#Industry Advancements

[constructionsafetynetwork]

What Have You Been Working On?A Deep Dive into Current Construction Safety Initiatives

What have you been working on? Every day, on construction sites across the globe, professionals ranging from site managers to laborers engage in tasks that shape our urban landscape. When they pause for a moment, perhaps during a coffee break or in a team huddle, the question “What have you been working on?” frequently arises. This isn’t mere small talk. Instead, it signifies a deeper intent of…

[serpentface]

i really like how this setting has a very well defined history to it, the past, the way it has been described so far, genuinely feels like another place and still one that would logically lead to the present, so i wanted to ask, have you thought at all about this in the other direction? what will the setting look like in 10, 50, a 100 years? just where is this world going exactly?

10 years absolutely. 50 years not so much. 100 years barely. Far future not at all. Here's a summary of the localized 10-15 year outcome (posting the (incomplete, already outdated) map again because it is extremely necessary for the paragraphs to come)

(Titenegal is the star just to the west of Godsmouth, the Mouth is the stretch of sea between Bur and the Wardi empire, the Viper trails off a little off-map to the east, the seas west of the Viper form the Inner Seaway)

I have a pretty solid idea of the next 10-15 years for Imperial Wardin. The former king (technically emperor but the word for 'king' is used for this title) Stavis Amanti honorably and nobly and TOTALLY willingly replaces the destined white calf in sacrifice, and the Odomache takes his dynasty's place as the emperor. As God Itself incarnated, the state is now functionally a theocracy with a god-emperor. The Imperial Wardi faith has always been the greatest unifying factor in an otherwise fragmented imperial entity, and this change results in a greater centralization of power than what's seen in Whitecalf (in which it is essentially composed of allied city-states conditionally loyal to a king, it's integrity is very tenuous in general and actively falling apart in the famine). The city-state of Lobera and Godsmouth both disavow the Amanti dynasty during the famine and the former wholly secedes and declares itself an independent state near the end of the story (the latter re-avows its loyalty to the new god-emperor). Lobera pulls some nearby imperial tributary territories under its protection and and the territorial size of Imperial Wardin is diminished (basically the entire northeast is lost).

The drought DOES end in the same year as the pilgrimage (yayyyy it worked) but actual recovery from a 6.75 year drought and famine, especially in the context of a shift in political power, takes time. The famine cannot be considered to have fully ended for another 4-5 years (conditions just gradually improve until normalization) and this time is spent in with focus being inward and on recovery and reunification. The city-state of Erub in particular fully collapsed by the end of the famine (the Yellowtail river ran Completely dry and tens of thousands of people in that region alone died from starvation and disease) and is never reformed in this 15 year period, though some refugees (and opportunists grabbing lands from dead or fled farmers) start to trickle back in as the land recovers.

The shift in power from a dynastic imperial monarchy to an imperial oligarchy is actually wildly popular among much of the public (the notion existed long before it actually happened, the public opinion on the imperial family is EXTREMELY low during the famine and the pilgrimage is largely a desperate attempt to save face). The social perception that God Itself incarnated and made head of state is what ended the drought and famine is massively beneficial to the new power structure. Imperial Wardin emerges from famine recovery at the most united and centralized in power it's ever been.

A full scale war between Imperial Wardin and Lobera+Allies finally occurs about 6 years out, and lasts a little over a year before Lobera is utterly crushed and re-absorbed. Control over tributary states is reaffirmed, and efforts start to be made to make Imperial Wardi territory fully contiguous (in the map, only the red sections are Fully controlled territories)

Meanwhile Titenegal is more aggressively courted into full alliance with Godsmouth, and the majority of elected officials vote for a merger, which in practice absorbs it into the Wardi empire (while retaining elected officials for local affairs, though these must defer to the emperor). This basically splits the united Burri nations in half (both in public opinion and in a literal territorial capacity) and is extremely contentious. Imperial Wardin is clearly in the process of pulling the old switcheroo and conquering Bur, through diplomacy for the time being.

And with the full cross-Mouth unification having occurred, attention is turned back north to Finnerich (which has been fully independent of its tributary status for over a decade now, and has been a major pain in the ass for both Wardi and Burri interests). A much stronger, much more unified, and much more militarized Imperial Wardin starts preparing for another round of invasions, while the self-declared king of Finnerich has been courting historical enemies into allegiance against it. At this point the Wardi Empire is entering a strong expansionist era and trying to conquer the entire Viper Seaway and Mouth, with hopes of finally digging that canal at the end of the Viper (a seaway that peters out about 40 miles from the ocean, many have tried to dig a canal and all have failed) to completely monopolize the eastern tradeways. It has a long way to go to actually get there though.

