to “turn into rapists.” What the honest fuck?!? WHAT KIND OF ACID DO YOU HAVE TO BE ON TO ARRIVE AT THAT CONCLUSION!?!? Is he drunk??? Is he a troll??? Is he even human??? My theory is that his father had sex with a horse…

Here is an example of a one-star review that Goodreads deemed worthy of a permanent ban and removed from their site, in addition to a four-star review of Banks’s The Business and a five-star review of Haruki Murakami’s A Wild Sheep Chase.

Vox Day rated it did not like it
Shelves: fiction

THE WASP FACTORY, by Iain Banks, was declared to be one of the top 100 novels of the 20th century by The Independent. That being the case, one can only presume that the Unabomber’s Manifesto, a collection of the Best of The Penthouse Forum Letters, and a recipe for recycling human waste finished in the top 10.

The Wasp Factory is grotesque in almost every possible way. It is a horror story that is carefully calculated to shock and appall the senses in much the same way, and for much the same reason, that a performance artist would defecate on stage and then roll around in his own excrement. If one reads this book without feeling at least a little disgusted with the author and inclined to wonder what his problem is, there is almost certainly something psychologically wrong with you. The fact that the author succeeds in his obvious authorial intent is not an indication of “exceptional quality”, but merely demonstrates the depths to which the author intended to descend.

Iain Banks is not a bad writer. Quite the opposite, and I have read and enjoyed a number of his books. But The Wasp Factory is about as egregious a misuse, as irresponsible an abuse, of an author’s literary talent as one can imagine. The plot is absurd, the characters are paper-thin and completely lacking in any credibility whatsoever, and their bizarre sadism is surpassed only by that of the author in subjecting the reader to this novel.

The fact that it was highly praised is a severe indictment of the terrible state of modern literary criticism.

PEGIDA rising

The anti-Islamification movement expands into the UK:

BRITAIN’S newest political movement which has vowed to fight the “Islamification of the West” has marked its official launch today by announcing its first major rally.

The UK branch of the far right German campaign group PEGIDA will mark its introduction into the political sphere with a march throughout Newcastle later this month. The new group, which has been set up by former English Defence League (EDL) leader Tommy Robinson, announced the planned protest with a message saying: “Let’s show the Islamists we show no fear.”

It will be followed in February by another event, billed as a “peaceful silent walk” to take place in Birmingham. The walk is being organised in conjunction with PEGIDA branches across Europe and is centred on the theme “Save Our Country, Save Our Culture, Save Our Future”.

The USA could use its own branch. Christendom will have to fight the Saracen again, the question is not if, but when. And for all the West’s technology, it is weaker now than it has ever been before.

Social Justice convergence at Goodreads

This is hilarious. Goodreads not only deleted my account in less than 36 hours, but they deleted the Rabid Puppies group as well.

Hello Vox,

Your account was recently brought to our attention.  Upon review, we have decided to remove it from the site.  A CSV of the books you shelved is attached for your personal records.  You are banned from using Goodreads in any capacity going forward.

Sincerely,
The Goodreads Team

La, whatever shall I do without SJWs telling me what to read? In any event, that should certainly suffice to demonstrate what sort of playing field they have established there. It’s an interesting sort of business plan that revolves around marketing only to the left side of the political spectrum.

Of course, they’re not alone. Consider the open source projects that have also been converged. As I have written, keep them out, or they’ll eventually kick you out.

But what these actions demonstrate is weakness and what they represent is opportunity. Every company that is converged is handing a competitor the opportunity to FoxNews them. Whether it is Mozilla or Wikipedia or Goodreads, the eventual outcome is clear: they will go the way of CNN as soon as a non-SJW competitor appears.

Recognize!

The PFT Poet sums up a sterling end to the 2015 NFL Regular Season, with the Vikings back in their rightful position atop the NFC North and AD in possession of his third NFL rushing title.

The Historic Minnesota Vikings Dynasty officially began on this day.

Oh glorious, historic Minnesota Vikings.

We have the best team in NFL History….

The Decade of Dominance is officially here, you heard it hear first.

We will cruise throughout the playoffs for a historic Super Bowl victory, in the most glorious fashion.

We just took the Green Bay Packers title away…for good.

