Slashdot Mirror
Slashback: Shooters, Ire, Boldness
Alternate title: Natural Born Fraggers JamesColburn writes: "I just noticed your article on the 5th anniversary of Quake. I spent much of last year with a couple of friends making a 40 min documentary on the game, the gamers and pro game playing ... Broke my bank. But it was worth it."
Are there prizes for other letters, too? gagganator writes: "If you thought that American aiming for space was headed for the darwin awards, check out this brit who seems destined to beat him (to the darwin awards, that is)."
The ten-million dollar X-prize is a pretty good incentive for early adopters, but I might wait until Boeing has done a few test flights, introduced frequent flyer miles, etc, rather than just sit among four strapped-together rocket engines.
If you must draw conclusions, draw them like this. Sudderth writes: "Scott McCloud has posted a reaction to the 'backlash' against his online comic about micropayments."
McCloud wrote and drew what is probably the best explanation of and argument for micropayments as applied to comics (in two parts -- here are the slashdot posts about the first and second parts) that I've ever seen. Seems like not everyone agrees.
Ugh.
Build it into the ISP infrastructure instead. Say your ISP charges you $5.00 more per month, and so you have $5.00 you can spend on micropayment stuff (by default) per month.
If you want to buy a subscription to a comic, you get charged whatever it costs. $1 a month? I'd buy subscriptions to just about every comic I read.
Encryption can be used in such a way that the artist need not know who is buying a subscription, and your ISP need not know who you're buying a subscription for.
All it would take is a new internet protocol. Browser plugins could be used until it's built into the browser by default. On the ISP end, it's just another daemon that would be hooked into billing. On the content provider end, it's a third daemon.
Jerry and Chris need to gather a group of engineers and write a spec for this protocol. Then they need to convince AOL that it will increase their bottom line - maybe AOL could keep whatever you haven't spent of the $5.00 when the month was up.
After AOL implements it and there's a decently secure free implementation for ISPs and for content providers (also ISPs), the rest will fall into place.
Before you lay blame, please educate yourself about the problem. Xanim would *happily* include Sorenson CODECs if Sorenson wasn't so tight with Apple. But, the ways of intellectual property are indeed mysterious....
http://xanim.va.pubnix.com/xa_unsupported.html
On the other hand you have Tycho, who has had the idea of living off his art come falling down around his ears, at least for the short term. Hell, it's a reasonable expectation to hope to make money from creativity, and the fact that it doesn't always work is quite possibly the SUCKIEST thing about life. Into this comes Scott with his happy ideas and his bright vision of the future, and Tycho in understandable frustration lashes out with his excellent comic, making the point that IT DOESN'T FUCKING WORK!
That's cool. I think it's what Scott wants to see: people engaging him about his ideas, and in a medium he loves. But Tycho's rant was a bit harsh against Scott as a person, and Scott's understandably hurt by that, just as Tycho's hurt by Scott's ain't-online-comics-wonderful attitude. The idea of Scott as some self-proclaimed spokesman is particularly laughable, as I'm sure he'd love to see other people come out and speak their minds. Yes, it's important to not steal time from the art by talking about it too much, but a certain amount of discussion can feed back into creativity.
No, I don't think Scott is God or god. Neither is Tycho. Both of them are artists that I respect a lot. And I think they have a hell of a lot to say to each other (displomatically!). I hope they get the chance to say it.
Scott is earning a living? From what he said on his site, he in fact does have a day job..
- jon
- jon
Ganymede, a GPL'ed metadirectory for UNIX
Scott's "end-run around conservative comic book publishing houses" is being attempted because he isn't making any money from them. Read what he actually wrote. Pay attention to the phrase "utility cut-off notices."
McCloud's original source of ongoing income was Zot! it was never a huge seller, just a critical success, and it hasn't been a regular title for, what, nearly a decade now. Do you really think the royalties from Understanding Comics are so amazingly wonderful the man has no need to work, and is just advocating micropayments so he can get a few extra bucks?
The whole spat really comes down to the fact that Jerry decided to take the fact that Scott has an offline name for himself as an excuse to wage an ill-informed holy war. Jerry's condition relative to Scott has nothing to do with the validity of Scott's argument. Jerry didn't even seem to have read the argument very closely, as Scott's response pointed out. (Your comment suggests you didn't read Scott's response very closely, either.)
Willie! What is that thing?
I don't understand why people claim "the way Scott writes is like he's inventing the idea" of micropayments.
Also, usable micropayments are not already in place. The few systems that exist (PayPal and the like) are not workable; they siphon off too much money; they sit on top of the credit card system. They can't be used to make payments of a few cents, because they aren't anywhere near efficient enough.
Try to make the distinction between an artist who has played the game and earnt a living and now wants a bigger peice of the the pie and an artist that has never had pie.
Mmmm, pie.
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Scott is setting himself up as an expert in the field, yet the advice he is giving is all hype and theory. While those not actually trying to make a living in on-line comics may applaud his "vision", those at the coal face finding out, for example, that payments through the Amazon Honour System approximately halve each month are a little less positive.