All this stuff is the political backdrop for Blightseed (the story).

In the LONG and broader term, the only really imminent world-altering scenario would be the greater spread of firearms. At the moment the most complex and powerful firearm being produced is types of flintlocks/matchlocks most comparable to the arquebus (also there's some smaller pistols with similar mechanisms) (I'm also going back and forth on whether I should downgrade the gun tech), but the majority of firearms that exist are more basal fire lances and handcannons (and the VAST majority of peoples have no firearms at all). In the 'contemporary' these matchlocks are only just starting to spread through very powerful states in the Inner Seas tradeway and are generally rare and elite weapons, which are slowly being disseminated through capture and illegal trade and reverse engineered by other people. The spread of relatively efficient and powerful handguns would have profound implications for warfare and the power structures involved in trade networks and will probably be a major contributing force to mass societal changes in the next 100-300 years.

I also haven't provided a good sense of scale via not posting world maps but most of the imperial entities described are relatively tiny on a global scale. There has never been anything in the setting on the scale of the Roman empire or the Mongolian empire at their peaks. Imperial Wardin's total mass of occupied territories (not including claimed but unoccupied land, blue on the map) is a little under the size of the full extent of the Aztec empire (and they have some similarities in being largely composed of a tributary states). It's a world that has heavy interconnection via trade along coasts and seaways, but its societies are mostly (relatively) small in scale. This is a long way of saying I think the mass spread of firearms could result in something closer to that scale of territorial landgrabbing forming.

[askagamedev]

I've been employed as a senior game programmer for two years but I really need a new job and I don't think I'm good enough to compete as a senior, if took a salary decrease I wouldn't receive much less a year after tax. I don't wanna be stressed out being expected to do things I can't do effectively. How would you recommend getting a new job at a more junior position? My heart is no longer in this profession I don't have love for it anymore. I just want a job to provide for my family.

There seems to be a lot to unpack here. I'm reading several different elements that each warrants its own response. Here's what I'm seeing:

You aren't feeling job satisfaction with what you do any more

This happens from time to time and likely needs some soul-searching to seriously answer. If you just want to provide for your family, there's nothing wrong with doing what is expected of you and no more. If you really don't like game dev anymore, you could always try finding a job in a game-adjacent field - simulation, gambling software, user experience, education and training software, and so on. Most technical problems are fairly fungible.

That said, sometimes all it takes is a reminder that there are players out there who really do appreciate what we do. I get a tremendous amount of job satisfaction seeing players enjoying the parts of the game I made.

You're feeling some imposter syndrome in your current job

Imposter syndrome is very normal, especially for where you are in your career. It never really goes away, and it will always tell you that what you're doing is scary and that you can always give up and go back. If you're really concerned about your performance on the job, you should talk to your manager about it. Ask for a one-on-one and discuss it. If you're doing fine, your manager will tell you so. If you aren't, your manager will also tell you and likely suggest ways to improve. And, if you really want to take a more junior position, your manager should be able to help you transition to one of those too.

You want a new job with less responsibility

There's nothing wrong with this per se, but accepting a demotion will probably take a toll on your long-term career. At the very least, it is likely that you will be asked about it at any job you apply for in the field, and you may get passed over for roles because the hiring managers consider you too senior for it. This may not matter to you but you should probably consider your long-term vs short-term goals and what it is you want to do with the rest of your career and life. If you've taken the time to consider the ramifications (especially with your family) and still feel like it is the best choice, by all means do it. I caution against making such a long-term decision hastily.

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[snugcubunny]

Final Fantasy'd ya boi

[w1lmutt]

For those of you who are "botw is placed at the end of the timeline where all timelines merge" truthers, how many of you are taking advantage of the fact that it'd mean there are two Hyrules now? The Hyrule we are playing in botw/totk and new Hyrule from spirit tracks

[peachphernalia]

click for higher quality

do you ever see yourself ?

