It was a drizzily afternoon in Nottingham UK. She was visiting me for the week. We were in an antique jewlery shop, and I saw a ring that was VERY cool looking.
Asked the shop keep how much ($500 quid/about $750 US) and if he could have it sized.
The ring was over 130 years old, had a unique setting (since they were all hand made)called a king's setting or something or other. And the diamond itself was NOT machine cut.
That means it had deeper facits (more sparkle) and all that was done by a victorian man with a small wooden chisle and hammer.
MUCH cooler than the stamped out , over priced, artificially demanded rings now adays.
agreed:( its a vicious cycle. When I was a teenager.. (early 80's) I used to go to an arcade in my local area.. and admist the handful of 'popular' coinops (rampage comes to mind) that people used to crowd around.. were pinball machines.
I *ALWAYS* saw the owner of the arcade cleaning them etc..
thats probally why I love them so much.. because one day I asked him why he was always cleaning them. And (for whatever reason.. boredom.. thought i looked interested.. whatever).. he TOLD me.
He said something along the lines of:
'Well kid, those machines over there make me some money. But that Rampage(?) machine, well.. no one will be playing it in a few months.. and it cost me ($1800)(?).. This pinball machine has been here for 3 years.. and as long as i clean it.. and fix broken parts.. it will make me money. not as much as that (rampage?) machine, but when you think that people have played it for 3 years, it is probally the machine that *paid* for that machine over there. So I clean it everyday.'
YEARS later.. as I began to buy up pins (because they were getting harder and harder to find) this guy became my hero.
Every once in a while I would come across a pin that was handled by an operator like this guy... one who maintained all his machines.. and I would buy it.. just because I knew by looking at it.. that it didn't matter if it had been operated for 10 years.. the playfield was clean and glossy, which told me someone knew its value.:)
I have a few pins, here and out of all of them.. Attack from Mars is my favorite.
There is almost NOTHING in the middle of the playfield (cept the saucer) it was designed that way to be an 'easy-clean' for operators.
actually.. this is one of the better condition ones i have ever seen. (it was pure chance i found it) These pins were *so* easy to maintain.. that operators didnt clean them as often:( and you will most likey find them all beat to crap:(
But you can buy a pin in middling shape, and get parts to (slowly) fix it up.. its a good hobby, and pins appreciate in value as long as they are maintained.
it might be more now because its proving to be very popular.. but when it first came out.. $2500 was New in crate cost (at least from State Sales in Baltimore)
umm.. prices are determined by the operators.. not the manufacturers.
And honestly, pinball is still cheaper than a video game.. at the same time pinball maches went up to 50 cents a play.. streetfighter II was commonly set to 50cents to start, 25 to continue.
I can play a pinball machine for 20-30 mins easy.. a game of Streetfighter 2 lasts 3:00 mins TOPS.. and thats only if the 2 players don't actually try to hit each other.
this anology is like saying the death of the automobile is caused by increased gas prices. Or the death of broadcast tv is caused by an increase in PBS telethons.
Inflation sucks, but there is no reason to expect an industry to keep its prices the same over a 20 year period.
by your own post.. its not the pinball table.. its the operators.
Pinball machines are pretty robust actually. [I own five of them.. and hardly every have to fix stuff.. but then again.. i clean them regularly.] [http://www.remsbox.com/index.php?content=00000000 08] And these are some of the more 'gimmic' ridden ones too.
WMS includes(ed) a list of what you will need to do to each pinball machine, and after howmany X plays. The lists are step by step, and give detailed instructions. If you look in most pinball machines that are in operation now.. guess what you *WONT* find in the belly of the beast. The manual that tells you how to FIX everything.
Pinball machines are actually very sophisticated, and most are designed to tell you exactly what the problem is to minimise downtime.
For example, if you open the coin door on any late wms/bally machine, it will tell you how many errors it has, and the number of the errors. [which you are suposed to look up in your manual, and it will tell you what needs to be fixed/replaced.]
Some machines, like my Creature from the Black Lagoon, check the switches itself. If no one hits the circle bowl at the bottom right of the playfield in (i think) 40 balls (about 12 games) it will automatically trigger an error message telling the operator to check the switch.
Pinball doesn't cost more than a video game.
That is a farse. A new stean Monopoly (the latest one made) will run you $2500 out of crate. A new Tekken machine will run you $5000 easy [cause its older now]. As for maintanance, last time I checked.. fighting games need to have joystics and buttons replaced weekly/monthly depending on play. But operators never seem to complain about having to do this.
End of the day, it all comes down to business. Operators were lulled by the 'street fighter' phenominum. They though all they had to do was plug a machine in, and they would rake it in. [many operators.. when SFII came out.. also neglected to change buttons/joystics etc. btw] Compaired to that perception, cleaning a pinball field seems long and tedious.
What they always ALWAYS forget, is the machine they bought, HAS to be maintained - whatever machine it is. or it stops making money. Video games, in the late 80's early 90's however.. generally were eclipsed by technology before the machine could go into horrible states of dis-repair.
when the life of your streetfighter machine is 1-1.5 years before streetfighter-alpha-turbo-whatever comes out. You can managet to make it hobble along with electrical tape. Knowing when the next one comes out, you retire it.
Where as a pinball machine, has much higher play value. new graphics cards (ignoring pinball 2000) don't mean anything. They are MUCH slower to become obsoleate, and therefore.. actually.. are much CHEAPER than a coin-op video, becuase.. with small maintanance.. they can (and have) been operated for YEARS. On the initial investment plus maint fees.
Two of the machines in my basement were operated for 10 years. 10 years, and with minimal restoration, look almost showroom. show me a 10 year old galaga or pac-man that doesnt need a new CRT or a LOT of work.
Stearn pinball still makes them.. and while some of their more recent ones were not that good.. monopoly was very good. Austin powers was ok.. but prone to breakage.
of course.. most machines are neglected by their operators.. so they have to dum them down to the operators only have to take 5 seconds to clean them.
Where pinball is dying is a crock really, i know several operators who still operate pinball machines on location.. and they make good money.
they also dont cost as much as a silent scope.. or whatever game.
the real issue is operators are lazy.. and would rather spend 10 mins emptying quarters from a bucket under streetfighter alpha-omeaga-zeta-jones than to spend 10 mins cleaning a pinball machine off.
