Embezzlement in Catalyst

[Utterfail]

The forums calendar may deal with dates up to a year into the future, if thats true, the system would go all FUBAR because of the epoch a year before the actual end of time.

[CatharzGodfoot]

The time is counted is seconds, so what year it is shouldn't matter at all.

[Murtak]

Then you add a year in seconds to, say 2038-1-1 and end up in December 1970. "It's just a number of seconds" doesn't save you from integer wraparounds.

[CatharzGodfoot]

Then you add a year in seconds to, say 2038-1-1 and end up in December 1970. "It's just a number of seconds" doesn't save you from integer wraparounds.

Yeah, but it saves you from having the year matter. I believe that Utterfail was positing that using the year in which the overflow occurs might be enough to cause an error.

[Username17]

Then you add a year in seconds to, say 2038-1-1 and end up in December 1970. "It's just a number of seconds" doesn't save you from integer wraparounds.

Yeah, but it saves you from having the year matter. I believe that Utterfail was positing that using the year in which the overflow occurs might be enough to cause an error.

No, he was positing that the termination of a ban might actually create calculations that take place "afterwards" in some way. And thus, that clicking over five months before the end of time at 6 PM might actually be the last possible time it can do that.

-Username17

[Crissa]

Well, pressing charges would preclude getting the money back, generally. Because Loren could just declare bankruptcy, hide his assets under his homestead (that's a legal term) and transfer everything with his wife.

-Crissa

[Gelare]

Well, pressing charges would preclude getting the money back, generally. Because Loren could just declare bankruptcy, hide his assets under his homestead (that's a legal term) and transfer everything with his wife.

-Crissa

Technically he could do two of those things, the third is fraudulent conveyance and wouldn't get him anywhere. Of course, not pressing charges isn't exactly a surefire way to recover the money either.

[Username17]

Super secret bonus update: Jennifer Harding has announced publicly that the reason she quit is that she had been asked by Loren Coleman and Randall Bills to falsify earnings reports to send to Topps and possibly the IRS.

-Username17

[Maxus]

Super secret bonus update: Jennifer Harding has announced publicly that the reason she quit is that she had been asked by Loren Coleman and Randall Bills to falsify earnings reports to send to Topps and possibly the IRS.

-Username17

So...

...This puts a whole new spin on Randall said he feels it's part of his religion to forgive Coleman, huh?

Edit: Can't resist quoting Frank's summary...

Take home message: Randall Bills believes that he has a sign from a personal god that massive amounts of fraud is somehow OK because it will all work out somehow.

Take home message three: while Catalyst has had huge piles of money taken out of it by the guy nominally running the store, and the second in command says that theft should not be punished

Yeah...

[Username17]

Now that the other shoe has dropped and Jennifer Harding has come out with the accusation that Loren Coleman and Randall Bills conspired to falsify earnings reports, we can all well imagine the repercussions that will come from Topps and quite possibly the IRS. But let's talk about the here and now. Now, the company has a month and a half to position itself. And more importantly, the people in the company have a month and a half to maximize their own benefit before the license changes.

Six weeks is actually a long time in the age of digital sales, and while no power on Earth can save CGL from the wrath of Topps as regards falsified royalty reports, that doesn't change the fact that when the license ends different choices made now can leave different people with different amounts of money in their pocket. Here's he short version:

Loren Coleman is not going to get the license back. The company will then have a lot of debts, negative money in actual assets, and no intellectual property. The company will cease to exist. Everyone who has not been paid at that point will not get paid. Everything that is sold from now until closing time will put money into Loren's pocket. The only way anyone is getting paid anything is if they exert actual leverage on the company with real extortion in the form of "You cannot sell this product for X dollars until you pay me Y dollars (where Y is less than X)." Anyone who is not holding out on a product whose remaining sales values in the next six weeks are are estimated to be more than their demanded fees will not see a dime.

