Archived News for October 2005
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Fatso
Has anyone else had any experience with fatso.co.nz? It's the exact same thing as netflix. I was looking at signing up, but stuff like this makes me nervous. Also, don't ever confuse the .co.nz with the .com
And in other movie news, this is wicked; I've never thought of New Zealand as a ringworld.Dominic
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Burned
"In 1934, Charles B. Darrow of Germantown, Pennsylvania, presented a game called MONOPOLY to the executives at Parker Brothers. Mr. Darrow, like many other Americans, was unemployed at the time and often played this game to amuse himself and pass the time. It was the game's exciting promise of fame and fortune that prompted Darrow to initially produce this game on his own.
With help from a friend who was a printer, Darrow sold 5,000 sets of MONOPOLY to a Philadelphia department store. As the demand for the game grew, Darrow could not keep up with the orders and arranged for Parker Brothers to take over the game.
Since 1935 when Parker Brothers acquired the rights to the game, it has become the leading proprietary game not only in the United States but throughout the Western world. The game is published under licence in thirty two countries and in nineteen foreign languages."
-A foreword to the monopoly rules
"Each player is given $1500 divided as follows: 2 each of $500's, $100's and $50's; 6-$20; 5 each of $10's, $5's and $1's."
-Written in the goddamn original rules
Dom:
You have me on the money; you should however note that the original distributions were one $500, seven $100, two $50, five $20, seven $10, five $5 and five $1 and before that (you'll see how there can be a before that further down) it was one $500, five $100, five $50, five $20, ten $10, eight $5 and ten $1 - no closer to what I thought, but still.
As for the little spiel on the origins of the game: don't make me laugh! This, of course, would have been the story written in the Parker Brothers version of the game, so they're going to leave some (rather uncomplementary) things out. Want to know what really happened?Charles Darrow initially made the sets of the Monopoly game by hand with the help of his first son, Wiliam Darrow, and his wife. Charles drew the designs with a drafting pen on round pieces of oilcloth, and then his son and his wife helped fill in the spaces with colors and make the title deed cards and the chance and community chest cards.
After the demand for the game increased, Darrow contacted a printing company, which printed the designs of the property spaces on square carton boards.
Monopoly was first marketed on a broad scale by Parker Brothers on November 5, 1935 with international licensing rights given to Waddington Games of the United Kingdom (both of which are now part of Hasbro).
In the 1930s, John Waddington Ltd. (Waddingtons) was a firm of printers from Leeds that had begun to branch out into packaging and the production of playing cards. Waddingtons had sent the card game Lexicon to Parker Brothers hoping to interest them in publishing the game in the United States. In a similar fashion Parker Brothers sent over a copy of Monopoly to Waddingtons early in 1935 before the game had been put into production in the United States.
The managing director of Waddingtons, Victor Watson, gave the game to his son Norman (who was head of the card games division) to test over the weekend. Norman was impressed by the game and persuaded his father to call Parker Brothers on Monday morning. This call resulted in Waddingtons obtaining a license to produce and market the game outside of the United States.
So, there we go - the two main versions were produced concurrently. In fact, Darrow's patent didn't come through until Dec. 31, 1935, by which time Waddingtons had the board, and given the fact that the Waddingtons board was the standard board throughout the commonwealth, it's fair to say that when the Parker Brothers introduction says 'it has become the leading proprietary game not only in the United States but throughout the Western world', they are not talking about the New Jersey board at all.
You should also note that some of the differences on the New Zealand board reflect our British heritage in that the London version replaced the income tax choice from the U.S. version flat rate, and the $75 Luxury Tax square by the £100 Super Tax square. As for reasons why Parker Brothers might want to brush over (read: lie about) the whole history of the game:Although Monopoly was patented by Charles Darrow before selling the rights to Parker Brothers in 1935, similar games had been played before, including homemade games adapted to the places where players lived. A frequently cited example: in 1904, Georgist (that is, a supporter of political economist Henry George) Lizzie Magie patented a game called "The Landlord's Game" with the object of demonstrating how rents enrich property owners and impoverish tenants. She knew that some people can find it hard to understand why this happens and what might be done about it and she thought that if Georgist ideas were put into the concrete form of a game, they might be easier to demonstrate.
Although The Landlord's Game was patented, it was not taken up by a manufacturer until 1910, when it was published in the U.S. by the Economic Game Company of New York. In the UK it was published in 1913 by the Newbie Game Company of London under the title Brer Fox an' Brer Rabbit. Despite the title change, it was recognizably the same game.