A well kempt pinball will make a lot of $$.. where a broken one makes crap.. its kinda like a well kempt retail store makes good money.. and a dirty one makes cockroaches.
http://www.remsbox.com/index.php?content=0000000 00 8 is my basement pinball santuary.
You got it actually, I never said these folks were stupid. Just un-informed or influenced.
I should have said Station-X instead of CNN.. but i was all excited and caught up in rhetoric *grin*
This is where it gets sticky. When publishing conglomerates (wow i mangled THAT word) can get laws passed by either sensationalizing them.. or downplaying them in the press.. laws that directly benifit their business - thats just plain scarey.
Im not an elitist , im a realist. There are a large amount of folks in this country [just like ANY coutry and or large population sample] that fall below what we set as 'the standard.'. People.. are simply people.. in a large enough sample, you have one idiot for every genious. Sweeping generalizations may be offensive, but when you are dealing with MILLIONS of people.. you can *only* be general.
Being able to Vote doesnt quantify you as being any smarter than a non voting american. My mom voted for Ronald Regan in the 80's because 'He was a dream when [she] was a girl.' I know people who vote democrat because '[they] dont like greedy republicans' as well as folks who vote republican because '[they] are good christians'.
Simple (general) fact is most people vote with their heart, not their head.
Since this whole election idea (which was just an example off the cuff) seems to be clouding the issue, Lets look at the tech stock boom of the 90's was influenced by the media.
People have been trading stocks in this country since the market opened - yet until the tech 'boom' a few years ago.. 'middle america' was not a 'big' player. Generally middle class folks (myself included) dabble in mutuals maybe a direct stock purchace here.. based on feelings or of a company they work for.
Its a way to make money.. it can be a VERY good way to make money - if your well informed. One of the not-so-secrets of the Stock Market is.. by the time you read information on something 'happening' to a stock.. you already lost out on your chance to make any $$ of it.
[The real $$ comes from the big Type III players, who trade off the volitilty of the market, who for the most part - dont care if its a latex rubber company, or petrochemicals.]
E-trade became a player.. allowing the 'average' american joe to trade stocks online. The press started covering stories about folks making big $ off quick 'day trading' exploits.
As more and more stories are run on 'online' trading more and more people jump on the band wagon. Folks who have *NO* idea how the stock market works are buying and selling shares of companies that they have never even heard about - because they have the words 'net','web', or 'cyber' in the company name.
Then these folks started losing their shirts. The big players [type III.. remember above about playing market volitility] were sheering these folks right and left. Planting roumours in stock 'chat' rooms to drive the price up HUGE percentages in hours - only to have it crash or level off at where it started by the end of the day.
Instead of the media bringing it to the attention of the public how folks were using their lack of knowledge as a lever to take their money; they instead focused on how Stock prices for tech-company X trippled only minutes after the market opened.
Just another example of how the media manipulates peoples reactions.
and if *THAT* one is still too unbelievable for you.. lets hit a little closer to home.
'The average Microsoft Certified Technician makes over $80,000 a year.'
ever heard that ?
its often followed by the line 'You can even get a MSCE without having a college degree or any experience in the computer field!'
Whats scarey.. its its starting to become a reality. Enough HR/BOSS/Hiring agenceys are starting to believe that a MCSE cert merits that salery range - regardless of experience.
Its back to the whole 'uninformed' thing. A non technical boss/company that needs a 'computer guy' probally doesnt realize that microsoft gets those salery ranges from folks who were making that kind of money BEFORE they got their MCSE, and that the vast majority of them have a good (usually long) background with computers. So they think 'O.K. I need a msce.. any mcse will do.. and it seems the going rate is about $80k year.'
So.. my long winded (and apparantly elitest) attitude goes full circle back to the statement:
The media can directly affect the actions/laws of this country by influencing the folks that take its word as law.
[no stock traders, minor league baseball fans, members of the general voting public, extreme leftists, web programers, or my mom were harmed in the retort contained above.]
The point I was trying to get across.. is that the majority of 'voting' people do what their TV tells them to do.
If its the forth of july, and CNN tells them there is a 'potential' Terrorist attack , they watch the skys. [If you find that hard to believe.. watch CNN for a few days.. wait for some 'sensational' news story.. then head off to walmart for 30 mins and just listen to the people walking around.]
If its the presidential elections, and CNN says X canidate is going to win.. does that sway people's votes ? [Idealy it should not.. but it does.. a great deal apparantly.]
Hell, we had that whole mess last time in the Primaries simply BECAUSE the media couldn't shut up about it.
My paranoia wasnt because I believe that.. it was just (apparantly) a bad choice of examples. [Although not TOO far offbase, since computer 'Hacking' to use the media term - is now considered 'cyber-terrorism']
My point was.. When large media companies, control how information is handed to the general public, and that information is about how 'good' this bill will be for them - what do you think is going to happen ?
Now , if this was a bill that was horrible for those same companies, the *might* report on it, but do you think it would get the same spin ?
Since apparantly Terrorists are behind every corner, 100% of America's vigilance must be rivited to 'watching out' for them on major holidays and/or sporting events.
Does anyone else find it suspicious that Major 'Terrorist Attack' ratings boosters appear to distract the 'average joe' whenever one of these bills is introduced ?
Remember folks.. those people who buy the big foam fingers at minor league baseball games have the right to vote too - I mean , unless there is a terrorist hiding behind the booth.. then they may just be too concerned about that to pull the lever. There are more of them then there are of educated, informed people - and the media companies both know and *count* on this.
Just for fun ask 10 people who voted in the last election - if they can name 5 people (aside from the person they voted for) who appeared on the docket along with their 'chosen' canadate. Or make it simple and just ask why they voted the way they did.
This bill is strictly a media bill. Who on EARTH would profit from allowing people to NOT record TV shows.. Would that be the struggling american public.. most of whom have a 6-7th grade reading level.. and less than 50% own a computer.. even less with broadband ? Or could it possibly be the SAME companys that own the news channels that captivate (distract) the same voting public with sensationalistic programming ?
I find it very funny that Micky Mouse was brought up.. considering im SURE Disney is a major player behind this bill.