A new company will happen. And really quite soon. They will want to get the rights to any new books they can. Thus, Jason Hardy's big push to get new books ready for publication when the company can't even pay to sell the books it has already published makes perfect sense - for Jason Hardy. After all, the more books that are "ready" that have his name on it, the better a bargaining position he will have with the next company.

So let's consider possible actions in this situation:

• Withdraw Copyright/ Maintain Silence Imagine for a moment that you understand the extortion paradigm required to ever get paid for your work at Catalyst. If you want to maximize your personal chances of getting paid, it is in your interest to begin extortion now, and also to minimize the amount other people know about the situation. After all, if two people are extorting on the same project, that increases the "Y" money, but it does not increase the "X" money. That increases the chances that Loren Coleman will simply write the project off and then no one gets paid. So people who personally withdraw copyright and then publicly tell people to "wait and see" and get angry when people release details of the situation can be seen as attempting to maximize their own position. Encouraging silence, confusion, or delays in the general population decreases the number of other freelancers who will go for the extortion option, which reduces their chances of getting paid, but increases the chances of the person advocating silence and personally withdrawing contract. Essentially, they are trying to take money out of the pockets of other freelancers and put it into their own.
• Support the Company There are a number of people under the mistaken understanding that it s somehow "professional" to sit around and wait, and even keep working while a company refuses to pay you your wages. Some of these people even think this will ingratiate them with the new company. This strikes me as naive. The first thing you do when you take over as a new regime is to purge the loyalists of the old regime. Anyone who stood by the old guard while they were stealing from the company is going to be a potential quisling. I understand the thought process - it's just wrong. Those people will not be paid for their old contracts and the new company will get them off the roster as fast as possible.
• Withdraw Copyright/ Go Public Extorting the company is the only way a person is going to get paid. Going public with this fact causes other freelancers to go for the extortion option. This effectively increases the "Y" money while not only leaving the "X" money the same, but also leaving the amount of money actually promised to the person making this decision the same as well. The extra money, if it is paid out at all, merely goes to other writers who are now on the extortion train. However, it's more dangerous even than that, because it also makes the people cutting checks (or not) angry, because it increases the amount of extortion levied against them. This increases the likelihood that the head of the company will simply swallow the loss of X and not pay the writers a dime. Spite is a powerful motivation, and if X and Y are similar, it can easily break a tie. As such, some freelancers may wish to "go public" by releasing information to an uncompromising ideologue like Frank Trollman, who will maintain source confidentiality in the face of torture and will absolutely go public with the information for them. It's the same moral position of trying to maximize the number of people who get paid, but somewhat reduces the chances of personal reprisals against the freelancer.
• Start Working Right Now Not as crazy as it might seem. Remember that books are normally stuck in development hell for a couple months anyway. So while Loren Coleman will never pay a dime for any work being written right now, he's also not going to be in charge of making that decision when the work is actually completed. That choice will be made by the next company coming in, and they are of course going to want to slap down production costs for books that are already ready to print and ship if they possibly can. Of course, you'll be working with scabs who don't know Shadowrun and can't tell on reading whether Shadows of Asia is set before or after Corporate Enclaves - so it's entirely possible that this gamble will fail and the new company will not want these "finished" submissions. It's essentially akin to actually writing a completed draft and using that for your proposal to a publishing company you know nothing about. But as gambles go, it's not as crazy as going to work for an average company on the verge of dissolution. The product being made is a licensed product, and the license will be taken over by a new company, who may want to buy it for the original "contracted" price or some lesser negotiated value.

But it's important to keep things in mind. Every single dollar that freelancers don't extort out of the company by holding up future sales until demands are met is going to be locked into Loren's homestead where it will be inaccessible to bankruptcy recovery. Every single dollar that is demanded in total extortion on a project reduces the cost/benefit equation on that project, and increases the likelihood that paying the extortion on that product will not pay itself off in the remaining time. Every project that is canceled outright, reduces the cash flow for this period and reduces the company's ability to pay even those extortions that they want to.

