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Actually the idea was never to reward people just for creating new stuff, but for sharing the stuff they crated with the world. And it all went to pot when people were allowed (1) to set their own licencing fee and (2) to charge different licencing fees to different entities, or bar some entities altogether.

Anyway, pure mathematics is not created. It just exists. Zero existed before arabic numerals, even if there wasn't a way to write it; the same as fractions existed before there was a convenient way to write them, and irrational numbers exist even if they can't be represented exactly. Complex numbers existed before anyone had the idea for j.

Have a look at this kid's book for an easy-to-understand explanation of patent misuse.

I fixed the botchiness of the scaling and tried a different approach. Comments appreciated!

http://www.dustrunners.com/slashdot/indexb.php

It's not about perfect vision. My eyes are just fine thank you, but I want to keep it that way and when I'm reading web pages at the font sizes they try to force onto me it wouldn't.

Here's a list from all the links in tacos journal entries that respect your wishes - note that most others could be easily changed to use other sizes for stories and comments it's just that the designers have been too lazy or too control-freaky to do it that way in the first place. (no guarantees, if I missed one or posted the wrong entry by mistake, correct me)

MCM's design. Layout slightly botched with large font size.

Kira's revised design. Seems to scale perfectly

Dave Snyder's Design. The right-hand menu overlaps with the stories.

Helen Nicholson's design has the same problem but this time the stories are above the menu.

Hallvar Helleseth's design. Well, it's certainly different. =)

I am working on a project that aims to better co-ordinate that kind of idea... pulling together ideas and art at various stages of development, making them searchable, retaining credit and license information, and helping people find the other parts of the puzzle they need to get their idea off the ground. This Blender thing goes in a slightly different direction, but the end result should be close to the same: giving people more tools and resources to do cool stuff.

If anyone has any time for PHP goodness, I could use some more assistance (http://www.sourceforge.net/projects/cpvs), and for a preview of what I'm planning on beta-testing with (and releasing all my pre-existing assets from), check http://www.dustrunners.com/.

Okay, done now.

</shameless plug>

Okay, this is way too close to my personal project so I HAVE to plug it (sorry). http://www.dustrunners.com/ It's in the early stages yet, but that's the basic idea. Creative Commons source, lots of raw materials to use, and an attempt to open the source of a show. Oh, and I'm also looking for a PHP dev for the companion FOSS project here: http://www.sourceforge.net/projects/cpvs.

Phew. Plug done. I'm sorry if your eyes are watering.

This came up a few days ago with the "pay-per-view series" story, and in a thread attached there some of us contemplated something of a plan to actually make a series based on fan interest... like a middleman-less version of broadcast TV.

Along those lines, I made a page outlining the "business plan" and asked for input as to how much you personally would pay per episode of a particular show. I did it kind of late in the game, though, so only about 400 people saw it. I'd like to increase the sample if I could...

The idea related to TFA is this: if you have a block of fans that are fanatical enough to gather hundreds of thousands of signatures, to pull a sinking series out of the abyss... why not actually give them what they want? If you get subscriptions for a season of a show from enough people, you can easily produce a show, and you will make bigger profits than before while still giving the fans what they want. Especially in sci-fi, where the audience is more internet-aware and a lot more passionate, this seems like a great solution for all parties.

Anyway, if you'll at least take the time to vote at the bottom of that page, it would be very interesting to see how Enterprise's target audience actually feels about the idea.

Just to give you an update on the statistics... since I posted that link last night, about 200 people have said they would pay $2 for a show 6 months from now. If you consider there were almost 70,000 hits to my site in the same time period stemming from from the URL in my profile, that's a reasonably low number, and I would think it means that people either don't like clicking on links in Slashdot posts, or they think $2 is too much.

So! I've further developed the plan, and if you're floating about, please visit this page and vote at the bottom so I can get a sense of what types of prices everyone is comfortable with.

Okay, just to conduct a survey of sorts... if you (speaking into camera) would pay $2 now for a show 6 months from now, prease to clicky-click on my link here and I will let y'all know how many people feel the same way. I've already counted myself, because I'm like you, but I'm curious how many others are...

(btw: the linked page simply records a hit to a database table, and is not all that exciting to look at, so don't be disappointed)

Hmm. I should take note of this: three days of waiting on clients, and all it takes to get them to reply to me is to publicly propose to undertake a fun project unrelated to money...

So instead of... the full version which I'd have to re-assemble out of a few dozen wiki entries, howzabout I send you to my mangled prosed-up version instead? It stops around 2030 and doesn't cover the issue at hand directly, but it's still fun.

Sorry... the almighty buck beckons...

I've recently 'opened' the creative guts of my animated series (including concepts, technologies, artwork etc), and am in the process of releasing content bit by bit, and it so if you're interested, you can use and modify the stuff already up there at Dustrunners.com or request new assets in the games stream on the site.

It's just getting rolling, but I'm sure there's something there that could help you...

I've recently 'opened' the creative guts of my animated series (including concepts, technologies, artwork etc), and am in the process of releasing content bit by bit, and it so if you're interested, you can use and modify the stuff already up there at Dustrunners.com or request new assets in the games stream on the site.

It's just getting rolling, but I'm sure there's something there that could help you...

While reading about this game (the first I've heard of it..) I was struck by the similarities to that movie "The Game" with Micheal Douglas in which his brother (Sean Penn) buys him a "game". The game company essentially spins a fantastic fantasy world and tosses him up to his eyeballs in it. It comes just short of ruining his life before he "wins".... An interesting concept.

While the $$$$$$$ price tag of smashed cars, coke strewn hotel rooms, fake hospitals and the actors required would put the price of such a thing beyond the range of your casual gamer, the premise is certainly interesting. Imagine having a fantasy life and being thrown (kicking and screaming) into the middle of it. Would be a thrill to say the least.

I don't suppose that such a thing actually exists. Does anyone know anything that comes close to this "real world immersive" game?

The only thing I know of that comes close is something called Dustrunners, but the immersive game is highly fantastic futuristic and is contained entirely within the website (and is somehow tied in with an animated cartoon). It didn't grab me soon enough after I signed up, but I admit it held promise.

The process eventually would need to involve a bunch of posts, minimizing fuel expenditures and making sure that any one vehicle serves only its one purpose... but the initial outlay of cash would eventually turn into a very very profitable business.

The question was originally whether it's worth doing this kind of thing given that the world has bigger problems to deal with, but when you look at it from a business perspective, it could be a very plausible (if not hideously expensive) venture unlike anything history has ever seen.

better than the japanese transforming robot project!

If you've ever seen Macross II, you'll know what I mean. There are scenes where the mouths keep moving and the English voices have long since finished their lines. And to try and teach a director how to re-edit their work dependent on a language they don't understand is a real challenge.

It seems kind of silly, but the artistic vision is the element most hurt by that kind of thing.

Not to say that we're not trying to get around it...