Our system of laws, while the intentions are good, has degenerated into the 'informed' and the 'un-informed' Folks don't object to bills because they are spoon-fed the baby bird version by mamma CNN. What does a farmer in the middle of Iowa care if he can upload the new britney spears song to his sister's kid in Ohio? But ask the same guy if he thinks its fair for MEDIA COMPANIES.. not the government.. to tell him what he is allowed to do with a CD that he just bought. With money he was already taxed on.
Im betting you would get a totally different answer.
When I Decided to leave Comcast@Home I put my resume in the template source code as comments. [Just in case I needed to prove to potential employers that I was what I said I was.]
It was there for about 3 months before someone caught it.
Oddly enough.. no crank calls.. even for having my phone number out there 'obtainable' as it were.
Wow .. sorry .. I just realized that i probally..
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NYTimes Looks at Warez
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· Score: 2, Funny
Wow.. sorry.. I just realized that i probally broke Taco's record for the number of gross-mispellings in a single post.
My bad:(
Like that makes much of a difference.
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NYTimes Looks at Warez
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· Score: 5, Insightful
They can arrest all the people they want. Realistically though.. People have been pirating software since the 80's.
Anyone remember Mr.Nibble ?
Not that its justification, but there are products that wouldn't have market share.. or obtained market share if they didn't embrance piracy.
Microsoft, Adobe, Macromedia, Quark.
All of these 'big names' became the 'standards' becuase folks were able to play with them.
3dMAX hates to admit it.. but they have better sales over lightwave because of college piracy of their product.
College kids graduate, and eventually get into positions in companies that decide what software to actually buy. Do you buy something that you have never seen before ? or software that 1/2 of your staff already has at home.. legel or not?
Internet piracey is a joke, You want real piracy.. ask Games Workshop how much of their product is illegally produced in Russia or Poland. [were talking toy soldiers]
or Ask Black & Decker how many chineese companies made a knock off of the snake light.
piracy is nothing compaired to actual industrial espianage. How many car manufactureres buy, and reverse engineer their compeditors autos?
Or pick the solid state electrical giant of your choice. Chances are they are on the beta test list of all compeating companies through a friend of a friend of a friend.
The reason Software companies are so loud about it now.. (or at least the big boys are) is because it gives upcoming companies the same ability to snake them like they did to others in the past.
Its kind of like how the music industry was all over MP3.. crying wolf about lost sales during their HIGHEST sales year in history.
What people tend to forget.. is that its better to be a company that sells billions and looses 5% revenue to piracy.. than a company that sells hundreds of thousands, and looses 2%.
This sounds horribly flame-bait. But before I elaborate.. let me clarify. I read a lot of your books. (proof is at my book tracker - under read books.) 'On a Pale Horse' was one of the first Fantasy books of note that I read - and still one of my favorites to date. [I always recommend it to friends, which explains why not only have I bought several copies, but I do not have it in my book tracker as a result.]
I have noticed , over the course of time, that your writing became more 'pulp' and less 'inventive'.
Its hard to be creative full steam, especially when you have a family to raise - and I'm sure.. especially when your are well known in the sci-fi/fantasy world as a a 'creative' guy.
Robert Asprin once said something to the effect of "Writing the story was fine, but after 6 books the cute idea I had to put a meaningful/funny quote in the beginning of each chapter really became the stumbling block." Is this a similar event for you ?
Lets face is Xanth was certainly a money-cow for you. And the first four or five books were unique and interesting - My REAL question is.. when does an author find that enough is enough ?
Do you ever regret that the Xanth series has overshadowed other deeper or more interesting works ? [Bio of a Space Tyrant for example.]
Where is the balance of satisfying your fans desire for more of the same hinge with the fear of cheapening/overdoing your story ?
Why do books like 'FireFly' or 'Macroscope' both great ideas - and brilliant books.. get pushed to the side. And books like 'Gollum in the Gears' [sorry , NOT a personal favorite of mine.] get catapulted to the top of the best seller list just beacuse it has the name Xanth on it ?
Does this actually affect your writing style / choice / income in any way? Does it discourage you to write less mainstream work ?
My home site.. is viewable in (almost) everything.. since its a hobby site.. some stuff probally doesnt work in opera.. but it all works in NS/mozilla & ie..
work.. well.. thats a whole nother can of worms. I try to make everything web compliant, but we are in bed with microsoft.. much as i don't like that.. its a fact.. and when our marketing team insists on doing something (microsoft) cool.. there isnt alwayas a choice.
especially when they insist on outsourcing something to a vendor who brags that their designers 'never had to do any of those certification things - they just loaded up the software and played with it.'
a fact that is evident when you get 'frontpage' generated shit from them at $250 an hour.
I used to think like that.. then in the period of one year... I lost 3 good friends. Once to a suicide, one to a bad liver, and one to a car crash.
I have.. to date.. ZERO pictures of the 4 of us together.
There we're pleanty taken , but they got lost, or were ruined by water/snow/rain/sun/dog/cat/sister/parents fill in the blank.
The whole point of pictures is that they capture a memory for you.. they save it.. you can look at it years later and think 'god, i remember that day.. i can STILL smell the heat , it was horribly muggy out.'
There isn't a day i don't regret not having photos of my friends who are gone.
so - to answer your question, If i had to worry about what to pull out of a burning house, a box of photo albums, or my computer.. its gonna be the photo albums. Hardware can be replaced, memories can't.
[however.. i HAVE switched to 35mm slr digital media as of about 4 years ago.. its really the way to go.. every few months I burn a cd of my photos/art etc.. and make 3 additional copies of it.. one for my mom, one for my dad.. and one extra for me incase my 'working' copy dies. (they go in my safty deposit box... so i dont fall into the saving all your data in one building rule.)]
TIme to order this book
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Built For Use
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· Score: 4, Interesting
Considering that I am the webmaster for a powertool company.. AND I happen to be owned by the marketing department.
How frustrating do you think THAT is..
5-6 years of experience of working on corporate sites (my previous company was Comcast@home) (and before you scream 'web-weenie' I have the C.S. Degree to back it up.. just happened that at the time.. it payed very well to be able to do stuff on the web.)
