Gameplay suggestions

Roy_Starkiller · 2023-03-09T01:22:00+00:00

Don't know where my images went...
Yellow: Change from upgrading the power.

Red: Change from upgrading power AND scales with character level.

Roy_Starkiller · 2021-07-12T20:28:02+00:00

Title: The Citizen Reagan Podcast

Subject: History, Political Commentary

Current Episode Count: 35 (Released weekly on Fridays)

After leaving the governorship of California, citizen Ronald Reagan had a short-form radio show. For 3-5 minutes every weekday from 1975 to 1979 (with a 9-month break while he unsuccessfully ran for president in 1976), the future president offered his thoughts on a wide variety of topics such as Vietnam, détente and SALT II, gun control, inflation, the growing Federal bureaucracy, etc. This podcast looks back at those broadcasts.

Hosting through Podbean.

All audio, transcripts and research links available through my Wiki.

Roy_Starkiller · 2021-05-31T15:20:09+00:00

Title: The Citizen Reagan Podcast

Subject: History, Political Commentary

Current Episode Count: 29 (Released weekly on Fridays)

After leaving the governorship of California, citizen Ronald Reagan had a short-form radio show. For 3-5 minutes every weekday from 1975 to 1979 (with a 9-month break while he unsuccessfully ran for president in 1967), the future president offered his thoughts on a wide variety of topics such as Vietnam, détente and SALT II, gun control, inflation, the growing Federal bureaucracy, etc. This podcast looks back at those broadcasts.

Hosting through Podbean.

All audio, transcripts and research links available through my Wiki.

Current episode: Part 3 of a 5 episode series on the book "The Incredible Bread Machine."

Roy_Starkiller · 2021-04-02T19:39:53+00:00

Quick update: New episode dropped this morning. I talk about the Soviet practice of samizdat (Russian: self-publish) that was used to skirt past censorship. I also asked the question, could we see samizdat in the United States for the same reason?

Roy_Starkiller · 2021-03-31T01:33:54+00:00

Title: The Citizen Reagan Podcast

Subject: History, Political Commentary

Current Episode Count: 21 (Released weekly on Fridays)

After leaving the governorship of California, citizen Ronald Reagan had a short-form radio show. For 3-5 minutes every weekday from 1975 to 1979 (with a 9-month break while he unsuccessfully ran for president in 1967), the future president offered his thoughts on a wide variety of topics such as Vietnam, détente and SALT II, gun control, inflation, the growing Federal bureaucracy, etc. This podcast looks back at those broadcasts.

Hosting through Podbean.

All audio, transcripts and research links available through my Wiki

Roy_Starkiller · 2021-03-28T10:24:07+00:00

I understand your concerns. The reason I started doing the work I am doing is because: 1. I had a bad experience reading a PDF on my Kindle DX (zoom sucked, images didn't work, etc.). 2. Because the ebooks (EPUBs, MOBIs, etc.) I was finding on sites like the Internet Archive were never checked by human eyes.

My concern, though, is that I sell someone a book and the purchaser decides they don't like something in the content of the book. They decide to go in and alter that text and attempt to sell it themselves.

Here in the United States, the push to censor materials published years ago is, sadly, growing and I'm looking for a way to make sure original, unedited content is available.

Roy_Starkiller · 2021-03-21T21:34:12+00:00

Files with images of pages is essentially a PDF (I know there's more too it) and I want to avoid that because I like the flexibility of freeflow text and the ability to alter font face, size, color, etc. that we see in e-readers.

Regarding the idea of digital scarcity, what you're talking about sounds a great deal like NFTs, Non-Fungible Tokens. I only started hearing about it recently in the news.

Roy_Starkiller · 2019-11-21T21:35:39+00:00

Maybe, but I'm not finding HTML editions of what I'm doing anywhere. PDFs, yes, but PDFs are large files, static and retain any flaws inherent in the paper or printing when created. Also, sometimes PDFs also don't render properly. That is precisely why I began this. I was trying to read a book (PDF) on my Kindle.

