#without it people would get significantly less revenue

[n-sani-tea]

Your art blog has you advertising commission info...

honestly advertising is so fukcing wasteful not even just in the convincing you to buy shit you never actually wanted but like

how much electricity is wasted displaying ads that could've gone to keeping houses warm. How much paper is produced just to be turned into pamphlets and ads that will just be thrown away. how much internet bandwith is wasted just on the amount of ads that are on the internet nowadays. How many hours worth of labor went into producing ads that are going directly into my adblocker or my waste bin that could've been time spent doing literally ANYTHING useful?

[maciek-jozefowicz]

Women’s Soccer, Part 1 of 2

I was thinking — it is women’s fault that professional women soccer players get paid less than professional men soccer players. Instead of blaming men and society and misogyny and toxic masculinity and systemic this and institutionalized that and whatever else that there is to blame, women should blame themselves.

Soccer teams, like all sports teams, are a business, created to generate revenue. The more revenue they generate, the more valuable the players become and the more money there is to pay them.

Men’s soccer generates more revenue than women’s soccer. Much more revenue. (I suspect that profits for owners of men’s teams are also significantly larger than the profits for owners of women’s teams.) Why? Because more people watch men’s soccer than women’s soccer and more people buy merchandise associated with men’s soccer than merchandise associated with women’s soccer.

But of the nearly 8 billion people in the world, roughly half of them are women. If as many women watched women’s soccer as men watch men’s soccer, and as many women bought women’s soccer merchandise as men buy men’s soccer merchandise, women’s soccer would generate roughly similar revenue and women soccer players would get roughly similar pay as men soccer players. (My guess is that there would still be some discrepancy, partly due to there being more women watching men’s soccer than men watching women’s soccer. Or the other way around. Whatever.)

The problem is that the vast majority of soccer fans are men and the vast majority of those men prefer to watch men’s soccer. Women should not blame men for that. It’s their choice and that choice does not reflect some societal misogyny. But it does reflect a preconceived belief that women’s soccer is inferior to men’s soccer. Depending on the criteria one uses to judge inferior and superior, that may or may not be true.

Last year, I watched the men’s World Cup. This year, upon learning that the U.S. women’s soccer team is no longer the dominant force, I watched women’s World Cup.

(The U.S. team’s whining about their pay turned me off from watching the Cup four years ago (I understand it as being a publicity stunt, probably thought of by a clever agent, that did make some of the players extra money through sponsorships, nevertheless…), and prior to that, I had a condescending attitude towards women’s soccer. I didn’t bother watching women’s soccer for the same reason I don’t bother watching high school football, but enjoy watching the NFL.

Interestingly, my 16-year old nephew and his sister, my 12-year old niece, both of which have been playing organized soccer for years, gave me a look of disdain when I asked them if they were watching the World Cup, as if to say—“It’s women’s soccer! Why would we?”)

But I found women’s World Cup entertaining. I especially found the games in which the Spanish team played entertaining. (I wasn’t rooting for the Spanish team, I was rooting for the Japanese team and I was disappointed when it lost to Sweden in elimination round.)

Many sports fans complain about soccer’s low scoring — “Low scoring is boring!” And the World Cup Final between Spain and England was as low as a decisive game can get without a shootout— 1-0. But the low scoring did not make the game boring because the skill of the Spanish team, and their opponent, made it fun to watch.

It was beautiful soccer. What made it beautiful is the skill with which the Spanish team passed the ball.

Most soccer fans are enamored with brilliant individual play that leads to goals. That is why players like Messi, Renaldo, Neymar, Mbappé, to name a few well known superstars, are so lionized.

But brilliant individual play, even by the most brilliant individual players, is rare in a game. If it does manifest, it lasts only moments of the total 90 minutes (or 120 minutes if there is overtime) of a game. And while it is goals that decide winners and losers, soccer’s beauty is not just about goal scoring. If that was the case, soccer would be boring and we ought just make the game into a penalty shootout. Each team gets twelve penalty kicks, one kick per player and the team that scores the most goals wins. The whole thing could take place in less than ten minutes and save us 80 minutes of watching a bunch of people running around on grass chasing a ball.

But soccer’s beauty IS about a bunch of people running around on grass chasing a ball. Or rather, it is in the flow and the rhythm that is generated by the way that the ball is passed from player to player to player with the purpose of producing an opportunity for a kick that will result in a goal.

Good passing requires high level of individual skill and an affinity between players that may sometimes seem preternatural, but is the result of talent, thousands of hours of practice, and willingness and belief.

Most exquisite and exciting is a fast combination of one-touch passes between three or more moving players. It is not easy. It requires precision and anticipation. It’s unpredictable. There are many false starts and many abrupt, awkward endings. But that is to be expected. Soccer’s is not the rehearsed routine of a dancer. And soccer players, unlike dancers, have to constantly deal with opponents trying to ruin their improvised routine.

Passing is a kind of a dance between multiple players. It is the passing of the ball that makes soccer a beautiful sport to watch and one of the most difficult sports to play. In no other sport does a player have to use her legs and her feet both for locomotion and for controlling the ball.

The way that the Spanish soccer team, the winners of this year’s women’s World Cup, passes the ball, with grace and rhythm, exemplifies the beauty of soccer.

Now, if we could convince enough women to appreciate soccer and to become as avid a fans of women’s soccer as so many men are of men’s soccer, then women soccer players would get the pay raise that they so long for. The problem is that most women are not beer guzzling simpletons who get excited watching silly children’s games. Most women get excited about different silly things. Or, the problem could be that most women are misogynists.

[mywebhero]

Unlock The Power Of PPC Management By Working With A Professional Agency Today!

Google ads are one of the fastest ways to generate revenue with an ROI that seems out of this world. However, they could also quickly burn your online marketing budget if you don't have a decent PPC management strategy.

Today's article will discuss PPC and how a professional PPC management company can help you execute and optimise a winning PPC strategy. Let's start with what PPC is and what it entails for a business owner like yourself.

What Do You Mean By PPC Management?

PPC management (pay-per-click management) is a term that usually refers to the process of running and managing a business's PPC advertising strategy, including its budget. You can either hire an in-house team to help manage your PPC efforts or work with a PPC management company that can help do the job for you. Remember, PPC is about improving and optimising ad campaigns to help you and your business get more value for your investment.

Why Does PPC Management Matter?

Pay-per-click management is essential since it enables you to manage your ad spending proactively. With a professional eCommerce PPC agency in the UK, you can quickly ensure your PPC ad's performance improves, giving you a better return on your investment.

There have been a lot of cases where a PPC campaign might start well and bring in the desired results. But, over time, they begin to underperform, taking away huge chunks of your budget without any significant effects. Sooner or later, you will see when the time arrives for you to hire a professional to help manage your campaign and boost your PPC ads performance!

Professionals Can Help You With Research And Analysis

Many free and paid tools are available online that help provide a list of keywords for you. Though you might find a few well-performing keywords using these free tools, we suggest you contact professionals who do this for a living if you want the best results.

A professional PPC agency in London will know how to properly test and analyse the data by taking the human element out of the decision-making. This allows their data to do the talking. The landscape of paid advertising is ever-evolving, and with new betas coming out each month, professionals can help keep your campaigns updated with all the latest changes.

