Tag: Darkstream

The inaugural Bookstream includes a discussion of the sex predators in science fiction and a preview of the audiobook version of THE LAST CLOSET, narrated by author Moira Greyland, now available in MP3 format for $19.99 in the Arkhaven store. 14 hours and includes the ebook in EPUB and Kindle formats.

Now that we’re getting more serious about audiobooks, I’m going to do a weekly Bookstream. Some will be book reviews, others will be previews of our new audiobooks, and if I can ever get the stream to permit a live second party, we may even do author interviews.

One thing that we are considering is developing our own combined ebook/audiobook reader app that is integrated with the Arkhaven store. We’d probably crowdfund it to test the demand, so let me know a) what features would be of interest and b) what rewards would make crowdfunding such an app of interest to you, if any.

It occurred to me that emulating Whispersync’s ability to keep track of where you are in the same book across formats would be a lot easier if you used the same app to read the book or listen to the book on your phone or tablet, especially since we plan to include the ebooks with our audiobooks. So, that’s an obvious feature, one that is less obvious but absolutely vital to me would be the ability to export notes and highlights; it is a never-ending source of aggravation to me that Aldiko lets me highlight portions of the text, but I can’t export them to a text file. We’d also want to incorporate MoonReader’s ability to connect to the GoldenDict dictionary apps, for easy foreign language translations while reading.

Please note that we have NOT yet decided to do this, as while the initial response to our direct audiobook sales has been promising, it doesn’t justify this level of support yet. It’s simply us thinking about where we want to go strategically in 2019 and how we can best arrange to get there. Anyhow, if you have any ideas, feel free to share them here.

Note: if you’re using the Arkhaven store, be sure to turn off NoScript in your browser, as we’ve been informed that may be a contributing factor to charges being declined.

From the transcript of the Darkstream: now 1 million views strong:

So, Taleb says IQ measures “an inferior form of intelligence stripped of second-order effects meant to select paper shufflers obedient intellectual yet idiots. This is a true statement followed by a falsehood, well, actually, it’s all false. IQ doesn’t actually measure intelligence at all, it is a proxy for intelligence, okay? Intelligence is not something that we know well enough to quantify how many one has. We know exactly what an inch is, so we can measure exactly how tall you are but we don’t know exactly what an IQ point is, and so to say it measures an inferior form of intelligence, no, I don’t think that’s correct.

Q- What do you think is the average and max IQ of your fan base is?
A- Well, I know that there are several dozen people with IQs in excess of 150, so if you simply do the math, I’ll have to work it out, but I would say that the average is probably around 110, which is actually extremely high if you work out the math. Maybe a little bit more.

I have to admit, I was not expecting to be congratulated by YouTube. But, there it is:

Darkstream by Vox Day,

Whoa, you have 10,000 fans! Just think about that – TEN THOUSAND people love your videos and support what you’re all about. Now share the news and celebrate this awesome moment together!

You’re our hero,
♥ The YouTube Team

Rather decent of them, really. But on the off-chance that this is less than entirely sincere, I would still highly recommend that you not only subscribe to the Darkstream on YouTube, but also follow it on Stream.Me.

From the transcript of last night’s Darkstream:

Advice for someone in their early 20s who wants to throw their hat in the ring but understands every wise person who says it’s unwise to trust the mind of a young man. Well, I think that what you should do is you should seek to learn, and to understand the world doesn’t need your opinions. It is very, very unlikely that any view you are going to express is going to be an original opinion. I’m not discouraging you from sharing your opinion or expressing yourself, I just think that it’s always very important to understand that, and the more that you read, and the more that you familiarize yourself with the great thinkers of the past, the more you’re going to understand how many times very, very capable individuals have wrestled with the same questions that you’re wrestling with. If you’re a good thinker, if you’re a high-caliber thinker, you’re going to find that even the most original thoughts that you have were successfully anticipated by people 2,000 years ago, 1,500 years ago, whatever, and that’s why it’s so important to read.

Of all the various humilities, I think temporal humility is perhaps the most important and least common. Are we not told there is nothing new under the sun? A reminder to all Darkstream viewers: be sure to subscribe to stream.me/voxday as a backup to the YouTube channel.

No Darkstream tonight, as I’ll be going on with the Big Bear himself at 7 PM Eastern. It promises to be a bit of a humdinger, so you’ll probably want to tune in to his channel.

UPDATE: Here is the link for the stream. Damn, he’s good. What a pity he can’t host the Oscars either.

This mass-firing by Ryanair of all its Dutch personnel is an excellent example of the problem that labor mobility poses the ideology of free trade:

Ryanair has fired all its pilots and cabin crew members based in the Netherlands after they did not agree to be ‘voluntarily’ relocated to bases as far-flung as Morocco and Belarus.

The Irish low-cost airline officially filed for the collective firing of all personnel at the Dutch Employee Insurance Agency (UWV), an autonomous government administrative authority that handles unemployment benefits.

Ryanair cites bad economic results for its Dutch base at Eindhoven, which was closed on 5th November, as the reason for the mass-dismissal.

To realize the full benefits of free trade, there can be no limits upon workers moving to where they can be most efficiently employed. It doesn’t matter if you don’t speak Ukrainian, if your family doesn’t want to relocate to Morocco, or if your ancestors have lived in Eindhoven for hundreds of years. If it is more efficient for the airline to fly from Belarus or Rabat, then you must go and live there or lose your job to a more cost-effective Moroccan pilot.

That’s not merely how free trade works, that’s what they mean by the necessity of immigration and the free movement of peoples. Of course, it will, incidentally, result in the complete destruction of every family and every national bond, but then, as Jordan Peterson reassures us, group identities are pathological anyhow, so it’s really for the best.

I addressed the issue in tonight’s Darkstream.

I look forward to being able to call it Darkstream 40k. But in the meantime, that’s not so bad.

1. Build the Wall
2. Drain the Swamp

Seriously, what morons in the Republican Party even hesitate to shut down the government. The government is the primary problem! Threatening to shut down the government is like threatening to throw Br’er Rabbit in the briar patch.

The White House suggested Tuesday that President Donald Trump could back down from his demand for $5 billion to fund his proposed border wall in a year-end spending bill.

Trump’s push for the money has threatened a partial government shutdown when funding for seven agencies lapses after midnight Friday. Last week, the president said he would be “proud” to close parts of the government over border security.

“We have other ways that we can get to that $5 billion that we’ll work with Congress,” White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders told Fox News on Tuesday morning. She added that the Trump administration could support $1.6 billion in border security funding proposed by Senate Democrats, as long as it can “couple that with other funding resources” to get to $5 billion. She added that “at the end of the day, we don’t want to shut down the government. We want to shut down the border.” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi have cast the potential lapse in funding as the “Trump shutdown.

Instead of spending $5 billion on the promised Big Beautiful Wall, Congress is just going to give $10.6 billion to Mexico.

The United States pledged $5.8 billion in aid Tuesday for strengthening government and economic development in Central America, and another $4.8 billion in development aid for southern Mexico.

Shut it down, Mr. President. You had two jobs. And to date, you haven’t finished either of them.