And WHOM do you think they ask first about pretty much anything ? There are folks in the accounting department that are more in touch with what we are going to be putting on our website.
Currently two of our braintrusts in marketing are trying to convince each other how we should start using an *alternate* pre-packaged software to run our website.. because the current one keeps dying.
because every marketer I know is a system anylist.
Totally ignoring the fact that it was a marketing decision to buy it in the first place.. when IT suggested we just write our own.
This is being closly followed by the idea that we can use flash.. or generate dynamic images to 'save work'
because every marketer I know is also a graphic artist/programmer/dba.
To be fair.. we have TWO guys with MBA's from Kellog's.. and *THEY* know what they are doing.. These are the guys who have cd's full of end consumer data and churn through it to find out what folks want.
The others are all people who were promoted internally from TOTALLY non marketing positions.. who just come up with ideas of what they think we should do - with very little actual research.
We spent over $3Mil developing a tool, plus the costs of manufactureing it, packageing it, and sending it to market. A month before it went on sale, someone had the bright idea to do customer focus group things about the tool. 2 people out of about 110 said that they would buy it.. the rest said it wasn't worth the $$.
what a thing to find out after its already done.
but every marketer I know is psychic too.
Im beginning to agree with Douglass Adams, lets put them on a colony ship with the phone sanatizers.
Recently, the english division of our company [black and decker] hired 'HyperMedia Trafficing' or some other similar named company to get them 'more exposure' in the search engines.
[forget the ethical debate about that.. or why no one bothered to ask me what to do.]
What I want to know, is - going fowards - as more and more of these companies start up, and discover more and more unscrupulious ways of 'loading' the search engines with bogus hits/visits/data/etc... How does Google plan to make sure they are:
1) Not loosing ad $$ to these folks and 2) prefenting every search from returning something like www.hotgrannysex.com or www.top50.com as the 1st (or first 15) results for a search on.. well.. pretty much anything.
Finally, a decent 'non tree hugging' post about *green* fuel.
The real reason you see so much pressure for hydrogen is because it can be distilled from current petrolium products.
Lessens the blow to the oil tycoons when GM says.. yeah.. it runs on Hydrogen, but the hydrogen plants will still buy gas from you - so don't worry about it.
Personally im all for BioDiesel.. Its REALLY renewable.. I mean.. Hemp is a weed. [or is that Hemp is weed.. I forget which.]
In baltimore alone there are some 40 odd abandoned blocks in the city.. mow em down , plant Bio-crops.. and make a little $$ on the deal. [and add some oxygen back to the atmosphere while we are at it.]
Anyways.. very good points.. Hopefully folks will read your post.
With all the cable companies NOT paying the $15 to @home a month..
why did my fees go UP this month ?
as a former employee at comcast @ home since inception.. I know ALL how the cable company works with its price rates.
They go up every year . no matter what. Comcast's policy has always been annual increments. And NEVER to go down.. no matter what.
after people get mad the first time or two.. they figure they wont get mad again.. or.. if they call in to unsubscribe . they can offer them a few free months of HBO to keep them in the game.
this month my cable modem was $60.02.. thats more than if i ordered digital cable WITH premium channels !!
in my area.. i can get a dedicated t1 for like $250 a month.. flat rate on BW.
and on that.. i can run a server ..or.. god forbid ..resell the service.
anyone out there that is kidding themselves that its NOT greed.. is.. well ..kidding themselves. How do you think these companies got to where they are today ? Price gouging in the 80's on cable TV.
Why do you think comcast is fortune 500 company #281 ?
Anyone who says they have to build a new infra structure is crazy.
to convert cable TV coax to handle internet.. they have to put a $175 tap out of the building/neighborhood.. that can handle about 40-50 customers without puking.
they pay that off in 1 month of service when its 1/2 full.. all the coax is the same cable tv coax that has been there 20 years.
What the price increases are for (at least as far as comcast is concerned) is to pay for the new Telco Server they installed In WhiteMarsh Maryland. to handle telophony service.
6 billion and counting.
Of course.. there is the marketing aspect too..
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The Empire Stumbles
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· Score: 2
Marvel comics has been marketing themselves to 12 year old boys for ohh.. some 50 odd years.
non stop.. ask any kid if he has heard of a comic book hero.. and EVERYONE who has ever read one will be able to say either 'Spider-man' 'Super-man' or 'Bat-man'. (or if your from the 70's-80's.. 'x-man':P)
Now . compare that to some 25 years of starwars marketing..
not REALLY 25 years mind you.. it was a fringe audiance in the first place.. sci-fi geeks.
SURE . if you were borne in the late 60's early 70's.. then it became a HUGE thing.. but skip 10 years forward in the future.. these kids missed the first one.. and everyone hitting empire was 10 years older.. so it never hit their generation (cept for the hardcore or whatever) but market penetration skipped years of folks.
Now Starwars is back.. and targeting the young kids again.. but hey.. they mystic of the first movies totally passed them by.
My wife teaches middle school, everyone in all her classes knows who spider-man is.. but she make a yoda/force joke the other day.. and she said that out of a class of 40 (yeah.. no kidding) only 2 kids even showed recognition.
so.. of COURSE spider-man made more . its more in the main-stream.. 50 years of Stan-Lee pushing comics to 12 year old kids.
as long as kids kept turning 12.. Marvel kept pushing comics at them.
Lucas on the other hand.. doesn't SELL his franchise.. he just expects the momentum to carry on.
[and honestly . its apples and oranges.. lucas is a FILM director.. arty.. likes to do differnt stuff.. Stan-Lee.. is a comic book publisher.. makes $$ of each book sold.]
not to say lucas isnt in it for the $$.. but he doesnt exacly have to depend on monthly sales of starwars to keep him going.. where as comic books are a pretty brutal business.
so.. in a nutshell.. Marvel has been SELLING spiderman for years.. compared to that.. Starwars was just a pickup line at some party in the 70's.
Slashdot Mirror
I bought my wife's diamond used.
It was a drizzily afternoon in Nottingham UK.
She was visiting me for the week. We were in an antique jewlery shop, and I saw a ring that was VERY cool looking.
Asked the shop keep how much ($500 quid/about $750 US) and if he could have it sized.
The ring was over 130 years old, had a unique setting (since they were all hand made)called a king's setting or something or other. And the diamond itself was NOT machine cut.
