|
|
|
GAH! I need to stop websurfing!
We are watching the TV show Heroes on DVD -- the first season, because we don't have TV service. (We don't watch TV, at all, and watch things we're interested in on DVD, so we finally cancelled the $60/month satellite service.) We're doing this from Netflix, so the episodes come only as fast as the US Postal Service can provide them, which is not quickly. Right now, we're waiting for episode 3, which means, we're NOT far along.
So, I'm searching the web for some information about one of the actors, and I come to a page, and the first thing I see is, "While Peter survives his detonation over New York City..."
Uh, thanks. Wonderful. I didn't need to know that.
Sigh.
(To be completely fair, it's not the site's fault. Most normal people who would be seeing that page know what happened in the first season. It's just losers like me who are seeing the show late who get spoiled.)
Strya · Tue Nov 13, 2007 @ 02:00am · 0 Comments |
|
|
|
|
|
|
It's amazing how people will come up with these incredible defense mechanisms, rather than admit that they might be wrong. Here are some things I've noticed, and what the people who are opposed to the 2% tax have said.
Me: (A couple of months ago) Prices on MCs are going up. Reply: "See! The 2% tax isn't working! It's causing the prices to go up!" or "It's because the new marketplace sucks!" Note: They never really understand what the 2% tax is supposed to do. "Working" is such a vague word.
Me: (Now) Prices on MCs are stable or going down. Reply: "That's because people are undercutting the lowest prices!" Note: Then why didn't this happen before? Undercutting happens all the time. Maybe it's because it isn't undercutting...
Me: Look! Last year at this time, prices rose dramatically across the board, just like they did this year. Why do you think that happened last year? Reply: "That's because the Artificial Inflation Guild was raising prices." Note: No guild has the power to raise the prices of ALL items steadily for multiple weeks.
It's not like I have all the answers or that I'm right all the time. But man, these guys are grabbing at straws, trying to protect their concept that the 2% tax is the worst thing that ever happened.
One other thing I find fascinating is that a number of vendors are starting to quit Gaia -- they say that their tremendous profits were the only thing that made the game fun for them. These are the people who, with the 2% tax, were so incensed that they stopped vending altogether. Thus, instead of making a lower profit, they are gaining nothing at all, and thus are leaving the game.
Meanwhile, those of us who continued on have learned new ways of making profits and are enjoying the game just as much. And we have less competition in the marketplace. I wonder who wins in the long run?
Strya · Mon Oct 22, 2007 @ 07:37pm · 0 Comments |
|
|
|
|
|
|
I just noticed another interesting effect of the 2% tax. Remember I said that I belong to a vending guild? Well, the guild is pretty much dead. It used to be that there would be a good 20-30 posts a day in that guild; now they're lucky if they get 5.
The prevailing attitude is that the 2% tax kills profits, so there's nothing to vend, and so there's nothing to talk about with regards to vending. Yet, though I find my profits are smaller, there's still a lot to vend. I use the same tactics that I used to use, and I still find deals and I make a profit off of them.
It only makes me happy to see that my competition has folded under a little bit of pressure. It just makes it easier for me.
Strya · Thu Oct 04, 2007 @ 06:12pm · 0 Comments |
|
|
|
|
|
|
It's been very interesting watching the complaints on the forums about the new 2% market tax. Now, you have to understand that I support the 2% market tax, and in fact, have voiced the opinion long before they announced it that Gaia needs a tax. It's all about the inflation.
I belong to a vending guild that in the past, before this whole thing, I thought was full of very intelligent people who understood how markets and economies. The members (most of them, anyway) have denounced the tax, screaming about how they like inflation and how it's cutting into their profits. I've argued the other side to no avail -- they honestly believe that inflation is a good thing.
I just this very moment realized that these people don't understand anything about economics.
I should have realized it before, when they were commenting on the fact that market prices have been skyrocketing this summer and called this effect "inflation." It isn't. It's supply and demand. During the summer, more people play Gaia and therefore more people buy things, but there isn't as many of the items, so their prices go up. That's basic supply and demand. The prices are "inflating," which means "going up," but the cause of that is not "inflation."
What is actual "inflation?" It's the devaluing of currency due to having too much currency in circulation. That's what the 2% tax is meant to combat, not the "inflating" of prices due to circumstantial influences.
What was the thing that made me realize that my guild has no idea what it's talking about right now? One of my guild's members just posted, "I'm so pro inflation . . . I havn't done basically any vending for the last month or so, but with the inflation my hoards have earned me 100k."
Let's translate what he said. He has a certain number of items, and though he has done nothing, over the past month, the value of the items are 100k more. Let's put this in real life terms. I have a pencil, which I bought for $1. Over the past month, I've done nothing, and now it's worth $10. Or, more to the point, if I wanted to buy another pencil, I'd have to spend $10 for it now.
This is a GOOD thing?
The point he's missing is that the actual worth of the item hasn't changed, just the amount of gold needed to buy it.
Putting it back into Gaia terms. He had four items worth 50k a month ago. Now he has to spend 100k more to buy those same four items. To put it in more global terms: 100k used to be able to buy 25 Monthly collectibles. Now it can only buy about 8 to 10. A new member used to have to spend $625 to be a Gaia millionaire. Now he only has to spend $225.