Improved Scalability

You can quickly scale your business using PPC campaigns! Remember, the margin between the success or failure of your PPC campaign will be very small at the start. If you don't get your settings right, you might burn out your marketing budget very quickly with little to no results to show. The overall scalability of PPC can help you keep your costs low while also growing your client base. Managing your PPC ad campaign yourself with a limited marketing budget is an uphill battle.

A professional PPC agency will have all the knowledge of what would work best for your business. They will have access to simple updates that can significantly improve your ad's performance. In short, professionals can help your business reach more people with less money since they don't charge you more for their experience.

[ziggy-scardust]

OK, so. NASA has literally always contracted with private sector aerospace companies to launch things into space. Literally since its inception. Grumman built the Lunar Module for the Apollo Program. North American Aviation built the Command Module and the second stage of the Saturn V. SpaceX was a bit of a disruptor because they built much cheaper launch vehicles and broke the cost-plus contracting paradigm that heritage aerospace companies (your usual-suspect defense primes, Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Northrop Grumman etc.) had with the government which incentivized them to do a lot of things more slowly and less efficiently. SpaceX also went HARD on vertical integration, i.e. building most of their shit in-house and being scrappy about it. So far, so good. They lowered launch costs significantly. They managed reusable first stage and brought down costs a little more (not that much more, you understand, bc they were already undercutting their competitors.) First private company to dock with the ISS. Fair enough - it’s a slightly different paradigm than when the Shuttle was owned by NASA but still built mostly by private-sector contractors.

However. As someone who literally built and tested and negotiated with NASA on SpaceX’s Crew Dragon capsule. You’re disregarding what NASA actually does. And it would be straight-up impossible for us to have built Crew Dragon without the research & development NASA had done for decades. Everyone who was on the NASA end working on the contract WANTED us to succeed! That’s why they had their people, who had quite literally written the book on human spaceflight, work with us. For YEARS they advised us and shared knowledge and supplied decades’ worth of research and helped us identify “actually the reason it’s not done this way is bc we tried that and it was a bad idea, look at these test results” over and over.

NASA WANTS to contract with the private sector and wants to buy the launches from someone else and use their resources to run exploratory science missions of the kind the private sector won’t run (like the Mars rovers! Which by the way are a hell of a lot cheaper than most people think!) That’s what NASA does better than anyone else. And it shouldn’t get scrapped. They de-risk damn near EVERYTHING the private sector does in space.

Between NASA and the Department of Defense, most of SpaceX’s revenue is from federal contracts. As such, it’s pretty much impossible to see Elon’s rampage through the federal government and illegal access to its finances as anything other than gross corruption. He also hates NPR because, well, they don’t kowtow to him. (He demanded a lot of kowtowing even back in the day when I worked there, years ago now.) Comparing their funding doesn’t make a lick of sense. And despite the fact that I did good work that quite literally kept people alive, sometimes it bothers me that I loaned him a credibility he should not have (truuuuust me. That man is NOT a good engineer. Just a good cult-of-personality creator. I previously said he was a good slave-driver, but he’s not even really that, because he was never THERE even years ago.)

[hardynwa]

Reduce govt borrowing from CBN, W’Bank tells Nigeria

The World Bank Group has urged Nigeria to reduce government’s borrowing from the Central Bank if it wants to reduce the inflationary pressure on the economy. World Bank’s Lead Economist for Nigeria, Alex Sienaert, stated this on Thursday during an economic review session at the Lagos Business School. In his keynote presentation, Sienaert commended the government over its recent economic reforms, but noted that these reforms would have to be sustained for the economy to recover from present shocks and record considerable growth in the near future. He said, “The whole agenda of tackling inflation is obviously a huge one. Some ideas include reducing subsidised CBN lending to medium and large firms and the government borrowing from CBN. “All of these things increase the money supply and reducing that will be helpful to reduce inflation, and then replacing imports with FX restrictions with tariffs.” According to him, the fact that petrol price had significantly increased created pressure on the economy. He added that a variety of solutions would have to be devised in order to mobilise more revenue a way that spending would be increased to tackle the real priorities in the country He also stated that the Federal Government’s planned to disburse N8,000 as palliatives following the removal of fuel subsidy will increase the available earnings and income of about 50 per cent of Nigerians by 10 per cent. Seinart, said many Nigerians would benefit from the extra cash from the government, since it would ensure that they did not have to skip a meal, pull a child out of school, or not go to the hospital. He said, “The other thing we often hear is that N5,000 or N8,000 is a trivial amount of money. I think people will be shocked to know that for a huge number of Nigerian households, it is a very significant amount of money. Seinart explained that the amount the government would spend on the cash transfer was not an enormous amount of money when compared to what it will gain from subsidy removal. He noted, “I know what has been in the news is the idea of a N5,000 or an N8,000 cash transfer to needy households for about six months, if you look at that the cost of that it would be equivalent to just about one month worth of spending on the subsidy that happening before it was cancelled under the old exchange rates still less than two months’ worth under the new one. “So, it is not actually an enormous amount of resources relative to what is being freed up and it might just help many poor and vulnerable households get through this without having to do things that harm their prospects like pull a school out of school, or not go to the hospital, or skip a meal, whatever the case might be.” Recently, the President Bola Tinubu, disclosed that the Federal Government was planning to transfer N8,000 to 12 million poor households for a period of six months, to cushion the effect of fuel subsidy removal. Organised labour and some economists kicked against the plan. According to the Chairman, Nigeria Labour Congress, Lagos chapter, Mrs Funmi Sessi, the money would not help the average Nigerian. She said, “Looking at the money and the effect of the subsidy removal that has escalated the prices of everything in the market, I wonder what the N8,000 can do for a family in a month. “I wonder what it can buy and the services it can render for 30 days; N8,000 cannot take care of a family for a week; it is not possible; it is going to be like a drop of water in the ocean.” The Federal Government has since backtracked its plans and has said it is reviewing the plan. Read the full article

[nachoscheesy]

Tumblr Revival

Tl;dr

Tumblr has a large interconnected community of artists and content creators, and should focus on its strengths and what it does right. Instead of trying to compete for space against Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. Tumblr should focus on empowering its community and giving that community the tools to develop the site's unparalleled uniqueness.

Tumblr is the crossroads of the internet, with a monthly user traffic of 300 million it is the perfect space for artists, content creators, and small businesses to grow their following without having to fight for a seat at the table against companies with huge budgets.

Hi, I go by Nacho here on tumblr, and I'm sure as many of us on tumblr have noticed, the (hell)site is kinda going downhill. Tumblr was bought by Automattic in fall of 2019, and I am sure they have the best intentions to help tumblr stay afloat. However, I think it's time the community took a more deliberate approach to how tumblr is handled, and hopefully Automattic and @staff will hear us out. I think I have a solid solution to tumblrs money issues, that will help both the site and empower its online communities.

First and foremost, I am not involved with Tumblr or Automattic. I am just a simple blog trying to help out a place that I've been on since 2010, and I would hate to see it die here around 2023.

So, let's get to the root of the problem on tumblr right now. That being money, tumblr is currently costing more money that it produces, as we've seen with its 97% drop in value from 1.1 billion dollar sale to being sold at around 3 million dollars.

So the first thing that must be improved before anything else can be improved on tumblr is how much money they're bringing in a month. I don't think folks on tumblr hate monetization as much as we all collectively say we do, I think the issue is that most advertisers are completely disconnected from the groups they are trying to advertise to on here. Tumblr comprises roughly 65% millennials and 30% gen-z, the two generations that advertisers seem to have the hardest time advertising to for a myriad of reasons. The main one being that they don't fully understand what we want, and sometimes just don't listen to what we are saying.

