Burrowowl

Yesterday the Wall Street Journal published an interview with Kevin Martin, chairman of the FCC. The bulk of the discussion was regarding his take on the regulatory framework that encourages, influences, and inhibits broadband access in the United States. In it we see Martin’s underlying values in supporting the FCC decisions recently ruled upon in the US Supreme Court.

I think its important when companies invest capital in purchasing equipment and deploying service to customers they’ve got to be able to have a regulatory environment that let’s them recoup in the long run that investment or they won’t make that investment. That’s one thing the commission and I’ve been focused on to make sure companies have the opportunity to invest and upgrade their infrastructure and recoup that investment if they’re willing to make it and bring those new services. We have the benefit today that both the cable and the phone companies are trying to deploy and upgrade their infrastructures.

In light of the ongoing pricing wars between ILECs and local cable companies, it seems clear that low profit margins on line-sharing is not a real disincentive for these companies at all. All that this deregulation is accomplishing is limiting the choices we as end-consumers have in regards to the services we enjoy in a broadband environment. In California, SBC currently offers DSL lines wholesale to independent ISPs at prices that are at roughly 50% of the old tariff. This is being done not only voluntarily, but it was SBC’s idea. If artificial competition is whittling away at these companies’ margins to such an extent that they cannot deploy more infrastructure, why would they go out of their way to reduce their margins even further? I smell a rat.

Today I picked up the first issue of No Quarter Magazine, a periodical by the notoriously-tardy Privateer Press. I’m highly interested in whether they’ll be able to keep up with the inherent deadlines, as previous publications have suffered some rather disappointing setbacks.

First, the bad stuff. I know this is a terribly sticklerish thing to bring up, but the contributing writers to this title could use some more firm editorial filtering. Small grammatical errors and stylistic foibles slip through in nearly every article. This is acceptable in obscure weblogs (hi!) and web fora, but I wince when I see such errors in a magazine. I rarely catch them in Time or Newsweek, and I am confident that the Privateers are at least twice as smart as those douchebags. Also in the “bad” column is the possibly-intentional inclusion of references to unpublished rules. A prime example of this would be the mysterious “Khadoran Conscript” feat listed with the example Iron Fang NPC. Another minor complaint is the recycled artwork in the Professor Pendrake section. Stylistically, the font being used for the cover masthead needs to be used more sparingly. It is practically illegible at smaller sizes. These are trivial annoyances, which I will set aside as subjects for expected improvement and growth.

Now to the rabid fanboy gushing of praise and such. No Quarter is doing a fine job of mixing the tabletop miniatures game WARMACHINE and the Iron Kingdoms roleplaying game setting. With the preponderance of miniatures-gamers on the Privateer Press Fora, I had some concern that things would be more one-sided.

The artwork, as is to be expected from these folks, is fantastic. The full-color artwork for Karchev and Terminus particularly stand out. The full-page picture of an Iron Fang in repose takes the cake. My previous typography complaint aside, the magazine itself is lovely. The page layouts were clearly put together by people that simultaneously understand the benefits of consistency and the desire to be able to flip through the pages and find an article quickly. Without garish 3rd-party advertisements, articles are uninterrupted and read smoothly.

No Quarter additionally made good use of Privateer Press’s online resources, pointing folks to web enhancements and fansites liberally. As a frequent forum-monkey on their site, I can see that they take the recommendations and ideas of their fans seriously, and are putting forth a strong effort to give us what we want. Within reason.

If you have USD$5.99 handy and a local hobby store that carries it, pick it up. Folks that play both WARMACHINE and the IKRPG will get the most value out of it, but enthusiasts of either will get their money’s worth.