By the time Mike Zimmer retires and wins over 7 Super Bowl Trophies, the Lombardi trophy will be renamed “The Zimmer Trophy.”

Let the purple and gold confetti fall.

Recognize Greatness.
Recognize History.

Recognize your historic Minnesota Vikings.

Preach, preacher!

No, they shouldn’t have

Outsourcing your money to a self-interested outside party seldom ends well:

Finland should never have signed up to the single currency union, according to its foreign minister.

With the northernmost euro member now set to become the bloc’s weakest economy, the question of currency regime continues to resurface as Finland looks for explanations for its lost competitiveness. Timo Soini, who is also the leader of one of three members of the ruling coalition, the anti-immigration The Finns party, says the country could have resorted to devaluations had it not been for its euro membership.

The comments come as a former foreign minister gathers signatures in an effort to force the government to hold a referendum on euro membership. While polls still show most Finns don’t want to go through the process of exiting the currency bloc, there are signs that a plurality of voters think they would be better off outside the euro….

Without the option of currency devaluation, the government has calculated that Finland needs to lower its labor costs as much as 15 percent to catch up with its main trade partners, Sweden and Germany. Finland’s economy has shrunk for the past three years and Nordea, the biggest Nordic bank, predicts further contraction in 2015. Finland will be the weakest EU economy by 2017, when it will grow at less than half the pace of Greece, according to the European Commission.

Translation: when you can’t devalue your currency and share the burden equally throughout the entire nation, you have to pay all your workers less even though their expenses will remain high. So, instead of a devalued currency, you’ve lowered the quality of life of pretty much everyone who works for a living.

The sad thing is that this was all entirely obvious, and was in fact predicted, by many economists critical of the Euro. But social mood always trumps the naysayers who are battling the zeitgeist.

The Euro will fail eventually. This is not in doubt. The only question is how bad it has to get in the member nations before they reclaim their financial sovereignty.

Repentance

Even those of whom we think the worst can repent. And when they do, it is our responsibility to accept their repentance and forgive them.

“Asking for forgiveness is certainly not an easy thing to do,” said Giromini in a YouTube video entitled “I ask Christians for forgiveness for feminist protest.” “We went way too far and ended up offending many religious and non-religious people,” she added, recognizing the stunt as a form of “blasphemy.” She adds that she is making progress in her own spiritual life, although the exact nature of her current beliefs remains unclear.

Although she left Femen in 2013 after denouncing it as a “business,” she had continued her bare-chested protests as the leader of a new feminist group comprised of both men and women, called “Bastardxs,” (allowing for both the masculine and feminine forms of the word “Bastards” in Portuguese).  She has now made it clear that she regards herself as having no affiliation with feminism at all, repudiating the movement as a religious “sect” that uses women as objects, promotes lesbianism, and covers up pedophilia in its ranks.

“For the feminist sect women are not the inspiration, they are prime matter in the worst sense of the term. They are convenient objects useful for the purpose of inflaming hatred against the Christian religion, hatred against men, hatred against the beauty of women, hatred against the equilibrium of families. That’s what feminism is, and I can guarantee it is like that because I was on the inside!”

“I saw the feminist movement cover up for PEDOPHILES,” writes Giromini. “I saw the feminist movement PERSECUTE WOMEN … I am a witness to the fact that today in the feminist movement women are not of any importance but serve as fuel for the fires of hatred that the feminist sect cannot allow to die.”

It is hardly a surprise to learn that feminists would cover up for pedophiles. As we know, they’re not the only ones to do so; SJWs and science fiction Fandom have done the same.

At the end of the day, there is only one enemy, the Father of Lies and his followers. What they call themselves today or tomorrow doesn’t really matter. They are the Children of The Accuser, which is why pointing-and-shrieking is their primary weapon.

We should keep this woman’s example in mind as we engage in cultural war in science fiction. Some of the SJWs we oppose will, sooner or later, be sickened by the actions of their compatriots. Some of them will reject the darkness and filth by which they find themselves engulfed and repent of their foul allegiances. And we need to be ready to accept them as penitents.

How dare we hit THEM back?