[alt ver. with different colors under the cut and ramble in tags]

[dream by joku]

[sunsetsmakemesad]

Weekly manga curse

[rjzimmerman]

Excerpt from this story from The American Prospect:

The Clean Air Act (CAA) has been fiercely opposed by polluters and their allies since its passage in 1970. Industry has never quite stopped fighting to prevent the government from protecting American lives and communities at the expense of even a bit of their profits. But over the past few years, opposition to the law has reached new feverish heights. Multiple cases seeking to gut the CAA have been filed by (or with the support of) oil and gas organizations, their dark-money front groups, and their political allies since 2022.

The ringleaders of this effort are the usual trade groups driving climate apocalypse, including the American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers (AFPM) and the American Petroleum Institute (API), as well as oil giants themselves, like ExxonMobil.

Yet the coordinated attacks on this lifesaving, popular, and historically successful regulation go beyond the singularly destructive interests of the oil industry alone. And they go beyond the federal rule too, and are working their way into litigation against state enactments of the CAA.

Of course, many of the companies driving these suits are some of the biggest names in corporate greenwashing, like Amazon, FedEx, SoCalGas, and more.

These companies have continuously insisted that they are committed to leading the clean-energy transition, even while they fight for the right to poison the general public for profit, and have endeavored—at every turn—to destroy any opportunity the public may have to pursue recourse for it.

Last year, the Truck and Engine Manufacturers Association (EMA) threatened a lawsuit against the California Air Resources Board (CARB) over the state regulator’s Advanced Clean Fleets (ACF) rule.

The rule, which would mandate a “phased-in transition toward zero-emission medium- and heavy-duty vehicles,” threatens the transportation sector’s historically noxious way of doing business; the sector accounts for more than 35 percent of California’s nitrogen oxide emissions and nearly a quarter of California’s on-road greenhouse gas emissions. CARB’s rule could go a long way toward actualizing rapid reductions in the state’s annually generated emissions.

However, later that year EMA and some major truck manufacturers reached an agreement with CARB not to sue over the rules, in exchange for the state’s loosening of some near-term emissions reductions standards.

EMA has by and large kept its promise to not intervene with the regulation in courts, but litigation challenging CARB’s rule would soon be picked up by the California Trucking Association (CTA). Enforcement of the rule has since been on hold, as CARB waits to be issued an ACF-related waiver from the EPA in return for CTA not filing for preliminary injunction against the law.

Even despite these agreements, some of EMA’s own members—and even some of those specifically signed on to the CARB deal—pop up on CTA’s member rolls, as per CTA’s own 2023 membership directory. Daimler Trucks North America and Navistar, Inc., are specifically listed as Allied Members of CTA for 2023.

Amazon is listed among CTA’s Carrier Members, while separately making routine promises to be a partner in the fight against climate change. While Amazon announced its “Climate Pledge” in 2019 of reaching net-zero emissions by 2040 to great fanfare, and has since branded itself a climate leader, the Center for Investigative Reporting has detailed how the e-commerce giant is overselling its green credentials by drastically undercounting its carbon emissions.

In truth, Amazon’s emissions have increased more than 40 percent in the time since it issued the pledge. Amazon also remains the largest emitter of the “Big Five” tech companies, producing no less than 16.2 million metric tons of CO2 every year. Without question, the corporation should be regarded as an industry leader in greenwashing, rather than in actual climate action.

FedEx is also a CTA Carrier-level member. Like Amazon, the company has also made promises “to achieve carbon neutral operations by 2040,” an initiative FedEx has labeled “Priority Earth.” In the years since, FedEx has funneled intensive time and resources into lobbying directly against climate action while pushing its net-zero greenwashing narrative.

UPS is another CTA Carrier-level member. UPS has historically been less effusive in its climate promises than have other corporations on this list, but the delivery giant has continuously reinforced its stance that “everyone shares responsibility to improve energy efficiency and to reduce GHG emissions in the atmosphere.”

[gobbluthbutagirl]

that post going around asking what people would do if they won the lottery has totally bummed me out because mine is literally like, “i’d rent an apartment in los angeles that has wood floors and an oven and isn’t a shithole…” which is already like too embarrassing to even say in the tags of the post in front of god and the op and everybody, but then it’s, “…and then maybe go to college,” so it’s like, ok, well now i just have to sit with that thought, uncomfortably, forever

[pharmanucleus1]

Artificial Womb Facility Market: Advancements, Trends, and Future Prospects 2030

Global Bleeding Disorders Treatment Market

Bleeding disorders are a group of conditions in which there is a problem with the blood clotting process of the body. These disorders can lead to heavy and prolonged bleeding after an injury. Bleeding can also begin on its own. Some bleeding disorders are present at birth and are passed down through families (inherited). Others develop from illnesses, such as vitamin K deficiency, severe liver disease, and treatments, such as the use of drugs to stop blood clots (anticoagulants) or the long-term use of antibiotics.

