Scrobins

Does anyone know why that policy exists?

It’s gorgeous!

Back to postal talk though, if we move into mail-in balloting becoming the norm, there’s an opportunity for a new postal product specific to a ballot that would be pre-paid by a voter’s state and included certification and tracking so you could confirm your ballot arrived and was counted.

Interesting idea, I don’t know if there was a mandate for telephone connection nationwide, even though that is regulated as a utility. However I would say that the technology functioned differently and the country looked very different when the telephone was spreading (and the telegraph well before that). In order for the east coast and west coast to talk to each other, they had to connect through the rural stuff in the middle, which is not quite the same as it works today with internet connection.

And that’s the problem because it should be critical out there, the failure to provide access to large rural swaths of the country is a good example of a market failure because there isn’t a good business case for rolling out broadband to rural America, which creates a class of have-nots based solely on where you live. And that is also exactly why the Postal Service is critical because the commercial package service companies will never deliver out there because it’s not worth the cost of building out their business on those areas.

Unfortunately we are still fighting that political battle of whether or not to legally define it as a critical utility. It’s a necessary paradigm shift that the government needs to adopt in order for the law to catch up to technology.

I’d say it’s a question of degree. I’m not sure anyone would want nationalized broadband, but heavy government regulation and oversight is crucial for rollout and maintenance. Apologies for the brief tangent but it seemed relevant to the discussion: In addition to working at the Postal Service now, I used to work for the FCC doing enforcement investigations (I was the line attorney working on Open Internet enforcement) and when it comes to communications infrastructure, it is the Wild West out there. A solid number of cell towers were built without proper authorization because the FCC is one of the few federal agencies that allows people to self-certify environmental and tribal compliance. Which as you can imagine means tons of people build towers to sell to communications companies and make $$$, knowing that by the time the government finds them 1) the damage is done and can’t be undone and 2) the FCC’s statute of limitations has likely already run out so they can’t do anything anyway.

Ooh this looks good. Also with those dancing characters I really really want someone to sync this video to Michael Jackson’s Beat It

As a USPS attorney working specifically in the rates section of the agency, it’s certainly an interesting time to be working there. I’m obviously not going to reveal any confidential information, but I will say this: we are not tearing our hair out over this, yet. There is a political battle over the nature and long-term health of the Postal Service just about every ten years but not much happens despite our requests to Congress for some reforms that will allow us greater capacity to control our finances. And despite these battles, we have some meaningful institutional protection: 1) we are one of the few agencies in government with an implied constitutional mandate to exist and 2) because the Postal Service is required to deliver to every address in this country, including parts of this country that make no business sense to deliver to, we will always have value in those areas because UPS and FedEx will use us to deliver their packages along that “last mile” for them and therefore we are as much necessary collaborators as much as we are competitors. Based on the threats leveled over pricing, the president seems to want to target commercial prices, not retail. I’ve never sold anything on eBay so I don’t know what shipping arrangements exist, but if you’re just some person walking into a post office to mail a package to someone who bought your games on eBay, this doesn’t look like it would affect you. The threat appears to be leveled at the commercial level, where companies are mailing at a more massive scale and have a different range of postal products and access to equipment to obtain and apply postage to that more massive scale of goods.

I’m just glad things quieted down a bit, damn March was a dense month for new homebrew

Haha I love that you posted both pictures, going from aww to AHHH!

I’ve been using some of my quarantine time to play through some of my homebrew I’ve been meaning to play more, like Black Box Challenge, Larry, Legends of Owlia, Twin Dragons, and most recently Mystic Origins. One thing that’s bugging me, in Mystic Origins there is a cave where you learn a fire spell from one guy and elsewhere in that cave is a another guy that seems impossible to reach. Now I know that the item and song inventory is just to show off the scale of Mystic Searches, but is that guy also someone who I’ll only be able to meet in Mystic Searches or is it possible to talk to him in Mystic Origins??

General chat about homebrew! What are you playing right now? Any spots in a game where you’re stuck? Anything you’re enjoying and want to see more of? Looking for recs? Trying to find a particular game? Just wanted to chat but it didn’t belong in any other thread? Tired of my questions???

You’re doing some really cool things with your game! I love your updates!

You could create a signup thread and people could state their timezones and preferred range of time to play and you could schedule accordingly, e-mailing whoever is scheduled to bout a specific time to logon to fight each other.

Added Jester, CollectorVision's newly teased game for the NES.

Added Kevin's Engagement Edition variant of Larry.

Maybe a scheduled VGS tournament...?

Holy crap, apparently my post made me win the day yesterday! Thanks all for your appreciation for my poor gaming and resting-bitch-face cat!

Can you PM me a list of Famicom homebrew missing from my thread? If it’s still available, send me the link to where it can be purchased, if not then confirm it’s out of print, or if it’s still in development, include a link where we can watch it’s progress. I was actually planning on @ing you for this thread. You introduced us to ITG over on NA, are they still active and what’s their website or social media so we can follow them? Have they released anything since Cross-Strait Independence?

The Complete Chester Gould’s Dick Tracy, Volume 25. I’ve reached the 70s and it’s...definitely still going on

As the homebrew community continues to grow, it is important to connect with devs who might not be aware of VGS and the enthusiastic market within it. And although our members span the globe, there are parts of the world where brewers may not be as aware of this forum's community and potential as a platform to promote their work. There was a thread on NA about some in-development Famicom homebrew and the effort to connect with the devs and demonstrate international interest in their games. I would like to create this thread for myself and others to bring attention to overseas homebrew and their devs. If any devs are here, announce yourself! If anyone is friends with them, bring them into the community so we can engage and support them! Below is an incomplete list of some projects that are complete or in-development and their devs, to the best of my current knowledge. Help me connect with this awesome people and promote their work, and if possible bring them here to VGS! - Mojon Twins: So Many Games! Twitter and Twitter - 87 Arts: Star Keeper Twitter - Retro X Brasil, Amaweks, Laudelino: Balaio de Jogos Twitter, Twitter, and Twitter - Impact Soft: Haradius Zero Twitter - Tulip House Games: Ilevan, Vegetablets Go Twitter - Karu_gamo: Blazing Ranger, "amazon runner", "mech game" Twitter - RIKI: Astro Ninja Man, Kira Kira Star Night DX Twitter - Moktv: Porun chan Onigiri, "sports game", "son son clone" Twitter - Kisala: Chateau Blanc Psyche Twitter - good_tune: RC2Rally, Gold Guardian GunGirl Twitter - Kannagichan: Danmaku Twitter - Retro Nerve: Kung Fu UFO Twitter - ITG: Cross-Strait Independence - PSCD: Foxy Land, Debtor, Bio Evil Twitter - game impact: Booth Store and Twitter - Blue Blood Twitter - lscreate Twitter -Kenneth Fejer Twitter

Bumpdated

I’m gonna be honest I actually did better than I expected. Also pictured: judgmental cat 76850