So let's consider something like Sixth World Almanac. If Robert Derie had not pulled his contract, the book would go to print in a couple of weeks. At that point, the small initial print run would get sold and the company would have 30 days to pay Robert Derie before he could withdraw copyright for failure to pay. The company at that point would lose the license and walk away - leaving Robert Derie with nothing and Loren Coleman with some number of thousands of dollars depending upon the initial print run. If he pulls his contract, that doesn't happen, and he can try to make a new contract with the new company in June. But wait! Jason Hardy is the developer. If he can get new writers to rewrite Mr. Derie's pieces, then he can sell the completed work to the new company in June. So you can see how both of them are acting in rational, professional self interest - and also why they are extremely angry at each other, because they are now in direct competition.

You can also understand the anger and vitriol from some of the freelancers at the people who are publicizing this stuff. Especially the ones who understand enough about the situation to be withholding copyright themselves on one or more projects to try to get paid. Attempting to get other people to also stand up for themselves and withhold copyright has a very real chance of making the gambits of the people already withholding copyright fail. It's the only way the people who haven't stood up yet are ever going to see a dime, but it has a chance of zeroing out the demands of the people who already stood up.

Selfishness brings out the ugly in people.

-Username17

[davidhill]

Nail in the coffin. Who the hell is even left now?

There's Bull and Jason Hardy of course. There's um... David Hill? And Aaron Pavao I think. And um... probably someone else.

Honestly, if all of those people caught fire and fell to their deaths, I would be at least a little bit happy. Although I do admit that Bull has occasionally written something worth reading - though his propensity to back it up by whining and unreasoned bullying makes it hard for me to credit him with that fact.

-Username17

I got notification of this in a Google Alert. I was more than a bit surprised. It told me all I need to know about why a number of boards have banned or suspended you.

I make a policy of not baiting or feeding internet speculation, but this crossed a bit of a personal line, so I felt I needed to respond.

You can speak for my motivations. You're wrong. You can make assumptions as to what I've done, or what's been done to others. You're wrong. You can spread made-up, fallacious statements about me. You're wrong. I really do not care. I've made personal and professional choices that you've misrepresented grossly. That's fine.

But you'd be happy if I died? You know, I have a family. I'm a father of two. I understand that your pretendy fun time games might be at risk, but saying you'd be happy if someone died? That's just asinine.

[Utterfail]

Wishing someone was dead is pretty standard fare for humans. It's pretty obvious if you take even a cursory look at history. Sometimes there are even good reasons for it.

Jenny McCarthy for example. If she were to keel over dead right now, the world would be a better place.

More to the point, taking flippant remarks on the internet as srs bsns (even when you know the party making the remark) and posting on a forum about it where it'll only stir up shit and serve no constructive purpose? That's asinine.

[Vnonymous]

But you'd be happy if I died? You know, I have a family. I'm a father of two. I understand that your pretendy fun time games might be at risk, but saying you'd be happy if someone died? That's just asinine.

Did you know that human beings often exaggerate things? I, for instance, have told people that they are illiterate morons who need to die, and yet surprisingly enough I would actually feel sad if they did die. Not everything said on the internet is true. If you're incapable of recognising something as basic as this you have no place "moderating" an internet forum.

If Frank has grossly misrepresented choices that you've made, you have to actually tell us what those choices are. Simply saying that someone has done something bad isn't enough for people to believe you, especially when you're a newcomer and the other person has a history of helpful and factual posts.

Otherwisee you just look like a petulant child whining because someone said bad things about them.

[Username17]

Yeeeah... So Ancient History named David A Hill as a quisling, specifically the quisling who narced him out to management and got him fired for having dared to tell him in a private message that Jason Hardy was lying when he was saying some things about the situation that were in fact demonstrably untrue. I reposted the statement elsewhere. And you know what? I think it's pretty obvious that David A Hill is an honorless quisling. And a Concern Troll.

