So in relation to the film we are watching this Tuesday, The Fountainhead, I thought I might talk a bit about Ayn Rand. Back in the day I used to like Ayn Rand. I had a high school government teacher who didn't teach government so much as he taught Ayn Rand and had crazy arguments with students in class about whether or not they should sacrifice themselves for altruism. Many laughs were had.
I eventually decided to read Atlas Shrugged on my own, which is still the longest single book I've ever read (1075 pages of tiny, eye-destroying print). At the time I liked it and took much of what it said at face value. It took a small tree and several filibuster speeches to basically explain that a creator of goods or services should have full rights and control over what he creates and that supply and demand solves everything. The government officials and those who sided with them were portrayed as incompetent and weaselly and the capitalist were portrayed as heroes complete with dramatic rescues and in your face one-liners. Make that several-liners. Actually just go ahead and make it a whole chapter. Every time someone complains about capitalism expect one of Rands author avatars to step up and thoroughly explain to them just how wrong they are and how government should never regulate business and also the cigarettes they smoke just aren't as good as true capitalist made cigarettes. The whole schtick was to beat it into your head that the perfect economy allows those who come up with an idea or product to have full control over it and that those who have money obviously deserve it. Anyone who tried to use money or resources to help the community at large failed miserably and ruined anything. As a kid this concept of egoism over altruism really fit well with my teenage sense of self importance and My Chemical Romance t-shirts.
Later however after I came back to it I realized just how ridiculous Rand was. Her magnum opus was a story about a strawman world where all the people who had successful companies were competent entrepreneurs who had earned it, while the government just wanted to use them. Now in some ways this can apply to reality, but things in Atlas Shrugged were pretty much black and white. In real life people inherit fortunes and companies they haven't earned and don't know how to responsibly handle. In real life if the economy is left alone successful companies aren't the ones who make the best products and earn an honest profit. In real life the successful ones are the companies that manage to get rid of their major competition one way or another and form a monopoly. Then it isn't a matter of everyone buying their product because they are paragons of virtue who produce the best product that money can buy; it's just that they are the only ones selling because no one can compete with their resources. It never really went far in considering business practices which take advantage of it's workers to produce at lower costs. In Rand's straw-world all such companies failed and people just walked out the door out of disgust for such dishonorable behavior unlike our world where people swallow their pride and stay because they need the money to survive.
Rands philosophy has some good ideas, but she also had a habit of treating her opinions as facts. As a result many Randroids today go around taking a philosophy which has some good points and treating it as if it has the answer to everything. Rather than focusing on a system that takes human nature into account, objectivism seems to assume that if everyone could just all adhere to it's principles and live according to the ideal capitalist way then everything would work out. It assumes that instead of a foolproof system we need a system without fools, which sounds really good on a picket sign, but isn't all that practical. That's like when someone comes up with a farfetched plan and you ask them "what if you mess up?" and they respond with "I won't." It's just kinda arrogant to assume that everyone would or should just agree with you in order for things to work.
Saturday, April 28, 2012
Bootlegging
Yesterday I got something in the mail that I had ordered off Ebay. It was something I had seen at a convention at a much higher price, but I opted to get it on Ebay for much cheaper. It turns out it was a bootleg version, which I half expected in the first place. All thing said it's not a bad bootleg so I got what I wanted. I've seen some pretty bad bootleg things before and it makes me kinda interested in bootleg things to the extent that they can be pretty darn funny. So let's talk about the iffy business practice of bootlegging.
These guys crack me up. "Robertcop" and "Spaderman" the original characters.There seems to be an art to bootlegging. That art goes something like; if everyone knows your stuff is fake then you might as well make it as hilarious as possible. At least that way someone might buy it for laughs. I've always though Robocop was creepy as shit, but now that he's "Robertcop" I can't stop laughing.
So is it an ethical business practice to sell this stuff? Not really, but it sure is funny.
