Thursday Next

Needs more tessels.

As I understand it the US would rather use up everyone else's oil first. Then refuse to let anyone have their own later. If the ease of mining post set up is beneficial enough and resources plentiful enough, it might be worth the (admittedly huge) initial effort.

Point being there is a lot within US borders that it doesn't use.

Wait a minute... Who eats dogs??? Never mind, saw the CNN YouTube clip... What a country.

I do the same. I remember the major events but a lot of the detail can pass me by. I intend to re-read them once I'm done with The Last Watch.

Haha massive respect for Brand. Witness is as good a term as any. MP: "You were arrested roughly 12 times?" Brand: "Yes, it was rough." I agree with the principal. Prostitutes, clients and drug users should not be pursued by the law, they are often in a vulnerable position and are being exploited (perhaps not clients of prostitutes... that's debatable). The people who provide the illegal activities, pimps and dealers are the ones that should be stopped.

If that was the case, then America wouldn't be getting all its oil from the middle east. If the moon is more plentiful and easier to mine, then it may well be worth the trip. Getting set up is the issue, once you're there you can tear shit up and no one can write to their local council to stop you. For a more gamey analogy, when playing an RTS you sometimes need to stretch your resources pretty thin in order to set up mines on all available (sometimes pretty distant) mineral deposits. It means "wasting" a lot of resources on things you don't need like relay points to get resources back to your base, but the upshot is that you can more quickly develop the stuff you do need.

Hmmm, I never got the impression he was a "baddie" in the film.

Is it the same brand?

That's not the fault of Public Domain. That's the fault of Paramount. They didn't see a market for a higher quality product for a higher price tag until they were given back their monopoly. If companies knew that their Copyright was gone then they'd be forced to add more new content (which would have Copyright protection) and more quality to their release than to the public domain version in order to be competitive. It would (in an ideal world) lead to an economy where lower quality versions of your old, Public Domain product were distributed freely and could serve to advertise your brand, while some people would come to you for a better product or service and would pay more for that.

Didn't the young fire guy be good in the end? Token I know. I'd probably be more annoyed about the whole Inuit/Asian thing if the film itself wasn't bad. I found the over the top exposition annoyed me way more than the ethnicity of the characters.

Can't say I gave much of a toss where the actors were from. Fire Nation being Indian or East Asian makes little difference narratively. Much more annoying was the way the film led you by the hand. Despite the fact that any plot points were telegraphed well in advance, the film seemed to need to explain exactly what it was doing and why every step of the way. I seem to remember a bit where they were on some plateau meditating or some shit and Ang basically explained exactly what he was going to do and why and how it would affect him. Whatever happened to "show don't tell"? I know it's a film for kids, but even kids aren't that dumb.

To the Kickstartermobile!!! Everyone who funds it will get free access to formerly protected works.

Hmmm, I'm not too fussed by stories in RPGs to be honest. I'm more into the actual game mechanics. Does it play like anything else? Like any of the older FFs or Tales of Eternia? Or is it something totally different? (I'm fine with different by the by).

Yes it was explicitly mentioned, several times. Pretty sure it's a temporary thing, though I don't recall it being referenced in detail.

Yes, I'm sure publishers have literally 0 games lined up for release for Thanksgiving and Christmas.Who would even think of releasing a game in November? Madness. Rockstar should release it in about 10 - 12 months. When there is bollocks all else out rather than dropping it in the busiest slot of the year.

I'd be down for a maximum duration. Kind of like being President. You're only allowed 3 or 4 renewals or whatever.

Is Disgaea 3 good? I'm looking for an RPG for my Vita and well, options are a bit lacking at the mo.

Pretty sure it's a joke Aperture Science Turret / Dalek thing...

It annoys me that a large number of the things that were "censored" for "copyright" reasons would in fact have been [edit] potential trademark infringements. Also, using a short clip of steamboat willy to illustrate its fortuitously long © would have been fair use. I completely agree that copyright and patent time limits are too long. 120 years for © and 20 years for patents is ridiculous. There should probably be some form of "use or lose it" doctrine applied. I would be fine with companies retaining ownership of © on a 5 year rolling basis requiring them to apply for renewal and show that the work was being commercially exploited. If you fail to reapply or are found to be just squatting on the IP then it becomes public domain. That would solve a lot of copyleft issues as well as making sure that companies have to choose whether to continue to actively exploit a © work or to leave it to enter the public domain.

Yeah, the more I think about it. $4k for :Attorneys, Startup fees and CPA" (assuming CPA is Certified Public Accountant) is pretty cheap, in the UK the starting rate for a trainee solicitor is ~£110 / hour, someone with a few years experience is double that and a top flight solicitor is as much as £400/hr (or more), that's not even taking into account all the fees for registering the companies and whatever else they lumped into "startup costs". I have no idea what sort of fees accountants charge, but I'll assume they aren't much less than solicitors. Basically, around 10% of the money has gone on making sure that they are running their business properly. Closer to 30% has been blown on sending swag to people. I know which I'd do without next time around. For those who like sources cited you can find Solicitor Guideline Hourly Rates here: http://www.judiciary.gov.uk/Resources/JCO/Documents/Guidance/guideline-hourly-rates-2010-v2.pdf

Blimey the votes for this are too close to call.

I didn't notice it. I find it weird that Joker would take time out for sex... He doesn't seem interested in women in that way.

It happens a lot with new developers generally. You can tell them till you are blue in the face that they need to make a detailed budget beforehand and they'll ignore you. Of the things that they would change should they do it again. I'd be inclined to do less t-shirts and posters and more in-game rewards. That will make a huge impact on how much money you have to develop the game. Dropping attorneys because you are "all getting along at the moment" and "are closer than ever" is silly. Even if you have a difference of opinion and decide to split amicably, what you think is generous could be totally different to what the other side thinks is generous. This stuff needs to be locked down, clearly, in language that leaves no room for misunderstanding and for that you need to sit down with a lawyer. Also, a lot of that $4k was to set up a company and stuff like that. It's a one-off payment that is pretty much essential if you want serious investment down the line. Also, a trip to PAX East could have been put off till next year if you are counting the pennies and have $50k of debt to pay off. It's stuff like this that makes me think that there will inevitably be a huge Video game Kickstarter failure. (Note that I am not a'whooping and a'hollering at the thought, it's just a prediction, not a hope.) It's also things like this that make "Big Evil Greedy Publishers" not such a bad thing. They can provide a lot of help with regard to music, legal support, creative services, marketing and so forth which are, as you can see, not cheap.