Conquistadillos in Nacho Cheese!

Yup, yup, yup!

How Would YOU Take Over the World?

A Business Model for Sims.

So, I've been thinking lately about makeing an open-source version of the Sims, tentatively called "Crystal Cities" because it will be based on the open source Crystal Space Engine. Now I posted here about the features that I felt such a system should have, so today I'm just gonna talk money.

If one does research on The Sims you quickly discover that it is a) the most popular game ever produced and b) lots of folks are unhappy with its limitations.  I think this adequately indicates that there is a market niche (if not an entire cavern) that one could fill. The secret to being both profitable and open source has been shown by such folks as ID with Doom and later with Quake. They freely give away the game engines that they use, but they charge for the combination of engine+levels. Clearly then, what they are selling is the artwork and level designs. Something very similar can be done with regards to the Sims engine. That is:

1. The game engine, design docs and API manuals are freely given away.
2. The system supports cryptographically signed template objects that represent bodies, clothing, furniture, walls, etc.
3. Signed templates can't be modified without breaking the signiture, so an entire level of overrides, modifiers and reparsers must be supported.
   
4. These crypto temlates can be used to display an object instance at low resolution for use on a Sim, or at high resolution for when doing walkthroughs or for modelling screens.
5. We use cryptographic money protocols for the installation of templates into the system, making them not only unforgeable, but unduplicatable as well. Once installed, a template can generate an unlimited number of in-game object instances.
   
6. We now have the basis for a real world economy based on the production, consumption and trading of object templates.
7. Producers of new templates may give them away anonymously, sign them and give them away so they are freely duplicable, or sign and seal them so that money changes hands in order to acquire a copy. You may also buy a copy of a template, wrap another layer around it, and sign, seal and sell the result. Every sale you make will require you to buy another copy of the base template...
8. The base game designers and artitsts will sign their work, but won't charge for it. They will be compensated for this by being issued shares pro-rated (by an as-of-yet undertermined method) to the importance or popularity of their contribution. These shares will pay dividents from the object brokerage service set up to help object buyers and object sellers find each other (and which will take a cut on all transactions.)
9. We will also approach real-world furniture and clothing designers and ask them to fund the development of templates that mimic the designer's products. These templates will be a form of advertising, since all game objects will support queries such as "Who designed this?" and even "Can I buy a real-world instance of this?"
10. The overall intent is for there to be a base game that one can download and play, complete with a large selection of free objects to include in the environment. The better the game play of the completely free version, the better. This is to get a prospective buyer hooked on the game and thinking about expansion. From their template catalog they will be able to download new free templates or shop for commercial templates.
11. The game must allow multiple games to connect and form distributed networks of neighborhoods. That way, you can have your Sim show off the fact that you paid for a gucci handbag for her, or bought him a Ferari. This will help cause the 'keeping up with the Joneses' sort of mass consumerism that will make swestrup a rich boy.

So, what do folks think, will it fly? Obvioulsy there are many details that need refining and protocols that will have to be carefully designed, but does anyone see any showstoppers that will cause it to fail as a plan for world economic domination?

Gentically engineered plant can detect landmines.

The title just about says it all. More information can be found here.

Lost in translation.

Another good title would be WTFFFFFFFFF!!!!! My wife taxlady sent me this link to a very very very strange danish music video. I gather (knowing no danish) that the thing was produced by attempting to interpret a hindi song in danish, and then making a music video based on what the song seems to be about. So, it has hindi (I think) words with danish subtitles with a similar pronunciation, and an illustration of what that would be. Not understanding any of the languages involved I can just say WTF because it is some VERY WIERD SHIT™

Consider yourself to have been warned.

taxlady: You were wondering what I would think of this. Now you know.

Nighty Night

Sweetums lay your ugly head
Down upon your wretched bed.
Sweeums good and Sweetums cute,
Now go to sleep you hulking brute...

Ya know, I musta REALLY liked the muppet version of The Frog Prince to still be able to remember half the lyrics to the songs, when I haven't seen it in 15 or 20 years.

Anywho, I am once more going to sleep in the early morning, but THIS time I intend to sleep until I've slept a whole bunch. I figure I can rotate my hours around while catching up on my sleep, just in time to be ready for the Deniz and Nancy Non-Stop Demolition Party, which will no doubt cause me to be up for 36 hours straight and completely mess up my sleep patterns again.

Sounds like a plan to me!

The Good, The Bad and the Ugly.

The Good: I just woke up, and have nice hot coffee. Yay me!
The Bad and the Ugly: I just sneezed hot coffee all over my monitor and my (recently cleaned) keyboard. ICK! Now I have to go boil everything in vinegar again...

More Sim Stuff.

( Kinda long )