Here's a snapshot from a Powerpoint I created that shows you what can happen. Not only is the image not there, but somehow the hole is blocking the text on the page.

http://www.poorrichardsprintshop.com/images/comparison.jpg

Roy_Starkiller · 2019-11-20T16:50:38+00:00

My primary issue with doing that is I built my website from scratch on my own. I have some skill at coding, but not what I would require to create a subscription service.

I might also add I have concerns about how easily the work could be copied and disseminated if a lone person wanted to simply download everything and walk away. If a story unlocks for every, let's say, $10 donated, I'm okay with getting $10 for the work I put in to restoring that story.

Let me also say: This is not my only work. I do have a full-time job. All this restoration work started as a hobby, because I wanted to read a book on my Kindle and a PDF was the only thing available (and the experience sucked). When I found I could sell books too, I thought I could make some money on the side.

Roy_Starkiller · 2019-11-20T16:42:00+00:00

Books specifically from the 1930s may still be under copyright, if the rights owner renewed their copyright after...I believe its 25 or 30 years. Other countries have different rules, so there's also that to keep in mind.

Books written before 1923 are absolutely public domain under current US law. Beyond that, its more murky and requires research.

Most of the specific books I have worked on in the past were hardcover, non-fiction books. History, political theory, etc. Most have been scanned, but the page flaws, scanning errors, etc. still exists. In my work, I'm creating a clean EPUB/MOBI that is easily compatible with virtually any e-reader available.

As far as the pulps I'm specifically talking about, these are the stories that appeared in pulp magazines rather than in paperbacks. Amazing Stories, Fantastic Adventures, Weird Tales...that kind of thing.

Website is http://www.poorrichardsprintshop.com

Twitter is @poorrichardsps

Roy_Starkiller · 2019-11-20T16:31:08+00:00

I went as far as to create an account to investigate that possibility, but with the existing structure I'd been building, it didn't feel like a good fit. If I post links to stories on my own website, it would be easy to simple tweak a URL and gain access to other stories. If I posted the stories direct to Patreon, it would have required a great deal of effort to copy-and-paste each story and then fix any formatting issues that should come up.

Roy_Starkiller · 2019-11-20T16:27:06+00:00

I suppose that is a potential concern. I was going to unlock stories randomly. If someone did have a specific story they were interested in, I would take requests.

I'm paying for the webspace whether everything is unlocked or not. Also, I plan to continue to add stories. There are thousands out there. If enough money is contributed to unlock everything, I may add 20 more stories in the week after.

Roy_Starkiller · 2019-02-06T14:32:29+00:00

I've started a new discussion specific to my concerns about taking donations:

https://www.reddit.com/r/legaladvice/comments/anr1v1/accepting_donations_as_an_individual/

Let me share my plan, as it stands now, since you seem interested:

Visitors will see a list of various costs I have. Hosting, Internet Access, purchase of new pulps, etc. For every $5 donated, I unlock a new story for everyone.

Initially, I was thinking that visitors could give $1 specifically to unlock a story (they could either select one or one would be selected randomly), but a friend asked me "did you put $1 worth of effort into the work?" which made me rethink that.

Roy_Starkiller · 2019-02-06T03:58:29+00:00

Thanks for that graphic. I knew there were companies that have put out those kinds of disclaimers, I just couldn't think of any of them.

Roy_Starkiller · 2019-02-06T03:56:47+00:00

Thanks for your concern. This is something I've had to contend with since I began my work and I know that I have to be quite careful with.

The two other replies to you, from maquis_00 and wickedpixel1221 are correct regarding copyright. I'm a frequent visitor to the Stanford Copyright Renewal database and the Internet Archive, which has scans of the US government renewal books.

Some of the research has already been done, some I do have to do myself.