Lets look at how tumblr makes its money, Tumblr has four main revenue sources,

Ads by sponsored posts

Display ads through video posts

Sponsored Day ads or banner ads

“Premium Themes”

I'll go into depth on all of these and how tumblr could make potential changes to improve their revenue anywhere from three to six months after it implements some or ideally all of these changes.

First tumblr ads and sponsored posts, these changes are going to be contingent on tumblr allowing its users to share, like, and comment on ads much like all other media sites currently allow. Or at least giving advertisers the ability to turn that on or off as a function.

The average tumblr post gets reblogged 14 times, that number increases significantly if the ad is engaging and actually caters to the communities wants and needs. My reasoning for giving users the ability to reblog ads is to increase user engagement while maintaining their current ad vetting process and all of the nonsensical ads that are run on tumblr 90% of the time.

The other reason for allowing tumblr users to share and comment on ads, or have it be an option for advertisers to turn on or off as they'd like, is that the appeal of tumblr is the ability to propagate and obsess over the most niche things (i.e OSHA.)

All the while allowing content that gets shared all over the internet bubble up to the top through the collective hand of the tumblr community. Along with this tumblr has no way for small users to share their own products or services, every single major site has a way for users to advertise their pages or products through the site.

Tumblr is a content machine that creates imagery and memes that get shared all the time across the internet, so the ability to share and curate its own ads is paramount to improving advertising and user engagement on tumblr.

My proposal here is for tumblr to expand its advertising capabilities to all users, while charging a flat rate fee to advertise on tumblr, with additional charges for popular tags or trending tags. Tumblr currently has no self service advertising system much like Facebook does for example. Where facebook charges a daily rate on cost-per-click(CPC) or cost-per-thousand(CPM)

Charging a flat rate fee at a rate of a day, week, month, or quarterly basis with variances in prices based on the lease term and what the advertisers would want to have their ads show up on certain tags. This would open up the doors for small businesses that don't want to advertise on places like facebook, twitter, or google with their complicated CPM and CPC models. Also bringing in more small locally owned businesses with the added value of less competition for ad space on tumblr.

This would also take some of the weight from tumblrs own advertising staff from having to explain a convoluted system to potential advertisers. Creating a simplified model with the the advent of tumblrs own infrastructure able to get a single post to a large variety of users. Where the current ad model uses a ���shotgun” method to hit as many people as possible, the tumblr model could encourage advertisers to curate a more personalized and intimate experience that tumblr users would love.

Why not just advertise elsewhere? Tumblr still in fact gets over 300 million views a month as of June 2021 (Statosta), and the added benefit for users to be able to like, share, and interact with ads would allow ads that the community enjoys to be talked about more. Giving advertisers more honest feedback about their ads while increasing their SEO’s.

Also small businesses that can't compete with the vetting processes that are used on other sites, would have a better chance of developing their business and increasing their clientele on tumblr whose core demographics are approximately 60% millennial and 35% gen-z. This core demographic does in fact care about being able to shop at local stores, or even a store across the US that is trying to drum up its own online sales.

These ads could be placed inline on the tumblr dash while moving other sponsored ads to the right of the site on desktop, but making them alternate on mobile between user ads and sponsored ads.

Second, the display ads should be changed to allow tumblr users to share and further interact with ads to generate more user engagement, incentivizing more businesses and companies to build their brand status on tumblr. Tumblr has a good model for creating short diaries or daily vlogs for companies that wish to show off their products on social media. This includes smaller businesses and vlogers that want to post videos or tutorials of themselves on their blog.

Tumblr is a good site for user engagement with a pool of creative potential for anyone wanting to gauge the desire for a particular subject or piece of media, maybe even an upcoming show. Having the ability to share and comment on sponsored ads would also help advertisers by allowing them to get more bang for their buck with a considerable uptick on how users engage with that content.

Third, tumblrs sponsor day ads and banner ads are inexpensive and should be highlighted as a selling point over their competitors. Tumblr 24-hour banner ads are considerably more affordable for businesses when compared to places like twitter with their 200k price point. For the same amount of money on tumblr a business could have their company at the top of the dashboard or app for 8 whole days. Much longer and much better than the competition.

Keeping this price fixed, with a change in the price CPC is still a much more lucrative and attractive selling point than any of the competition on the internet today. I know this might not be exactly what tumblr wants to hear when it is hemorrhaging money right now, but let's look at the cost for these 24 hour daily ads and banner ads. If tumblr hypes up the price point on these ads they could see a significant rise in advertisers considering the lack of competition on tumblr and past success stories of companies who did advertise on tumblr.

At the same time larger advertisers should be encouraged to make engaging ads and blogs on tumblr that will make people want to actually go to their blogs, that then link to an external site or page. Not ads that instantly try to force you to go to some other site, by rewarding or offering special discounts for people who find a special code or something off of the actual blog. Or even for giving the same code to everyone who reblogs a certain post made by the advertiser.

Seems too good to be true? Look at “Asos” back in 2015 when they held a shirt design competition on their tumblr blog. Where they had 900 submissions, four of which were picked, and were sold out of the user generated shirts in 10 hours.

This is not the only case however, but FX ran their own campaign for the show “Man Seeking Woman” where they saw a 2.8% increase in user engagement, 86% increase in their tumblr followers, and they actually saved money through advertising on tumblr.

All this leads me to believe that tumblr actually was and continues to be the best place for brands, small businesses, and artists to develop themselves through genuine user engagement.

Finally, the “premium themes” that are available on tumblr that allow for unparalleled customizations that you hardly find elsewhere on the internet anymore. Tumblrs ability to take a variety of media sources, as well as having an unparalleled level of customization, user interconnectivity, and a vibrant artistic scene shows that it is ripe with potential.

Tumblr could still use its post+ feature, but in the same way that Discord uses its subscription service. For cosmetic changes that can be added modularly to the site or individual blogs for an additional monthly fee. In conjunction with partnering with community artists to bring small cosmetic additions to individual blogs, while paying the content creator and tumblr taking a small portion of the profits over a certain amount.

To be completely honest this is probably the hardest portion of this entire pitch to make changes to in a shorter period of time, considering all the testing and “under the hood” changes that must be made. However, I think that implementing this as well as the other changes I have proposed will bring back more foot traffic to tumblr as well as increase its revenue and profitability.

In closing, I am simply working with whatever information I was able to find online and a good amount of time invested on my part to do this. I think tumblr has a ton of potential still to return as a force for good for the communities that exist and want a change from what the internet has become. Time and time again when any company or public entity dies it was because it did not change and refused to adapt and innovate, oftentimes not at the hands of the people working everyday to keep the site running. Instead at the hands of people who dont see the value in what has fallen in their laps.

If you agree and think this is something that can be done, please reblog this post and follow me for more updates. If I don't hear back or this does not gain any traction by the end of the year, then tumblr can go to its inevitable end. I will be here sinking with the ship.

@support @engineering @music @wip @changes @photomatt

[anarchomando]

Finally the stormtrooper corps,

the final part of this series of the four armies of the galactic Empire.

The stormtrooper corps(this is from a stormtrooper fanboy)

What more is there to say about the stormtrooper corps that hasn't been said, they're the Glorious protectors of the empire. The men and women who protected the Empire with their life sworn oath to it's protection.

