Digi Director Blog December 2015

Hello everyone. It’s been a spell since I last wrote a director blog. I’ve been in a funk of sorts. My health has been on a rapid decline since July and I’ve experienced almost every type of testing possible, including a spinal tap. No, these only go to ten and not to eleven as I was led to believe. I was super disappointed.

It turns out that my issues involve a nasty bacterial infection and a fungal colony. The fungal growth had probably been present for many, many years, most likely due to a decade of daily antibiotics. No one ever mentioned the possibility of complications when ingesting the prescribed antibiotics and my sole instruction was to “never stop taking your penicillin”, to which I quit taking it when I was 18. I’ve been miserable off and on ever since.

In my quest for health, I’ve learned a lot about biology, humanity, the effectiveness of physicians, how testing works, how insane and inaccurate it can all be, as well as how to make my carbon-based frame work better. I’ve posted a lot about these things early on in SwoleSwarm and it has been a learning experience ever since. Some of you know that I went to Mexico, even though I am not a secret-shareholder-in-a-secret-media-cabal and had I not gone there, I would probably be bedridden at this very moment. I hobbled into the country and walked out, partly because my general physician gave me some last minute news and the medical system in Mexico is easy to work with. Give them pesos, they give you injections. A simple transaction with no fuss or muss. Compare that with the American system, which has become almost strictly evidence-based in the light of legal issues and lack of reform, and you find yourself waiting weeks for simple things. Needless to say, my American doctors are now on-board and I am receiving treatment for all. Due to this, I’ve perked up a ton but I am far from 100%. I’ve not taken a break from this crazy space job but I’ve certainly not attacked it with the vim and vigor of old.

Now all of this health talk equals lots of words that should explain why I sometimes seem distant or why I don’t engage as quickly as I used to. I’ve learned that I really don’t want to engage as quickly as before because I’ve had so many reports that come in very frantic only to be determined a misunderstanding a hour or day later. You know what? That spy isn’t going anywhere and they will be there tomorrow.

Why do I mention any of this at all? It’s important to understand where I’ve been if you are to understand where I am now. When this last meta-storm appeared, I was rather flippant due to sickness and I figured it would blow over. The rabble will rabble and you don’t do my job by having a thin skin. I made a point to not read “that place” because I see too many hallmarks of insincerity and tons of spiteful narratives for personal gain. I’m not a narcissist either. I really wish that people would leave me out of their comments but I do sometimes laugh about some of the things that are repeated time and time again; things that are purely myth but they continue to be propagated as gospel truth by people I’ve never heard of. The villain counter-intelligence officer was partly by design but like any bad idea, it ran away in a hurry. I put stickers on people, I send Christmas cards, I out all gay people and I hide in the bushes. I usually take these things as compliments but when they are combined with hate mobs against my very good friends, I start to take notice. My job is to be the villain to everyone not in our coalition. I do this job because there is no way to perform a risk management function and be truly liked. Everyone loves you until you have to address them formally and then you are the villain. This has been a running theme for my entire real-life career which spans a little over half of my life. I’m used to it. Sometimes the words can hurt but I wouldn’t be where I am if I couldn’t take it. And feeling those words is a good measure for sanity and emotional well-being. It is what it is.

I’ve had several ask me about Endie and Blawrf and about the rest of the madness. When the kickstarter thing went awry, I noted that some people went after me, with zero prompting, on TMC. I responded to one in kind. As the meta-storm grew, I noted that the hate mob managed to work me into the narrative, despite Blawrf’s kind words about me. Contrary to popular belief, my vague broadcast was not about Blawrf, Endie or anyone else, but a demonstration of the non-validity of the opposition. The opposition bought it, hook, line and sinker and proved that they are simply a mob looking for anything to hang their hat upon. Some of us knew this all too well but I thought it very important to show everyone here that you have to consider everything you read and use your own brainpower to decipher it. Don’t rely on anyone but yourself and work diligently to form your own conclusions.

When things started brewing, I contacted Endie via email. We’ve spent a lot of time together over the years. I told him that I would not go after him and I meant it. I have not exchanged correspondence with Blawrf, but I mean the same about him as well. These are my friends and while I can’t defend their positions, I can still count them as people I care about. You don’t spend as much time together as we have and not form a bond. I sincerely believe that Endie was restless and had been for a while and there is probably an itch that he wants to scratch. This happens. As for Blawrf, I’m uncertain, but he had expressed weariness when he last spoke in official capacity. Soon after, his surgery happened and he was juggling his recovery with his schoolwork along with everything else. And I got sick in the middle of it all. I don’t know what’s on his mind but I’ve seen the posts, the many threads and the latest on SA. He’s a great man for the retraction but at the end of the day OUR friend could have real issues as part of the blow-back.