I think Bluetooth is inevitable, but you try finding anything other than Ericsson's headset and the odd PCMCIA card. I believe that simple, robust devices are preferable to powerful complicated ones, but MS' Pocket PC is gaining on the Palm. I could give you all manner of predictions, but in a depressed economy those people who know that your wonderful-sounding bits of fluff are totally impractical are not going to be your greatest fans. For every person that claps when Scott finishes a speech on the future of e-comics there's an artist having to give up what he likes and become a suit because at the end of the day, this day, today, it doesn't work.
And some of us resent that Scott's making money off of what are tantamount to lies.
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I can see both points of view, but I have a lot more time for Jerry's.
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This article, linked to by Tycho, sums up my feelings about that.
What that article does not mention, however, is that flat-rate programs currently in use ALSO fail on the Internet.. So who knows? Maybe the analogies in that article don't hold after all, and people would be more willing to part with a few cents than with a few bucks on the Internet? Personally, I feel that there's a good chance that will not be the case, and someone will have to come up with some billiant new idea, since none of our current ideas, micropayments included, work. *sigh*
A cryptographic protocol could do this job. Maybe Diffie-Hellman key exchange; if the shared secret modulo 100 is zero, we both know I'm supposed to mail a check. Scott will know if I've welched on him, and may extend less trust to me in future. Non-geek customers might be frightened by the complexity of DH, so maybe something simpler but still mutually trustworthy could be arrived at.
Alternatively we could agree on some disinterested third party (lavarand.org, maybe) to act as the roulette wheel.
The question of punishing welchers is a tricky one. The welcher can always invent a new user id and start over. Perhaps priveliges could slowly accumulate for user ids who demonstrate they are non-welchers. Or reputations could be managed by some third party (eBay, maybe) who already has a reputation tracking system in place.
It'd be cool if eBay or PayPal or some such could set up both the reputation system and the roulette wheel. If it were done by somebody reputable, it would probably work.
WWJD for a Klondike Bar?
Your analogy is flawed. Advertisers pay for ad space because it helps to sell product. Any clicks that are made just to "show support" for the site are worthless to the advertiser. If 99% of the clicks for a site are of that nature, then the advertiser is going to pay very, very little per click. People who click and immediately go somewhere else effectively give no money to the site. Micropayments, on the other hand, would give money to the site with every click, guaranteed.
Mod down posts with a "Free Mac Mini/iPod" sig, they're spam!
Ok, so I was heading in the wrong direction. I still think you can't directly compare them, however. It's dishonest to click a banner ad just to support the site when you actually have no intention of buying anything from them, or even of taking more than a cursory look at the site that paid for the ad. There's also a plain dislike of advertising, so people try to stay away from it as much as possible. You may very well be right, but I wouldn't be surprised either way. It may be that people will be a lot more comfortable with a "click here to give us ten cents" button and hit it a lot more often than they hit banners today.
Mod down posts with a "Free Mac Mini/iPod" sig, they're spam!
I can picture the launch pad now:
Bennett waits in anticipation.
The countdown contiues.
3...2...1...
Thunderbirds are GO!!!
--
--
"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
could do it, if they found enough motorcycle parts!
It doesn't mean much now, it's built for the future.
He did not say they were in place, and did not claim to invent them. He was simply showing people who only know the word 'micropayment' as a buzzword, how things would actually work, and why.
How is this any different than any other reporter doing up an article on micropayments, and painting a scenario?
He didn't claim to invent it, to take credit for it, or anything else.. he only discussed it.
And where, pray-tel, are micropayments already in place?
Well, how do you get money into your paypal account for use, if not by credit card?
Also, paypal charges $.30 a transaction, plus 2% or something for premier/business accounts (personal normal accounts have no $.30 fee, but are very limited in how much funds they can receive each month). THat elimenates their use for micropayment right there.
Sure, they don't charge you for paying others from your paypal account, but they charge those others $.30 for each trasaction, plus their percentage, and that's the problem.
What if I want to charge $.50 for access to my web page, for some special info I have there daily? Paypal will take over 60% of that as a fee.. it's not feasible for me to do it. Paypal is no good for micropayment.
Regarding micropayments - paypal is not a micropayment system. It does not allow me to simply and easily pay $0.25 to view a page, or download the latest copy of winamp, or whatever.
Regarding banks: Why do the banks *have* to be at the center of it all the time? I know they are, but let's remember, the bank does not have a god-given right to make money off every human money transaction. I should be able to pay you without paying someone else a fee as well; or at least, not just paying the bank. A competitive market of micropayment providers would be good, all linked together.
Also, regarding not using credit cards: There are two reasons to use a credit card, in real life, for me.
One, is of course, credit. To spend money I don't have, to even out my cashflow. I can pay to have my car fixed even though I'm out of cash, and then pay off the debt when I get paid. That's the 'credit' part.