Market Size & Growth Rate:

The bleeding disorders treatment was valued at USD 12.8 billion in 2021 and is projected to reach USD 18.6 billion by 2027, with a CAGR of 7.6% over the forecast period 2022-2027. The growth could be attributed to the return of demand to pre-pandemic levels, increasing authorization of novel & innovative medicines, extensive research, disease prevalence, and immunotherapies.

Click here for full report:

https://www.pharmanucleus.com/reports/artificial-womb-facility

Market Dynamics:

Get more details on this report - Request Free Sample

Global Bleeding Disorders in 2020

According to WFH-2021, the number of patients with hemophilia-A is projected to major growth rate, followed by Von Willebrand disease across the globe, as hemophilia-A is the first line of impact for bleeding disorders treatment platforms.

Market Drivers:

Challenges:

Click here for full report:

https://www.pharmanucleus.com/reports/artificial-womb-facility

Competitive Landscape:

CSL Behring (U.S.), Grifols International (U.S.), Octapharma (Switzerland), Pfizer (U.S.), Biogen Idec, Xenetic Biosciences (U.S.), Sanofi (France), Cangene Corporation (Canada), Alnylam Pharmaceuticals (U.S.)Amgen U.S), Johnson & Johnson Services, Inc. (U.S.), Novartis AG (Switzerland), Akorn Operating Company LLC (U.S.), Bausch & Lomb Incorporated (Canada), AbbVie Inc. (U.S.),  Prestige Consumer Healthcare Inc. (U.S.), Thea Laboratories (France),  Wellona Pharma (India),   Bayer AG (Germany), Zydus Group, Amneal Pharmaceuticals LLC (India), OASIS Medical (U.S.), Alcon (Switzerland), and Santen Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd. (Japan)

Key Developments:

Competitors in the global bleeding disorders market are engaged in regulatory approvals, the development of new services, and acquisition & collaborative agreements with other companies. A few expansion strategies are adopted by players operating in the bleeding disorders market.

[dragonsdenstudiosofficial]

The Pizza Knight Saves The Princess is a fantasy-comedy choose-your-own-adventure-style visual novel being developed by Dragon's Den Studios. Set on the planet Comestibla, where everything & everyone is made of food, we play as the Pizza Knight as he tries to save his beloved Water Ice Princess from the castle of the evil Chocolate Count. You can download the demo for free HERE: https://dragons-den-studios.itch.io/the-pizza-knight-saves-the-princess

Over the course of this month I'll be posting some of the game's art to this blog! This image is a sneak peak of content only available in the full release!

This image depicts a flashback that the Pizza Knight has to his childhood after drinking one of the potions. After his father's arrest he was adopted by the Cabbage Knights, two married cabbage-folk knights working for the Water Ice Princess' parents who were looking to adopt a child; this scene takes place on the first day the young knight ever had ice cream. Their personalities are reflected in their choices of ice cream and toppings, which are based on Filipino cuisine in a nod to how the Cabbage Knights, were they human, would be of Filipino descent (the Pizza Knight would be Neapolitan Italian, natch). The Green Cabbage Knight (they/them) has a humble cone of green coconut topped with a single cherry, showing their down-to-earth and uncomplicated personality, while the Red Cabbage Knight (she/her) has a cone of ube topped with balang (locusts) to show that she's the more daring of the two in addition to being a bit of a cloudcuckoolander. The ice cream vendor is a sapin-sapin-folk, with the ice cream flavors & toppings offered inspired by popular ice cream flavors & toppings in the Philippines (or so the internet tells me, at least).

And yes, the Red Cabbage Knight is indeed wearing gherkinstocks. It had to be punned.

[beautifulpersonpeach]

JESUS BPP YOU WERE RIGHT ABT VP L BEING THE FALL GUY TO TARGET MHJ

https://x.com/tmikpop/status/1782735648610275429?s=46

But she’s been made the scapegoat and now people will think she made him say this and it won’t matter will it? I doubted it before but looking at everything coming out, it feels like someone has wanted MHJ out of Hybe for a long time. First they tried to use public opinion turning against her with the pedo scandal to do it, but it didn’t work because Hybe supported her. So now they are attacking her from within Hybe itself, using her caustic abrasive narssistic reputation to paint a character profile of a backstabbing greedy SM bitch who wants to pull another 50-50 even though MHJ herself has said in the wake of such glaring failures of both SM and 50-50, its stupid to think she’d attempt the same so soon. I work in investment banking and this feels like an inside hit job from everything I’ve seen. I don’t really like MHJ, I think she talks too much, but I can’t help but feel what we’re hearing from her is closer to the truth than what leaks from Hybe are saying. Somebody wants her gone.