I watched the hate mobs unfold during the ordeal and I immediately feared for Sion’s well-being. It sort of sounds far-fetched because a video game brought us all together but over the last year, both Mittani and I have had real attempts upon our safety. Think about this for a moment: talking to the police because someone tried to fabricate something insane enough to get you possibly killed. I will admit that I am no angel but I’ve never sent anyone to a house, I’ve never put stickers on a niece and I’ve certainly never followed people around in real life because Eve Online. People can believe what they want but I couldn’t do those things even if I wanted to because my future depends on me NOT doing those things. And because I don’t do those things means that I have somewhat of a very slim chance to survive the things that the truly sick and deranged throw at me. I know entry procedures fairly well, most of my family works for someone’s government and more than half of those family members carry weapons for a living. My father used to practice his pain compliance and PR24 tactics on me when I was a teenager and I would have followed in the footsteps had certain family members not purposely squashed my aspirations. Needless to say, I have a rough idea of what to expect and how hopefully (very slim chances!) to survive it but people like Mittani and Sion did not grow up with family like mine. They have their own families and wives. They have people that aren’t directly involved in a spat between friends or the metagame or anything else that this crazy thing causes.

So why play at all? I know why I am still here. This place has given me people worth caring about. I’ve made friends and lost friends (tragically) here. I’ve leaned on people here and some have leaned on me. I’ve given money, food, shelter and anything else to solve a problem or help someone out. These are the things that friends do. Blawrf knows how I am with my friends very well and so does Endie. And both of them have felt my pain and angst because after all of this time, I still sometimes struggle with loss. I’m not afraid to say that and when someone touches your life, you SHOULD feel loss because that is how you know you valued the thing that was lost. And yes, the current meta has provided similar feelings because I don’t know what or who to trust right now. If you say something, your actions should correlate and I don’t know what to think if there is a mismatch among the people I know well. People make mistakes or they misinterpret, myself included. Trust me: you don’t do counter-intelligence without making a mistake or misinterpreting something.

I strive to never make the same mistake twice. It’s a hard task to accomplish and I sometimes get that wrong too. I might even be making a mistake right now by posting these words and the words that follow. Let me set the record straight on a few things so everyone that matters most is on the same page:
To my knowledge, Sion has not threatened anyone nor will he ever. Typically, that is my job and I generally make promises instead of threats. And none of those promises have any bearing on someone’s livelihood or family. I’m a bastard but I’m not that big of a bastard because I know what it’s like to wake up one day with no utilities or internet, only to discover that “you canceled the services” while you were sleeping. A learning experience for me many years ago and those holes were plugged in a hurry. Nowadays, most people have codes, passwords or challenge questions on their services. Space pixels are nothing in comparison to real life meddling. You lost your spy guy or maybe you were a just a jerk. No one is going to do something to your house over it. No one is going to chase you down in real life because you simply left your corporation.

CSM Stuff – A certain past campaign has been repeatedly brought up. We ran it like a real campaign and I used the same tactics that are currently being employed at this very moment in the American campaigns. I never said it was not tasteless and I don’t see myself ever doing that again for a CSM election. I have, strangely enough, turned down several “not serious offers” about the real thing and not so long ago. It was a learning experience, albeit sometimes horrible, but it did possibly keep one neo-nazi from being elected and this makes me very, very happy.

With the tasteless learning experiences out of the way, my only remaining bucket list item regarding the CSM is actually putting Xenuria there and I will not rest until he and his fedora are in Iceland. If Prencleeve Grothsmore is still around, I will grant him amnesty to be Xenuria’s second, and send them both. Honest injun: you might actually do some good or make CCP’s head explode. Either outcome is wonderful and fine by me.

Manny – Most of you know this but I restate it for the people who will post this elsewhere: I did not out him. I tried to troll him and he bested me by saying it himself. The Joke was that his profile was PUBLIC and CACHED and I am fairly sure that he actually wanted it that way, although it’s a theory. It was well-played and I have nothing against him or gay people (I live in a gay community, I work out in a gay gym, I sometimes go to gay hacker parties (and deadtear creeps on me there without saying a word) and I play games with Goons, who are the gayest of them all. My apology on SA has been imgur’d to hell and back on the Manny subject and it was a carefully written apology because it’s hard to multi-accomplish the goals that I wished: make a real apology, slide in the facts for posterity, and say something controversial at the end to see what bites. What bit was a wild Ralp (SA Mod) and the ban reason was, "Ok I'm not up to speed on the MMO drama but afaict this guy is telling grizzled veteran anti-hero glory stories about the time he doxxed a guy over video game spaceships. This post also features the phrase "many of the posters in here are not real goons". What can I say, they were going to get their :10bux: again someday.

Rayonar – I can only take partial credit for this but I’ve shouldered it all until this very moment. You should know that the decision was not based solely on the openmic incident and the “Alberta” connection but also the spies that were relaying intel to us. They knew *someone* was in there but it was not clear who. They claimed the voice was the same on the hostile comms. We already had several that were chomping at the bit to kill a titan spy (something that does usually take months of work to accomplish) and the call-for-reps instance sort of just spilled blood in the water. Our spies were nodding their heads, our FCs were literally doing their best Cujo impersonations, everyone that was not doing something in fleet at that moment was throwing analysis into the mix, and then we see Alberta. Holy shit, if the bank account is good, I guess we have a dead titan because we can replace it easily enough. And you got it, it was replaced. And you know what? I still review that entire thing and wonder just what the hell was going on… And I say all of this now because the spies are no longer spies (for us…) and Black Legion is… well, not black anymore. You should still guard your liquor bottles because the Legion may come back anytime they are thirsty.

