Quote from: Christopher Brady;1035336It's a British show, I don't think anyone outside of Easter Canada and a some U.S. states gets anything from the motherland anymore.

FWIW, it's been in the Britcom rotation for PBS since it was on the air.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;1035336It's a British show, I don't think anyone outside of Easter Canada and a some U.S. states gets anything from the motherland anymore.

That, and everyone knows the only good British comedy is Absolutely Fabulous.

Quote from: Apparition;1035353That, and everyone knows the only good British comedy is Absolutely Fabulous.

Ah, I see that you have misspelled Red Dwarf .......

Quote from: jeff37923;1035375Ah, I see that you have misspelled Red Dwarf .......

You mean Spaced?

Quote from: Mistwell;1035389You mean Spaced?

No, "turning off the television".

Quote from: jeff37923;1035375Ah, I see that you have misspelled Red Dwarf .......

Isn't it spelled B-L-A-C-K A-D-D-E-R?

Quote from: sniderman;1034087FYI, Shipman died in February.

Here's the Online Obituary with comments from people. It's an interesting perspective.
http://www.pulliamfuneralhomes.com/obits/obituary.php?id=658881

Quote from: Christopher Brady;1034190Also, the only people who benefit from class actions are the Lawyers.

Very true.

Quote from: Opaopajr;1035315(Seriously, over twenty posts and not a single 'Are You Being Served?' joke? )

We are surrounded by savages.

I love that show. I think I've watched the entire series at least 3 times. Tremendous fun and it holds up incredibly well.

Quote from: JeremyR;1034062The thing is though, why would you ever give Ken Whitman money in the first place? His whole history is sketchy going back at least 20 years.

This. I remember bad water cooler talk in my FLGS about Whitman back in the 90s when the Wizards RPG was on the shelf. Obviously nothing has changed except new generations of dupes for him to grift.  That doesn't make it suck any less for them, though.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;1035314Not really, most who use it have zero business sense.  In fact very few can be considered successes.  Most Kickstarters deliver late.  If it was a real business, they'd have gone under, or at least been in financial trouble.  In fact, most use it as a supplementary income model, while they continue to have a day job to pay the bills, because they almost always fail to live up to promised release dates.

Irrelevant. I'm not talking about Kickstarter as it is or as it is used today; I'm talking about crowdfunding as an economic model for the future. We are moving into a world where replication becomes ridiculously easy. Right now, you already have the potential to fileshare information: movies, tv, RPG books, etc. But in just a little bit, really cheap really effective 3D printing will be happening. And at that point people will be able to "fileshare" a car.

The economic model of "I make x, and then you pay for it" is not going to keep working.

So we need crowdfunding, the model of "I have a concept; you pay for it and then the product is delivered", to end up working.

Right now we only see the birthing pains of what might become a radical change in the world economy.

Quote from: RPGPundit;1035926Irrelevant. I'm not talking about Kickstarter as it is or as it is used today; I'm talking about crowdfunding as an economic model for the future. We are moving into a world where replication becomes ridiculously easy. Right now, you already have the potential to fileshare information: movies, tv, RPG books, etc. But in just a little bit, really cheap really effective 3D printing will be happening. And at that point people will be able to "fileshare" a car.

The economic model of "I make x, and then you pay for it" is not going to keep working.

So we need crowdfunding, the model of "I have a concept; you pay for it and then the product is delivered", to end up working.

Right now we only see the birthing pains of what might become a radical change in the world economy.

A couple of comments

The more general case is a client patron relationship. I.e. "You want to or are producing cool stuff. I want to support you." Kickstarter is a specific kind of patron client. Patreon is another. There are multiple ways of doing this but what it amount is the customer i.e. patron connecting in some way (interest, like, utility), to a producer i.e. client at far more intimate level then traditional economics.

So I concur that we will need something like kickstarter as a way of leveraging the internet.

The downside of this is that the producer (artist/author/etc) has to be more involved. It highly unlikely that a shy author or an author not willing to get involve beyond the writing of the work will find success. Unlike the traditional model where the middle man like a publisher takes on that responsibility.

But then again how the internet enable patron-client relationship also helps producers connect to cover each other weakness. It may be that big products are done by temporary groups of creative types who come together to execute it, split, and combine in other ways for different projects.

Quote from: RPGPundit;1035926But in just a little bit, really cheap really effective 3D printing will be happening. And at that point people will be able to "fileshare" a car.

Yeah I already ran a science fiction campaign with this has mature. The players were really weirded out about but how little money was used.

The basic issue is that. Due to increasing automation and advances in digital technology, the ability of a single individual to provide for the comfort and survival other individual will be greatly expanded. For example in agriculture, labor productivity is almost 2.5 times greater than it was at the end of World War 2. When combined with improvement in crop yields, a farm doesn't need as much farmers to feed the same number of people.

Most of that was evolutionary, better tools, better seeds, and better techniques. Now unrelated advances in drone and robotics may shift that all into computer time. Automated tractors controlled by GPS, fruit picking drones, etc.

Most people think of people losing jobs but what this really means that a some point a half dozen people can now produce all of the food needed for a small town.

Combine this with the production of the other necessities of life means the abundance like we never seen before. Already from the point of view of a medieval peasant our time has abundance like they never seen before.

Then the next step is the manufacturing of food from CHON feed stocks (Carbon, Hydrogen, Oxygen, Nitrogen plus minerals and supplements) with 3D fabricator manipulating things at a molecular level. Somewhere in the next few generation it wouldn't surprise me that instead of a microwave you have a food fabricator. At first it would make base ingredients to combined traditionally then later entire meals.

All of this will be controlled by software and data that can be easily replicated.

Now I wrote this to illustrate a point right now the above is science fiction and futuristic. It not what we have now or in the next decade. But the general scenario that I illustrate is the situation right now with the production of works involving the written word or visual arts. In the 2010s we are living the the age of abundance for books and art.

A couple of things I noticed about the situation.

1) People like to pay something for works made by their favorites. For a few that something is a large amount but for most it is a few bucks here and there.
2) People want help filtering the kalidoscope of offerings, hence the attractions of RPGNow/DriveThruRPG, certain blogs, and to a lesser extent forums.
3) The middle man is increasingly cut out. Even RPGNow is not a traditional middleman more like a service. For X cut we will do Y things for you most importantly collect the customer's money.
4) Individual creatives are collaborating in one time or short term alliances to realize specific projects.

Quote from: Krimson;1035398Isn't it spelled B-L-A-C-K A-D-D-E-R?

Actually it's spelled "Have you been served?"....

Do we need to keep rattling off names of British Comedic IPs, or can we just acknowledge that the Brits are rather funny (I didn't even know that was up for debate)?

If we're looking for the best, why stick with existing pieces? I think the Monty Python crew, Red Dwarf crew, Hugh Laurie and Rowan Atkinson should get together and (re- in Laurie's case) explore Wodehouses "Jeeves" stories in a ten season/series-long (so eight episodes, plus Christmas special) show with Yakkidy Sax as the intro music.

Willie, that would be insanely fun!

Quote from: CanBeOnlyOne;1036189Actually it's spelled "Have you been served?"....

Allo, Allo?

Quote from: Willie the Duck;1036257Do we need to keep rattling off names of British Comedic IPs, or can we just acknowledge that the Brits are rather funny (I didn't even know that was up for debate)?

I've been watching Brit Coms since Monty Python in the 70s. I don't mind if people keep rattling them off, because there may be some I haven't seen.

I grew up on Benny Hill overseas. Booby jokes and Yakkety Sax, international language, it was. Might explain me a bit, though.