The SJWs at File 770 can’t quite decide if they should be a) outraged that we are addressing their blatant abuse of Goodreads or b) pretend that anything we do is simply insignificant.

Theodore Beale is explicitly targeting for abuse a woman who posts here regularly. I certainly hope all human beings with the slightest bit of decency and compassion will recognize this for the ugly, sinister, cynical brutality it is.

Unlike Lis Carey and other SJWs active on Goodreads, Rabid Puppies are abiding strictly by Goodreads policies. Reviews that refer to AUTHOR BEHAVIOR are specifically prohibited; Lis Carey is in blatant violation of Goodreads policy and we are drawing attention to her and every other reviewer who violate that policy.

**Delete content focused on author behavior. We have had a policy of removing reviews that were created primarily to talk about author behavior from the community book page. Once removed, these reviews would remain on the member’s profile. Starting today, we will now delete these entirely from the site. We will also delete shelves and lists of books on Goodreads that are focused on author behavior.

Lis Carey is not being targeted for abuse, Lis Carey is abusing Goodreads. She is not being singled out, she is merely the first of many abusive SJW trolls who will be addressed. We know perfectly well that the first reaction of SJWs is to go running to the amenable authorities, which is why we are always careful to abide by the rules.

Is VD conceding to his ilk that they are ineffective in their use of logic?

No, he is reminding them that there is no point in utilizing logic and dialectic in dealing with SJWs. SJWs are incapable of understanding it or utilizing it; if they could, they would not be SJWs.

I suspect that VD’s minions will find that their impact on GoodReads as a whole will be far less than they think it will. They are just about to find out how tiny and trivial their group truly is.

If that were true, then why are the File 770ers so obviously concerned about their activities? As just remarked above, SJWs are incapable of understanding or utilizing logic.

One thing to note is the cowardice of VD and his minions. They are specifically targeting someone because they think she is frail and easy to harass. In short, they are sleazy, small-time cowards who are too scared to actually challenge someone they think can put up a fight. It is exactly the sort of slimy pathetic thing that perfectly encapsulates who VD and his sycophants are.

So, John Scalzi, Tor Books, George R.R. Martin, and all of Fandom are totally unable to put up a fight? SJWs always lie. We will take on any and all of you. Just give us a reason.

What is different about me is that I take on all comers, regardless of how frail and unable to fight they may be. Attack me or mine and I will hit you back twice as hard, no matter who you are. Playing defenseless or crying out in pain as you strike won’t save you.

All you have to do to avoid being counterattacked is not attack. How hard is that? How dumb do you have to be to fail to understand that, after all this time? Leave us alone, we’ll leave you alone. Attack us, we counterattack. It’s quite simple.

keep in mind that VD is such a towering, manly being that he kept expressing hysterical fear a couple of years ago, bleating with every appearance of high-strung sincerity that his physical safety was in danger from an imminent attack by Lee Martindale. (Lee is an older lady in a wheelchair.) He also bleated a number of times that year about his fear of me, claiming I had threatened him. (In reality, I had never even threatened to speak sternly to him.)

First women like Laura Resnick and Lee Martindale claim to be strong, independent womyn who are going to inflict Whedon-fu badassery on their foes, then they turn around and cry poor little womens who cain’t possibly do nothing to nobody the minute anyone responds to their threats and posturing. They’re not fooling anyone.

Part of me wants to say, “Please come over to Goodreads and comment back!” but I suspect that might just encourage him and his minions, so probably not wise.

It isn’t wise because doing so will only draw more attention to the way in which SJWs like Lis Carey and others are abusing Goodreads review policies. So, by all means, bring it on!

I note that File 770ers complain more about people legitimately nominating works, commenting on reviews, and rating books than they do about an active campaign by their side to blackball SF/F authors’ works from bookstores. Perhaps instead about whining about our legitimate activities, they should consider policing their own side before we adopt the same tactics in response.

UPDATE: Reading the comments at File 770 is like experiencing a Zen koan.

“There is a lack of evidence.”

The comments on File 770 are an unreliable source. Source: the commenters on File 770.

Week 18

NFC North showdown. I have to say, I like our chances in the rematch. I’d like them better if Joseph were playing, but considering how banged up their offensive line is, I doubt Rodgers will finish this game either.