That means it had deeper facits (more sparkle) and all that was done by a victorian man with a small wooden chisle and hammer.
MUCH cooler than the stamped out , over priced, artificially demanded rings now adays.
agreed :( its a vicious cycle. .. (early 80's) I used to go to an arcade in my local area .. and admist the handful of 'popular' coinops (rampage comes to mind) that people used to crowd around .. were pinball machines.
..
.. because one day I asked him why he was always cleaning them. And (for whatever reason .. boredom .. thought i looked interested .. whatever) .. he TOLD me.
:
.. no one will be playing it in a few months .. and it cost me ($1800)(?) .. This pinball machine has been here for 3 years .. and as long as i clean it .. and fix broken parts .. it will make me money. not as much as that (rampage?) machine, but when you think that people have played it for 3 years, it is probally the machine that *paid* for that machine over there. So I clean it everyday.'
.. as I began to buy up pins (because they were getting harder and harder to find) this guy became my hero.
... one who maintained all his machines .. and I would buy it .. just because I knew by looking at it .. that it didn't matter if it had been operated for 10 years .. the playfield was clean and glossy, which told me someone knew its value. :)
When I was a teenager
I *ALWAYS* saw the owner of the arcade cleaning them etc
thats probally why I love them so much
He said something along the lines of
'Well kid, those machines over there make me some money. But that Rampage(?) machine, well
YEARS later
Every once in a while I would come across a pin that was handled by an operator like this guy
I have a few pins, here and out of all of them .. Attack from Mars is my favorite.
.. this is one of the better condition ones i have ever seen. (it was pure chance i found it) These pins were *so* easy to maintain .. that operators didnt clean them as often :( and you will most likey find them all beat to crap :(
.. its a good hobby, and pins appreciate in value as long as they are maintained.
There is almost NOTHING in the middle of the playfield (cept the saucer) it was designed that way to be an 'easy-clean' for operators.
actually
But you can buy a pin in middling shape, and get parts to (slowly) fix it up
it might be more now because its proving to be very popular .. but when it first came out .. $2500 was New in crate cost (at least from State Sales in Baltimore)
umm .. prices are determined by the operators .. not the manufacturers.
.. at the same time pinball maches went up to 50 cents a play .. streetfighter II was commonly set to 50cents to start, 25 to continue.
.. a game of Streetfighter 2 lasts 3:00 mins TOPS .. and thats only if the 2 players don't actually try to hit each other.
And honestly, pinball is still cheaper than a video game
I can play a pinball machine for 20-30 mins easy
this anology is like saying the death of the automobile is caused by increased gas prices. Or the death of broadcast tv is caused by an increase in PBS telethons.
Inflation sucks, but there is no reason to expect an industry to keep its prices the same over a 20 year period.
by your own post .. its not the pinball table .. its the operators.
.. and hardly every have to fix stuff .. but then again .. i clean them regularly.] [http://www.remsbox.com/index.php?content=00000000 08] And these are some of the more 'gimmic' ridden ones too.
.. guess what you *WONT* find in the belly of the beast. The manual that tells you how to FIX everything.
.. fighting games need to have joystics and buttons replaced weekly/monthly depending on play. But operators never seem to complain about having to do this.
.. when SFII came out .. also neglected to change buttons/joystics etc. btw]
.. generally were eclipsed by technology before the machine could go into horrible states of dis-repair.
.. actually .. are much CHEAPER than a coin-op video, becuase .. with small maintanance .. they can (and have) been operated for YEARS. On the initial investment plus maint fees.
Pinball machines are pretty robust actually. [I own five of them
WMS includes(ed) a list of what you will need to do to each pinball machine, and after howmany X plays. The lists are step by step, and give detailed instructions. If you look in most pinball machines that are in operation now
Pinball machines are actually very sophisticated, and most are designed to tell you exactly what the problem is to minimise downtime.
For example, if you open the coin door on any late wms/bally machine, it will tell you how many errors it has, and the number of the errors. [which you are suposed to look up in your manual, and it will tell you what needs to be fixed/replaced.]
Some machines, like my Creature from the Black Lagoon, check the switches itself. If no one hits the circle bowl at the bottom right of the playfield in (i think) 40 balls (about 12 games) it will automatically trigger an error message telling the operator to check the switch.
Pinball doesn't cost more than a video game.
That is a farse. A new stean Monopoly (the latest one made) will run you $2500 out of crate.
A new Tekken machine will run you $5000 easy [cause its older now]. As for maintanance, last time I checked
End of the day, it all comes down to business. Operators were lulled by the 'street fighter' phenominum. They though all they had to do was plug a machine in, and they would rake it in.
[many operators
Compaired to that perception, cleaning a pinball field seems long and tedious.
What they always ALWAYS forget, is the machine they bought, HAS to be maintained - whatever machine it is. or it stops making money. Video games, in the late 80's early 90's however
when the life of your streetfighter machine is 1-1.5 years before streetfighter-alpha-turbo-whatever comes out. You can managet to make it hobble along with electrical tape. Knowing when the next one comes out, you retire it.
Where as a pinball machine, has much higher play value. new graphics cards (ignoring pinball 2000) don't mean anything. They are MUCH slower to become obsoleate, and therefore
Two of the machines in my basement were operated for 10 years.
10 years, and with minimal restoration, look almost showroom. show me a 10 year old galaga or pac-man that doesnt need a new CRT or a LOT of work.
Stearn pinball still makes them .. and while some of their more recent ones were not that good .. .. but prone to breakage.
.. most machines are neglected by their operators .. so they have to dum them down to the operators only have to take 5 seconds to clean them.
.. and they make good money.
.. or whatever game.
.. and would rather spend 10 mins emptying quarters from a bucket under streetfighter alpha-omeaga-zeta-jones than to spend 10 mins cleaning a pinball machine off.
.. where a broken one makes crap .. its kinda like a well kempt retail store makes good money .. and a dirty one makes cockroaches.
0 00 8 is my basement pinball santuary.
monopoly was very good. Austin powers was ok
of course
Where pinball is dying is a crock really, i know several operators who still operate pinball machines on location
they also dont cost as much as a silent scope
the real issue is operators are lazy
A well kempt pinball will make a lot of $$
http://www.remsbox.com/index.php?content=000000
saddly . ms will just buy them .. and make sure everyone owes THEM licencing fees.