Now here's something that brings back memories. For those not in the know, Beast wars was a spinoff of Transformers in the 90s. Pictured up top is Optimal Optimus; part gorilla, part tank, part jet, and all badass robot. This was one of the coolest toys I ever owned as a kid if for no other reason than because his arms had spring loaded exploding parts in order to...actually I don't know why. Who cares, it was awesome. So over a decade later they come out with this bootleg version of all the Beast Wars toys I had as a kid. Here we have the "Transfornables" with "Animism Defender." This wasn't even some dark corner of the internet; they had these at BigLots. I guess maybe Hasbro sold the molds to make these? Of maybe these people just don't care really hard. These were long discontinued by Hasbro so it looks like you can get away with counterfeiting anything as long as it's old and nobody's making money off it anyway.
So is it an ethical business practice to sell this stuff? Not really, but it sure is funny.
Thursday, April 19, 2012
Keeping up with Technology: 3D Printers
Printed from a 3D printer
I recently started making figurines for fun. Sculpting them out of modeling clay (the clay I used has the creeptastic name "Living Doll" ) you then bake it in the oven and it turns to plastic. They can then be sanded and you can make casts out of them. There are people who make and sell "garage kit," which are limited production figures, often based on popular characters. The are sold in pieces and the buyers build and paint them. It's quite a popular hobby and I was considering making some stuff that I could sell as a kit.
However I keep thinking about 3D printers. I mean hell, they are pretty cool. It sure would suck to take the time to learn a new skill such as figure modeling and then have technology make it obsolete. If anyone could make a 3D model and print it then I would be hard pressed to find it worth the time to sculpt something and cast it when I could just make it on the computer and print it much quicker and easier. They can print in full color too; the 4 color process ink is mixed in with the plastic. Sure it's expensive to own one but it's becoming more and more practical. There are services that you can upload a model to and print from. Heck you can buy one for $1600.
Kickstarter
For those who haven't heard of it Kickstarter is a website where people can post a request for donations. Mainly used for artistic projects, kickstarter allows a creator to reach out to their audience directly and ask for donations, without having to go though a publisher. As much as I dislike applying Darwinism to things that aren't evolution, I think in this case it shows that the projects that people are interested in and want to buy are the ones that get the most funding.
Take this project for example. Double Fine Adventure is a point and click adventure style computer game. The Point and Click genre has been in decline in recent years, despite having a large community of fans. Publishers seem to think that those kind of games won't sell, so Double Fine Productions, which includes some of the founding fathers of the genre, decided to start a fundraiser for their project. Setting out to acquire $400 000 to develop the game, they gathered $3,336,371 as of this writing. They are video documenting the production of the game and gaining lots of publicity. It shows that reaching out to the fans directly is sometimes a better option than going to publishers who will tell you what you're doing will never sell.
Take this project for example. Double Fine Adventure is a point and click adventure style computer game. The Point and Click genre has been in decline in recent years, despite having a large community of fans. Publishers seem to think that those kind of games won't sell, so Double Fine Productions, which includes some of the founding fathers of the genre, decided to start a fundraiser for their project. Setting out to acquire $400 000 to develop the game, they gathered $3,336,371 as of this writing. They are video documenting the production of the game and gaining lots of publicity. It shows that reaching out to the fans directly is sometimes a better option than going to publishers who will tell you what you're doing will never sell.
Friday, April 13, 2012
When Businesses Make People Mad
I guess there's good reason for people to for LLC's and Companies for a variety of reasons. The "limited liability" part of a limited liability company sounds pretty good to a lot of people. Some companies need it too, they just can't stop pissing people off. Now this doesn't mean that the executives aren't hated too when a company angers it's customers, it just means that they aren't the one's being sued. Some of them need it too; their goals to make money seem to either not take customer feelings into considerations, or else they just don't care.
Now I could ramble about Wallmart or some other company that people hiss at, but instead I'm gonna talk about video games. I don't even play 'em much these days but these stories still make me want to not buy anything from them ever.