It’s sad. If she leaves will there be any more top women at Hybe? Nicole left Hybe recently to go to Columbia after almost 7 years as A&R for BigHit, Adora left Hybe after almost 9 years to do her own solo career outside of Hybe. Sometimes i wonder why those women left after all the investment they made into the company, of its because they weren’t given more real support to advance to more independent or autonomous roles. All three women: Min Hee Jin, Adora, and Nicole were hired when Bang PD was in charge, but now that other men are calling shots at Hybe and it’s a more big chaebol corporate structure, all these women are either leaving or in the case of MHJ, attacked and left little choice but to leave.

i know this is giving conspiracy BPP, and i hate it. Maybe I’m projecting my own trauma from work into the situation. But this new VP L statement just triggered it for me. Something about this scandal smells very very wrong. I just hope the outcome for NewJeans is the best one.

***

Your link.

You’ve said a lot. All I’ll respond to is your first question: no it won’t matter what VP L says. It won’t matter unless the suits at HYBE want it to, and so far that looks unlikely.

[askagamedev]

How do you get (or work towards) a promotion as a game designer?

Getting a promotion in the game industry usually requires the designer to take two steps.

The first step is to level up one's skill set to the next level. This means taking on more difficult responsibilities and tasks, the sort that the mid or senior level devs are doing. In order to do this, one needs to increase her understanding of the way the systems and content interact by guarding against future possible edge cases and issues that she foresees others on the team bringing up, and being able to articulate all of the elements needed to craft the experience she's trying to create. I gauge the level of my ability by predicting the kind of feedback that I will get from my design work from the experienced designers and then going through the reviews to see how accurate my predictions were. I figured I was ready to move up when my predictions were right most of the time.

The second step is to find an opportunity and go for it - usually by taking a new job at another studio. If you want to try to get an internal promotion, you need to talk to your supervisor during your one-on-one meetings and make sure she knows what you want and will take steps to help you realize your career goals. If your supervisor can't or won't help you do that, you should consider looking for employment elsewhere instead of waiting. In career terms, waiting is stagnating.

In my experience, most promotions in a game design career don't happen internally. I've never had an internal title change during my career. All of my title promotions (e.g. junior to mid-level, mid-level to senior) came from finding a new job at a new employer, by showing that I could shoulder the responsibilities of the new role. Many of my industry friends and compatriots have similar stories - getting promoted internally is a lot harder than finding a new job elsewhere that starts you in the role you wanted to grow into. Even if you really like your current employer, leaving on good terms to level up elsewhere means you'll be welcomed back later with a better title with more responsibility and pay.

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[coochiequeens]

Maybe now that the people with the money to buy babies are being scammed even IVF proponents will admit that there needs to be regulations in the Buy a Baby Business

Dominique Side, the owner of Surrogacy Escrow Account Management, poses in 2023 at Vegan Fashion Week in Los Angeles.

(Gilbert Flores / WWD via Getty Images)

By Matt Hamilton Staff Writer June 30, 2024 

They scrimped, and they saved. Some asked family and friends to pitch in. Others took out loans for tens of thousands of dollars.

Their goal was twofold: To raise the small fortune necessary to pay for a surrogate mother. And to realize a dream previously impossible — having a child of their own.

Hundreds of people across California, the U.S. and around the globe put their money, sometimes $50,000 or more, into the hands of a Texas-based escrow company so the funds could be held in trust and doled out to a surrogate for healthcare costs, insurance and compensation.

But this month, expectant parents and their surrogates learned the money they had set aside at Houston-based Surrogacy Escrow Account Management, or SEAM, is inaccessible and likely gone.

“We want answers,” said Chris Kettmann of Fair Oaks, Calif., a suburb of Sacramento. “Is there recourse to get the money back? If not, what can we do?”

Chris Kettmann and his wife with their ultrasound in an undated photo. (Chris Kettmann)

Kettmann, 33, said he and his wife had about $45,000 in their escrow account, money owed to their surrogate mother, who is pregnant with their baby boy and due in October. “We don’t know enough to say what happened,” he said. “We just know there’s something crazy going on.”

