Sunday, September 18, 2011
Saturday, September 3, 2011
Dollar coins are goooood!
I got an chain-email today talking about refusing the new dollar coins. I am not going to ask you to reprint this if you agree, but If you receive said email, think about the following before you act.
The dollar coin is a great thing we could do to help our economy; the more people refuse them the more damage is done to the recovery of the economy.
Simple facts:
1. A strong economy is built by churn (or transactions). The more transactions the more churn, the stronger the economy.
2. People are far more likely to spend a coin than a bill. Coins go into machines and used ...for coffee... bills stagnate and are collected and traded in to get larger bills which are often just put into the bank.
3. Coins have a longer lifespan and the total cost of life is less. E.g. say it costs 3 cents to make a dollar coin but 1 cent to make a paper dollar. However, the coin will last 3.5 times as long while the dollar is removed from circulation, destroyed, reprinted etc, which actually brings a 1 dollar bill up to 3 cents for the lifespan. Take that into consideration of the dollar bill's 8 year lifespan and the coins 30 year lifespan. These particular numbers are not perfect, but they are a decent parallel.
4. Counterfeit coins, while they do exist, are not profitable for the criminals.
5. If a coin isn't spent, it is often stored away in a jar somehow. Most people, when they collect those jars of coins and trade them in, immediately spend the money they condensed. They have effectively removed currency from the system for a short while, and then caused a transaction.
The EU has proven this with the 1 and 2 Euro coins. The Euro is kicking the crap out of the dollar and this is actually one of the reasons. Yes there are a lot of reasons, but the ability of the currency to force itself to flow and create transactions is good for the economy and the currency.
The dollar coin is a great thing we could do to help our economy; the more people refuse them the more damage is done to the recovery of the economy.
Simple facts:
1. A strong economy is built by churn (or transactions). The more transactions the more churn, the stronger the economy.
2. People are far more likely to spend a coin than a bill. Coins go into machines and used ...for coffee... bills stagnate and are collected and traded in to get larger bills which are often just put into the bank.
3. Coins have a longer lifespan and the total cost of life is less. E.g. say it costs 3 cents to make a dollar coin but 1 cent to make a paper dollar. However, the coin will last 3.5 times as long while the dollar is removed from circulation, destroyed, reprinted etc, which actually brings a 1 dollar bill up to 3 cents for the lifespan. Take that into consideration of the dollar bill's 8 year lifespan and the coins 30 year lifespan. These particular numbers are not perfect, but they are a decent parallel.
4. Counterfeit coins, while they do exist, are not profitable for the criminals.
5. If a coin isn't spent, it is often stored away in a jar somehow. Most people, when they collect those jars of coins and trade them in, immediately spend the money they condensed. They have effectively removed currency from the system for a short while, and then caused a transaction.
The EU has proven this with the 1 and 2 Euro coins. The Euro is kicking the crap out of the dollar and this is actually one of the reasons. Yes there are a lot of reasons, but the ability of the currency to force itself to flow and create transactions is good for the economy and the currency.
Saturday, June 11, 2011
Brew Review
I am going to start trying to put down my Beer reviews on here...as much as I can anyway...
This week: Avalanche Ale
http://www.breckbrew.com/beer/avalanche.html
This is my second beer from breckenridge and I am still not convinced. It is not bad, just not really my preference. It is much sweeter than I like, and very light in other flavour.
The aroma is also very generic... I do not really get anyting distinctive.
The colour is very nice, exactly what I expect from an amber.
I will not avoid this beer int he future, but I will not seek it out either. I am hoping the other beers in the sampler I have are better.
This week: Avalanche Ale
http://www.breckbrew.com/beer/avalanche.html
This is my second beer from breckenridge and I am still not convinced. It is not bad, just not really my preference. It is much sweeter than I like, and very light in other flavour.
The aroma is also very generic... I do not really get anyting distinctive.
The colour is very nice, exactly what I expect from an amber.
I will not avoid this beer int he future, but I will not seek it out either. I am hoping the other beers in the sampler I have are better.
Wednesday, May 18, 2011
MMOs for Dummies: Part one
Introduction
What is an MMORPG? MMORPG stands for massively multiplayer online role playing game, a type of MMO (massively multiplayer online game). As the name implies MMOS have a massive amount of players on one “world” or server at a time. Some games handle 1500 simultaneous connections, while others such as Eve Online recently set a record of over 64,000 players online on the same persistent world.
A persistent world is just that, a world that is always there. A player can log off and go to sleep but the interactions on the world continue.
Genres, Intellectual Property, and Licensing
MMO genres come in many flavours, the most common being Fantasy (World of WarCraft) and Sci-Fi (Eve Online). They all require Intellectual Property, or IP, as the background. There are strong and weak IPs. Strong simply means that they are more widely known and less of a niche fan base (as in the case of a weak IP).
Strong IPs include Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, Star Trek,
Weak IPs include WarHammer, DC Comics, Champions, Conan
Billing models
Subscription The player must pay per month, usually about $15. In the western markets there is no limit on time a player can spend online. The Asian markets have “fatigue laws” that only allow a player to spend a certain amount of time online during a given day.