The other is service. The credit card is only a token; it belongs to the credit company. It's a token that, accompanied by my signature or other method, is used to prove to the credit company that I am using the credit they extend me. If someone guesses/copies that number somehow and uses it, its' NOT MY PROBLEM AT ALL. If they steal my physical card, its' my problem up to $50, or until I tell the credit company the card has been physically stolen. Fair enough; I should take measures to make sure it doesn't get physically stolen. In the online world, this is the important part. It gives me buffer time to cancel transactions and not have my bank account drained.
Believe me, if you dispute a transaction, the credit company will immediately halt it, and ask the merchant to verify it. If the merchant still insists it was you who did it, they will make the merchant PROVE that it was you, and barring your signature on the slip or good shipped to an address owned by you, or where they can prove you were staying, they won't have much luck.
Good luck.
A cheque is a monetary insturment instrcting the bank to transfer funds. Once they go through, you can't reverse them. You can't change them. The money is gone. I rather like the credit system.
Actually, if you use the Pay Pal system for other things, such as Ebay, it doesn't hurt to keep a few dollars in it. I think I usually have about 30 bucks in mine, and as I put it in there all at once, it cost $.30 one time. So I can make donations to people all over the place, and except for the original bit they take off, paypal gets no more money of those transactions.
In other words you can use it like a bank account that charges you $.30 to make a deposit.
Slackware: old school feel, new school gear.
I think another problem is that there is just a certian amount of content out there that most people find is not worth paying for.
True, but that's another issue entirely. Just like any other commercial media, if the quality is poor enough, they wont survive. Admittedly, though, if the movie, tv & record industries are any indication, it has to be pretty poor before it's 'poor enough'.
I'd definitly be willing to pay for Dilbert (I know it's not an online comic only, but I ready it online). Supposing United Media decided they were going to start charging a small amount for access, I'd probably pay it because I find it pretty consistently funny.
I see your point, but I WOULD NOT pay under these circumstances. The whole point of micropayments is their ability to get rid of the likes of United Media. Why would I want to give a dime to United Media when I know that Scott Adams will only get $.01?
You mean something like PayPal?
I just signed up for it the other day... it lets use your checking account to send money, and the payee (who gets an e-mail notice) can have it dumped into their checking account.
Perhaps I'm missing something but this sounds a lot like what you are referring to.
"The unicode stuff in the latest version is working fabulously well. My russian mafia friends are ecstatic."
1) All I need to know is the BSB (ABA) number, the account number, and the account name.
2) Oz banks get very stroppy if you try to cash a cheque not made out to 'Cash', and/or not at the branch of the payer, since there is no way they can verify signatures, and they will likely charge you heftily for the privilege.
3) From the bank's POV, EFT transfers (which may or may not be the same as wire transfers) are significantly cheaper to process than cheque transactions.
MrCreosote Meow!Thump!Meow!Thump!Meow!Thump! "You're right! There isn't enough room to swing a cat in here!"
Geee, that sounds so much easier than just using that 'funds transfer' thingy my bank's internet banking application allows me to use.
Seriously, the one thing the existing credit card infrastructure has that the current normal funds transfer and cheque payments don't have, is foreign currency payments. It doesn't help artists if people outside whichever country they reside in have to jump through hoops to send them a few bucks. Currently, credit cards are the only easy way to do that.
MrCreosote Meow!Thump!Meow!Thump!Meow!Thump! "You're right! There isn't enough room to swing a cat in here!"
P.S. Censorship applies to the government, not private entities. The ownership of
--
You think being a MIB is all voodoo mind control? You should see the paperwork!
A man who wants nothing is invincible
Part of the inconvenience is a matter of site design. I took a quick look at your site, and even with your current PayPal setup, there are a few simple improvements that could probably increase your rate of donations.
Still a far cry from micropayments, of course, but I'd say its better than what you've got now.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | http://www.infamous.net/
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
that rocket looks like a giant...
Wang, pay attention!
Interested in open source engine management for your Subaru?
Forget about micropayments, that's a waste of time. Let's work on Microbills. Mine seem a little too Macro lately.
A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices. -- William James
Does he use an floor-mount automatic transmission handle (a.k.a. PRNDL) for his throttle? A car's ignition key to start the rockets? Some old tires for landing gear?
I saw this show when I was a kid. Nothing new here....
http://epguides.com/Salvage1/
www.eFax.com are spammers
You can't downgrade someone's honest work because they are more successful, and if anything good comes out of this discussion guess what, Jerry and the other slammers will benefit too.
The tech is all there and that isn't news to anyone here. The point is that lots of attempts have been made, from 1st Virtual on up to e-Gold, and still we don't have anything in place that is going to get volumes of low-cost artistic product out to tens of thousands of people, using a system which matches the way the people want to be able to select and acquire such a product.
There are some experiments going on with prepaid cards that might work in limited geographical settings (thinking about something in downtown Tokyo recently). It also might work if the phone company or cable company offered you say 5 bucks a month that you could use in 500 content transactions to get at a large amount of stuff you want and couldn't get any other way (maybe McCloud makes a special comic for that purpose for example). Maybe Amazon.com would even want to get into that kind of business (you buy a $10 credit and they handle the micropayments), at least McCloud's reference to a single click for a small transaction certainly makes sense. Also I've seen floppies sold in little artsy shops, and perhaps you could store a few of McCloud's comics on a floppy for instance, though you still have to get it in a store and that is pretty low volume for a physical, atoms-not-bits product.
