THE WORD ON THE .NET

Writer T. James' Exploration of Words, on the Internet.

Kickstarter Backers: Site Changes for “Elite: Out of the Darkness”. It’s Been A Great Ride, But After 10 Years…

December 31, 2024 / / 0 Comments

Looking back to 2014, I still remember the relief and elation at being able to complete and publish Elite Out of the Darkness. The gratitude to my backers, all those at Frontier Developments (a special mention must go to Michael Brookes, who has sadly passed away), and the writers, proof-readers, editors etc that got me over the finish line is still there. Thank you all.

Elite Dangerous the game has started to thrive after stalling for a few years, but the future looks brighter as Frontier engages more with the community and reveals new ships, features and stories for commanders, new and old, to discover.

With that said, time moves on. Elite Out of the Darkness did reasonably well in the grand scheme of things – I’m no Drew Wagar but I was selling enough copies to offset some of the costs of a website: writerandauthor.com. Over a decade later and that is no longer the case – there’s no tears or histrionics here, just the reality that after so long all book sales dwindle. However, given the cost of upkeep, the site has very few visitors (mostly “Web Developers” and “SEO Search Optimisers” who guarantee to catapult my online presence into some mythical stratosphere). I’m no longer going to pay the subscription and the site will revert to the host’s free tier on 25th February, 2025.

How does this affect you? One of my pledges to backers on the higher tiers was that I’d post their names on a webpage with a link to the website of their choice. This has been live for over ten years on writerandauthor.com, EOotD Kickstart Backers’ Honour Wall. Backers have also been able to download their ebooks (Google account needed due to hosting) on the Kickbacks page, using the password provided when the Kickstarter closed (although I think enough time has elapsed I count this pledge fulfilled). If the transfer to the host’s free tier has issues, then the Honour Wall page may no longer be available and neither will the ebook download. To be safe, if you need to (re)download your ebooks, please do so before 24th February 2025. 

The paid tier enables the use of a custom domain and increased site storage. (My understanding is that the domain will change to some version of “hostsname / writerandauthor.com”. But I may be wrong). The available storage for the website will also be cut. The change in subscription tier could break the site. If that happens I could try to repost backers’ names on my blog, but there is no way I know of to copy the links intact from the current host’s server to my WordPress site. If the switch doesn’t work, I’m asking for your understanding as there’s no easy fix. Most of the backer links from the original Kickstarter are either dead, place-holders or sites that haven’t been updated for years. (Yes, I did check). For those of you with active sites, you won’t be losing any traffic as there’s so little to writerandauthor.com.

Hopefully everything goes smoothly, but if the switch breaks the page or the site, technically I’ll be failing to fulfil one of my pledges to my backers. After ten years online as promised, I hope you won’t hold it against me.

If the subscription switch goes smoothly (when does anything technical ever go smoothly?) then all that will change is the web address and this post will be irrelevant – we can only hope.

I’ll keep an eye on the comments on Kickstarter – let me know what you think.

o7 Commanders,

T. James.

Feminism: Etiquette for Men in the New Millennium

February 2, 2018 / / 0 Comments

 

When at work or in any social situation with women — to avoid upsetting them, accusations of misogyny and potential arrest — men should always do the following:

Stare at the ceiling. Never make eye contact. Never allow your gaze to alight anywhere, especially below the neck, even if she is wearing a skirt up to her backside and shirt open to her crotch. Several million years of evolution is no excuse for even glancing at a woman’s body. Objectification has no biological basis or procreative use. There is no scientific evidence of women objectifying men.

Never speak. Any male expressing any slightly controversial or contradictory opinion is guilty of mansplaining, which as we all know is a form of harassment by an oppressor and therefore misogyny, which will soon be illegal.

Never sit comfortably. Park bench, tube or bus seat, it doesn’t matter. The fact you have sensitive testicles and larger upper-leg muscle mass than most women is not an excuse. Close those knees, crush those nuts and stop manspreading. An additional benefit for white men is a lower sperm count. Play your part in reducing the number of white people, thereby reducing colonialism and oppression of minority wimmin. Continue reading

Politically Incorrect Poetry: A Rose Between Thorns

September 4, 2017 / / 0 Comments

Image Credit: Geralt, Pixabay, Creative Commons

A Gender Studies grad named Rose,
Dreamed of joining the corporate-elite CEOs.
She wanted to rob
Some cis-het-white male’s job:
With affirmative action…
Her application gained traction.

Business degrees, who needs those?

≠

 

T. James; Sept, 2017.

(Image credit and usage: https://pixabay.com/en/executive-businesswoman-511708/)

Google “Don’t be Evil” and What do You Find?