Multiple month subscriptions are often offered with a small discount.
Micro Transaction (MTX). Most often found in the Asian markets, but are gaining ground in the west. Players can play for free, but would need to pay small fees for additional content. This can be access to new races, items, vehicles, or other customizations. Western games are adopting a mixed model Subscription with MTX, with mostly cosmetic options offered through MTX.
Sony Online Entertainment (SOE) introduced the Station Pass in 200x. With this model the subscriber paid a monthly fee of approximately 1.8 times the cost of one game sub ($27). However this pass gave the subscriber access to all of SOEs titles.
Endless Trial. The first tier of levels (usually about 25-30% of the level cap) are free to play indefinitely, but if you want to play the upper tiers, you will need to pay for a full monthly subscription.
What is an MMORPG? MMORPG stands for massively multiplayer online role playing game, a type of MMO (massively multiplayer online game). As the name implies MMOS have a massive amount of players on one “world” or server at a time. Some games handle 1500 simultaneous connections, while others such as Eve Online recently set a record of over 64,000 players online on the same persistent world.
A persistent world is just that, a world that is always there. A player can log off and go to sleep but the interactions on the world continue.
Genres, Intellectual Property, and Licensing
MMO genres come in many flavours, the most common being Fantasy (World of WarCraft) and Sci-Fi (Eve Online). They all require Intellectual Property, or IP, as the background. There are strong and weak IPs. Strong simply means that they are more widely known and less of a niche fan base (as in the case of a weak IP).
Strong IPs include Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, Star Trek,
Weak IPs include WarHammer, DC Comics, Champions, Conan
Billing models
Subscription The player must pay per month, usually about $15. In the western markets there is no limit on time a player can spend online. The Asian markets have “fatigue laws” that only allow a player to spend a certain amount of time online during a given day.
Multiple month subscriptions are often offered with a small discount.
Micro Transaction (MTX). Most often found in the Asian markets, but are gaining ground in the west. Players can play for free, but would need to pay small fees for additional content. This can be access to new races, items, vehicles, or other customizations. Western games are adopting a mixed model Subscription with MTX, with mostly cosmetic options offered through MTX.
Sony Online Entertainment (SOE) introduced the Station Pass in 200x. With this model the subscriber paid a monthly fee of approximately 1.8 times the cost of one game sub ($27). However this pass gave the subscriber access to all of SOEs titles.
Endless Trial. The first tier of levels (usually about 25-30% of the level cap) are free to play indefinitely, but if you want to play the upper tiers, you will need to pay for a full monthly subscription.
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
Wednesday, December 29, 2010
Immigration Reform: No Free Rides
Before you get all bent out of shape, please read the whole post before commenting.
I will keep my "solution" as short as possible.
For all the currently illegal immigrants here in the US, they get to stay... BUT they must make a declaration of when they arrived in the US. They must then pay taxes on however many years they have declared. If they have declared 1 year, then they have to pay 1 year of taxes. If 7 Years (the maximum) then they pay 7 years of taxes. The advantage of declaring more years is that once you reach 7 years you can then gain citizenship.
Other ways to gain citizenship would be through service, either Civil or Military. Four years of civil service gains you citizenship (you will, of course been paying taxes along the way).
Military service would be a little different. You would be required to enlist for 4 years, but you would gain citizenship after 1 year (though you would still be required to fulfil your enlistment term or be subject to military law)
I will keep my "solution" as short as possible.
For all the currently illegal immigrants here in the US, they get to stay... BUT they must make a declaration of when they arrived in the US. They must then pay taxes on however many years they have declared. If they have declared 1 year, then they have to pay 1 year of taxes. If 7 Years (the maximum) then they pay 7 years of taxes. The advantage of declaring more years is that once you reach 7 years you can then gain citizenship.
Other ways to gain citizenship would be through service, either Civil or Military. Four years of civil service gains you citizenship (you will, of course been paying taxes along the way).
Military service would be a little different. You would be required to enlist for 4 years, but you would gain citizenship after 1 year (though you would still be required to fulfil your enlistment term or be subject to military law)
Saturday, October 30, 2010
I need to come by more often.
I need to spend a little more time here. If it makes you feel any better, I do not spend a whole lot of time on facebook or myspace either. Not posting is not good considering this is actually the longest running blog I know. I have been "blogging" since before the word "blog" existed.
At some point I want to do a little pice on "The Idea of Blogging". Still kind of working it out in my head of what the contents would be. I have it filed with my "Rules for Men", "IT for Small Businesses", and "Chumpy-Chump" pieces. All three are almost complete but not quite.
I leave you with this.
At some point I want to do a little pice on "The Idea of Blogging". Still kind of working it out in my head of what the contents would be. I have it filed with my "Rules for Men", "IT for Small Businesses", and "Chumpy-Chump" pieces. All three are almost complete but not quite.
I leave you with this.
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