:(
can't you just IMAGINE how much fun they could have with that ?
You got it actually, I never said these folks were stupid. Just un-informed or influenced.
.. but i was all excited and caught up in rhetoric *grin*
.. or downplaying them in the press .. laws that directly benifit their business - thats just plain scarey.
I should have said Station-X instead of CNN
This is where it gets sticky. When publishing conglomerates (wow i mangled THAT word) can get laws passed by either sensationalizing them
Im not an elitist , im a realist. There are a large amount of folks in this country [just like ANY coutry and or large population sample] that fall below what we set as 'the standard.'. People .. are simply people .. in a large enough sample, you have one idiot for every genious. .. you can *only* be general.
.. 'middle america' was not a 'big' player. Generally middle class folks (myself included) dabble in mutuals maybe a direct stock purchace here .. based on feelings or of a company they work for.
.. it can be a VERY good way to make money - if your well informed. One of the not-so-secrets of the Stock Market is .. by the time you read information on something 'happening' to a stock .. you already lost out on your chance to make any $$ of it.
.. allowing the 'average' american joe to trade stocks online. The press started covering stories about folks making big $ off quick 'day trading' exploits.
.. remember above about playing market volitility] were sheering these folks right and left. Planting roumours in stock 'chat' rooms to drive the price up HUGE percentages in hours - only to have it crash or level off at where it started by the end of the day.
.. lets hit a little closer to home.
.. its its starting to become a reality. Enough HR/BOSS/Hiring agenceys are starting to believe that a MCSE cert merits that salery range - regardless of experience.
.. any mcse will do .. and it seems the going rate is about $80k year.'
.. my long winded (and apparantly elitest) attitude goes full circle back to the statement :
Sweeping generalizations may be offensive, but when you are dealing with MILLIONS of people
Being able to Vote doesnt quantify you as being any smarter than a non voting american. My mom voted for Ronald Regan in the 80's because 'He was a dream when [she] was a girl.' I know people who vote democrat because '[they] dont like greedy republicans' as well as folks who vote republican because '[they] are good christians'.
Simple (general) fact is most people vote with their heart, not their head.
Since this whole election idea (which was just an example off the cuff) seems to be clouding the issue, Lets look at the tech stock boom of the 90's was influenced by the media.
People have been trading stocks in this country since the market opened - yet until the tech 'boom' a few years ago
Its a way to make money
[The real $$ comes from the big Type III players, who trade off the volitilty of the market, who for the most part - dont care if its a latex rubber company, or petrochemicals.]
E-trade became a player
As more and more stories are run on 'online' trading more and more people jump on the band wagon. Folks who have *NO* idea how the stock market works are buying and selling shares of companies that they have never even heard about - because they have the words 'net','web', or 'cyber' in the company name.
Then these folks started losing their shirts. The big players [type III
Instead of the media bringing it to the attention of the public how folks were using their lack of knowledge as a lever to take their money; they instead focused on how Stock prices for tech-company X trippled only minutes after the market opened.
Just another example of how the media manipulates peoples reactions.
and if *THAT* one is still too unbelievable for you
'The average Microsoft Certified Technician makes over $80,000 a year.'
ever heard that ?
its often followed by the line 'You can even get a MSCE without having a college degree or any experience in the computer field!'
Whats scarey
Its back to the whole 'uninformed' thing. A non technical boss/company that needs a 'computer guy' probally doesnt realize that microsoft gets those salery ranges from folks who were making that kind of money BEFORE they got their MCSE, and that the vast majority of them have a good (usually long) background with computers. So they think 'O.K. I need a msce
So
The media can directly affect the actions/laws of this country by influencing the folks that take its word as law.
[no stock traders, minor league baseball fans, members of the general voting public, extreme leftists, web programers, or my mom were harmed in the retort contained above.]
The point I was trying to get across .. is that the majority of 'voting' people do what their TV tells them to do.
.. watch CNN for a few days .. wait for some 'sensational' news story .. then head off to walmart for 30 mins and just listen to the people walking around.]
.. does that sway people's votes ? [Idealy it should not .. but it does .. a great deal apparantly.]
.. it was just (apparantly) a bad choice of examples.
.. When large media companies, control how information is handed to the general public, and that information is about how 'good' this bill will be for them - what do you think is going to happen ?
If its the forth of july, and CNN tells them there is a 'potential' Terrorist attack , they watch the skys. [If you find that hard to believe
If its the presidential elections, and CNN says X canidate is going to win
Hell, we had that whole mess last time in the Primaries simply BECAUSE the media couldn't shut up about it.
My paranoia wasnt because I believe that
[Although not TOO far offbase, since computer 'Hacking' to use the media term - is now considered 'cyber-terrorism']
My point was
Now , if this was a bill that was horrible for those same companies, the *might* report on it, but do you think it would get the same spin ?
Since apparantly Terrorists are behind every corner, 100% of America's vigilance must be rivited to 'watching out' for them on major holidays and/or sporting events.
.. those people who buy the big foam fingers at minor league baseball games have the right to vote too - I mean , unless there is a terrorist hiding behind the booth .. then they may just be too concerned about that to pull the lever. There are more of them then there are of educated, informed people - and the media companies both know and *count* on this.
.. Would that be the struggling american public .. most of whom have a 6-7th grade reading level .. and less than 50% own a computer .. even less with broadband ? Or could it possibly be the SAME companys that own the news channels that captivate (distract) the same voting public with sensationalistic programming ?
.. considering im SURE Disney is a major player behind this bill.
.. not the government .. to tell him what he is allowed to do with a CD that he just bought. With money he was already taxed on.
Does anyone else find it suspicious that Major 'Terrorist Attack' ratings boosters appear to distract the 'average joe' whenever one of these bills is introduced ?
Remember folks
Just for fun ask 10 people who voted in the last election - if they can name 5 people (aside from the person they voted for) who appeared on the docket along with their 'chosen' canadate.
Or make it simple and just ask why they voted the way they did.
