It’s time for compulsory licensing of video

Since the owners of video content can’t wrap their heads around the simple fact that there is zero difference between streaming video to a phone, tablet, computer, “smart TV”, or set-top box†, I say it is time for compulsory licensing.

That’s how music is licensed (here in the US at least). You don’t have to go to the “rights holder” for permission to play a song. You just have to be sure that you pay them the mandated fee.

We get to watch movies and TV however is convenient for us; the “rights holders” get paid; win-win.

†Here’s how you can tell: Open them up and see that, inside, all of these things are computers.

App Store Genius

John August, “Topping the charts and racing to the bottom”:

What you really want is a list that shows what apps that people like you are using and enjoying. That’s the kind of information that companies like Amazon and Netflix are terrific at leveraging.

Um...isn’t that what that Genius option does?

The iOS 7 redesign, second impressions

My first impression was that the iOS 7 redesign was all about coherence. Here are my second impressions...

There have been a lot of complaints about the iOS 7 icons for Apple’s apps. shrug I can’t get too worked up about them. I generally don’t care for many of them, but I could’ve probably complained just as much about the iOS 6 versions.

Only using color to differentiate interactive elements is something I have concerns about. Firstly, how will this work for color blind users? Secondly, I’ve seen differentiating things only by color be a problem for users who aren’t color blind in many situations. Thirdly, in user interfaces redundancy is a feature. I’d expect that Apple has taken these concerns into account. Sometimes a well thought out implementation of something that goes against the guidelines can work fine. But that’s the one aspect of the redesign that I’m doubtful about.

Serious Superman

I haven’t seen the Man of Steel yet, but I can’t say that I’m excited about it. And not simply because I’m old enough that yet another incarnation of the old superheroes is becoming tiresome.

I’d love to see a serious Superman movie. But it would be one where they threw out almost all the canon except for the alien orphan becomes super-powered hero bit.

Trying to make a serious movie about the DC Superman seems pointless to me. There’s a built-in idealism and over-the-top aspect that it is hard to see working the way the Dark Knight series could.

T&T attributes

At NTRPGC this year, I got to play Tunnels & Trolls with its creator, Ken St. Andre. My only experience of T&T before this was a few runs through solitaire adventures. It seems that we were the first people to play the T&T Free RPG Day adventure. Ken was an enjoyable GM, and we got a sneak peek at the Deluxe Tunnels & Trolls changes.

Perhaps my one apprehension about T&T has been its highly abstract combat system. It seemed to work much better in play than I’d anticipated, though. It seems to smooth out the kinds of imbalances between characters that T&T doesn’t avoid. The “weakest” character still contributed to combat and the “stronger” characters could protect them by soaking up the damage. It also played very quick and got us back to exploring and parlaying with the NPCs.

But, on to the topic at hand: Like D&D, T&T characters have a number of attributes that are generated by rolling 3d6. Ken had us reroll attributes below nine. Since there is an almost 26% chance of rolling < 9, though, that meant a fair amount of rerolling. So, that got me to thinking about ways to do it without rerolling.

My first thought was to use 6+2d6 instead. That would mean the minimum was 8 instead of 9, but...close enough. It does greatly change the probabilities, though. At least it is simple.

Next I considered 6 + (3d6 drop the highest). I was surprised by how close this was to the original 3d6 reroll < 9. It seems perhaps “too fiddly” for T&T, but it seems to get the job done.

This AnyDice plot shows the probabilities for 3d6, 3d6 reroll < 9, 6+2d6, and 6+3d6 drop the highest. Switch it to “graph” and then check out the “normal” and “at least” views.

Note that this ignores the TARO rule: If you roll triples, you get to roll three more dice and add their results. It’d also be interesting to work out the chances of qualifying to be a paragon (all attributes ≥ 12) would be for the different methods.

Whichever method might be used, one question arises: Should the reroll < 9 rule apply before or after kindred (i.e. race) modifiers? I’m thinking: Before.

(Another question about kindred modifiers is whether a character qualifies for a type (i.e. class) before or after kindred modifiers. But Ken said that in dT&T, only human characters have types.)

iOS 7—coherence

...or Jony Ive is the man.

I said that, if it were up to me, I would decide about textures in Apple’s iOS apps on a case-by-case basis rather than blindly making everything flat.

The key word for the design changes in iOS 7, however, isn’t “flat”. It is “coherence”.

They didn’t blindly make everything flat. They created a coherent design language. Which makes the way everything works seem to make sense—even if only subconsciously. Not to mention that it makes it more pleasing. It’s exactly the opposite of a case-by-case basis, but on a deeper level than flat versus textured.

In a sense, the flat versus textured issue simply disappears in iOS 7. The user picks the backdrop image. The content sits in a layer on top of that. Anything on top of that is not flat or textured but translucent to let the backdrop and content shine through.

Ive has shown that the same sensibilities he brings to hardware design can be applied to software with just as—if not more—spectacular results. I can’t wait until fall.

Incidentally, Sunday night I was organizing my RPG files and thinking about how I wish I had tags so I could organize them by source, publisher, and game system. Monday, they’re telling me how Mac OS X Sea Lion Mavericks will have file tags.

Apple and Google maps at NTRPGC

No, the Old San Antonio Road wasn’t involved in me getting to or from NTRPGC, but its sign seem appropriate to the topic.

My experience with the map apps while attending the North Texas RPG Con this year...

Apple maps did it great job of getting us near the hotel. It thought the hotel was a couple blocks from where it really was, but at least I could see it. (And, yes, I submitted the mistake to Apple.)

For nearby points-of-interest (i.e. restaurants), it failed. It didn’t show them all and was mistaken about the locations of those it did have. On the POI side, the Google maps app proved flawless. It appeared to show all the nearby restaurants, and it had their locations spot-on.

So, when we left and headed out to pick up my daughter from her grandmothers’, it was Google maps’ turn to fail. First off, the app just gave me a text list of the route choices, which didn’t give me a good way to judge between them. It told me to get off a highway only to get back on to it a few miles later, which added a lot of unnecessary extra time. To exacerbate things, construction meant I couldn’t get back on that highway. After adding about a 20 minute extra delay to a 30 minute trip, I switched back to Apple maps to help find an alternate route.

The road construction in the D/FW area seems out-of-control. It’s a real mess. Apple maps tripped up on it once as well, but it luckily recovered quickly. So, the delay was perhaps not completely Google maps’ fault, but it picked a screwy route even if there hadn’t been construction to exacerbate things.

Of course, this is just one anecdote that I wouldn’t want to generalize too much from. The lessons I’m taking away from this are:

• It’s a good idea to check both Apple and Google maps when possible.
• Start with Apple maps for guided turn-by-turn directions.
• Start with Google maps for POIs or finding the exact location of the destination at the end of an Apple maps route.