It means nothing to be a Gaia millionaire anymore because the gold is devaluing, and it's devaluing because too little of it leaves circulation. Items are getting more expensive because gold is too plentiful. Yet in the meantime, the profits from the sources of gold (games, posting, vending, etc.) stay around the same, making it harder and harder to get enough to buy the cheapest item.
The emphasis of the anti-tax group is on gold total, whereas the real value in Gaia is in the items. It only matters to them that they can say, "I am worth 1.5 million gold" -- the fact that that gold buys so much less than it used to is unimportant to them.
That's where the problem is: People are focusing on the numbers, and not on what actually determines what those numbers mean. And in the meantime, they continue to destroy the value of the very thing they're working so hard to build.
Strya · Fri Sep 21, 2007 @ 12:13am · 0 Comments |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Today's my 11th wedding anniversary! Eleven wonderful years!
I remember very clearly getting married. I was scared to death. I had known Robert for all of eight months; we started dating on Valentine's Day. In June (not long after my mother passed away due to heart complications), my company, which had been planned to move from Champaign, Illinois to Eugene, Oregon in September and had planned to let me (and a bunch of other people) go at that time, informed me that they were promoting me to programmer and wanted me to move to Eugene with them. I made my decision that day -- I was getting out of the hated Midwest, and Robert had the choice of following me or not. And he said, "Then we should get married.
Three months later, we said our vows. I had no idea if it was the right thing to do and I was afraid that I rushed into the wedding, that I was being stupid. But I have never regretted it since. Eleven years so far and counting.
It's not always been perfect, and we've had our arguments, and I'm sure we'll have many more in the future. It still bugs me to hell that he cannot learn to return a book to its place on the bookshelf. But that's not the important part, is it? We'll always have our differences. What makes it work is the devotion to each other, and not focusing only on what's in it for you.
I still can't believe how lucky I am. Eleven years. Happy Anniversary, sweetie!
Strya · Thu Sep 13, 2007 @ 05:44pm · 0 Comments |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Life has been vaguely interesting lately.
I've been playing EVE Online lately. It's a space combat MMO, but it also has an extremely complex economic system which I have been enjoying immensely. All the ships, equipment, and ammo in the game are created by players -- they mine for the minerals and manufacture the items, for sale to other players. The buying and selling system is so realistic that a friend of mine saw a NYSE daytrading software program and said, "Hey, that looks like EVE!"
This is the kind of thing I love. Which is a bit odd because I can't stand playing with money like that in real life. When I played Puzzle Pirates consistently, my favorite part of the game was the economics. EVE has surpassed that by quite a lot.
I haven't gotten to play much in the past few weeks, though. I started getting these weird headaches about 3-4 weeks ago (only in the right side of my head, strangely enough), centered on my eye, and it got worse when I was on the computer, so I stayed off. Though I was eventually able to return to work, I couldn't play without lots of pain. That seems to have finally stopped, but I'm still taking it easy.
On the Gaia front, I've been making lots of gold in the vend. Summer is the time when people can play a lot, and therefore spend a lot, and the prices on things have inflated hugely. Right now, I have about 700k in gold and selling items, which is the most ever for me.
I've also created new guild for EVE players, and we're up to 30 people now. It's quite nice building a community like that. It's called Beyond the Gate, because the story in EVE is that the space we're in was colonized by humans who traveled through a wormhole called the EVE Gate.
Work has been, well, horrid. I work for a software company that has, in the past, solely been supported by creating a massive online program for a publishing company. The amount of work was so huge that he company blossomed from 40 workers to 200 workers in about a year. Even when we had lots of work, the company was so hard to work with -- "Do this.... Now that the work is done, can you change it all so it does this instead?" etc. Then the publishing company said, "Oh, we don't want to use you anymore, so here's enough work for only 50 people, and we'll outsource the rest to India." Massive layoffs ensued.
Now that we're down to 40 people again, the company keeps laying massive work on us, including the stuff that has been screwed up by the Indian outsourcers. (If you didn't know, companies like to outsource work to India because they work for cheap, but they're also not skilled. It is not unusual at all for a piece of work to be done and redone 5 or 6 times because the outsource people either don't understand what's needed or don't know how to do it.)
The rumor is that we're going to be completely cut free of this client in November, and we're counting the days. Our company has contracted so much other work that we don't need the publishing company anymore.
Just as a side note -- if you've ever laughed at Dilbert but couldn't believe that people like that could exist, they do. And they all work at that publishing company.
Strya · Mon Aug 13, 2007 @ 07:10pm · 0 Comments |
|
|
|
|
|
|
I checked my friends list today and noticed that I have more than one page of friends. That spurred me into booting a lot of people from my list. It seems to me that many Gaians consider having as many people as possible on your friends list a sign of popularity or something. I prefer to have people I actually like on my list.
I started first with booting most people who haven't been on for two months. There was one exception -- a rather cool person who I'd love to see again if he comes back.
Then I booted the people whose names I didn't recognize. I can't remember who you are? BOOT.
Lastly, I booted a couple of people because their idea of "friendship" consisted of writing to me every couple of weeks asking for donations. It's funny how they'll keep asking after every answer is "No."
The remaining people are either people I know and talk to every once in a while, or people who I remember as being cool.
Strya · Mon Jul 02, 2007 @ 06:57pm · 0 Comments |
|
|
|
|
|
|
I think the devs have completely confused a lot of Gaians by using the word oculus.
Strya · Tue Apr 17, 2007 @ 12:29am · 0 Comments |
|
|
|
|
|