Suppose you ran a business that relied on people sending you items, that you then assigned a dollar value to and returned to them. Suppose your fees are based on the value you assigned to the item. So if you assigned a value of $1000 to an item, and your price was 10% of the valuation, then you earn a profit of $100 minus all the time and shipping costs (unless you pass the latter on to the customer).
To keep this completely hypothetical business afloat you need to convince people to send you their items. A potentially clever way works like this:
On a completely unrelated note, I once gave away 200 copies of Super Mario Bros./Duck Hunt for free. This is a completely true story, I can provide names of others involved in the giveaway. FuncoLand found that cartridge to be a tough sell also:
I don't recall stories about hundreds of free Honus Wagner cards being given away, but I'm not a baseball fan.
Despite that last comment, I'm aware both Chicago baseball teams are doing very well now. They both seem a lock for the playoffs. It would be a nice consolation prize to have the World Series entirely in Chicago after being snubbed by the recent World Cup. Apparently they thought our facilities weren't up their standards. Our city's own (American) football team feels the same way too and is threatening to move across the border to Indiana, tempted by a promised investment from the state. I wonder if between now and then there will be a taxpayer revolt? "OK guys, if you're done trying to 'own' Illinois can we please move on to real problems. We're not really giving the Chicago Bears billions of dollars... right?" I feel like this is the kind of thing that started as a joke and is now snowballing into a real thing. This is also how I think all the flat earth nonsense came to be.
I've only been to Soldier Field once. I watched the Bears nearly lose to the Detroit Lions team that finished 0-16. The stadium seemed perfectly adequate to host a football game or other major event. I know this is 18 years later but buildings hardly wear out that quickly. Possibly the biggest band on earth at this moment (BTS) just played a show there a couple days ago. I suspect the motivation is to sell more high-end box seat subscriptions. That's where the real money is at, selling an experience only available to those with a spare million or so sitting around. In the last proposal I read, Indiana would recoup their investment by taxing regular ticket sales. These expensive box seats and season tickets would be exempt. Choose your own follow-up thoughts on this.
Chicago burned down once, we'll recover from losing a mid-tier team to another state.
On a different note, The Cutting Room Floor (tcrf.net) is one of my favorite sites. I don't post there, but things I've worked on end up there whether credited or not. It's an incredibly valuable resource I consult often. They've been down for a few days due to a DDoS attack. Their theory is someone upset about AI bots being blocked is responsible. I hope they are able to share concrete evidence about the root cause, whatever that may be.
Web sites are allowed to block any traffic they find problematic. They can even share an unpleasant message on the page notifying the end-user (whether human or bot) about the block. This is your prerogative as a web site owner. No one is entitled to unrestricted access to your content. TCRF has taken a strong anti-AI position. They do not want any of their content generated, or even viewed, by AI. Again, as the owner of that content it's their choice. If the root cause theory proves true, this is a very bad look for at least one AI fan. If you are already feeling hurt because a technology you enjoy is growing in unpopularity, maybe avoid creating a legitimate reason for people to dislike it.
Reading what the admin of TCRF posted over the past few days, I was surprised how simple their setup is. By their own admission they run a virtual private server (VPS) with no firewall or content distribution network (CDN). This is not a critique, I had that setup too until this site was accidentally DDoS'd from a viral article. I suspect this ends with them raising a few bucks to get behind a CDN with DDoS protection. When you or I visit we'll have to click that little "I am human" checkbox like seemingly every site now. I feel like this is the year when that checkbox became ubiquitous. I suspect the type of traffic TCRF was trying to block in the first place can be credited for this.
I'll close on a more positive tone.
Fall is nearly here. I know it's something of a comical trope now, but fall is my favorite time of year. I tend to feel very creative then, it's probably the cool air and colors reminding me of college. I've been putting off writing a demo I really want to write for a long time. I am hopeful that fall vibes will change that. There are some serious potential distractions though. The Trails in the Sky SC remake, technically just barely a summer release, is something I will start on day one. My first impression of it was kind of average, but over time it's become one of my favorites in the series. The combined first two Sky games are the best story in the series, almost of any JRPG really. The same could be said of the soundtrack.
It's quite possible I won't finish, or won't 100%, Trails in the Sky SC before Grand Theft Auto VI launches. I watched the 30 minute preview yesterday and am all in on this game. However, I'm willing to wait a little bit to start. I suspect there will be a massive patch in the first month that fixes a couple minor completely game-breaking issues.
I hope anybody reading this also has some fall plans they're looking forward to. Thanks for again indulging me in this type of post.