All these things are not purely technical problems, and we already have enough technology to deal with it. I found McCloud's latest comic to be well done, thought provoking even for someone who has been considering micropayment systems to artists and acceptance of lossiness.
One data point I'd like to add. I showed a DJ friend of mine the article by Courtney Love from last year about the record industry and artists. I ran some ideas I had for a lossy payment system which seemed to match what she was talking about (and happens to cover a number of points McCloud covered too).
I was surprised that my friend was totally unsympathetic to her, his attitude being that she and other bands just signed stupid contracts. Now this guy has a day job and I don't think he has ever gone through the kinds of things Courtney Love was talking about, so this kind of response is kind of take-it-or-leave-it. But it struck a chord when I read about the attacks on McCloud; other artists would never be forced to use some payment system they didn't want, but they and everyone else (except record companies perhaps) would have lots to benefit by promoting an open and frank discussion about alternative systems that could allow a larger number of people to make a living off of creative pursuits.
I'm going to keep thinking about this but one thing that would help is to get more real-life data points to use in designing my system and also in convincing someone to fund it. The mention of $600 a month for a 30,000 visitor per month site is very valuable. More please!
Problem is there are already happy little laws in place so if your credit card number is stolen, you are only responsible for, at most, $50 worth of charges. Most credit card companies won't even charge you that. Also with credit cards you can dispute the charges and not pay them. None of that's built into checking. It could be, but I suspect that Congress is so buddy-buddy with the credit card companies that they won't see fit to do that.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Today on Junkyard Wars, our contestants have to build a rocket of death, to propel one team mate to an unbelievable height, with certain death - and the smashing Junkyard Wars trophy - as their only rewards.
For the blue, we had the Bodgers... with their expert Rocketman. They all said "Bollocks to this" and left, leaving Rocketman by himself.
Amazingly enough, the pink team, the NERDS, are all still here - but they insist that it's their expert who will be the only one in the capsule.
You know the rules... you have until sundown (or the FAA calls the whole thing off)... GO!
I sent them some money when they first started doing it. It's probably about time to send some more, given their situation. It's really no big thing, given the immense amount of enjoyment I get out of Penny Arcade.
Argh.
> xanim Quakerstrailer.mov
XAnim Rev 2.80.0 by Mark Podlipec Copyright (C) 1991-1999. All Rights Reserved
Video Codec: Sorenson Video not yet supported.(E18)
Unknown(and unsupported) Audio Codec: QDM2(0x51444d32).
Notice: Video and Audio are present, but not yet supported.
Using your sig line to advertise for friends is lame.
We will have a manned rocket vehicle flying by the end of the year, but it will be a modest little thing. The performance will only be about what you got out of the old Bell rocket pack, but it is fully fly-by-wire (and can be tested remotely) with active stabilization, and all the subsystems are directly scaleable to much larger vehicles.
I will probably enter as an X-Prize competitor at that point.
John Carmack
Armadillo Aerospace
Ohmygod, mod this up. If only I knew all the words to "Blame Canada". Better rent BLC..
~Religion is O.K., as long as it gets you laid.
I might wait until Boeing has done a few test flights, introduced frequent flyer miles, etc
You're going to be waiting a loooong time, considering as Boeing has basically cancelled its project in this area (the one for NASA, though they are doing a cargo-only one by the name of Sea Launch). Even if (when?) he blows up in space, the Brit will have gotten closer than just about anyone at Boeing and its main competitors. (Granted, he's really pushing things by not testing first, and his likely publicized demise may make things a bit harder for the rest of us, but at least he's trying.)
As www.goats.com argued, it's not that micropayments are bad, in fact Jon from goats would argue they are very good (see previous news postings) but the way Scott writes is like he's inventing the idea, and ignores the fact that his "ideas" are already in place...
I am !amused.
I dont understand why people, and most of all, other online comic-publishers, are flaming Mr. McCloud for bringing this subject up for debate. If anything, they should cheer him on, and encourage him to get cracking on some sort of scheme that ultimately will allow for easy transfer of funds from us (the readers) to them (the publishers), so that they can continue to deliver content to us.
And come on, people that say that Mr. McCloud is an idiot, just because they are not interested in paying for content, in the everything-on-the-internet-should-be-free mentality, why dont you sit down and use 2 hours every day, creating something original, and then posting it online. My guess is that when the fun and excitement of doing something new wears off, you will probably really like to receive some sort of compensentation, other than emails stating that you are cool, and the comic is great etc.
I think that KeenSpot, Big Panda and their ilk should look into implementing some sort of payment gateway, possible using your creditcard for starters (seeing as they both serve a lot of comics, and a transfer to them could be distributed among a lot of comics with only 1 creditcard transfer).
I know I would use it.