But specifically, I want to address something. This is the deep end of the internet. Here on the Gaming Den, we use hyperbole. But that's OK, we understand that hyperbole makes people sad sometimes. So for Concern Trolls like David Hill, the deep end of the internet has a Report Form. So go ahead and use it. Follow procedure, don't just whine that people are using hyperbole.

-Username17

[The Lunatic Fringe]

You know, I have a family. I'm a father of two. I understand that your pretendy fun time games might be at risk, but saying you'd be happy if someone died? That's just asinine.

I imagine that some of the freelancers in whose stiffing you were involved (if only through your silence) also have families and responsibilities. This is not about "pretendy fun time games". It is about real people's livelihoods.

In short: Fuck You. And then Fuck You again for attempting to leverage your children to excuse your traitorous, minion-like, morally bankrupt behavior.

Note: I don't actually care about Shadowrun.

[Juton]

So Frank, from the tone of your posts I'd guess that you'd recommend not buying any Catalyst products for the next two months because of concerns about where the profits are going. When FASA 2.0 or whatever they want to call themselves rolls around, do you think the money will get back to the authours again or will it depend on some X factor, while factors A-W are Coleman not being around.

[CatharzGodfoot]

I got notification of this in a Google Alert.

That's a Google tool I didn't know about. And it looks like it will delivers to an news feed too. Thanks!

And, yeah, Mr. Trollman is a big jerk and a total meanie. However, that's already common knowledge here and nobody seems to care much.

[Maxus]

And, yeah, Mr. Trollman is a big jerk and a total meanie. However, that's already common knowledge here and nobody seems to care much.

He's usually pretty cool, until you get in an argument with him. Even then, he's often right.

[Gelare]

Quick question: Where does Loren Coleman live? Like, in what state? And would he plausibly entertain moving to Florida? Because some states, like scenic Virginia, have homesteads of up to five thousand dollars instead of infinity million dollars like Florida. So his judgment creditors could potentially collect more.

[K]

How is Google Alert not the mouth of madness?

It lets you troll the internet whenever someone releases press for something, but in fact it fuels people's butthurt whenever something negative about them is spoken as opinion. Heck, it creates dangerous levels of ego-boo even if the opinion is positive.

Basically, it's a butthurt-producing automaton with the sole purpose of producing more butthurt AND THEN directing the butthurtees to the butthurters. Or its a rebotic navel-gazing panopticon.

No good can come of that.

Frankly, I don't need to know that my name is still used as an epitaph on the DominionsIII forums, or that the people who made it their mission to make a nasty comment about me every time they posted haven't figured out yet that I closed my account six months ago.

Those bitches are in the past, and who needs to keep in touch with them?

Luckily, my most recent pseudonym would give a billion false positives if I tried to use this tool. ""Yes, send me an alert every time "K" is mentioned.""

[Surgo]

Man, that thread on Dumpshock is just awful. I especially enjoyed that part where Frank had to go over what "right" and "wrong" meant.

[CatharzGodfoot]

How is Google Alert not the mouth of madness?

Because you can Google Alert 'Candida Albicans telomeres" or "monadic functional IO" as well as "Catharz Godfoot" or "K". :shrug:

[Morzas]

Wow. I don't even play Shadowrun, but I'm amazed that (EDIT) the ADMIN on their biggest fan forum has the "burn to death" quote linked in his signature over there. Must've been a lot of bad blood between you guys!

[Lokathor]

And, yeah, Mr. Trollman is a big jerk and a total meanie. However, that's already common knowledge here and nobody seems to care much.

He's usually pretty cool, until you get in an argument with him. Even then, he's often right.

Yeah this. It can be annoying sometimes, but usually it's cool.

...or "monadic functional IO"

Oh gosh I wish I knew Haskell more, but every time I sit down to do something I end up getting lost and derailed.

[ggroy]