This bill is strictly a media bill. Who on EARTH would profit from allowing people to NOT record TV shows
I find it very funny that Micky Mouse was brought up
Our system of laws, while the intentions are good, has degenerated into the 'informed' and the 'un-informed' Folks don't object to bills because they are spoon-fed the baby bird version by mamma CNN. What does a farmer in the middle of Iowa care if he can upload the new britney spears song to his sister's kid in Ohio? But ask the same guy if he thinks its fair for MEDIA COMPANIES
Im betting you would get a totally different answer.
When I Decided to leave Comcast@Home I put my resume in the template source code as comments.
.. no crank calls .. even for having my phone number out there 'obtainable' as it were.
[Just in case I needed to prove to potential employers that I was what I said I was.]
It was there for about 3 months before someone caught it.
Oddly enough
Wow .. sorry .. I just realized that i probally broke Taco's record for the number of gross-mispellings in a single post.
:(
My bad
They can arrest all the people they want. Realistically though .. People have been pirating software since the 80's.
.. or obtained market share if they didn't embrance piracy.
.. but they have better sales over lightwave because of college piracy of their product.
.. legel or not?
.. ask Games Workshop how much of their product is illegally produced in Russia or Poland.
.. (or at least the big boys are) is because it gives upcoming companies the same ability to snake them like they did to others in the past.
.. crying wolf about lost sales during their HIGHEST sales year in history.
.. is that its better to be a company that sells billions and looses 5% revenue to piracy .. than a company that sells hundreds of thousands, and looses 2%.
Anyone remember Mr.Nibble ?
Not that its justification, but there are products that wouldn't have market share
Microsoft, Adobe, Macromedia, Quark.
All of these 'big names' became the 'standards' becuase folks were able to play with them.
3dMAX hates to admit it
College kids graduate, and eventually get into positions in companies that decide what software to actually buy. Do you buy something that you have never seen before ? or software that 1/2 of your staff already has at home
Internet piracey is a joke, You want real piracy
[were talking toy soldiers]
or Ask Black & Decker how many chineese companies made a knock off of the snake light.
piracy is nothing compaired to actual industrial espianage. How many car manufactureres buy, and reverse engineer their compeditors autos?
Or pick the solid state electrical giant of your choice. Chances are they are on the beta test list of all compeating companies through a friend of a friend of a friend.
The reason Software companies are so loud about it now
Its kind of like how the music industry was all over MP3
What people tend to forget
This sounds horribly flame-bait. .. let me clarify. I read a lot of your books. (proof is at my book tracker - under read books.) 'On a Pale Horse' was one of the first Fantasy books of note that I read - and still one of my favorites to date. [I always recommend it to friends, which explains why not only have I bought several copies, but I do not have it in my book tracker as a result.]
.. especially when your are well known in the sci-fi/fantasy world as a a 'creative' guy.
.. when does an author find that enough is enough ?
.. get pushed to the side. And books like 'Gollum in the Gears' [sorry , NOT a personal favorite of mine.] get catapulted to the top of the best seller list just beacuse it has the name Xanth on it ?
But before I elaborate
I have noticed , over the course of time, that your writing became more 'pulp' and less 'inventive'.
Its hard to be creative full steam, especially when you have a family to raise - and I'm sure
Robert Asprin once said something to the effect of "Writing the story was fine, but after 6 books the cute idea I had to put a meaningful/funny quote in the beginning of each chapter really became the stumbling block." Is this a similar event for you ?
Lets face is Xanth was certainly a money-cow for you. And the first four or five books were unique and interesting - My REAL question is
Do you ever regret that the Xanth series has overshadowed other deeper or more interesting works ? [Bio of a Space Tyrant for example.]
Where is the balance of satisfying your fans desire for more of the same hinge with the fear of cheapening/overdoing your story ?
Why do books like 'FireFly' or 'Macroscope' both great ideas - and brilliant books
Does this actually affect your writing style / choice / income in any way? Does it discourage you to write less mainstream work ?
My home site .. is viewable in (almost) everything .. since its a hobby site .. some stuff probally doesnt work in opera .. but it all works in NS/mozilla & ie ..
.. well .. thats a whole nother can of worms. I try to make everything web compliant, but we are in bed with microsoft .. much as i don't like that .. its a fact .. and when our marketing team insists on doing something (microsoft) cool .. there isnt alwayas a choice.
work
especially when they insist on outsourcing something to a vendor who brags that their designers 'never had to do any of those certification things - they just loaded up the software and played with it.'
a fact that is evident when you get 'frontpage' generated shit from them at $250 an hour.
*sigh*
Charles Street Theatre showes alternate movies and Anime .. not a great location though.
.. try my friend Dave Bowers at Time Warp Comics in the Oranges .. he is a good guy.
and Otakucon is there next month i believe.
Both of the book stores in towson carry a good supply, As well as Legend's Comics, and believe it or not, suncoast video in the mall
In Jersey
I used to think like that .. then in the period of one year ... I lost 3 good friends. Once to a suicide, one to a bad liver, and one to a car crash.
.. to date .. ZERO pictures of the 4 of us together .
.. they save it .. you can look at it years later and think 'god, i remember that day .. i can STILL smell the heat , it was horribly muggy out.'
.. its gonna be the photo albums. Hardware can be replaced, memories can't.
.. i HAVE switched to 35mm slr digital media as of about 4 years ago .. its really the way to go .. every few months I burn a cd of my photos/art etc .. and make 3 additional copies of it .. one for my mom, one for my dad .. and one extra for me incase my 'working' copy dies. (they go in my safty deposit box ... so i dont fall into the saving all your data in one building rule.)]
I have
There we're pleanty taken , but they got lost, or were ruined by water/snow/rain/sun/dog/cat/sister/parents fill in the blank.
The whole point of pictures is that they capture a memory for you
There isn't a day i don't regret not having photos of my friends who are gone.
so - to answer your question, If i had to worry about what to pull out of a burning house, a box of photo albums, or my computer
[however
Considering that I am the webmaster for a powertool company .. AND I happen to be owned by the marketing department.
..
.. just happened that at the time .. it payed very well to be able to do stuff on the web.)
.. because the current one keeps dying.
.. when IT suggested we just write our own.