They are the sword to the Imperial Navy and army shield!

Able to bee sent as shocked troops. Quickly and easily capturing a Target.

It should be worth noting, when it comes to Stormtroopers, Galactic Empire only chooses the best and those that fit a certain physical criteria

1.85 meters height is considered the optimal height ratio for a stormtrooper. Pushing under 1.82m be considered unable to fit the stormtrooper armor without hindrance.

There would be no point in paying for customized armor.

That and the waight to muscle density ratio also came into play and you created a military branch that likely wouldn't appeal to nonhumans and women

This does not help in the work environment

it should be noted that there are female Stormtroopers, a lot of them they're in the same outfit as everyone else. slight differences but nobody is going to notice

It should be worth noting, the empire did not discourage the existence of people under the "queer spectrum",

official policy States "so long as they are two consenting adults off duty, in the comfort of Their own barracks. They are allowed to fornicate however they please. However should this get in the way of Imperial duty, and get in the way of the lives of others this right will be revoked."

you could be queer, you just had to do it in your own home because at work defending the Glorious lives of everybody in the Empire is more important than your sex life. You signed the contracted

The empire was also not privy to actually do anything about the homophobic planets or cultures, truly just because of doctrine of austerity.

(definitely not the money and tax dollars, was definitely notnot wanting a homophobic planet to revolt losing that revenue. no don't look at the IRS data)

Whoever because of this strict requirement most of the dropouts if they still want to join the Imperial Armada as one of their glorious figures, usually end up as as a mud trooper,

significantly less glorious than a stormtrooper. But honorable nonetheless.

The stormtrooper corp is headed by the one and only Darth Vader!

They are glorious Angel of Death against the tyrannical rebellious scum!

Head of the elites squadron the 501st ( or Vader's fist as meny call it

Being apart of Vader's fist is the dream of every impiral storm trooper truly aspires for!

Meny boots have died or have killed to be in the battalion. But Vader only takes the best!

Now it's Said that that storm trooper are only crayon eating jarheads that can't shoot for shit and are just a department of the Imperial navy. that is blatantly false we can shoot fare better then compforce soldiers.

ceremonials uniform

which was spawned off of the clones

the trooper blues, far more refine then the filthy imperial army or navy ceremonial uniform

come and join the empire today!

(A/n a major influence of the empire is the amarican empire, especially endor

also I couldn't find any true official ceremonial uniform,

[qonqr]

I’m Still Here

Many of you may have been asking yourself where did Silver go? Is anyone still working on QONQR?  I admit I’ve been very quiet the past year and from the outside, it looks like not much is going on.

 Before I give my QONQR update I want to share a major accomplishment for me. I’m a little less of a hoarder than I was a month ago. As the 11th year anniversary approached, I decided I had too much old QONQR merchandise I needed to get in the hands of my players. However, I hate shipping. I should be the spokesperson for one of those shipping providers that make shipping easy because I hate doing it so much. Many of you know that the player Rayndel has an Etsy store where she sells QONQR merchandise with my permission. I sent her a 65lb (30kg) box of QONQR stuff. Coffee cups, T-shirts, dog tags and stickers. She is liquidating all of it for me. You can find it all right here.

https://www.etsy.com/shop/DragonHoardCrafts?section_id=19648949

 2020 and 2021 have been challenging for most people, and I’m no exception.  Both our kids are off to college. We are getting older and so are our extended families. Medical issues become more frequent for us and them. The stress of the pandemic doesn’t help. There are days when I can sit at my computer all day, and never write a line of code. Things are hard, they impact our ability to work as hard as we once did.

 A little over two weeks ago, QONQR hit its 11th birthday. The milestone passed quietly. I always spend time reflecting on how QONQR has changed my life and the stories you’ve shared about how it has changed yours. We’ve built something great together. Together we keep it going.

 Despite outward appearances. Things are happening at QONQR. I am working, albeit at an admittedly slow pace. I’ve let go of the stress of pushing QONQR as fast as I can, and instead I’m working on QONQR at a pace that is comfortable. It is important to me and my family that I end my day without being drained of all my energy by the awful decisions and quality that Apple and Google hand me every day.

 The next release of QONQR will include the following features. Many of these are mostly done, so I’m happy to share them, with the caveat that I have no idea when these will actually hit the store. Tons of testing is still needed.

 New Sync Lock Rules

 Sync lock will now last much longer, perhaps a week or even a month before it automatically expires. Along with that Sync Lock Protection will also last longer. The more times you gain sync lock protection, the longer it will last. We want to protect legitimate family members from daily locks, but also want to avoid situations where multi-scoper can get infrequent help to unlock an army of devices and accounts. In addition to longer locks, Sync lock may also hurt resource collection with your bases depending on how play testing goes.

 As with everything pertaining to multi-scoping, it is a blurry line between stopping those who play unfair, and those that are punished for inviting family and friends to play.

 Notifications

I have wanted push notifications for most of the past 10 years. In fact, we were very close to having them implemented about 5-7 years ago, but Google changed their push notification system. We used a unified messaging system created by Microsoft to push to both Google and Apple simultaneously. There were incompatibilities between the new and the old Google system for a long time. We gave up on trying to finish that implementation back then, waiting for Google and Microsoft to get their stuff fixed, and it was years before it became a priority again.

 I spent most of the past 3-4 months working on notification. This area is quite possibly one of the worst technical implementations I’ve had to work with in all my time working in software. For example, if you kill an iPhone application, you also remove the ability to get push notifications until the next time you start the app. It appears to be almost random when Android will decide to beep your phone when receiving a notification, and when it will be silently added to the notification center. For both Apple and Google, the documentation is frustratingly inaccurate or out of date. There are multiple different ways a notification can be processed depending on whether the application was terminated by the user, suspended by the operating system, in the background or in the foreground. Was the notification scheduled locally or sent from a remote server?  Honestly, as a developer, it would be difficult to purposely design a worse system.

 The good news is that I believe I have it working as good as it can possibly work. In the next release you will be able to enable or disable notifications as a whole, or selectively choose which notification you want to receive. Notifications will include: Atlantis, New Wire messages, Mentions in Chat and Forums, Bots and Bases Full.

 A Major Overhaul to the Scope

The changes to Sync Lock mandated that overheat have additional logic to control bots and energy regeneration. More significantly, if we want to have a notification that your scope is full, so I needed to know exactly when the scope would be full.  Currently your regeneration rate is based on the number of launches in the past hour. Launching a few seconds before or after an old launch rolls off that 1 hour mark can mess up the prediction of when you will be full again. To make that prediction accurately, without checking every minute to see, “Are my bots full now”, we changed the formula for when bots will be full, and scheduled a notification based on that time.

 The new regeneration is very similar to the old, but we predict you may get 1 or 2 more launches per hour. I’m hedging the formula towards more not fewer launches to make sure this is seen as a positive change.

 As long as we are messing with the scope, let’s talk about the Bot Regen Accelerator.  Hard core players have pointed out that players who launch on a timer, always hitting the “optimal” launch interval, don’t gain any advantage when purchasing this $0.99 upgrade. In the new release this upgrade will reduce your overheat level by 1 level and you will never be in maximum overheat due to deploying bots. The impact of the upgrade will be noticeable by everyone with this change. The name of this upgrade will probably change to “Scope Coolant” or “Heat Diffuser”. Send me your name ideas.

