Burrowowl

Last weekend, the folks at Privateer Press set off an avalanche of forum activity and chatter amongst their internet-intensive fanbase by publishing not only previews of the Harbinger‘s model for WARMACHINE, but also a number of previews pertaining to the much-anticipated Liber Mechanika and a cryptic sub-site featuring a Winter Guard watchman demanding a password.

The Liber Mechanika is expected to have all manner of crunchy goodness, including rules for creating and using steam-drive power-assist armor, mechanikal limb replacements, and just about anything else you may need in order to go on an adventuresome rampage through Western Immoren. Though I’m still basking in the afterglow of the IKWG, I’m very much looking forward to August. Arcane Mechaniks and Bodgers are about to get about twenty times as useful, I suspect.

During your stay in the lovely but rugged lands of Khador, whether touring the scenic steppelands of our Khardic forefathers, riding the Iron Highway on state-of-the-art Blaustavya trains, or visiting the ancient shrines and temples of both the Good Twin and the Shaper of Man, there are some things you will often be called upon to know.

Our land is a proud Monarchy, headed by Queen Ayn Vanar XI. Her bloodline draws back to the ancient pre-Orgoth horselords, and she is a fine example of Khadoran strength and austerity. Her house and army are strong, and she is admired and beloved by her people. For fourteen years she has given the Khadoran people much to be proud of. Serfdom has been abolished by royal decree since 546 AR; it is said that every loyal Khadoran is truly free.

The weather in Khador has always been described as “harsh,” as our long winters freeze this part of Immoren for five months out of the year, but this is mostly only true of the northern reaches. Our farmers and craftsmen are known for their efficiency and strength, making due with relatively short growing seasons and the threats of the northern wilderness. Against these dangers the Winter Guard is ever-vigilant, patrolling our major settlements constantly.

Every Khadoran is required to register for possible conscription upon reaching adulthood. In times of need, every male that is of age may be called upon to assist the Winter Guard to keep the peace and defeat our enemies. As a matter of civic pride, nearly all Khadoran men volunteer for military service at seventeen years of age. Khadorans have always been a strong people, and visitors are advised to avoid arousing the locals’ tempers.

The worship of Morrow is predominant, though the Old Faith of Menoth remains strongly anchored in our culture. Ever respectful of our ancient traditions, we honor Menoth the Lawgiver and Shaper of Man, all the while seeking self-betterment and enlightenment as Morrow would have us. In Khador more than anywhere else, the faiths of Menoth and Morrow cohabitate harmoniously, each held firmly in the hearts of our people. Please note that leaders of the Old Faith here in the North do not recognize the Heirarch in Southern Cygnar, instead relying upon the older tradition of leadership by a number of Visgoths. The Church of Morrow in Khador, as with everywhere else, respects the authority of the Primarch and the Exordeum.

Our money is accepted throughout the Iron Kingdoms and is well known for its reliable purity, the artisanship of its design, and its economical proportions. Khadoran currency is minted in accordance with the Corvis Treaties. Each is stamped with the likeness of the current monarch on the obverse, and the coin’s namesake on the reverse.

The Horn is cast in copper
The Hoof is cast in silver
The Talon is cast in gold
The Fang is cast in platinum

When visiting Khador, you are advised to trade in foreign jink at the nearest tax collector’s office to ensure favorable exchange rates. Many loyal Khadoran shopkeepers and professionals will not accept foreign moneys, or charge an exorbitant fee for dirtying their hands with the stuff.

When traveling overland, keep an eye out for any Czavyana Trading Posts that may be available. In addition to excellent trade goods at good prices, Czavyana maintains inns that can provide a weary traveler with a soft bed, a hot bath, and a good warm meal with the best of Khadoran hospitality.

*Note: This is a rewrite of an older article regarding Khador.

Various notables, some with honest-to-goodness factual data at their disposal, say that the United States is falling behind in broadband deployment. Some places have high speed connectivity available at speeds and monthly prices that put US broadband providers to shame. There are a great many contributing factors to the state of broadband deployment in the US as opposed to, say, Japan.

