Monthly Archives: October 2014

Misc

Former TWiT Hosts: Backup Your Content Now!

10 Comments

We have recently reported that Leo Laporte and TWiT CEO Lisa Kentzell in a fit of rage have ordered immediate removal of all content made by Tom Merritt, Brian Brushwood and Justin Robert Young from the internet. During yesterday’s The Tech Guy show Leo showed his GMail account. The main story from that screenshot was apparent planning of firing Shannon Morse, but there was also another conversation visible. There Patrick Delahanty reports back to Lisa Kentzell saying “Hi Lisa, Knowing that you wanted the files inaccessible ASAP, I renamed the directories because…” She responds with “Thanks Patrick, I figured this out after talking to Bear. With all the chaos going on I wanted to be…”

Today, there we have two new developments. First, Leo showed us his GMail again:

leo_shows_gmail_again

Here we can see another email from Lisa Kentzell reporting that “cachefly deletes are now complete.” This was so urgent, they made people work over the weekend to remove all traces of the hosts they have banned from the network.

The other development is that the dissent seems to be harder to contain, even in heavily controlled #twitlive chatroom. After several question about the removal of NSFW from the twit.tv website, Leo Laporte went there to try to explain

12:10 <~Leo> yeah cache fly has complained about the amount of storage we're using
12:10 <~Leo> we''Leo Laporte be deleting other old show

I guess ll got autoreplaced with Leo Laporte in the second line there so it likely should have read: “we’ll be deleting other old show.”

It’s probably the embarrassment of having acted so petty, that is forcing Mr Laporte to be caught in another lie. Surely, the removal of NSFW, Frame Rate, Tech History Today and others from YouTube wasn’t caused by Google emailing their concerns about disk space. And lets not forget that Cachefly, long time TWiT sponsor, would not be to happy with Leo claiming their product can’t handle large quantity of data. Caching huge amount of data is their core business.

The lesson that a content creator associated with TWiT should learn here is: backup your content now! Your work might be deleted at any moment. Even if you are on best terms with TWiT they might delete your show, just to justify their vindictive purge as “removing old shows” due to “disk space shortage”.

Misc

Fare Yee Well

15 Comments

Please. if you work at TWiT, you need to be safe. Speaking about the network without explicit authorization has become dangerous to your careers.

All employees of TWiT must obey the network and not speak out.

Anotherone bites the dust.
Another one bites the dust.

Current employees, you must be careful who you associate with. You are only permitted to be friends with a certified list available at the TWiT HQ. BB&J were struck down for going public about their banning. They spoke the truth and that was dealt with accordingly. Now Shannon is being handled for having the audacity to be open on QFP and NA or was it an “lol” at a tweeted joke.  Was her crime really tweeting “lol.” Is that it? Can we not think of millions of awful things #soup has said.

Gina Trapani has had her (first) name mocked. Why, Seinfeld devoted an entire episode to a female name… Apple employees best be careful of the Tim Cook joke.

The arrogance in the following statement is scary:

 [21:27:49] <~Leo> and we have another host who has decided to act very negatively toward me

And people of Drama, please, let us keep our actions lawful and civil, think about what we do in keeping with the one and only mission of spreading truth. Laugh, joke and mock but lets not get carried away. Firing people is not a crime nor is filling the airwaves with propaganda. Just get the truth out. (Leo is not Saddam Hussein and the mods are not Nazis)

Misc

TWiT™ and Diversity

Image 14 Comments

We at TotalDrama wear a lot of hats.  Sometimes deep investigative reporting, sometimes pure speculation. Sometimes just having a bit of fun at someone’s expense. We even have a group learning how to edit videos.

Today I present my ode to diversity at TWiT.  Leo wants to be diverse, really. It’s just those darn diverse people seem to have real jobs.  Or aren’t that diverse.

leo + settern

News

TWiT to Fire Shannon Morse During Her Honeymoon

30 Comments

The full scale purge at the TWiT seems to be continuing. During the live stream of Leo Laporte’s The Tech Guy show, less than an hour ago, he showed his Gmail inbox. It shows an email conversation with subject “Re: Shannon” where TWiT CEO Lisa Kentzell seems to be discussing a new co-host for “Coding 101” programme with Robert Ballecer, show’s other co-host.

As it was the case with Amber Macarthur’s show cancellation, Ms Morse is probably going to be the last person to know. Kentzell is most likely waiting for an opportune moment when Shannon is not around to drop the news.

Our best wishes to @snubs in this difficult time.