  Subscriptions, Ads and Elite Players

This is a change that probably won’t be in the next release, but it is something I’m thinking about before the end of the year. Apple has had a bug in their subscription logic for years. If you purchase a subscription on an iPhone, then get a new iPhone, you need to cancel the subscription in the App Store, then renew from your new phone. Apple keeps charging you, but the new device can’t see the subscription, so QONQR doesn’t know you are a subscriber. Why wouldn’t Apple fix this? Well Apple only takes half the percentage of a subscription after the first year. By making you start a new subscription, they can double their cut of the money you pay QONQR for the subscription. Another problem with subscriptions is that they result in many support requests because they honestly aren’t 100% reliable in either Apple or Google’s implementation.

 Many people know that earlier in the year, Apple introduced a change to advertising that blocks tracking. This is great in theory, and I get it as a consumer that I don’t like to be tracked, but this tracker blocking also blocks my ability to make any revenue on advertising. Why would I continue to give away free advertising?

 Elite players are those that have spent over $100 in QONQR over the life of their gaming experience. Over the years the benefits of being “Elite” have dwindled. Features have changed, and incentives have ended. I’d like to invest more time and energy to build features for players that continue to support QONQR but I think it makes more sense to lower the bar and make the benefits for “active” spenders.

 With these three things in mind, there is a chance that QONQR will move to a monthly “pass” option rather than a subscription. There seems to be a trend with games, where players buy a monthly pass that offers benefits, rather than using subscriptions. Subscriptions are buggy and in the case of Apple, a shady business practice.

 The same benefits available to subscribers would remain under the “pass”, but you would have to explicitly purchase the pass each month.  Secondary missions may move to the “pass” model with non-pass players getting only a handful of secondary missions per month. Ads would be completely removed from the app in this scenario since they no longer generate much revenue.

  What’s in the Plans for 2022?

 If you have read my blog over the years, you know that Apple and Google make it harder and harder to stop cheating (primarily multi-scoping).  It is being reported that Windows 11 will have the ability to run Android apps. I don’t know yet how that will impact QONQR, but I’m guessing it won’t be good. At best it will have no impact because I’ll be able to stop QONQR from running on Windows, at worst it could be a nightmare.

 March 2022 will mark the 10 year anniversary QONQR hit the Apple App Store. I can say with a high level of confidence that QONQR is now the longest running location-based, multi-platform, mobile game.

 Personally, I think 2022 needs to be a transformational year for QONQR. I’m not sure we can survive if the game doesn’t change. Apple, Google, and Microsoft have never cared about supporting mobile developers. Outrageous fees and abusive rules (recently acknowledged by the US Congress) have been part of the ecosystem from the start. There are dozens of apps that you can download from the official Google Play store that make it a simple tap to attempt to hack and manipulate an Android app, so players can do something the developer is attempting to prohibit. Once again Microsoft broke the tools I use to help secure the app from hackers, causing weeks of work to find a solution that would maintain the same level of security.�� Apple and Google both purposely hide information from developers that would help them ensure real people are using their apps instead of bots. They do this under the façade of privacy, but ignore simple solutions that could maintain privacy, while helping developers ensure the integrity of how their apps are used.

 I’ve said for years, the only way to stop hackers and cheaters in QONQR is to make it irrelevant. That requires a major shift in gameplay. Together, you the players and me the developer, we need to decide if we want QONQR to have such a major shift. I don’t know what that shift would look like, but 2022 might be the year we figure it out.

 2020 was a year of making sure QONQR can survive. Through tons of work that year, massive software rewrites and updates, I was able to cut the cost of hosting QONQR. Today the cost of hosting QONQR all year, matches what we spent in three months during 2019. So far 2021 has been a year of slow work toward significant improvements to the game, but without major strategic impact to your daily playing. I’ve taken my time to avoid burn out. I’m enjoying the pace of my current work week. It has been good for my family and me.

 I’m not sure what 2022 will look like for QONQR yet, but I’m excited to try something new. Maybe we’ll break things, maybe we will create something ten times better than what we have had for the last decade. Time will tell. We’ll figure it out together.

 Thanks for keeping the lights on.

-Scott (aka Silver)

[bubbyyerrr]

Broken Bow and Hochatown

5 Senses

Audio Reading:  https://drive.google.com/file/d/1PT2nvmg6Rn5rwvz6lqsgjeFvF_iRNzVz/view?usp=drivesdk

         Broken Bow and Hochatown look like a run-down Hallmark representation of a small town in the country. There are trees and wildlife everywhere and the lake and rivers are clear and (for the most part) free of pollution. The scenery changes a bit when hundreds of tourists crowd the one road and every camping spot along the lake, but they all seek the same middle-of-nowhere getaway.  The smell of Broken Bow- pine trees mixed with lake water and grills- persists through tourism's popularity.

           Broken Bow feels like a hot, sticky air constantly surrounding you and eventually being cleared by the breeze being carried above the soft waves of the lake. It feels like the first breath of fresh air when you step through the door of your home after a long workday. It sounds like high schoolers’ trucks with enlarged mufflers black-smoking and letting everybody in the neighborhood know that they have arrived. Broken Bow sounds like the warm hellos of a people that have known each other their whole lives because it seem like everybody here has.

           Broken Bow tastes like a confusing amount of Tex-Mex mixed with fast food and the occasional good burger. It tastes like local coffee beans and homemade ice cream. Broken Bow encapsulates the full feeling of a summertime feel good movie. The sights, smells, sounds, tastes, and feelings are all quite familiar to me, to the point where I have taken them each for granted. It feels of something unique and treasured by many for its beauty in the small things.

My Love for the Small Town

My experience with Broken Bow and Hochatown is substantial, seeing as I have lived there for the majority of my life. The irony is that I had to leave for college to realize its significance and impact on my life. In high school I was more than a little frustrated with my place of living. The “city” of Broken Bow had nothing for teenagers to do throughout the year. I wanted a bowling alley, a laser tag arena, a coffee shop, or anything else that a bigger city had. In high school, my friends and I would go to a parking lot adjacent to the Wal-Mart parking lot and sit in one person’s car and listen to music and talk. If we were not spending the night and playing video games, then this was our next best option in our eyes.

           I suppose there is a charm to its uniqueness, but I was quite blind to it having only experienced its lack of activities compared to other places. Teenagers of Broken Bow have it easy now. There are two coffee shops and a bowling alley is coming to Hochatown, I would not be at all surprised if a laser tag arena was soon to follow! I am quite happy with it, despite my obvious previous frustrations, however. I now experience it in mediation as a place to escape, as many many others have.

Sustain the Environment

Broken Bow and Hochatown should be preserved as an escape to pure nature with minimalized pollutants in the water and air. My hope is that every tourist that visits would share my view and take care of the environment of the small town. People visit this place because of the clear water and sense of peace with being surrounded by nature, and if that were to be ruined or contaminated, people would come here less and drastically decrease the business that the town has thrived from. The State Park of Beaver’s Bend is well protected, but I encourage anyone staying in cabins or camping to treat the nature around you kindly so that it may continue to welcome others who visit.

Come Visit you City Slickers

I would encourage anybody that has never been to Broken Bow/Hochatown to visit with a plan of activities for each day. Floating the river is a very popular choice among tourists and locals, and there are plenty of canoe and kayak rental places that will take you to the river and pick you up when you have finished your route. It is a great way to spend the day in the sun and water and encourages little competitions among families and friends or a peaceful journey for the lone wolf types. I would encourage newcomers to the area to come in with a fresh conviction to take a step away from staring at screens all the time. Beauty is not found in the lens of a camera but the purity of the moment captured by not only the sight but the sounds and feelings of the moment.