Hey, James! I'd like to see your documentary in ONE file (preferably DiVX;-)) but I don't care, as long as it's ONE file and not realmedia or ASX. thanks!
/. effect, get it at the bottom this mirror page (in the miscellaneous section).
to those who wish to download it, James's site is not hosting it due to
Use my userscript to add story images to Slashdot. There's no going back.
Here's the thing. McCloud gos to talk about how PVP only needs a penny a click to break even, right?
/. would, as well.
Tycho's right. There are just too many younger readers who don't have access to credit cards or any way to make an online transaction. Kids in the 12-17 range, who make up a good deal of the online world (I mean, look at all the trolls here, hlaf of them at least have to be under 18.) just simply are not able to make those micropayments, even though some of them would like to.
I didn't have a checking account until my sophomore year...of college. Up until that point I didn't have enough money to necesitate an account. It's not that I wouldn't have wanted to pay for strips like Penny Arcade, and Megatoyko, it was just that, quite simply, I couldn't.
I don't think I'm a single case either. In some way or another most of these 300,000 users are not going to be able to make the micropayments, either they're too lazy, don't have a valid credit card, can't send the money, or they just won't.
On top of that, most of the micropayment solutions out there right now will take a percentage of the transaction. To process a credit card costs the processor a 1.25% fee. That's the bare minimum, but the Amazon and Paypal methods take a cut more than that, even.
For every $10 attaboy I send off to the guys at PA, there's 50 cents to a buck missing. Credit Card processors are NOT going to let you send a penny.
Right now the best way I can see for these guys to make any sort of cash is to leverage their popularity, and I don't even know if that'll really fly.
Say the PA guys link to an online game store to get a cut off of the game sales. Or maybe they start selling a few more autographed prints. Possibly even sell a few t-shirts that are as funny as the strips, or let the users design their own for a small fee. (because right now their selection of t-shirts is kinda lame.)
But let's face it. There aren't a whole lot of ways to leverage internet popularity into profitability. A whole lot of startups and a whole lot of venture capitalists found about that the hard way. Until someone finds a honest to goodness solution, and doesn't just write a comic about the way things MIGHT work out, Tycho's right to get mad. He's probably pounding his head against a wall trying to figure out a way to make this strip keep itself afloat, and here comes some guy saying, "Oh, it's SO simple, just do what I say!"
I'd flame that guy too, and most of the people here on
Netjak.com independent reviews of domestic & import video ga
People don't tend to fork over larger amounts of cash for smaller payments. A lot of the Asian video stores I used to rent movies from (I use netflix.com now.) would charge you $50 to rent a video from them before they'd let you open an account. Then all the rentals you made after that were debited from your original $50.
Most of those stores aren't around anymore, because people hate doing that. There's this psychological barrier that customers have to overcome. They start thinking, "Am I really going to use $10 worth of this content?"
Now this works really good for the pr0n industry, because there are certain brain circumventing hormones at work there, including the well documented powers of L.I.B.F. (Lust Induced Brain Freeze.) Nobody ever goes, man, I need some hot humor, now! (Or if they do, they need help.)
But I dunno, maybe something like that would work...but it'd also require a whole different set-up, and putting up the infrastructure for that is going to run someone some cash, too...
Netjak.com independent reviews of domestic & import video ga
damn right
id pay some real money to watch his capsule either
a: burn up in the atmosphere or
b: see it break apart at 300 feet
if killing astronauts for public entertainment is good enough for nasa, its good enough for me.
Insert something insightful here, or I'll insert something painful there.
Bandwidth = money, right? It's the most expensive part of Internet hosting, and the price only increases with popularity. So, instead of people paying a dollar to view your page (or perhaps supplementing that), have people donate their bandwidth to your cause. Since many users don't value their bandwidth as much your host does, they're more willing to give it up than they are to pay for it (in an especially inefficient and unequal manner too). I don't think Napster would have worked if people had to pay per megabyte the way many sites pay per gigabyte.
I'm talking FREENET, baby. Or something similar, perhaps dedicated to one site. Bandwidth costs are very nearly eliminated and the system scales almost exactly with your users. Honest users will even include your ads, donate money, and buy merchandise, making not just a living for you, but profit. Dishonest users will leech off the system as always, but they won't cost you a dime.
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More like "Why does everyone use DVDs?! I can't watch DVDs on my VCR!"
Actually, it would be more like "I can't watch DVDs on my TV!" If you have QuickTime, you have Sorenson. But if all you have is an UltraSPARC or Alpha box, you don't have a computer that can run QuickTime in real time.
Besides, even if you have an Intel box, QuickTime for Intel costs US$350: $30 for QuickTime Pro, and $320 for Windows.
Will I retire or break 10K?
Many people treat an operating system as a tool, and use what works.
QuickTime runs only on Mac OS and Windows. Mac OS runs only on PowerPC architecture machines. Windows runs only on x86 architecture machines. Sun workstation owners are in the cold.
Besides, even if you have an Intel box, QuickTime for Intel costs US$350: $30 for QuickTime Pro, and $320 for Windows.