Electronic Arts is a video game company that was voted the most hated company in America by online voters, beating out Wallmart, Bank of America, and all those other guys people love to hate. While some of the other companies on the list are cause more actual harm, EA has taken the number one spot by being the most underhanded toward it's customers. EA was not just content with buying other successful video game producing studios and using them to produce half finished games at full price under a popular name, or even working their employees over 100 hours a week with no overtime. No they are much more creative than that.
They started secretly including software in their games that installs a rootkit (a type of program designed to alter a computer stealthily, almost always malicious) on the users computer. This rootkit limits the number of installs of the game to 3. This means that if you reformat your computer, or install updates, or the game itself messes up and you need to install it, you can only do it three times. Supposedly this deters piracy, however it affects customers more than pirates. Most of the games being pirated are games that have yet to be officially released and pirated copies do not contain the rootkit anyway, making the pirated copies more appealing. The software not only violates the rights of computer users to know what is being installed on their machine and makes their full priced game purchase about as effective as a rental, but the program can actually block important programs from running. Dick move guys.
Besides EA, Capcom, the company responsible for Street Fighter and Megaman, among many others is using sneaky tactics to squeeze money out of it's customers. In the recent Street Fighter vs Tekken, the game a huge chunk of characters that are included on the disk are only accessible by paying for "downloadable content." DLC is common because it allows developers to make additions to the game later, and keep the fan community interested long after the games initial release. DLC is supposed to be new content however, and Capcom hid the fact that the content was already on the disk, but hackers figured out what was actually there. So gamers are having to pay to use something they already own. Imagine buying a car with power windows. locks, and a moon roof, but you couldn't use any of it until you went back to the dealer and paid an additional fee just to have them flip a switch. Then if you sold it the next guy would have to pay too.
Now I could ramble about Wallmart or some other company that people hiss at, but instead I'm gonna talk about video games. I don't even play 'em much these days but these stories still make me want to not buy anything from them ever.
Electronic Arts is a video game company that was voted the most hated company in America by online voters, beating out Wallmart, Bank of America, and all those other guys people love to hate. While some of the other companies on the list are cause more actual harm, EA has taken the number one spot by being the most underhanded toward it's customers. EA was not just content with buying other successful video game producing studios and using them to produce half finished games at full price under a popular name, or even working their employees over 100 hours a week with no overtime. No they are much more creative than that.
They started secretly including software in their games that installs a rootkit (a type of program designed to alter a computer stealthily, almost always malicious) on the users computer. This rootkit limits the number of installs of the game to 3. This means that if you reformat your computer, or install updates, or the game itself messes up and you need to install it, you can only do it three times. Supposedly this deters piracy, however it affects customers more than pirates. Most of the games being pirated are games that have yet to be officially released and pirated copies do not contain the rootkit anyway, making the pirated copies more appealing. The software not only violates the rights of computer users to know what is being installed on their machine and makes their full priced game purchase about as effective as a rental, but the program can actually block important programs from running. Dick move guys.
Besides EA, Capcom, the company responsible for Street Fighter and Megaman, among many others is using sneaky tactics to squeeze money out of it's customers. In the recent Street Fighter vs Tekken, the game a huge chunk of characters that are included on the disk are only accessible by paying for "downloadable content." DLC is common because it allows developers to make additions to the game later, and keep the fan community interested long after the games initial release. DLC is supposed to be new content however, and Capcom hid the fact that the content was already on the disk, but hackers figured out what was actually there. So gamers are having to pay to use something they already own. Imagine buying a car with power windows. locks, and a moon roof, but you couldn't use any of it until you went back to the dealer and paid an additional fee just to have them flip a switch. Then if you sold it the next guy would have to pay too.
Selling Stuff at Conventions
Last weekend I went to the Middle Tennessee Anime Convention. There were a bunch of people there with artists tables set up selling stuff, as well as merchants in the dealer room.