Source: https://www.vrbo.com/vacation-rentals/usa/oklahoma/broken-bow?noDates=true&k_clickid=CjwKCAjwuvmHBhAxEiwAWAYj-KvnJaKnEyvEjDVLuL5DySkqXXfVUSPAfUCi1V3-TquPPPTnJW-GCRoCFacQAvD_BwE&ds_cid=71700000080047762&ds_kids=p60860309934&ds_kid=39700060860309934&ksprof_id=700000002166899&ksdevice=c&ktarget=dsa-1183032255545&kloct=&klocf=9026684&ds_aid=58700006721571344&ha_t=:g:&gclid=CjwKCAjwuvmHBhAxEiwAWAYj-KvnJaKnEyvEjDVLuL5DySkqXXfVUSPAfUCi1V3-TquPPPTnJW-GCRoCFacQAvD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds

Covid Changes to Broken Bow

Whenever the pandemic hit, Broken Bow initially followed a soft lockdown and the majority of residents did not leave their homes as frequently. After a few people got it and got over it, however, this changed for the entire town. Many people ceased to take it seriously or their view of the virus became “If I get it I get it”.

Broken Bow and Beaver's Bend are located in an overwhelmingly conservative area of the United States. With that being said, you can imagine that many things did not change in Broken Bow for the most part. Our Wal-Mart asked people to wear masks, but they were ignored, and no employees enforced the mask policy or social distancing. While the franchise restaurants, excluding two, stayed the same and flourished from drive-thru and delivery experiences, the “Mom and Pop” restaurants were hit quite hard by the initial drop in business. One of our biggest, most-frequented restaurants in town, Papa Poblanos, was heavily impacted at first, but they introduced an “Order Online” option that brought a significant chunk of their revenue back to normal.

As the virus progressed and calmed down, tourism has spiked back almost as intensely as it dropped. The cabin businesses faired very well, as did all of the attractions in Hochatown. Every store and restaurant you go to, it is quite easy to point out who is a tourist and who is a local based on who has a mask and who does not. Throughout the rise and fall of the virus, Broken Bow has managed to maintain an optimistic attitude, and gives tourists from all over a safe haven to escape.

All of the following photos are from Broken Bow photographer, Matt Cameron. Matt has done photography for multiple cabins and the other photos are of Broken Bow lake, Mountain Fork River and a mountain in the Broken Bow area. Each photo is from his account on instagram, @cameronphotography.ok Link: https://www.instagram.com/cameronphotography.ok/

Now that you’ve been Convinced

1.     Prepare your budget. You should not worry about money on your vacation/detox so save money where you can, to enjoy it later.

2.     Gather your party. Do you have a group of people or your family that you’d love to escape with? If you’re going alone, this step is significantly less important.

3.     Prepare your mind and body for a change by adapting sleep and thought patterns. It can be very difficult to not think about work or other things while vacationing, so prepare yourself.

4.     Let people know ahead of time that you will not be on your phone as much (hopefully not at all).

5.     Look for the perfect place to stay. There are hundreds of cabins in Broken Bow, so find one you love!

6.     Reach out to the cabin booking services and talk about your favorite place. Get a good relationship with them so if you need anything while there, they can oblige easily.

7.     Look into possible activities that you think you might enjoy. While there is some awesome stuff to do here, you may not be able to do it all, so prioritize as much as possible!

8.     Plan out your days ahead of time. Make an itinerary if wanted, but do not be too strict with the timelines.

9.     Pack well! Your vacation is almost here, but do not get too overzealous and forget something. Make a list ahead of time and add on as the time gets closer.

10.  Make a banger playlist. No trip is complete without tunes to jam to. That road anticipation can be alleviated with some sick beats.

11.     Practice your most hick accent on the way. This step is crucial.

12.     As you arrive, just throw your bags on the bed and go eat! Get some experience and good food on the first day. My highest of recommendations to Grateful Head.

13.     Get that phone out of here! You will ruin it in all the water around here anyways!

14.     Enjoy every moment of the day. If you need a nap, take it. If you want a snack, you deserve it. Stick to the itinerary, but if something goes off schedule, that is okay! That is why you prioritized!

15.     Take a walk or a few out in nature before you go. You can take some time away from the constant distractions from everyday life and actually think in the sounds of nature. A vacation is nothing without a proper detox.

My blog over Broken Bow was an interesting one. I have written about my hometown before but never in this capacity and to this magnitude. My focus on the hometown and not so much the important events of my life in them was strange but welcome. My blog served as an homage to the place I grew up, even though I have not been overly fond of it. It became an appreciation of the roots of my parents and grandparents.

The colors used on my blog were the default colors of Tumblr. I am not sure how customizable the layout of blogs on Tumblr are. The pictures I used that I am proud of are the pictures of Matt Cameron, a wonderful photographer friend of mine. I wanted my blog to reflect a familiar place of peace that you could go to to collect your thoughts. The audience for my blog is people who have never visited Broken Bow or Hochatown before.

I put my blog together just assignment by assignment as I went through them. I feel it is strong in capturing the beauty of a small town getaway. The blog does not accurately depict the frustrations of limited activities there. I could relate the blog to my college career because of the surprising amount of musically talented people in Broken Bow. It honestly does not have much to relate to apart from the musically inclined people there.

This post was for Dr. Hembrough’s ENG 3903 course.

[thesewomenrulemyworld]

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But putting these accounting shenanigans aside, let�s see what the more conservative calculation of a 16. 4% return means. If I had invested my $186,000 into the S&P500 last July, I would have gained 5% ($9,300) as that�s the amount the index was up over that period. Just a month earlier, that number would have been in negative territory as the index was lower. In contrast, I locked in my revenue after each options trade was closed. I love that my profit is a real number added to the cash portion in my brokerage account rather than an abstraction based on the market trending higher. Another point to note regarding the capital at risk is that it doesn�t need to be sitting in your account in the form of cash. It will absolutely provide peace of mind if that�s the case, but you can invest it as you like to boost your returns. When I started this a year ago, my broker was paying me 1. 9% for idle USD in the account, so I was quite happy leaving it. However, that�s obviously not the case anymore, with interest rates at zero. But I could allocate that money into some safe dividend stocks and boost my returns that way. Which is somewhat the approach I�m taking. My Path ForwardTrading options may sound sexy, but it�s pretty tedious. I�ve entered over a thousand executions into my spreadsheet this past year, which is something I LOVE doing. I used to have to make manual trade confirmations at work. Now I do it to record my profits!I feel like a kid counting pennies added to his piggy bank. Except this one pays to feed my family!That said, the more you learn, the more you realize how little you know. And that�s how I feel right now. Rather than patting myself on the back for profiting this past year, I feel hesitant to be proud. I realize how little I know and that I�m merely scratching the surface of the knowledge I need to feel fully confident in trading options for a living.

