Wow, there must be no real news because this conversation has gone straight into the ground.

I personally hope we get this thing to '11'. After that, I'm out.

Nope, no news at all. And this conversation is sounding more and more like the legal conversation that sank Thread 7.

Anyone want to take a bet on what thread number we'll be at on Aug 9th?

"Why don't you just make ten longer and make ten be the top number and make that topic a little longer? "

"[pause] This topic goes to eleven."

I'd say we should start a pool but then we'd have people intentionally trying to get threads shutdown

Haha. Bit late, tho. Made that joke at least two threads ago

Funny, I remember you took that example and ran with it in a bold, new direction even after I'd edited the original post.

Some topics are inflammatory by nature and and do not need to be added as fuel to an already hot topic.

As far as I know the subject of rape does not have relevance to the CGL speculation.

I didn't bring up rape. I randomly picked a he said, she said case of battery.

From what I know of Jennifer, I find her a credible source of what she saw and heard. Of the situation? Not enough to determine the entire situation.

Disclosure of all facts known to you is not a lie of omission because certain facts are unknown to you.

By your logic, if "I say Tiger Eyes was asked to perform inappropriate financial actions and was right for leaving", whether I was lying would depend wholly on whether she asked to or not and have nothing to do with whether it was a reasonable conclusion from the facts at hand or whether it was my intention to mislead.

My physics is a bit rusty but I am unaware of anything in Newtonian physics that allows for perpetual motion. In any case, did Aristotle lie because Newton presented theories disputing Aristotle? Did Newton lie because he was not aware of quantum mechanics and string theory?

There is an important distinction between a truthful statement and a correct one, as well as between a dishonest statement and an incorrect one.

There was a series and book called "The Day the Universe Changed" by James Burke. Each episode or chapter focused on a particular event or series of events which led to a discovery which completely changed the way we saw the world. He makes an important point at the beginning that we shouldn't see prior views of the world or the people who saw it that way as stupid. Based on the information they had at the time those views were mostly correct. In the same way that we see our current view of the universe as correct based on the information we have now. But it's entirely possible that in the near future we could discover something that completely changes our world view and makes what we believe to be truth now just as silly as believing that the Earth is the center of the universe and everything revolves around it.

It depends on what the definition of "is" is?

-M&P

If this was not such a "touchy" topic, I might make a smartassed joke right about now.

-M&P

Huh?

This is my reaction, sir.

It depends on what your definition of 'is' is.

Oh snap; someone got Bill Clinton'd.

"Slick Willied"

When I posted that a couple of pages back it spurred me to see if the book could be found online. I stumbled across a follow-up book Borkin wrote nearly 30 years later.


I've been reading it all day and came across this wonderful excerpt

(emphasis added)



That is Standard Oil in 1938 being 'cautious' and 'circumspect' faced with the possibility that their 'friends' at I.G. Farben might be actively arming Germany and actively preventing Standard Oil from gaining access to the technologies I.G. had developed to free Germany from dependency on Natural Oil and Rubber.

When there exists a real possibility that someone you have a business relationship with is an evil scumbag the 'cautious' and 'circumspect' thing to do is to assume that this is indeed the case and act accordingly to protect yourself from worst case scenarios.

The language I have quoted above bears a distinct similarity to the sort of political double-speak that has been issuing from CGL and it's supporters over the last few weeks.

As to whether or not Jen' is telling the truth. That's just ludicrous. If someone accused me of attempting to falsify royalty reports and it wasn't true you better believe I would come out all guns blazing to publicly deny it. I'd give serious consideration to starting a civil slander suit or at least publicly threatening to do so if a retraction wasn't immediately forthcoming.

[apologies for Godwin-ing the thread but it seemed better than the other thing...]

That's a good point. Claiming a private citizen in a position of power is falsifying financial statements would fall well within the purview of defamation laws. That the other side has been conspicuously silent on this matter is...well, conspicuous.

I wouldn't consider it conspicuous at all. This is now in litigation; LLC would have to be an idiot to respond and I am sure CGL's lawyers have told him as much. That is assuming he would bother in the first place.