Apart from commercial distribution, it spread by word of mouth and was played in slightly variant homemade versions over the years by Quakers (members of the Religious Society of Friends), Georgists, university students and others who became aware of it. As it spread, its rules were changed, most notably in dropping the second phase of the game during which a Land tax was introduced to replace the other taxes, and the shortened game became known as "Auction Monopoly". It was often localized, with the original fanciful property names being replaced by street names from the cities where the players lived. By the late 1920s it was known simply as "Monopoly" and was played very much as it is now. One version of the game, commonly played in the Philadelphia area, had Atlantic City street names; this game was taught to Charles Darrow, who then sold it as his personal invention to Parker Brothers. Parker Brothers subsequently decided to buy out Magie's copyright, and the copyrights of other commercial variants of the game, in order to have legitimate, undisputed rights to the game. Parker Brothers then promoted Darrow as the game's sole inventor. Decades later, when they attempted to suppress publication of a game called Anti-Monopoly, designed by Ralph Ansbach, the trademark suit went all the way to the Supreme Court of the United States in 1983, and the court found in favor of Ansbach because Darrow had merely copied an existing game that was known as "Monopoly" by those who played it.
Interesting, huh. Oh, and, seeing as we seem to be going by the official rules, did you read this one:If the player lands on an unowned property, he may buy it for the price listed on that property's space. If he agrees to buy it, he pays the Bank the amount shown on the property space and receives the title deed for that property. If he declines to buy it, the property must be immediately put up for auction. All players are eligible to participate in the auction, including the player who declined to buy it, and the bidding may start at any price. The highest bidder wins the property and pays the Bank the amount bid and receives the property's title deed. Railroads and utilities are also properties.
Yep. Kinda changes the game, doesn't it. A colour set is officially known as a land monopoly. Don't get me started on the 10% rule for mortgaged property, nor the 50% rule for house resale. Oh, and of course there's this little gem:A player may not loan money or trade anything for future consideration.
That's what we real Monopoly players like to call 'pwned'.canuckboy
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Gargh!
It's happened. Something Emporium is the number one resource for kids_in_sandbox. Oh, god. I just boosted the word association by saying it again, didn't I? Ok, everyone, stop saying kids_in_sandbox.
Sick.
Dominic
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Plans
'Plans' is Death Cab for Cutie's latest album - it came out about two months ago, and I've been listening to it for a few days now.
I'm disappointed, but not very disappointed. So far it's a good album, that much I'm sure of. It's hard because my absolute favorite albums always take quite a few listens to get, but I remember that I could hear something behind Transatlanticism which I can't hear in this release. At least, I'm happy to say, the move to a major label hasn't really hurt their sound - but I'd like to see them hold back less and rock more.
In Catholic school,
as vicious as Roman rule,
I got my knuckles bruised
by a lady in black.
And I held my tongue
as she told me "Son,
fear is the heart of love"
so I never went back.
Edit: It gets better and better. 'What Sarah Said' is my favorite. Main theme: time and death I guess, which is a bit of a downer but Gibbard's spin on it is great to hear. The title of the album (and my current display name) come from the lines:
And it came to me then that every plan
Is a little prayer to Father time
As I stared in my shoes in the ICU
That reeked of piss and 409
And I rationed my breaths as I said to myself
That I'd already taken too much today
As each descending peek on the LCD
Took you a little further away from me
Note the crazy passive storytelling - as this, as that, as the other.Dominic
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LA face with the Oakland booty
A few things - first, everyone should download this. It's fantastic. And I don't know how I found it but this blog is goddam interesting.TV is pretty funny. Chad watches Korean music videos but I've been fascinated with the specialty channels: one is 24-hour kickboxing and another is 24-hour video gaming. In fact, I've watched many a late night Starcraft match (which is a hugely competitive game over here). It's covered pretty much like sports: a pre-game show delivered by three suited gentlemen who enthusiastically discuss a strategic preview of the map; the match itself, where the coverage switches between battle hotspots and intense close-ups of the competing nerds; and an interview with the victorious nerd after all is said and done. The best part of the whole thing is the show intro, where Korean gamers are depicted as bad-asses who skateboard and listen to rockin' tunes and look cool in a crowd. Unsurprisingly, this is Not the Case.
The commentary during the match is totally fucked - the slightest tiny thing will happen, like perhaps one guy will decide to build a new building in his base, and the announcer will scream hysterically: "Ojo Kamapdina Pokabokawokka Tul!!!!" Or something like that, cuz he talks a mile a minute. They're so serious about this game that you'd almost think an early Zerg rush was the first trumpet of the apocalypse. I watch Starcraft at night to put me to sleep.
This summer's project is SE5 – a rebuild from the ground up, probably using AJAX too. A ground up rebuild means it's going to be pretty different, even to the extent that I might need to get into the database and move stuff around. I've even got my subversion repository all ready to go. Change is good.
Anyway, at the moment I'm looking for interface ideas as I want to have the whole thing drafted up before I start work on it. Here's my latest:
I've got a few ideas for a couple of essays I want to write up and post as articles – we'll see how they turn out. I'll also post some more news tomorrow if I get the time to scan some images in. I'm a little busy and, as Trav is fond of saying, it's the start of the festive season.Dominic
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<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Whatlinkshere/Template:Magic-spoiler">Awesome</a>
Dominic
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Nuclear war.