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Not surprisingly, I GOT SICK of pushing the damn buttons. And I fantasized about making money from home instead. I read success stories of people starting a side hustle that allowed them to quit their job. I even knew a couple. But I couldn�t figure out what my side hustle superpower could be until I stumbled upon options trading. Trading options was something I considered for people with insane levels of intelligence. And unfortunately, that isn�t me. When I took the GMAT exams to apply for grad school, I scored in the top ten percentile for verbal (Yaaaay English Lit Class!) but the bottom ten for math. People were shocked when they found I worked in finance. Not surprisingly, I didn�t end up applying for grad school�But I said f*ck it. I�m gonna see if I can learn this options trading thing. And a year after trying it out, I�ve made $29,753. Here�s how it all went down. Discovering Stock OptionsI love reflecting on significant life changes you can pinpoint to a single event � that so-called fork in the road. In this story, it was a chance meeting with my first boss in the financial industry. The guy that mentored and taught me how to trade stocks in the first place. For the purpose of this post, I�m going to refer to him as Suzy. While at work one day, Suzy reached out, saying he was in Hong Kong with his family (where I was working at the time) and wanted to catch up for a beer. I had completely lost touch with him ever since he left the industry a few years prior to this meeting. I was both excited and curious to see what he was up to. After the usual formalities and a beer in, I asked him. He responded by saying, �I trade options for a living. �I was confused. My face resembled a deer in headlights doing a Derek Zoolander impression. He tried to explain the gist of it, but it was way over my head. All I could think of were the words �I trade options for a living� as I furrowed my eyebrows for the rest of the night. And then I went back to my button-pushing existence the next day. But this thing about options trading kept tugging at me in the back of my mind. I spent a few months reading up on it to understand some basic concepts. Once I felt I knew just enough to ask some not completely retarded questions, I emailed Suzy. For the next two years, I read through some pretty heavy and dry material while taking extensive notes.

options trading alerts Arkansas My introduction to options was selling them.

The risk of long calls and long puts is that the price fails to move far enough in the right direction, and the options expire worthless or fail to cover the full cost of the premiums, resulting in a trading loss on the position. Bull Call SpreadA bull call spread involves the purchase of call options at one strike price and the writing of the same number of call options with the same expiration date but a moderately higher strike price. The profit from a bull call spread is maximized when the price of the security reaches slightly under the strike price of the written options, so that the written options expire worthless while the purchased options can be exercised for the maximum value within the window of the written options expiring worthless. The downside in a bull call spread is protected when both options expire worthless, but the premium gained from the written options helps to reduce the loss from the premium paid for the purchased options. Bull call spreads are used when a trader has confidence in the direction of an upcoming price change, but not in its intensity. If a trader foresees only a small increase in the price of a security, then they can capitalize on that small increase by purchasing call options while also limiting any potential downside and reducing the cost of the premiums paid by writing options at a higher strike price that is unlikely to be reached. The downside to the bull call spread is, of course, that any potential upside beyond the projected price increase is limited due to the corresponding increase in the cost to cover the written call options. Bear Put SpreadA bear put spread is the exact opposite of a bull call spread, where the trader purchases put options and also sells the same number of put options with the same expiry date but a moderately lower strike price. The profit from a bear put spread is maximized when the price of the underlying security reaches slightly above the strike price of the written put options, which means that the written options expire worthless while the value of the purchased options is maximized within the window of the written options expiring without value. The downside to a bear put spread is limited to the premium paid for the purchased options less the premium gained from the written options, which occurs when both of the options expire worthless. Traders use the bear put spread when they want to bet on a moderate decline in the price of a security. The premiums gained from the written options help to offset any potential losses if the security fails to fall in price significantly, and they are added to the profits if the price falls within the window of the written options expiring without value. However, the upside to a bear put spread is limited by the cost of the written options increasing as the security continues to fall in value past the written put options� strike price. Option Strategies StraddleA straddle option strategies involves the purchase of call options and put options at the same strike price, usually the current price of the security, and the same expiration date. Long StraddleA straddle option trade will profit when the price of the security changes enough in either direction to compensate for the cost of both the call options� and put options� premiums. Option traders use the straddle options strategy when they are unsure about the direction of an upcoming price change, but are confident in the intensity of the price change. While this kind of situation can arise for a variety of reasons, straddles are most often used when there is a significant event that is set to occur on or around a specific date. Press conferences and news releases are common events where traders expect significant price changes, but are not confident about the direction of the price change. Straddles can offer relatively low cost access to substantial profits with little downside risk, which is merely that the price change is not significant enough to cover the cost of both premiums. StrangleA strangle options strategy is similar to a straddle, but it uses the simultaneous purchase of call options and put options at different strike prices. This spread in the strike prices means that the underlying security needs to move more substantially for one of the options to be in the money, but the premium cost for purchasing the options is lower in the case of a strangle because the options are purchased out of the money. An option trader will use the strangle options strategy when they believe that the upcoming price change will be significant, but they are unsure of the direction. This situation occurs in the same sort of events as are popular for the straddle strategy, but the trader is more confident that the change in price will be extreme. The strangle can expire worthless, unlike a straddle, but the lower initial outlay on premiums means that a strangle may actually cost loss in the event of a loss than a straddle will with only a small change in price. The strangle also has a much stronger upside potential due to the lower initial premium cost and the greater potential value increase for options that were purchased out of the money. ButterflyThe butterfly options strategy involves the sale of call or put options at a given strike price, usually at the current price, matched by an equal number of purchased call or put options equidistant from the strike price. For example, if a trader sold 2 call options at $40, they would buy one call option at $45 and another at $35 to match the 2 written options sold. In this example, the loss from the trade would be maximized at either $35 or $45, while the trade would be profitable somewhere between the $35 to $45 range. The profit from the butterfly position would be maximized at $40. Options traders use the butterfly option strategy when they wish to bet on little or no upcoming price change. The purchased options act as a form of insurance against major price changes, putting a ceiling on the potential losses from the trade.

how to get approved for options trading td ameritrade Arkansas One of the main concepts in trading options is �rolling,� and it�s something I had to learn when the market dropped significantly enough to put most of my trades underwater, just a month into trading.

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Many options traders consider themselves to be in the insurance industry. I was in awe as I read the book: The Option Traders Hedge Fund. The central premise from the author is how an options trader is a one-person insurance company, operating a solo business. The insurance business is summed up in a few bullet points:Calculating the risk for insurance policies soldReceiving adequate premiums for those insurance policiesPurchasing �re-insurance� to protect against tail-end risks like natural disasters, e. g. , flooding.

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[askagamedev]

On the Prince of Persia leaked pitch that you linked - any idea why it didn't get greenlit? What would you have changed about the pitch?

There was one major issue I saw with it when I first looked at it, and an additional major issue that I read about from a developer who was at Ubisoft at the time. You must also keep in mind that the time frame was around 2012, putting us late in the PS3/XB360 era, a full two years before the PS4 and Xbone releases. The biggest games of 2012 were games like Mass Effect 3, Assassin’s Creed 3, Diablo 3, Borderlands 2, Halo 4, Black Ops 2, and Far Cry 3. Games like Skyrim, Batman: Arkham City, Dark Souls, Deus Ex: Human Revolution, and Battlefield 3 had come the year before. Online multiplayer and huge open world games were extremely popular.

The first major issue I saw was that the gameplay looked like a linear narrative single player experience. There was very little freedom of exploration in the demo, leaning on elements like terrain falling apart and things breaking as the player progressed through the demo. There was no sense of the player backtracking or exploration or even stopping to consider different paths to take. Instead, the demo exhibited an ever-present sense of “keep moving forward” to get to the end of the level. That style of game is not great for generating engagement, especially from a third party publisher like Ubisoft. The lack of continued engagement also means that there’s a lot less opportunity for additional monetization. As a comparison point, Assassin’s Creed 3 (2012) was the latest of Ubisoft’s games at the time with both microtransactions and online multiplayer. A game like that would require a pretty massive team (100+ people), and would need additional monetization to make it worthwhile from an investment perspective.