Police in Houston have opened a wide-reaching investigation. Christina Garza, a spokeswoman for the FBI’s Houston field office, confirmed last week that the agency also is investigating SEAM. The FBI has developed a public portal for SEAM clients to report their account information and how much money they believe they are owed. Garza, however, cautioned that the inquiry was in its early stages and said, “We’re trying to compile as much information as possible.”

A married same-sex couple in Washington, D.C., says they are out $55,000. A Los Feliz couple said they demanded their $40,111 be returned and believe it is gone. Arielle Mitton, an L.A. native who recently moved to Bellingham, Wash., can recite the amount that she and her husband are missing down to the cent: $37,721.44.

“I assumed naively that an escrow account was a safe thing,” said Mitton, whose surrogate mother in Indiana is pregnant with their daughter and is due to deliver on Christmas Eve.

Mitton has joined hundreds of affected parents and surrogates in a private Facebook group that has become a forum for venting, grieving, exchanging information and trying to answer the overriding questions: What happened here? And where did all their money go?

Scrutiny has centered on the sole owner of SEAM, Dominique Side, who has told customers that she had once been a surrogate. The 44-year-old billed herself as an entrepreneur of multimillion dollar businesses in the Houston area, including a vegan grocery store, a nonprofit school, a vegan music studio, and the surrogacy escrow outfit. She walked the red carpet in L.A. for vegan fashion events and ran a concierge service for those seeking a more eco-friendly lifestyle.

“One common thread runs through all my businesses: each is based firmly on a foundation of compassion — for others, for myself and for the planet,” she told a Houston publication in 2022.

Side did not respond to calls or written questions. Emails to Side triggered an auto-response that doubled as a press statement. Citing the “active investigation by federal authorities,” Side wrote in the email, “Under the advice of counsel, I am not permitted to respond to any inquiries regarding the investigation.”

On Thursday, Side and SEAM were hit by a lawsuit from a merchant cash-advance lender, the third such lawsuit this year. Merchant cash advance lenders provide small businesses with quick infusions of money at high fees akin to interest rates of 50% to 100%.

A judge in Texas also froze all of the company’s accounts along with Side’s other businesses after a SEAM client, Marieke Slik, sued over her “vanished” $28,000.

Calling herself a “victim of a scam,” Slik alleged that Side and her company had lured her and others “into a fiduciary relationship in order to steal their escrow funds,” according to her lawsuit, which was filed in Texas. “The Defendants have left hundreds of surrogates throughout the country — who are pregnant with a child that does not belong to them — with no way to pay for necessary prenatal care.”

Sides’ actions, according to the lawsuit, “are nothing short of evil.”

Struggling parents

Many surrogacies often involve LGBTQ+ couples who want children, or older couples for whom childbearing is no longer a viable possibility.

For others, the road to surrogacy is one of heartbreak and tragedy.

The married woman in Los Feliz said she had had multiple miscarriages. She was recently pregnant but gave birth in the second trimester. The newborn died at Cedars-Sinai in his parents’ arms.

The couple turned to surrogacy after exhausting all other options. They selected a surrogate mother, completed the necessary contract — which often requires using an escrow firm — and put more than $40,000 into the account, a portion of the overall cost. But their embryo had yet to be transferred into the surrogate mother.

“Nothing is clear,” she said, explaining that she and her husband demanded their funds weeks ago. “Obviously that fell on deaf ears — we didn’t get our money back,” she said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because their extended family remains unaware of their attempt at using a surrogate.

“I’d love to carry this child,” she said, and “not spend any money on a surrogate. There’s a level of that, where you feel so terribly sad. You feel sad about the money, but you feel sad about the situation.”

‘Something really bad has happened’

For intended parents and surrogates, trouble emerged around late May, when surrogates did not receive their usual payments.

Arielle Mitton gives surrogate mother Tena Doan’s belly a kiss. Doan is carrying Mitton’s baby.  (Arielle Mitton)

In early June, Tena Doan — a 42-year-old surrogate mother in Indiana — said she noticed her bank account balance was lower than expected and realized her monthly payment and allowance had not come through. Her surrogacy agency told her that banking issues at SEAM had delayed the arrival of the money.

“I said, ‘No problem, they’ll get it fixed,’” Doan recalled, figuring that banking issues happen. When she logged into SEAM’s portal, she saw that the money listed as due her was still there.