All Jen would have to prove is that she felt CGL/IMR was defrauding Topps of royalties and the case would fall flat.

Okay, I only did a quick search, but I only found that what Tiger Eyes* was asked to do violated her personal ethics, CGL's contractual obligations and was potentially illegal. Without addressing her ability to fully evaluate CGL's contractual obligations, I don't see any real basis for a slander case.

I don't think there is anything conspicuous about the silence. Particularly if they want to convey that there are no hard feelings towards former employees and freelancers.

Instead of deleting the Origins event listings for the games they no longer manage they have linked to Sandstorm's site so I would definitely say that is the case.

As far as liable is concerned if Catalyst gets threw the bankruptcy hearings and contracts negotiations unscathed, which is very possible, there are some things that have been said that could certainly warrant a civil case. Especially since said comments could possibly be shown to have cost the company lost profit, production, and staff.

I'm not sure if it makes a difference, but the conversation where I was asked to not report royalties was witnessed by another CGL employee, who immediately reported it to Randall. It was also discussed, at length, by the director team.

We've seriously had three pages of the logical intricacies of 'Yes' and 'no' and 'is' is 'is' even to the point of bringing in the laws of physics. This is well beyond speculation at this point. This thread will not see a tenth or eleventh incarnation if it continues in this vein.

I doubt it is going to make a difference to these guys.

If they can't challenge your veracity or reliability then they are going to continue down-playing the significance of the accusation.

It is beyond comprehension that an accusation of falsifying royalty reports has not been addressed by CGL if it is not 100% true.

Silence is just another form of damage control. Ignore it and hope it will go away. Or derail the thread again with trivial nonsense and hope everybody is so distracted by the shiny things that they will forget all about it.

I'm not pointing fingers, just speculating. I tend to side with you since I have worked for plenty of d-bags. Can't find the video link from the local news, but the last company I worked for got raided and shut down by state regulators a month after I left. But as I am sure you understand, until the dust settles, it is all just he said she said.

@Tiger Eyes: Actually the more I think about it the more similar I realize my situation actually was to yours. I had just found out I was becoming a father and realized what the company I was working for was actually doing and that I didn't want to set that kind of example for my son. I found a new job and put in my two weeks. I was IT administrator / web developer and they relied on what I did heavily and I was concerned I could be held liable.

But when the dust settles it might well be far too late.

You need to ask yourself 'What would I do if I were certain that this is true right now?' and consider the possible consequences of acting like it isn't true only to later discover that it is.

My feeling is swaying towards the position that I'm fairly sure that Jen' is being truthful and that CGL's silence on the matter is a corroborating silence. In which case I ought to be acting, right now, as if Jen' is telling the truth and actively trying to prevent CGL from profiting from their actions.

I am pretty sure CGL's silence is council induced silence, which doesn't really mean anything. Without the court transcripts were all just talking out of our rears' basically. And without concrete evidence there isn't anything for you to act on.

I am quite aware of the source of the quote. I am just trying to figure out exactly what M&P's point in bringing it up was.

Yes, but her report of what she was asked to do doesn't have the bearing on a slander case that one might think.

Slander is the public defamation of character by the spoken word; libel the written. If the accusations were untrue, then there could and would be a suit to recoup the losses of the defamatory remark - the truth is a defense against slander and libel.

My point being, if Tiger Eyes was lying, then her reporting of it to us at large would constitute libel (since it's written) because it is false and defamatory. Should LLC be able to prove that business was harmed by those remarks (which is what we're discussing in a way, yes?) then there is definitely a case.

If there's no case - especially one as volatile in these circles as this - then one must ask why. If it is the simplest solution - Tiger Eyes is telling the truth - then the argument of the last few pages is moot. She is to be believed, as her veracity is confirmed.

@crizh

Your example is a classic case of "sampling on the dependent variable." Sure you can cherry-pick cases where being circumspect was wrong in hindsight, but you can also cherry-pick cases where people jumped to the wrong conclusions and should have been more circumspect. It means nothing, and yes you did Godwin the discussion by comparing cautious folks like myself to nazi sympathizers. Good for you.