The second major issue that I learned about is that Jordan Mechner, creator of the original Prince of Persia games, apparently still retains the rights to the Prince of Persia property. Securing the license from Mechner for another game would necessitate paying Mechner some portion of the game’s revenue, which makes the publisher’s profit margins that much thinner. This could be offset by sales volume if they could sell enough copies, but the Prince of Persia franchise at the time had been declining for some time. Ubisoft tried to reboot the franchise in 2008 with a more open-world backtracking-friendly game, but that Prince of Persia did not have a great reception and was retired in favor of the Assassin’s Creed franchise. 

I’m not entirely sure if I could fix the pitch without significantly changing the core gameplay. The major industry goals at the time were high engagement through either multiplayer or open world gameplay, and additional monetization. If I were leading the team, I’d probably have tried building some sort of multiplayer Prince of Persia-style gameplay (e.g. races, battle arenas, etc.) that would have emphasized things like mid-air acrobatic combat and free-form parkour-style level traversal in dynamic environments while avoiding hazards. 

Combat would probably be focused on happening during continuous movement - fighting while running, jumping, climbing, falling, etc. and slowing down opponents by tripping them up or knocking them into pits can be just as important as killing them, so that the player can reach the goal first. Imagine something like this, but also wall running and climbing and jumping and such at the same time. 

Simultaneous traversal and combat. Mix in some time-gated environmental hazards and you’ve got a (theoretically) replayable multiplayer game. Then I’d probably push different selectable characters for the multiplayer game (each with different strengths/abilities/weaknesses) and cosmetic microtransactions, plus continued support for additional maps, game modes, and characters over time. But that concept is pretty far afield of what the original pitch was, wouldn’t you say?

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[knerdy]

If city and state leaders cared half as much about our children as they do about television actors, we’d be raising revenue and giving our schools the funding needed to reopen safely. The attention being devoted to keeping the city’s movie sets safe shows that it’s possible. Don’t our students and teachers deserve the same level of care and investment?

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In Two Phone Calls, I Learned Just Who Counts in New York

My TV show is a very safe place to work. My son’s school — well, it might check air circulation with a yardstick and toilet paper.

By Cynthia Nixon

Ms. Nixon, an actor and advocate, was a candidate for the 2018 Democratic nomination for New York governor.

This summer, I participated in two back-to-back phone calls about resuming some semblance of normal life in New York City — which for me means resuming work on a television show and sending my 9-year-old son, Max, back to school.

The differences in these phone calls could not have been starker, and taught me a great deal about in whom and what we invest in the era of Covid-19.

On the call related to my show, I heard about the many tours the industrial hygienist had taken of the set and about the renovation of some of our work spaces to be Covid-safe. Out of an abundance of caution, even some spaces that looked fairly healthy had been eliminated.

I also heard about how the crew and production staff would be divided into strict pods; they would be tested before they started work and then tested one to three times a week. Actors, who need to remove their masks, would be tested every day. Anyone coming to New York from out of state would need to quarantine for two weeks before being allowed on set.

Air purifiers have been purchased, filtration systems have been upgraded, and an entire department has been created solely to deal with safety protocols and testing. And Covid-upgraded vans and shuttles, along with extra parking lots, were available to ensure that everyone had safe transport to work.

The second call was a meeting of the parents association at my son’s public school. I heard that teachers and administrators could choose to be tested for Covid before the school year began, and that people entering the school could decide whether they wanted their temperature taken.

I heard about classroom pods limited to nine students, a restriction made irrelevant by the number of people moving freely from pod to pod — teachers, school staff and even parents who are now being recruited as substitute teachers by overwhelmed school administrators. I heard about the several hundred school nurses who still needed to be hired in the system.

I heard building inspections would begin just a few weeks before school was set to open, even though out of the 1,700 buildings to be examined, a thousand of them already have documented ventilation problems. And I could only shake my head as I later saw that the system for testing these ventilation systems involves using a yardstick with a piece of toilet paper attached to it by paper clip to gauge airflow.

Needless to say, the care and investment given to restarting television and film production in New York looks nothing like the uncertain, chaotic, shamefully underfunded and profoundly unsafe approach to reopening the public schools, which serve 1.1 million children, nearly three-quarters of them deeply underprivileged.

This pandemic has laid bare our society’s inequities, and nowhere more than in our public schools. Gov. Andrew Cuomo, lauded as a hero for his handling of the state’s pandemic response, has overseen a supposedly temporary 20 percent reduction of its payments to school districts since this summer.

In New York City, the decrease would amount to a $2.3 billion loss for the schools over the next year. The city schools chancellor, Richard Carranza, said that the cuts, if made permanent, would mean “game over” for in-person learning, and would lead to programming cuts and 9,000 layoffs in the Department of Education.

Yet the governor has resisted raising taxes on the state’s 118 billionaires (up from 112 last year), who have seen their collective wealth increase by $77 billion during the pandemic, a figure that dwarfs the state’s projected budget gap of $14.5 billion this year.

Even before the pandemic, New York State was second in the country when it comes to inequities in education funding — with rich districts getting $10,000 more per student on average than poor districts. (The state’s failure to equitably and fully fund New York’s low-income school districts motivated me to run for governor in 2018.)

The city has compounded the continuing disinvestment in our public schools. This June, Mayor Bill de Blasio and the City Council pushed through nearly a billion dollars in cuts and savings to the education budget. Coupled with the state reductions, the schools are now facing a staggering cut of $3.3 billion.

The mayor has been hamstrung by the governor and his own political miscalculations and leadership failures. As experts warned of a pandemic earlier this year, the mayor, echoing Mr. Cuomo’s confidence that the virus could be contained, resisted calls to close the schools.

By early May, at least 74 Department of Education employees had died in connection with Covid. (Researchers at Columbia found that had the city shut down even a week earlier than March 16, the date when schools were finally closed, some 18,500 Covid deaths citywide could have been avoided.)

Over the summer, as schools in Los Angeles and Chicago decided to go fully remote this fall, giving them crucial weeks to prepare for remote learning and make accommodations for the neediest students, our mayor at first stubbornly refused the pleas of parents and teachers and pushed for reopening in person without delay.

The mayor, whom I endorsed in 2013, has insisted correctly that schools are vital for the city’s most vulnerable families. His desire to reopen on time, however, has not been backed up with adequate safety measures.

It is noteworthy that a survey last month by the Education Trust-New York, found that Black, Latino and low-income families — many of whom have already been disproportionately hit by the virus — were significantly more wary of reopening schools this fall. Only when threatened with a strike by teachers (who were largely demanding many basic safety measures) did the mayor finally agree to delay opening, albeit by less than two weeks. As a result, all city public school students are now without schooling, remote or in person, for most of this month.

Instead of asking our wealthiest citizens to pay more during a time of crisis, New York is imposing austerity on public schools — even though fewer dollars mean fewer safety measures, more cases and more deaths.

If city and state leaders cared half as much about our children as they do about television actors, we’d be raising revenue and giving our schools the funding needed to reopen safely. The attention being devoted to keeping the city’s movie sets safe shows that it’s possible. Don’t our students and teachers deserve the same level of care and investment?

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