Will I retire or break 10K?
Probably 53 miles, set by Reaction Research Society in 1996.
His efforts to date have used HPR hobby motors. His highest flight to date is 20,000ft: you could get to 30,000 with two of those Aerotech motors (the K700 reload as a booster, and the J570 reload as a sustainer), add two fiberglass tubes, two Acme fincans, a nose cone, and a Blacksky timer in the interstage coupler/reducer, and you've trashed his "record" for about $700.
Look at his "rocket" for fuck's sake: what is the point of that steep reduction behind the nose section, especially when it expands to about the same outside diameter at the booster base! I guess the "large penis shape" is a proven aerodynamic design. Who cares about all those annoyong wind tunnel tests that show a reducer of more than 10 degrees or so will just delaminate the airflow?
Still playing that game today, just played a dm6 match actually.
-Elendale
IANAT (I Am Not A Troll)
Dang, I wanna download that quaker thing and the mirrors are dead, damn you leeches!! :)
--- Metamoderating abusive downgraders since my 300th post.
collecting micropayments through the ISPs would solve the credit card problem in a heartbeat, though it would pose a few other problems.
here's how it works. say you pay an extra 25% for your internet access, and give your ISP permission to log your web access and fold those logs into an aggregate log. those logs are used to distribute the cash.
problems:
1. the largest ISPs would generate the most cash. the largest ISPs also have the most commercial ties with some of the companies which would get the cash:
AOL --> Time/Warner --> MPAA --> potential for abuse
this could cause skewed distribution, as guys like Keenspot would get less cash and the MPAA and RIAA would get more.
2. how do you decide which artist "deserves" more money? and on a similar note, how many mp3s is a comic strip worth?
let's say that in an arbitrary time period, there are 1,000,000 mp3s downloaded from napster, and online comic sites get a total of 100,000 hits. do you then decide that comics are worth 1/10 of what mp3s are, and pay them accordingly?
3. overhead overhead overhead. this system would generate lots of 'funny munny'. i can see administrative overhead eating a significant portion of this cash.
these problems notwithstanding, the major problem with micropayments is that people don't want to put their CC# in their computer, and have sites silently charge them cash behind their backs, but people also don't want to fill out 5 page forms every day to read their freaking webcomics.
comments?
-inq
IMHO, McCloud sounds like an over-sensitive, whining child. It seemed to me that Tycho's main beef with him isn't that he's proposing something outlandish, but the manner in which he does so. McCloud's comic is so asinine it's insulting. His little dreamworld of good-willed people is simply that, a dreamworld! I dearly love Penny Arcade, but I'm not going to pay for it if I can get it free! Tycho's reply to McCloud was in standard form, meaning that it was inflamatory, derogatory, etc., but it presented far more substance. McCloud's dreamy-eyed explanation is grossly overshadowed by Tycho's realistic analysis. For example, Tycho addresses implementations while McCloud spouts some garbage in his reply in the vein of "it's not my job". Neither is it Tycho's, but he seems to at least present some relevant thought, instead of idealistic rhetoric! McCloud, you sound like a whiny prima donna, and have no fear, I'll never consider you a representative of an art form you obviously have so little grasp of. If you really want to help, stop preaching and help micropayments become a reality.
To go into space without testing is the very height of foolishness
Yes, but you miss the point.
To the rest of us it is the height of entertainment and he should be applauded for adding some sparkle to our dull lives!
I'm waiting until I can use my miles to upgrade to a first class cement mixer.
;-)
The only problem with this is that in the event of most commercial airlines, it's the first and business class passengers at the front who stand the most chance of being toasted.
This worries me, as I nearly always fly upstairs in business class in 747's!
It seems the back of the plane is the safest part, and less likely either to break up or be consumed in flames.
Unfortunately this also means you usually have to spend the whole flight listening to the stewards talking about haircuts, and putting up with the stench of crap food from the galley. For these reasons I'm still taking my risks upstairs!
In conclusion, you will be better off strapped into the cement-mixer part than sitting atop a golden throne in the pointy-bit
.. Perhaps people would pay to see Scott and Tyson fight to the death.. we could broadcast the match online and use micropayments to charge viewers admission. The only thing Scott would have to watch out for is getting his ear bitten off. Oh.. wait you said Tycho.. nevermind..
air and light and time and space
Well, thats *reasonable* .. I mean, I'd like to do my part to make sure that the 'new economy' doesn't grind to a screeching halt, and if that means making comics so that people can donate 30 cents to PayPayPayPal, well that just sounds like a heck of a good deal to me.. Now if only I were in the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, I could take advantage of a *wonderful* deal like this..
air and light and time and space
easy to grab headlines and with it funding right up to launch time then make a well timed run to a warm place with no extradition laws...
The american looks a little mroe genuine (in that he's doing it himself)
'There is a Light that never goes out.'
For an algorithm that I think works to do as you wrote above, you can see my report on limited knowledge purchasing.