My point was that the Bill Clinton reference is one of the better known examples of trying to parse language to the point of absurdity. He still lost his law license and was the first elected US president to be impeached (not convicted, and Johnson wasn't elected or convicted).

The discussion, while interesting on a philosophy or logic forum, probably veered way off of this thread several posts back. It was a humorous attempt to make a point. I attached it as a reponse to your post as you were the last one in that part of the thread when I got there.

-M&P

Or it means they don't think she has the money to make her worth suing. But the fact that she is now working for the company that took IP's from Catalyst, lol well now that just makes this a darned soap opera. Ok this is pure speculation so follow me on this; a conspiracy to manufacture probable cause to terminate a contract. Say a game made a lot more money than expected. The IP holder now feels unfairly compensated by the publisher. The IP holder then recruits other internal employees within the publisher to assist in manufacturing a condition granting them probable cause to terminate their contracts and reclaim the IP and print it themselves. I don't know but it sounds like an exciting run .

Anyone who has had that role probably has encounter questionable ethics. I gave a boss once 120 days to make a "reasonable effort" to buy licenses from the date I installed it for him or I quit (and I put it in writing with both he and I signing it). They started buying 10% of the behind licenses per month starting 30 days after the first install. Fortunately I happened to have a friend in the licensing department of the company we were stealing the software from that told me when they audit they look for "reasonable effort". It all worked out within a year but I had to threaten to quit, and if I hadn't refused to install it without something in writing my guess is nothing would have been done.

There is no ongoing litigation regarding Jen's claims. A substantial amount of time after those claims were made a completely unrelated action was taken against CGL by a third party. There was never any reason not to rebut her claims and there still is not.

A lack of concrete evidence for Claymores on the jungle trail you are traversing is not a good reason not to take precautions against being blown to bits.




No my example is a classic one of blindly trusting someone that many people suspect is up to no good because you lack 'sufficient' evidence.

Assuming that a party that is accused of malfeasance is innocent when making business decisions is idiocy. You do your due diligence and cover your ass. You don't sit on your elbows and pretend nothing bad could possibly go wrong.

No litigation against her claims no. But she does now work for the company with whom the litigation is against, and something like a defamation suit wouldn't come until after the initial litigation is resolved. Unless the situation comes up as part of the initial litigation which depending on how messy it gets, it is certainly possible since the allegation is relevant to the case.

SPECULATION? IN THIS THREAD?!

I didn't even add the possibility of CGL counter suing Sandstorm to bankrupt them in litigation. If I the owner and I knew I was right I would do this. So the fact that they haven't either means he is wrong, or it means he can't steal enough money to pay for it. I don't know I'm just talking here.

And the Conspiracy Theories are really flying now...

Wow...

Keep the Faith

I thought the goal of thread #9 was to make it to thread #10, my bad.

But honestly, you gotta admit, that is a top notch conspiracy theory.

Maybe, but not one that I ascribe to at least...

But you are right... Speculation is indeed the motive of the thread though...

Keep the Faith

Talking of conspiracies, am I the only one who cannot access www.catalystgamelabs.com today?


EDIT: Nevermind, working for me again, but just saw the notification of the street date for the new Corp book!

If I thought it was right I wouldn't label it as a conspiracy theory. I would do what to many people in this thread have done and label an opinion as fact. But if you think CGL's lawyers aren't looking at that exact scenario, then I think you are mistaken. Lawyers don't care about tiny details like facts, they are paid to win...period. Reasonable doubt.

I can access it, maybe they were just updating the site while you were trying.

There news for the day is "The following books have a Street Date of July 21st, 2010:

Shadowrun Corporate Guide ($29.99)"

Edit: I'm too slow

Nothing you have said in any way addresses the problem that I brought up, namely that you are just cherry-picking cases based on hindsight. Would you like me to bring up one of the many cases of African Americans lynched in the South for supposed infractions of the social order?

I hope that wasn't directed at me in particular, but as I said before, for various reasons, I believe your statements to be true. I primarily objected to the assertion that there were only two valid positions.