Population density is often cited. As of 1990, Japan had a population density of 327 (in Tokyo it was 13,416 persons per square kilometer). As of 1990, the United States had a population density of 27. It’s considered easier to deploy telecommunications systems in high-density areas, as shorter loop-lengths can reach a greater number of potential users. Shorter loop-lengths mean less capital outlay for the transmission lines themselves (less copper or fiber involved), less attenuation on the circuits themselves, and so forth. For wireless technologies it means a single transmission site can reach more subscribers. Density is great, and the US isn’t very densely-packed.

This is a bit of a red herring, as places like New York City have similar densities (20,194 per square kilometer). That is, until politics gets in the way. By this I don’t mean Republican vs. Democrat politics, but company vs. company vs. municipality vs. state vs. feds vs. the consumer.

In the United States we have a phone system that is based off of a bureaucratic private enterprise, which is inherently bad news. A great read on the inherently flawed nature of this system can be found at the Bell System Memorial.

I’m not terribly familiar with the telecom companies of Japan and Hong Kong, but it’s my understanding that they have managed to avoid the deeply-entrenched stasis that has characterized our phone system for decades. For a good look at how Japan’s government bureaucracy is broken, I recommend Dogs and Demons by Alex Kerr.

Add into the mix a general tendency of big-money capital expenditures in Japan to have no plausible link to realistic expectations of profitable returns (hence the “bubble economy” and its subsequent burst), and you get an environment in which tremendous amounts of money can be funneled with little regulatory pushback (the bureaucracy sees it as an opportunity to try to push for more subsidies) and mix in a well-educated, high density population of technophiles and you get 50mbps broadband for ¥3,167 per month (roughly $30, reference).

American telcos, on the other hand, have to deal with unreasonable stockholders that expect profits, unreasonable regulators that want them to run copper out into the countryside, unreasonable banks that want returns on their investments, and unreasonable customers demanding access in remote locations.

Cable companies in the US benefit from a far less confrontational relationship with regulators and a physical infrastructure that lends itself pretty well to sharing big fat bandwidth amongst subscribers. After decades of AT&T and a general failure of the baby bells to dig out of leftover public resentment, US consumers have been more than happy to latch onto this method of connecting. A big problem with cable broadband right now is the lack of choices one has in getting it. In Santa Rosa I can only get it through Comcast. If I don’t like the services associated with the bandwidth, I’ll take my money elsewhere. I could switch to SBC/Yahoo!, but that feels like doing business with the phone company (the only entity more reviled than the phone company is the Franchise Tax Board), or maybe a big ISP like Earthlink, or even some local folks like Sonic.net. Note that three of these choices are DSL. That’s three customer service departments, four sets of add-on features to suit my needs, four chances for the telco to get into my pocketbook at bit. If you look at consumer reviews of their broadband services, such as those a DSLReports.com, you’ll see that smaller, local companies are well-loved by their customers, and most of them are providing DSL from their local phone monopoly. The cable companies are shooting themselves in the foot.

With cable and telephone companies at each others’ throats for market share, regulatory bodies are being used as enforcers. Right now people like Brand X are trying to break the stranglehold that cable companies have over provisioning connections on their networks (reference). Phone companies are trying to force out ISPs (reference), and both cable and phone companies are working hard to prevent municipalities from entering the field by providing service in places that neither are willing to.

All of this just amounts to excuses, though. Nobody has called out the National Guard to stop folks from laying fiber, and it doesn’t take an act of congress to bring up an area multiplexer.

With any luck, new technologies like MoCA‘s 100mbps trials or FTTN will go head-to-head on their actual merits, consumers will be able to pick the services they want, and all the companies involved will be able to make a decent profit. Only time (and probably a fair amount of litigation, legislation, and regulation) will tell. I rather doubt that either cable or telephone as a transmission medium will completely die out if the monopolies don’t have to share with other ISPs; people have a tendency to “cross the street” when they run into poor customer service or connectivity problems.

*edit on 2005-04-13: A good read on the subject of America’s inability to roll out good new connectivity to its consumer base can be found at MediaCitizen.