August 18, 2017 / / 0 Comments

Searching the internet, now you’ll see only what Google wants you to see…

Google: fighters for equality, advocates of the downtrodden, guardians of freedom in an age where information has become the primary currency. That’s how many people see them. That’s how I saw them, but not anymore. Continue reading

Rectums of the Election, 2017

June 9, 2017 / / 0 Comments

Piloting the UK: go with prevailing winds or dive out, confident an ideological parachute will land us safely? (Click for fair use)

Well, it’s happened. The morning of the 9th of June and the final results are coming in. Every self-styled pundit and opinionated know-it-all is pounding their keyboards, putting the world and their worldview to rights, one key-click at a time. So, why should this blogger be any different? Maybe because I don’t have any particular party axe to grind. My personal views on a range of issues were spread across several party manifestos, so I voted tactically and locally. What was clear though from party leaders is that UK politics has fundamentally not changed or matured, despite everyone and their dog saying the Brexit referendum was a wake-up call to the establishment who needed to listen to a disenfranchised public. Let’s rhetoric-spot a little, and look at the doubling-down so far:

Continue reading

The EU Referendum, Brexit, and the Five Stages of Grieving

June 26, 2016 / / 0 Comments

Post fight, it's time to face forward and hang up the gloves.

Post fight, it’s time to face forward and hang up the gloves.

We all know the date: Thursday, June 23rd, 2016: Independence Day or the End of Civilisation, depending on your worldview. Reaction to the Leave victory varied, of course, but most common was the initial shock. For those backing Remain, it came as a hammer blow. The lost referendum was, for many, like opening the front door to find two police officers standing on the step:
Continue reading

Dear Social Justice Activist: One Writer’s Thoughts

March 16, 2016 / / 0 Comments

(Click for origin & fair use.)

(Click for origin & fair use.)

If you’re a social justice activist and we’ve been having an exchange on social media, it’s probably ended in a number of ways. If you’re reading this then you’ve not immediately labelled me a variant of misogynist/bigot/racist/homophobe and blocked me. I applaud you for that and being more open to dialogue than some.

I’ll limit this response to one possible context: you’ve told me that I should read more before I reply to you or express an opinion on our topic of discussion. This is usually based on one of two assumptions:

1. I hold the opinions I do because I am ignorant of the context/issues involved and if I simply read more I would see the world and the topics discussed as you do. Because, what reasonable, caring, intelligent person could do otherwise?

2. You haven’t quite worked out where I am coming from and are one step away from labelling me a misogynist/bigot/racist/homophobe at worst, or a cold-hearted, privileged, white he-devil socialised into prejudice and hatred of women and minorities by the colonial patriarchy. One slip, misunderstanding, or inconvenient fact will, of course, see me blocked. Disparaging comments about me may, or may not, be exchanged about me behind my back with others sharing your world-view, after-the-fact.

If you’re an SJA and have read this far, count me impressed. I’d like to offer a third possibility: I am not completely ignorant or uncaring regarding social and economic disadvantage facing some individuals and sections of society because their life circumstances are less favourable than some of mine. Nor am I a vile person without morals or an ethical/ideological framework through which I perceive the world and act. It’s just my viewpoints and beliefs differ to yours. Continue reading

Star Wars: Kylo Ren, the Return of the Social Justice Warrior (#SJW)?

January 7, 2016 / / 0 Comments

Miracles do happen: I finally managed to get to a showing of Star Wars: The Force Awakens without being exposed to any major spoilers , despite my young son having watched the film before Christmas. What I’d seen were articles online claiming the film was a social justice/’progressive’/diversity/feminist tour-de-Force Awakening and avoided reading every one. It was clear that many in the regressive left wanted to claim the movie as their own, even going so far as to state Kylo Ren is the ultimate white, dude-bro geek, the last gasp of a dying breed of archaic white, patriarchal male gamers. But, predictably for ideologues, what they saw was filtered through the lens of their ideology. So, who is Kylo Ren, and what does he represent?

*MAJOR SPOILER ALERT, OBVIOUSLY* Continue reading

The REAL Gender Wage Gap

October 2, 2015 / / 0 Comments

Over the last few years women’s pay in the workplace compared to that of men has been cited as typically only 77¢ for every man’s dollar.  There exists a small minority who have cast doubt on the accuracy of this figure, objecting to the statistical methods used to arrive at it. As a number that has been used to inform national policy in the western world’s most powerful economy, I fully expected further research to debunk the objections made. However, I was profoundly shocked to discover the quoted 77¢ figure is not only inaccurate, but wildly misleading.  Following exhaustive research into this scandal, I discovered the astounding truth: Continue reading

« Older posts

Unless otherwise stated, all content is © of T. James, 2021.

© 2025 THE WORD ON THE .NET

Theme by Anders Norén — Up ↑