Just got back from End of Daze, the annual UoA end-of-year celebration. I guess it's as much of a tradition as SE has to talk about it.
Electric Six were the main act – you know, the guys behind the too-popular-for-its-own-good 'Gay Bar' song. They were surprisingly good. I guess one contributing factor would be my inability to discern an accent with that much pure wattage behind the whole thing. There was the typical (read: stupid) anti-Bush crap to rark up the crowd and some comments about 'Americans are going to be coming to New Zealand for centuries and centuries'. But yeah, I'm listening to their album 'Fire' right now and they're much much better live.Dominic
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What planet is this?
It's Trav's birthday this Wednesday. I got him a domain name and we're hosting his site. You can, and should, find it at runjimmyrunrunyoufuckerrun.com. I also managed to register another domain name, so if someone wants to put something there it can be arranged. They're all hosted using a shitty method at the moment because ACSite.net haven't gotten around to upgrading SE's account in the twenty days since I asked.
I'm still waiting for Serenity to come out in New Zealand so I can see it a billion times using free movie vouchers that expire next month. In the meantime I'm having to watch through Firefly so I'll be prep'd. It's quite good.
More excellent stuff from New Zealanders.
Technorati Profile <= Ignore this link. No really. Ignore it.Dominic
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Justin, this one's for you
Machinae Supremacy is a swedish new frontier band with a love for games and game music and that's reflected in their music. The band has existed since the summer of 2000 and has during that time found an original style and sound. The members originate from several distinctly different musical backgrounds and influences from metal, pop, punk rock, electronic and orchestral music to name a few can be found in the variety of material produced so far. The lyrics and the mood of the songs carry a vibe of self-confidence and enlightenment as well as an encouragement for people to take control of their own lives. After all, everybody wants to be a winner, right?
Ahhh. A band that releases game music covers in MP3 and OGG format! Actually, skip all the other links in this news item and download this. Wicked, even if they can't spell Giana.Dominic
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Tillific
I'm the number one fan of both Richard Brautigan and The Front Lawn on Audioscrobbler. Because of this, AS has decided that the two are similar. Clearly they are similar only along the awesome axis.
Can't be screwed posting for the moment. I will later though. Be screwed posting that is. Somebody submit something or I'll have to resort to ZGeek style submission images. You don't want that, believe me.
Me on a good day.
What Sarah saidDominic
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October is the cruelest month
I thought I didn't feel like posting yesterday. Well, now I really don't feel like it. But I have to, if only so that this can serve as a sort of marker point. See, this strange thing happens to me around October and it doesn't seem to clear up until the end of February - right throughout the best months of the year. It's happening again. It's a kind of fever, I guess. I mention it quite often when in the company of others and under the influence of alcohol. Like anything worth talking about it's hard to describe. There's a peculiar sense of loss - loss of meaning particularly - and at the same time I really don't give a damn about it because there's other stuff going on. So, I pretty much turn into a gabbering wreck and walk around half-dazed.
So, it all builds up until (predictably) around Christmas time. Then it's just a matter of burning it back for another six months. It's a refreshing cycle and it seems to mess around with my head just enough so that by the end of it I'm all set to sit through a boring autumn and welcome in winter. Dammit, I wish I could enjoy summer more.
Roll on 3/1/06.Dominic
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Ambition
Mwahaha! I've done it. I got mentioned (yes, mentioned!) on public address. Next stop: world domination!
If you're looking for an interesting read, try the Cognitive Daily. It's invariably an interesting read.Dominic
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Dunedin
Is it just me, or does everyone get really angry around exam time, and then after about 2 minutes after their final exam they get miraculously better? It's crazy. Anyway, I'm back on the 7th Nov, my friend bought a Foozball table on trade me and it's living at my place over the summer so there will be many an epic battle. And you guys can come along too. Finding a job is pretty tough when you are in another city. Rambling is fun. See you all soon.
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Ursula, is that you?
Yes, Ursula has risen from the dead. That or she's just possessing this poor young Nat.Obviously as a Young National member the final election result was disappointing for Liz Shaw...Liz Shaw was [sic] felt so strongly about politics after the election that she has decided to run as an independent candidate for Auckland Central where she resides. It is fundamental for her to have a say in the running of the country and not something that she will take lightly when she gets into power eventually.
Actually, I take it back. I was mean of me to compare Ursula with Liz - although it's tradition for me to claim different people are Ursula. Surely, this has to be a joke. Right? Right? One of these days she'll put out a The Right Word with 'hey, guys, it was all a joke! haha. funny'. People just aren't *that* stupid are they? Are they? Oh God, how depressing.
I was too scared to look at the gallery in case it had those pictures in it.Dominic
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Studying
Sucks.That will be all.
Justin