And I ain't never gonna be eaten by the monster of love

[austin_dern]

There's a bit more news in that pinball scandal, about the guy who was trying to make Predator-themed pinball machines without an actual license. According to an interview at Pinball news, Kevin Kulek, the guy who'd been making the pinball machines without the license, he was guilty of nothing more than being kind of dopey. According to the article, he did too approach Fox, although they might have gotten the idea he was looking for how to make a one-off table that he could show at conventions and stuff without breaking the bounds of fair use. Also if people had just gone to him instead of asking Fox about his boutique pinball none of this trouble would have happened. I recommend following it in detail.

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And meanwhile there's my humor blog. Been reading it? If you haven't then you missed in the past week pieces including:

• Discovering Stuff About Guinea Pigs, this week's major piece, inspired by my recent reading about the Lansing Zoo and the discovery they used to have a guinea pig mound.
• Ferret Skepticism, in which I doubt something the pet store says about ferrets, and talk about guinea pigs.
• Robert Benchley: The Tariff Unmasked, a piece by the master humorist about the tax situation as of sometime in the 1920s.
• Century of Slapstick #77: Chaplin’s “The Tramp” as we just passed the centennial of the definitive debut of this movie character.
• Mathematics Comics and Star Trek, a Caption This! moment and link to my mathematics blog.
• Statistics Saturday: Nations of Oceania Ordered By Length even though ``Oceania'' still sounds strange to my ear.
• Betty Boop: Dizzy Dishes, the very first Betty Boop cartoon, although not the last of my series of first Betty Boop cartoons.
• When The Car Wash Changed Management, last week's major piece, about a sign that captured my imagination.

Trivia: At least one Iberian Peninsula agency selling tabulating machines and typewriters in the 1920 also handled the marketing of Three-In-One Oil, Peerless automobiles, Eversharp lead pencis, Johnson wax, and vacuum cleaners. Source: Before The Computer: IBM, NCR, Burroughs, and Remington Rand and the Industry They Created, 1856 - 1956, James W Cortada. (Unfortunately the endnotes don't get more specific.)

Currently Reading: Games Without Rules: The Often Interrupted History of Afghanistan, Tamim Ansary. Well, early on, it's left me awed by Dost Mohammad, so that's something.

Comments

[porsupah.livejournal.com]

Still, I can't help but wonder that if Fox were simply to offer a reasonable license, even at this stage, things could have been (maybe even still could be?) so different, and better for all concerned. But then, studios and broadcasters have embraced the principle that it can be more profitable - somehow - to not sell things than to sell things, as with so much of the BBC's output, or even MLP:FiM, which remains only on the US iTunes Store.

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

I would imagine that Fox would've been fine with somebody making one or two tables. Maybe even a half-dozen. But making 250 machines --- well, limited-edition runs of modern games only go up to a thousand. At some point Fox licensing would be correct to wonder why they couldn't just get a license with Stern or Jersey Jack to make a real pinball machine that actually gets to be a prize on The Price Is Right and stuff like that.