How my job works – I won’t go into detail except to say that you, previously to subscribing to Eve Online, provided the data yourself. I know that seems a bit wacky but I only pay for one database subscription and it aggregates from several sources that are not paywalled, private or otherwise. It’s shocking to see what you let loose but this is not “dropping doxx” as people like to call it. Dropping Doxx is when someone publishes a protected data class that you would not obtain via any other means other than by unauthorized access. This means social security numbers, credit card numbers, job applications, legal documents that are under seal, medical records or military records that are not classified for public consumption. These things are very off-limits to me and they should be off-limits to anyone. If anyone wants to know how protected data classifications work or your rights as they relate to such things, feel free to drop me a line. And yes, Europe certainly has some tighter laws but again, I stress, if the source is freely available to the public, it’s usually kosher.
Here are two other things you need to consider: the information that I mentioned above is often legally disclosed by the data owner. In most cases, that is you. If you disclose your own data, you’ve essentially opened your record legally, at least the part that you just disclosed. You see this most often with health records because people talk about their various medical conditions. If you tell me that you have warts on your asshole, you can’t take that information back. Nor can I unsee the visual. You’ve opened that portion of your record for public consumption and I can say, “That goon has warts on his asshole. He told me so!”

The second point on this topic: read the EULAs on the sites you post. Did you just give the rights to your picture away by posting it on a forum? Did you just give your thesis paper to Facebook by posting it? Check the fine print. And yes, that data can be sold and used.
Media Cabal – What the fucking fuck? My duties have not extended to TMC except in a couple of instances and that involvement was me offering advice on a technical matter. No money has ever changed hands. I’m not on the books nor am I NDA’d. I’m not sure TMC can afford me with the pittance it brings in. I give advice when asked because my friends are trying to do something that isn’t a horrible idea.
My parting shot: the Why We Fight post is more real and accurate than many of you know. I spend a lot of time with The Mittani (drop the “the”, it is cleaner) and I know where his heart is. He can be every bit of the myth when he needs to be but he gives a shit about this game and he gives a shit about this monstrosity that we ALL created. This isn’t a whiteknight for him at all but for the idea of the organization formerly known as CFC but now known as the Imperium. We are now so large, so strong, and so coordinated that many want to see our demise. They don’t care how we fail and they’ve long given up hope of directly causing the failure. They will take any failure they can get. And words that are often cited, usually Darius Johnson’s famous line, don’t really apply to us now. If we do fall as an empire, if our great organization does truly crumble, DJ’s words certainly WILL apply, that’s a promise, but for now, we are working to build something that is unique, something that can possibly take the best from SomethingAwful, Reddit and other nerd havens with the intent of turning it into something special.

Personally, I’ve longed for 10,000 goons to play Eve Online with. This was a dream that I gave up years ago and if those 10,000 Goons had existed, we probably would have floundered. I’ll admit that freely. It would have been an INSANELY FUN floundering but we would have lost everything long ago. Instead, we have great people, from many walks of life, many cultures and sub-cultures and we make it work, better than anyone in the history of Eve Online. This is the true root cause of our current angst and it will also be the strength that guides us. The opposition yearns for an Exodus. I sometimes do too, for the last Exodus I witnessed resulted in the creation of the CFC and we grew in power exponentially. We also determined the difference between our real friends and the fair weather friends and that alone was worth the growing pain.

Our opposition still does not understand our culture as an alliance or even as a coalition. The enemy struggles for any possible foothold and they literally feel happiness and joy when friends leave us. These poor misguided souls seem to think that it will somehow topple our organization. I totally disagree. I have personally assisted in the destruction of corrupted friendly alliances and nothing toppled except the corrupt leaders. It was more than a couple of corporations, I mean, ALLIANCES with hundreds of people, right? Oh well, yeah, I guess our back is now broken because our Syndicate defense force is lost and our spy core has moved on. The latter is a sad note for me, my dry humor aside, mainly because I liked BAT for their effectiveness. Their cohesion was stellar and it showed in their work. Of course, I lost good spies AND a few bad, but at the end of the day, I can wish them nothing but the best. I was never that close to BOS but I do enjoy Suas's company in the flesh, his guitar and wit are intoxicating.

When it comes to real broken backs, I have no fear of losing Deklein. If that day comes, it comes. I cannot, however, abide by the smug of the opposition if that event ever happens. They do not nor will they ever truly deserve our space because I think my friends deserve it more. My friends, in GSF and elsewhere, have worked their asses off for what they have. It’s very true what they say: it is tough being king and empires do eventually crumble but let’s not crumble for a long while. Let’s do things that have not been done before. Let’s piss in the proverbial cheerios of those people who have no weapons other than bad posting and an endless amount of time.

That’s it for now. Please try to be nice to each other, be there when needed by your close fellows and most of all, form you own conclusions about anything that has happened in the recent days. I won’t think less of you for using your minds and I trust that you will come to the same conclusions that I have.

And btw, Dan, someone should break your camera for posting screenshots. Cut that shit out.