Then came a June 12 email from Side claiming that fraudulent charges had prompted Capitol One to freeze SEAM’s account.

“Some payments were able to go through before the accounts were frozen,” Side wrote in the email. She stated that new bank accounts were established and promised service would be restored.

Two days later, however, Side sent another email indicating that “all operations have been placed on hold” due to legal action.

Doan said that the email stopped her in her tracks.

“That’s when we were like, ‘Oh s—, this is not good. Something really bad has happened,’” Doan recalled. “From there, it’s been a whirlwind.”

Mitton — the mother of the child that Doan is carrying — was at home more than 2,000 miles west.

“The first few days, I barely slept, I was nauseous from all the emotional aspects and had vertigo,” Mitton remembered.

She contacted the FBI, Houston police, the Texas attorney general. Mitton even emailed the CEO of Capital One, questioning how the money could apparently vanish.

Tena Doan, left, and Arielle Mitton. (Arielle Mitton)

Both Doan and Mitton joined the Facebook group and realized they were part of a club they never wanted membership in: those affected by SEAM’s financial collapse.

An informal poll among members suggested that about $10 million was unaccounted for. Parents and surrogates from across the country and around the world have traded information in the Facebook group about current police investigations and become sleuths themselves.

They’ve pored over Side’s various businesses — the Vgn Bae Music Studio, and Nikki Green, a luxury vegan fashion line. They’ve also mined her social media accounts.

A recent post on Side’s Instagram page VgnBaeDom, which has since been deleted, recounted her birthday week in June: Side said she flew to L.A., enjoyed a vegan dinner at the upscale Culver City vegan restaurant Shojin, dined at Crossroads Kitchen and Craig’s — both frequent celebrity hotspots — enjoyed a “full day of spa and cabana” at the Four Seasons, before doing fittings at Celine, the luxury French fashion house.

“The week this was going down was also her birthday week,” said Mitton, who recalled thinking, “She’s probably spending our escrow money there.”

Signs of financial difficulty SEAM was first registered in Texas in 2014. Testimonials from 2017 onward show glowing reviews, and one parent told The Times he had used SEAM for their first child without issue.

Lawsuits from cash advance lenders filed against SEAM and Side in New York this year indicate mounting financial trouble in recent months.

So-called merchant cash-advance lenders send sums of money to distressed businesses, often with a rapid turnaround, and, in exchange, a business lets the lender withdraw a portion of future receipts directly from the business’ bank account to pay off the debt. Cash-advance lenders often insist they aren’t lenders and that cash advances against future revenue aren’t technically loans — but New York’s former attorney general had lambasted the industry for predatory debt-collection practices.

In January, Side received an unspecified sum from Pearl Delta Funding and agreed to pay back $69,500. But she defaulted the next month, prompting the lender to sue her in New York in March. (Pearl Delta’s attorney did not respond to an email seeking comment.)

On May 6, Side secured $650,000 from Dynasty Capital and agreed to pay $975,000, or 150% of the amount borrowed, according to court records.

Under the agreement, the lender was allowed to debit $12,500 per day from SEAM’s account until the full amount was paid back. On May 31, Dynasty Capital said in court papers, SEAM “breached the agreement” and either failed to put revenue into the business account or diverted it elsewhere, leaving Dynasty unable to recoup its money.

Dynasty Capital sued Side, SEAM and her various businesses on June 18. Dynasty’s lawyer declined to comment.

On May 29, Side obtained $100,000 from Arsenal Funding and agreed to allow Arsenal to deduct 1.25% of SEAM’s daily revenue from its business bank account until $149,000 was paid off.

Arsenal sued Side and SEAM last week after Side stopped making payments on June 21 and defaulted, according to the lawsuit filed in New York, which demands about $190,000 to cover the outstanding debt and fees.

To secure the loan from Arsenal, Side had to disclose her largest revenue sources. She listed three companies, all in Southern California: US Harvest Babies Surrogacy in the City of Industry; Mle & Mlang International Surrogacy in L.A.; and a Shady Grove Fertility office in Solana Beach.

But there is reason to doubt the accuracy of what Side told the lender. In a statement, Shady Grove said it had no financial relationship with Side or SEAM and did not refer patients to the company, explaining that “some patients may have independently engaged with SEAM.”