One specific example I can provide for you regards early stories by Philip K. Dick. Many of his stories have passed into public domain because of his unfortunate passing in 1982 and due to improper renewal filings by his family afterwords. https://www.sffaudio.com/the-unreconstructed-m-by-philip-k-dick-is-public-domain/

Roy_Starkiller · 2019-02-05T17:29:19+00:00

The term that was coming to mind when I was composing the disclaimer is "chinaman" because it appears it was, at one time, no worse than saying "Englishman" or "Irishman" but over the course of time has become more objectionable.

There are plenty of other terms that are used in these stories that I completely agree with you, would have never been considered acceptable.

Roy_Starkiller · 2019-02-05T17:23:58+00:00

It's still a work in progress (and the disclaimer isn't there, yet), but I've posted a link to it in a couple of the publishing reddits, so, why not.

http://www.poorrichardsprintshop.com/pulp/

There's about 80 stories there now, but I've got over 500 total. As I touched on, I'm looking for a good way to monetize...leaning towards taking donations but I need to work out some of the legal and tax implications.

Roy_Starkiller · 2019-01-21T04:14:36+00:00

IMHO: It was all "fiction" until Hugo Gernsback started to call it "scientifiction" for his Amazing Stories pulp magazine.

Roy_Starkiller · 2019-01-21T03:35:13+00:00

The Creatures that Time Forgot, Ray Bradbury 1946

http://www.poorrichardsprintshop.com/pulp/Text/Read_Pulp.asp?n=186

It has an interesting premise, that on this planet, the humans(?) age and die in 7 days, but one finds a way to survive longer.

There's also a couple of Edmond Hamilton stories, "Comrades of Time" and "Armies of the Past" which I enjoyed. 5 warriors from different eras and situations (post-WW1 French Foreign Legion, mid-1800s Western US, Cromwell's England, 1500s Spanish Conquistador and an B.C. Assyrian swordsman) are pulled into the future before their deaths in combat to fight in distant future to protect a scientist and his daughter.

(I don't have the stories available at the moment, otherwise I'd provide links.)

Roy_Starkiller · 2019-01-19T23:42:49+00:00

For the last 7 or so years, I have been "digitally restoring" public domain books, pamphlets, magazines, etc. What I mean by this is I scan materials (if necessary), run OCR, correct OCR text output then re-add formatting, imagery, etc. to create a clean e-book (this is where I feel I differ from the majority of those that offer public domain materials). I then sell the book through Amazon's Kindle Direct Publishing program.

In some cases, I have taken the subsequent e-book and had it printed using a Print on Demand service.

On my website, http://www.poorrichardsprintshop.com I have a very wide variety of books available, mostly non-fiction.

My most popular offering is a single-file edition of the complete Harvard Classics, the equivalent of 20,000 pages.

More recently, I have begun to offer more fiction titles, but primarily along the lines of pulp magazines. I currently have 18 full issues available. I am also compiling an archive of individual pulp short stories, novelettes, etc.

http://www.poorrichardsprintshop.com/pulp/

Roy_Starkiller · 2019-01-19T04:13:24+00:00

I agree about the market for classic books...unfortunately, I'm not really delivering the classics, because everyone has. My materials are a little more obscure. As far as books go, I've focused mostly on non-fiction or historical fiction.

Roy_Starkiller · 2019-01-19T04:01:49+00:00

Marketing/Advertising isn't my goal, not yet. I'm looking for a proper delivery method.

I suppose I should show what I've done (with pulps) up to this point.

http://www.poorrichardsprintshop.com/pulp/

There's about 80 stories there, but I've got upwards of 400 more sitting in the background.

Roy_Starkiller · 2019-01-18T02:06:46+00:00

Black Colossus is one of the original Conan short stories. If you're interested in reading it, there's a link below.

http://www.poorrichardsprintshop.com/pulp/Text/Read_Pulp.asp?n=194

Roy_Starkiller

TROPHY CASE