..but Steve Bennett just might make it to space. Granted he does not have the technical knowledge or resouces of NASA or the ESA, but it certainly is a possibility that he will reach LEO. The components he is using are easy to use, mass produced and highly available. It is not too far-fetched to believe he could reach space. Once the feasablility of home-built rockets is proven, I think industry will be quicker to jump on the bandwagon and get all of us who would like to travel to space the opportunity. I would be delighted if Mr. Bennett were to win the X-prize. I see a parallel between these endevours and early aviation history. When airplanes were first being developed, large companies and governments were the only ones making progress in developing them. Normal citizens did not have much access to them. After the large entities had done the serious R&D in aerodynamics, citizens began building their own planes and flying them around. Granted, there is quite a leap between Orville and Wilbur Wright and NASA, but I totally believe that space flight is now within reach of the common man (like me!).
Enigma
Enigma
But the big thing I long for was my doom days. I spent so many hours playing doom and doom II... i wonder when we get it's, what, 8th anniversary or something. :)
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Stop Facism NOW!
Are you sure PayPal is credit card based? While I know that Amazon whacks off an incredible 15% from donations (!) and rides the CC system, if I recall correctly, Paypal is under 5%, and does NOT ride the credit card system.
It seem's the biggest complaint's are that Scott got press and can feed his family.
By definition, a government has no conscience. Sometimes it has a policy, but nothing more. - Albert Camus
Who is correct? At this point, it's difficult to tell. Some detractors would argue that micropayment technology presents an undue intrusion into existing content distribution model. Micropayment technology is a revolutionary alterance in the existing capacity of authors to receive payment; it alters the capacity for content distribution in ways that our current economic structure and techonological understanding may not be prepared to accomodate. Perhaps glitches in this untested process may condemn the concept of micropayments to a footnote in computing history.
Supporters, on the other hand, say that micropayments are an important step forward for computing and publishing. With previous payment schemes, users could not take advantage of the most important technological benefits gained from modern-day information research. Micropayments, they say, opens the proverbial floodgates by allowing the every-day users to pick and choose what they pay for.
There is some probably some merit to both viewpoints. Certainly, commerce as a whole will encounter some friction as it shifts to accomodate the capacity and access provided by micropayments. However, the end result may be worth the infrastructural shifts; existing payment schemes may not be as structurally capable as their newer cousin.
Will micropayments sink or swim? The question is still up in the air; with many unique forces and viewpoints at work, we'll likely see many interesting challenges and confrontations for the pioneers in the online content field. Whatever the final result is, it's sure to give the key players on all sides of the issue a trial by fire.
This guy's been watching Salvage One re-runs. If memory serves, The Vulture was made from a converted cement mixer as well.
My point here is that Tycho and Gabe of Penny Arcade loved Scott's idea, but after a few months in the trenches with depressing results, they were a bit sour on the idea, especially when the newest ICST basically said the same thing as the one before it.
Its a bit like reading an article about the radical possiblities of Internet Companies and dotcom's today.
I Browse at +4 Flamebait
Open Source Sysadmin
Bank transfer is wonderful. I don't get why everyone complains you have to have a credit card. I've had a cheque-writing account since I was 5, and got paypal approval the first time I heard about it. I've got $100 set aside to send to a comic. Usually $1 every time I can't see the screen because I'm laughing. PA has gotten $3 today.
Article on Steve Bennet says 35000 ft. record for British Amatuer model rocket height. What is the world record?
Now I full and well realise that a good deal of effort goes into making comics and most other online content BUT that doesn't mean that I'm necessairly willing to pay for it. Effort goes into a lot of things I won't buy. I think that some online sites need to come to terms with this too that, while people many like their content and take it for free, they won't pay extra for it. When you start asking people to spend their money, they start to get more discriminating. The more you want, the more discriminating they are.
Now this isn't to say that sites don't have the right to try to charge for their content, but I think many may be sorely disappointed. The best solution as far as micropayments go is what we are already seeing with things like voluntary top jars. If people want to pay, they can. Now on an honour system like this you probably aren't going to be able to collect enough to make a living, but at least you make some.
Seeing as McLoud is not the first person to ever think of this scheme, as an artist and dreamer I add my own thoughts: Micropayments become a more realistic concept with the creation of an "internet currency" for this exact purpose. That way, your not racking up $.05 transactions on your credit card. You purchase $20.00 worth of "edollars" and pay a small handling charge to a 3rd party company. You buy a song, a comic strip, some shareware (or whatever it would be renamed) etc. and the transaction happens in realtime and your balance is updated. As both Tycho and Scott have pointed out that micropayments (as discribed by McLoud and now me) do not currently exist. Why, then, is everyone so very certain that they will not work. It is a risky business, but I believe that some clever, daring soul might make a splash with it.
1.) Funds transers require the payor to know all sorts of information about the payee (their bank, account number, any other information required for verification)
2.) Funds transfers require the payee to have a bank account to begin with. A person with no bank account (or at least someone who doesn't want to involve their bank account) can take a check that I wrote to a branch of my bank and get the cash.