Jordan and Fowler got a table in artists alley to sell their pictures. Curiously in the application for the table the rules said that no more than 20% of your work could be fanart, yet at the con itself more 80% of everyone's stuff was fanart. I guess it's so when you fill out the paperwork they have proof that you agreed to that, so if someone did try to claim copyright infringement they wouldn't be held accountable. None of the staff particularly cares about it though, they were more concerned with keeping people from hitting each other with wooden swords and congregating in front of escalators.
Think of the dealer room like a flea market that only sells anime stuff, Japanese food, costumes, and swords.
I had talked to one guy who was selling a bunch of swords, who was angry at the other merchants for selling swords and such that were from anime, thus copyright infringement. He seemed to be taking the moral high ground and refusing to sell anime stuff, despite the fact that everyone else was doing so and nobody cared. I don't know if it was really copyright infringement, or if he was just mad that nobody was buying his swords. Some of them were actual licensed merchandise, and others were just vague knock offs. The franchises that the stuff was based off of was well known, so my normal issue with copyright infringement doesn't really apply. No one is gonna think these guys are selling original material, then just want replicas of swords and whatnot from their favorite shows.
From a business standpoint it seems to be a fun place to sell your stuff, but how profitable it really is though. With the cost of the table space, prints, and hotel/travel expenses some of the artist in the alley pay I wonder how much it's really worth it for them to sell there. We had the luxury of living nearby so my friends really only had to pay for the table and prints, but others were coming from out of state. The more internet famous artists probably saw a lot of business, as did the ones who had lot's of fanart. Still you have to wonder whether the three days they spent selling stuff there was more than a minimum wage job. At $7.50 an hour for the if you worked for 12 hour for three days you would make $270 before taxes. With the cost of the table and prints/materials you would probably have to make over $350 dollars to make it worthwhile. If I ever sell there I'm gonna make sure to sell a bunch of fanart of whatever is popular at the time, whether I actually like it or not. Of course the goal isn't necessarily always to make money. You can also have a lot of fun, get some fans, and have some good conversations while selling your work there so.
Jordan and Fowler got a table in artists alley to sell their pictures. Curiously in the application for the table the rules said that no more than 20% of your work could be fanart, yet at the con itself more 80% of everyone's stuff was fanart. I guess it's so when you fill out the paperwork they have proof that you agreed to that, so if someone did try to claim copyright infringement they wouldn't be held accountable. None of the staff particularly cares about it though, they were more concerned with keeping people from hitting each other with wooden swords and congregating in front of escalators.
Think of the dealer room like a flea market that only sells anime stuff, Japanese food, costumes, and swords.
I had talked to one guy who was selling a bunch of swords, who was angry at the other merchants for selling swords and such that were from anime, thus copyright infringement. He seemed to be taking the moral high ground and refusing to sell anime stuff, despite the fact that everyone else was doing so and nobody cared. I don't know if it was really copyright infringement, or if he was just mad that nobody was buying his swords. Some of them were actual licensed merchandise, and others were just vague knock offs. The franchises that the stuff was based off of was well known, so my normal issue with copyright infringement doesn't really apply. No one is gonna think these guys are selling original material, then just want replicas of swords and whatnot from their favorite shows.
From a business standpoint it seems to be a fun place to sell your stuff, but how profitable it really is though. With the cost of the table space, prints, and hotel/travel expenses some of the artist in the alley pay I wonder how much it's really worth it for them to sell there. We had the luxury of living nearby so my friends really only had to pay for the table and prints, but others were coming from out of state. The more internet famous artists probably saw a lot of business, as did the ones who had lot's of fanart. Still you have to wonder whether the three days they spent selling stuff there was more than a minimum wage job. At $7.50 an hour for the if you worked for 12 hour for three days you would make $270 before taxes. With the cost of the table and prints/materials you would probably have to make over $350 dollars to make it worthwhile. If I ever sell there I'm gonna make sure to sell a bunch of fanart of whatever is popular at the time, whether I actually like it or not. Of course the goal isn't necessarily always to make money. You can also have a lot of fun, get some fans, and have some good conversations while selling your work there so.
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