Further, the name that Side had listed as her contact has never been an employee of Shady Grove, according to a person familiar with the company’s operations. And the address she listed for Shady Grove is a small branch in the San Diego area that’s been open for only a few months; Shady Grove is headquartered in Maryland and has 49 locations nationwide.

Neither Harvest Babies or Mlan responded to requests for comment.

Side told Arsenal that she was the 100% owner of SEAM and projected an average monthly revenue of $2.78 million, according to a copy of the financial agreement that Arsenal included with its lawsuit.

Lori Hood, a Houston-based attorney who is representing Slik — the client who sued Side this month in Texas — said she was confounded by SEAM’s financial practices. She said the lawsuit from Dynasty Capital indicated that escrow money was used to secure the $650,000 cash payment.

“How do you put up escrow funds as collateral?” said Hood. “That’s my first indication that something’s desperately wrong. You don’t recognize escrow funds as revenue.”

Second, Hood said, SEAM’s tax records that she’s reviewed also showed revenue of “millions of dollars.”

“Did her company make millions of dollars, or is she putting into the tax returns that the escrow money was her revenue?” Hood asked.

To press their client’s lawsuit against SEAM, Hood and her law partner, Marianne Robak, petitioned a judge to freeze all of SEAM’s accounts at Capital One along with other accounts owned or controlled by Side.

“The evidence shows that SEAM’s escrow account with Capital One ... has no funds available,” notes the request for a restraining order to freeze all accounts. “SEAM is insolvent.”

In the filing, Hood also accused SEAM of diverting money into accounts in the name of Life Escrow LLC, a company registered last year to Side’s business partner, Anthony Hall, who is also a defendant in the suit filed by Slik.

Side’s “actions appear to be to avoid having to face the clients she defrauded. It appears she had absconded,” states the restraining order, which a Harris County, Texas, judge signed off on June 21.

Reached by phone on Thursday, Hall said he “had no connection with SEAM,” adding, “I wish I had answers.” Hall said he was a business partner of Side in the vegan music studio, Vgn Bae Studios, adding, “Everything was great until it wasn’t.”

Hall said he did not know if Side had an attorney and said that he was speaking only for himself.

“She’s not gonna respond,” he said of Side. “I’m defending myself. I don’t know what they have going on.”

Pregnancies don’t wait

For Hood and hundreds of surrogate mothers and parents, questions mount.

“I won’t cast blame on any of the parents. They did everything they were supposed to do,” Hood said.

Time is short, however, for ongoing pregnancies and those couples who hope to have a surrogate receive an embryo soon.

Kettmann, from the Sacramento area, said their surrogate mother is 22 weeks pregnant. Of the $57,000 they put into SEAM, he said, $45,000 is missing. The rest had already been distributed to the surrogate.

“It’s a scramble,” he said. He and his wife had some money saved for additional expenses, which they’ve used to cover the June payment that never arrived from SEAM. He’s now fundraising from family and friends.

“We told her we’ll do everything we can to keep her up to date on payments,” he said, “but [we’re] asking her to be patient.”

Mitton and her surrogate mother, Doan, have started collecting donations through GoFundMe and plan to extend the payment terms two years, rather than having all the money sent to Doan shortly after delivery.

“I’m growing a healthy baby girl for them,” Doan said, “and that’s all that matters.”

[the-8-of-spades]

Call of Duty has had so many chances to create something really unique and original and just,,, not. Like, Vanguard was a WWII game and they wanted to keep the gunsmith and MW style killstreaks, and instead of leaning into it and going full alternate history dieselpunk they just,,, made a shitty generic ww2 game?

Cold War's campaign was a genuinely interesting and unique spy thriller. I would have watched it as a movie. Since playing it I've noticed the distinct lack of first person spy thriller games. Like can you imagine an open world spy game set in Cold War Berlin?? If it wasn't CoD this game would have set off so many copycats! But did they do anything with that concept elsewhere, say, co-op infiltration multiplayer, stealth based game modes, etc? Nope! Just the same multiplayer sandbox every CoD game has had since the Modern Warfare reboot, and the campaign was written off by the gaming world at large because it was CoD and the part that people actually care about stayed exactly the same.

It's so disheartening that this franchise with so much money and so many incredible programmers and writers (yes writers Advanced Warfare, Infinite Warfare, and every Black Ops game have all had stories that can go toe to toe with the likes of Arkane, Obsidian, Naughty Dog, etc) behind it is too afraid to take any kind of risk or make anything that's memorable in favor of the safe option of yearly iterations of the same thing.