.. or generate dynamic images to 'save work'
.. we have TWO guys with MBA's from Kellog's .. and *THEY* know what they are doing .. These are the guys who have cd's full of end consumer data and churn through it to find out what folks want.
.. who just come up with ideas of what they think we should do - with very little actual research.
.. the rest said it wasn't worth the $$.
How frustrating do you think THAT is
5-6 years of experience of working on corporate sites (my previous company was Comcast@home)
(and before you scream 'web-weenie' I have the C.S. Degree to back it up
And WHOM do you think they ask first about pretty much anything ? There are folks in the accounting department that are more in touch with what we are going to be putting on our website.
Currently two of our braintrusts in marketing are trying to convince each other how we should start using an *alternate* pre-packaged software to run our website
because every marketer I know is a system anylist.
Totally ignoring the fact that it was a marketing decision to buy it in the first place
This is being closly followed by the idea that we can use flash
because every marketer I know is also a graphic artist/programmer/dba.
To be fair
The others are all people who were promoted internally from TOTALLY non marketing positions
We spent over $3Mil developing a tool, plus the costs of manufactureing it, packageing it, and sending it to market. A month before it went on sale, someone had the bright idea to do customer focus group things about the tool.
2 people out of about 110 said that they would buy it
what a thing to find out after its already done.
but every marketer I know is psychic too.
Im beginning to agree with Douglass Adams, lets put them on a colony ship with the phone sanatizers.
Recently, the english division of our company [black and decker] hired 'HyperMedia Trafficing' or some other similar named company to get them 'more exposure' in the search engines.
.. or why no one bothered to ask me what to do.]
.. How does Google plan to make sure they are :
.. well .. pretty much anything.
[forget the ethical debate about that
What I want to know, is - going fowards - as more and more of these companies start up, and discover more and more unscrupulious ways of 'loading' the search engines with bogus hits/visits/data/etc.
1) Not loosing ad $$ to these folks
and
2) prefenting every search from returning something like www.hotgrannysex.com or www.top50.com as the 1st (or first 15) results for a search on
Finally,
.. yeah .. it runs on Hydrogen, but the hydrogen plants will still buy gas from you - so don't worry about it.
.. Its REALLY renewable .. I mean .. Hemp is a weed. [or is that Hemp is weed .. I forget which.]
.. mow em down , plant Bio-crops .. and make a little $$ on the deal. [and add some oxygen back to the atmosphere while we are at it.]
.. very good points .. Hopefully folks will read your post.
a decent 'non tree hugging' post about *green* fuel.
The real reason you see so much pressure for hydrogen is because it can be distilled from current petrolium products.
Lessens the blow to the oil tycoons when GM says
Personally im all for BioDiesel
In baltimore alone there are some 40 odd abandoned blocks in the city
Anyways
With all the cable companies NOT paying the $15 to @home a month ..
.. I know ALL how the cable company works with its price rates.
.. no matter what.
.. they figure they wont get mad again .. or .. if they call in to unsubscribe . they can offer them a few free months of HBO to keep them in the game.
.. thats more than if i ordered digital cable WITH premium channels !!
.. i can get a dedicated t1 for like $250 a month .. flat rate on BW.
.. i can run a server . .or .. god forbid . .resell the service.
.. is .. well . .kidding themselves. How do you think these companies got to where they are today ? Price gouging in the 80's on cable TV.
.. they have to put a $175 tap out of the building/neighborhood .. that can handle about 40-50 customers without puking.
.. all the coax is the same cable tv coax that has been there 20 years.
why did my fees go UP this month ?
as a former employee at comcast @ home since inception
They go up every year . no matter what.
Comcast's policy has always been annual increments. And NEVER to go down
after people get mad the first time or two
this month my cable modem was $60.02
in my area
and on that
anyone out there that is kidding themselves that its NOT greed
Why do you think comcast is fortune 500 company #281 ?
Anyone who says they have to build a new infra structure is crazy.
to convert cable TV coax to handle internet
they pay that off in 1 month of service when its 1/2 full
What the price increases are for (at least as far as comcast is concerned) is to pay for the new Telco Server they installed In WhiteMarsh Maryland. to handle telophony service.
6 billion and counting.
Marvel comics has been marketing themselves to 12 year old boys for ohh .. some 50 odd years.
.. ask any kid if he has heard of a comic book hero .. and EVERYONE who has ever read one will be able to say either 'Spider-man' 'Super-man' or 'Bat-man'. (or if your from the 70's-80's .. 'x-man' :P)
..
.. it was a fringe audiance in the first place .. sci-fi geeks.
.. then it became a HUGE thing .. but skip 10 years forward in the future .. these kids missed the first one .. and everyone hitting empire was 10 years older .. so it never hit their generation (cept for the hardcore or whatever) but market penetration skipped years of folks.
.. and targeting the young kids again .. but hey .. they mystic of the first movies totally passed them by.
.. but she make a yoda/force joke the other day .. and she said that out of a class of 40 (yeah .. no kidding) only 2 kids even showed recognition.
.. of COURSE spider-man made more . .. 50 years of Stan-Lee pushing comics to 12 year old kids.
.. Marvel kept pushing comics at them.
.. doesn't SELL his franchise .. he just expects the momentum to carry on.
.. lucas is a FILM director .. arty .. likes to do differnt stuff .. Stan-Lee .. is a comic book publisher .. makes $$ of each book sold.]
.. but he doesnt exacly have to depend on monthly sales of starwars to keep him going .. where as comic books are a pretty brutal business.
.. in a nutshell .. Marvel has been SELLING spiderman for years .. compared to that .. Starwars was just a pickup line at some party in the 70's.
non stop
Now . compare that to some 25 years of starwars marketing
not REALLY 25 years mind you
SURE . if you were borne in the late 60's early 70's
Now Starwars is back
My wife teaches middle school, everyone in all her classes knows who spider-man is
so
its more in the main-stream
as long as kids kept turning 12
Lucas on the other hand
[and honestly . its apples and oranges
not to say lucas isnt in it for the $$
so
Well . I suppose that really depends on EXACTLY how much of it you eat.
..
I don't know about you . but 'watermelon blast' anti-bacterial hand satatizer(tm) smells good enough to eat
you just have to have a BIG glass of water handy.
[nothing like cleaning the pipes]