3.) Many banks charge a fee to send or receive wire transfers. Although I seem to have a kick-ass bank (God, I'm getting old...) that lets me send for free, that doesn't mean that the person I'm paying can receive it for free.
What just about everybody fails to see, though, is that "getting it for free" is only temporary, no matter what. You pay for it after initially looking at it for free (billing, donations, what have you), or nobody pays anything and the site goes down. Either way you're not looking at it any more. At least the first scenario gives you the option to continue reading at a later date if you feel it's worth the money.
So you'll have to decide your own priorities. You claim to love PA dearly. If you're not willing to part with some pocket change to keep it going, then perhaps you don't love PA as dearly as you claim, especially if you rate it below pocket change. You'd rather be able to buy a pack of gum than read it?
Of course, if you'd rather wait until a comic makes big-time syndication before you're willing to read it (so they can pay for the site, saving your precious coinage), then you shouldn't even bother to read lame comics like PA that will never get anywhere. I mean, c'mon, if it was any good, somebody else would be paying money for it by now.
Sound harsh? Your words, not mine. Or at least the only logical conclusion of your statement. Just think, your unwillingness to support art that you enjoy is helping to give industry groups like the MPAA and RIAA a good name. Without these fine folks around to tell customers what they really want, pre-packaging it in hype and marketing, nobody could afford to be creative.
When next I hear yet another boy band on yet another top 10 radio station, it will remind me of you. N'Sync wouldn't be able to survive without teriffic fans like you around to support them through inaction.
First off, the person paying the money has to have a credit card to begin with. Even if you're unAmerican and pay off the balance of your card every month, they'll still find ways to turn a profit off of you, even if it means selling your name out to advertisers ("We at Discover Card thought you might be interested in...")
And then to access the credit card's proprietary network infrastructure in order to GET a payment, you either need to set up an account with the credit card people directly, or (which is more likely for people looking for micropayments) go throgh another middleman like Paypal. Either way costs the payee money as well.
So what do I think would be a better alternative? We have OpenPGP (which still seems quite secure), we have electronic signature laws on the books... how about e-mailing a check?
First off, checking accounts cost the payor inherently less, because it's dealing with money the bank already has (and can earn interest off of), as opposed to the lending-on-the-spot concept of credit cards. As for the payee, the only fees that come along for them are bounced check fees from their bank (which can be passed along back to the payor if agreed upon).
Imagine this: You send an e-mail to whoever you want to send money to. You include your street address, unique check number, "pay to the order of" stuff, routing number... all the stuff you'd include in a real check. For the signature, you use a private key for which your bank has access to the public key specifically for that purpose. The recipient needs only forward the document on to their bank to have the check deposited.
Beyond that, the only thing that a real check would have and this one wouldn't would be copy protection. The only threat from copying is doctoring the copy (the bank isn't going to process check #512 twice). Doctoring is prevented by the signature process (hashing). If you're still a little squeamish, you make the signature time-sensitive according to taste.
If after that, you still aren't sure about using one of these, either you have no faith in encryption algorythms, or you're too paranoid to use a paper check to begin with.
It's cheaper for the payor, it's cheaper for the payee, it's cheaper for the bank (automate the whole thing and fewer warm bodies need to be employed to read my chicken-scratch handwriting), and digitally signing the "paperwork" instantly makes it more secure than most on-line credit card transactions.
Or I could be talking out of my ass again and I should go back to playing StarCraft. :) Though I'm now considering talking to my bank and asking what they think of electronic signing like this...
"the Thunderbird capsule is actually a converted cement mixer, containing sheets of hardboard and a few computer joysticks."
Man if he does make it up there, I can tell you who will win in traffic mix-ups. Would you get in the way of a guy using an Atari to drive a cement mixer?
Me neither.
Gross.
-- Another senseless waste of fine bytes.
-- Another senseless waste of fine bytes.
I guess maybe this guy misunderstood when someone told him he should pave the way for other rocketeers.
You can likely gauge the sucess of micropayments by comparing it to the sucess of online advertisments and decreasing it by a factor. (People are more likely to click an ad then give a penny, right?) That we don't even support people that way, its doubtfull such a thing will work. But why doesn't he put his money where his mouth is and go ahead and try such a micropayment system himself? Prove the doubters wrong, if he thinks he's got a method that works.
...is the very height of foolishness. Even if your design is essentially sound, what if you've attached a valve the wrong way? Or forgotten to actually install the control for some key component? A remote-controlled test launch is the best way to find out about the little trick that Murphy plans to use on you. So why not do it?
I'm the stranger...posting to
I've been watching the furor with interest, particularly since I'm a huge fan of both PVP and Penny Arcade (but don't really know anything about Scott except via the link followed from the PA strip).
So it makes me wonder how many of the people who complain about micropayments have bothered to support their content providers? Penny Arcade takes both donations, and is pre-selling copies of their books. Plus, there's a lot of merchandise for sale. If great strips like PA disappear, will those who complain (but didn't support) even realize that they were the ones who wielded the axe? Just because you can read the comic for free, doesn't mean it doesn't cost anything to the creator. Be considerate.
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