Update 1:

Unsurprisingly, Shannon Morse is not privy to the conversation about her:

Update 2:

I might be difficult to see from that video, but our forensics team has been able to decode the part of conversation visible on screen:

Oct 10 Robert Ballecer, SJ
RE: Shannon
We've got some runway because I had already altered the schedule to account for Shannon's (honeymoon)

Oct 10 Lisa Kentzell
RE: Shannon
I don't want to lose the audience we have but I think the content needs to be relevant to grow

Oct 10 Robert Ballecer, SJ
RE: Shannon
Lisa & Leo, Understood on all points. 1. Will ask Lou to co-host 2. Will work over the weekend to
Misc

TWiT comeback on the Horizon

7 Comments

Viewers of the Dropcom, TWiT’s mechanical eye in the sky, were greeted with an unusual sight on Saturday. What was first thought to be a spontaneous game of Ring Around the Rosy, turned out to be the often anonymous sales team holding hands and dancing around the studio. What caused the glee?

Needs help keeping track of his money.
Needs help keeping track of his money.

Inside sources reveal that a milestone event was achieved. For the first time in nine months a viewer used the forgotten offer code TNT. The viewer known as Chickenhead was unavailable for comment, but TWiT founder and propaganda connoisseur had this to say, “I could not be happier with the job Gum is doing, he is knocking it out of the park.” Could this be a sign that the troubled network is poised for a comeback?  Not likely.

Misc

Stresslemania

23 Comments

Well it sure was a stress ridden week. Just as Moses was cast from Egypt and his name stricken from the books of the great kingdom, so too B&J were banished from twit.tv

In order to lessen the burden and relieve some tension, Cap’n Juno ended his one week retirement. I was placed on sound duty so I pressed more buttons to help the headphones people. My skillz were weak but I did all I could.

A fact to note: Since I was tasked to help with sound, I forsook my duty to fix spelling/typos. There are often many such errors. But do not think less of the Captain, he never had a country to call home or language to call his own.

Without a roar from the MGM lion I present, for your viewing pleasure, a deep dive into lies:

News

Setting the Record Straight

16 Comments

As Leo Laporte continues to escalate the conflict with most every former TWiT host, it is important to take a step back and and set the record straight about what exactly has happened.  And this is exactly what the hosts of the Night Attack show, Brian Brushwood and Justin Robert Young have done last night in the Episode 32 of the programme.

The events unfolded in the following order:

  • Robert Ballecer wanted to invite Brian Brushwood and Justin Robert Young to his TWiT show “Padres Corner”. Lisa Kentzell, the TWiT CEO said “no”, they are not allowed back on the network.
  • Ballecer asked one of the following days and was told “no” again, and to not bring this issue again.
  • At this point there was only one source confirming that they were banned from TWiT.
  • Baratunde Thurston got an invitation to appear on the “flagship” TWiT show, and as Brian and him have always been a good match on that show, a suggestion was made to invite Mr Brushwood. Show’s producer Chad Johnson went to Leo Laporte with this idea and was told that, no, the hosts of Night Attack are not allowed to appear on TWiT shows.
  • Having heard the exact same thing from two different TWiT staffers, during Night Attack 31, the hosts expressed their sadness (butthurt in their own words), that despite their best efforts to maintain a good relation with TWiT, this was the treatment that they were getting.
  • Returning from one of his numerous vacation, this time in London, Leo Laporte hears about the mention and goes into blind rage. He sends a series of messages to Brian and Justin, that we have covered earlier. Judging by the level of rage we can only conclude that he didn’t actually see the Night Attack episode in question but that he was told a much exaggerated version by one of his minions.
  • Night Attack 32 is published that features “The Statement to End All Statements”, which outlines this series of events.
  • Leo Laporte in another fit of rage, orders his staff to erase any trace of Tom Merritt, Brian Brushwood and Justin Robert Young ever having been part of the network.

Here is the clip from the Night Attack 32 where Brian and Justin explain what happened in two minutes,

News

TWiT Trying to Erase History

18 Comments

Following our disclosure of his stream of rage triggered profanities, it would appear that Leo Laporte has ordered a full scale history rewrite. Shows featuring Tom Merritt, Brian Brushwood and Justin Robert Young are being deleted from every location on the internet under control of TWiT.

This morning, visitors to twit.tv/nsfw page were greeted with a big “access denied” warning, and every attempt to look at the archive of the show on that site failed.

Denied by TWiT

Further investigation showed that the NSFW show was not the only victim of this purge. Frame Rate, Current Geek Weekly, Tech History are also gone from the twit.tv web site. The attempt to erase these people from the internet did not stop there. TWiT staffers were ordered to delete all Youtube uploads of this content as well.

Efforts are under way to restore archives of these shows. Mr. Laporte is probably regretting his decision to release TWiT network content under a Creative Commons license as that makes it impossible for him to take a legal action and prevent the restoration of the show’s archives.