The problem is that corporations tend to overcharge for their content.  Then they complain about an alleged sense of entitlement when their customers supposedly want it for free.  They are reading things wrong: there’s very much a sense of entitlement, but it’s one not to pay too much.  This goes for all forms of content and “intellectual property”: books, news, images, videos, movies, television, music, video games, software, web applications, academic articles, and so on.

Free is less than too much, so free wins over too much every time.

People deserve payment for their creations, but the economics dictate that how much they charge and what they are prepared to deliver (ie, their pricing/business model) will change the composition of their customer pool, determining their revenue.  Before the digital revolution, all sorts of sharing occurred that wasn’t priced in to their model, and yet no one screamed bloody murder over one newspaper getting passed around the coffee shop or office.

The sooner the content creators start moving to alternative models, the sooner they will find the sweet spots, and the sooner they will get paid for their creations.  But if they merely try to copy their old models in the new landscape, they are liable to find themselves with lingering pain for quite some time.

As I did not see specifics on the pricing/business model that Hulu will be using, I will withhold judgment about this move.  But I will say that if they plan on overcharging, they might as well buy some Going Out of Business signs while they’re cheap.

Update: An article on mediamemo.allthingsd.com, How Much Will You Have to Pay for Hulu? Nothing. How Much Will You Pay for “Hulu Plus”? Good Question. states the pay content will be in addition to the existing site, rather than moving some content to for-pay so it doesn’t sound like they are doing anything very dangerous with regard to their business model.  I just hope they get creative and take their time to create a better model that can be mimicked by others.  It can work, if they don’t get too greedy.

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Looks like Valve has finished their work and are looking to roll out the Heavy update soon.

You can look at their Heavy Update page as they will be announcing the changes to come.  The actual update will probably be in a couple of weeks. will hit on August 19th (so saith the Shacknews).

—End Update—

Valve Software, makers of Team Fortress 2, have begun adding class achievements and unlockable weapons for completing those achievements.

The next class to undergo a makeover will be the Heavy Weapons guy. Here are my ideas for the primary and melee unlockables. I haven’t come up with one for the secondary weapon yet.

Primary: The Gear Gun

The main idea behind the Gear Gun is to give the Heavy an advantage when it comes to the spin-up and spin-down times that encumber him with the regular Minigun. The Gear Gun has a long, thin gear that runs out the bottom and top of the weapon. When the gun is spun up the gear rotates perpendicular to the barrel. With this he can use an add-on contraption I call the Spring Chicken.

The Spring Chicken is a small, round cylinder that has a gear-slot running through its center. When placed on the Gear Gun and the gun spins, the Spring Chicken’s inner coil tightens up, storing the energy. It may then be rapidly discharged to halt the gun quickly. Alternatively, the gun may be allowed to spin down normally and the Spring Chicken can be flipped over. This allows it to be discharged to rapidly spin-up the gun. The gun must be halted before it can be flipped back, so as to allow for recharging it.

The idea behind these functions are to give the Heavy a one-off shot at either spinning up quickly or spinning down quickly. It can’t be reused rapidly, and both can’t be done on a single use of the weapon. It would probably require some remodeling and new sounds.

The other benefit of the Gear Gun is that it can be used with the Engineer’s entry-teleporter. The Heavy can spin up the teleporter manually using the Gear Gun. This would allow a Heavy to sit back near spawn and assist others in moving up to the front lines faster.

Melee: Brass Knuckles

This just seems like a no-brainer for a class that has the default melee of his bare (okay, gloved) fists. Add some brass around those suckers and sucker-punch some lippy snipers.

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Basically I said two things which have now been said by the MSM:

1. Downloads and soft-media are going to takeover, making Blu-Ray’s “victory” an attempt to lock people in before it’s too late.
2. It was the result of under-the-table deals like this one.

(Other deals include Sony paying media companies hundreds of millions to go Blu-Ray exclusively, etc.)

So, I was right for once. Hurray.

Since I’m on a roll with this prediction/sooth-saying stuff, I’m going ahead and laying out my next prediction:

…

wait for it

…

Harmonicas are making a comeback… this time digital. Expect major news to break in the next 48 to 528 hours announcing new, digital harmonicas. You heard it here first.

-Adam

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