[OPINION RANT] Taxes etc.

WARNING: When I started writing this I didn't know it would be so long and now I don't feel like reading it over to make sure it isn't terrible... which means it is probably terrible... I just felt the need to get it out of my brain and now I just want to put it out there into the universe... I'm sorry.

So I made the "mistake" of following a bunch of candidates in the upcoming USA Presidential election on Google+ and have been paying a lot more attention to politics and government in general then I have done since being an idealistic college student who was once described as a "long haired socialist who wants to change the world" by a girl. Namely she said something along the lines of "my father warned me to watch out for long haired socialist who want to change the world like you".

Since then I've started wearing my hair a lot shorter and decided that I don't really have time to change the whole world so am focusing on staying employed and picking out the right school for my kids. I'm still pretty darned socialist though.

One of the things that strikes me as odd in US politics is that people are so afraid of socialism... I mean... even the Libertarian wing nuts (not saying all Libertarians are wing-nuts, I am referring to Wing-Nuts who are Libertarians here) seem to have a problem with the government spending money to take care of people.

So I have decided to make this here blog post so that I can explain to everyone what should be obvious to everyone.

The first thing I am going to do is tie together some stuff so that other stuff I say becomes self evident.

Let's Start with Rich People!
Why are rich people rich? Because they have more money then most people right? ...it's kinda what the word means... lets check the dictionary to see if I'm right... ok, dictionary uses something closer to "Abundant Material Wealth" so the "more then most people" thing isn't really part of it... one could conceive a world in which everyone has "Abundant Material Wealth" and then everyone would be rich and nobody would be poor. Hurrah!

So the question then is what do we really mean when we say "Rich People"? I think most people are thinking "People who have more money then me."

How about Poor People?
Let's check that there dictionary again (I'm using the Merriam-Webster because Webster basically made up American English as we know it today so they are kinda the authority when it comes to Americans)... skipping over the whole "inferior in quality or value" bit, because these are people we are talking about, let's summarize that with "Lacking Material Wealth".

That said, I think that when most people talk about poor people they are thinking "Insufficient Material Wealth" or more directly, people who aren't getting the basic necessities they need to survive. As such, I'm thinking there needs to be a line drawn somewhere between "too poor to eat" and "too poor to buy an iPhone". I am in the latter category most of the time... I'm employed and pay my bills and am well fed and have a bit of discretionary money to spend here and there to buy new toys for the kids and the occasional board game or standing mixer or new video game and, every few years, a new TV or computer... if I save up.

...and Middle Class
Next on the list of labels is the "Middle Class" which is basically everyone between the "too poor to buy an iPhone level" and the "Abundant Material Wealth" level... OK? Let's call it the "more then sufficient material wealth" level.

What's left?
This is where the "99%" vs the "1%" class warfare argument get... sticky... essentially... above that "Abundant Material Wealth" level there is another level of wealth... these are the people we call "super-rich".

[I'm using Wikipedia  for some of the sats I'm going to be quoting here... so grain of salt etc... but they are still likely to be relatively accurate]

You can see on the Forbes List of Billionaires that the top 8 have over 30 Billion dollars in net worth... the  "median" american has a net worth of $93,100 while the "mean" american has $448,200. The one I care about here is that "median" there is the number that 50% of Americans are worth (the mean is like the average total net worth divided by the population... it says something that it is so much higher then the median).

So, let's play with Zeros, OK?

$30,000,000,000 vs $93,100
$30 is a nice dinner for two... maybe,
$300 is a video game system,
$3,000 is food, bills and lodgings etc for a family or four for a month
$30,000 is a car
$300,000 is a house
$3,000,000 is winning the lottery and never having to worry about money again
A Net Worth of $30,000,000 is "Abundant Material Wealth"... if you have a net worth of $30,000,000 you could put it in a bank and live off the interest for the rest of your life... you stop having to worry about bills and weather you can afford that car or not... you just buy whatever the heck you want and live however the heck you want... OK?

Now add 3 more Zeros... $30,000,000,000!!! With that much money 1,000 people could live as I just described... someone with that much money he could give 9,000 people $3,000,000 and still have enough over to buy a new yacht... he could buy 90,000 people a home without moving out of his own mansion... when we're talking about the "Super Rich" we are not talking about the wealthy... we are talking about people who have so much more money then you that you wouldn't know what to do with it all.

So... what does this have to do with socialism?
OK, so that was a huge tangent and really off the point... if you go back to that Wikipedia article I linked to it mentions that "In 2007 the richest 1% of the American population owned 34.6% of the country's total wealth, and the next 19% owned 50.5%. Thus, the top 20% of Americans owned 85% of the country's wealth and the bottom 80% of the population owned 15%." which is basically what I was trying to illustrate.

What it really comes down to, for me, is HOW does someone get in that top 20% or 1%... if I invent something that is incredibly successful and therefore valuable and then leverage that success and gains in wealth to improve my invention and invent new things... this is the system working... I started with an idea, I worked until that idea was valuable enough to support itself and then next thing you know... BAM!.. exponential wealth growth.

Because Technology Patents and Piracy are in the news and one of those there billionaires is Bill Gates I'm going to use this as an example.

If there were no patent laws and no copyright laws Bill Gates could NEVER have made that kind of money off of DOS. Who knows if there would have even been such a thing as a computer to create an operating system FOR beyond the stuff the military and universities were researching. Maybe in this hypothetical universe with no patents of copyright Bill Gates would have gotten tenure as a research scientist at a University and be making a reasonable income and DOS would still exist... but he wouldn't have gotten rich from it.

So that is my first point... the Super Rich 1% and the Very Rich 20% are, for the most part, only that rich because the laws in our country helped them get there. If stealing were legal then you would have to spend as much money hiring guards to protect your assets as you spend manufacturing them and the second they were in the wild the lack of patent law would allow anyone to immediately copy your invention... sure you could make the best version of something but the second you got too wealthy someone would kill you and take it from you because they invested in hiring more goons instead of making better gizmos... or maybe they would simply enslave you and torture your family while you worked in their factories.

The basic idea here is that the "System" is what gave these "Super Rich" an environment in which they could become "Super Rich"... and what is this system? We call it "society". Police Officers, Lawyers, Fire Fighters, Soldiers, Construction Workers, Manufacturers, Programmers, Mothers, Maids, Customer Service Workers, Farmers, Grocers, Artists and Producers... we ARE the system that's existence ALLOWS the "Super Rich" to get and stay "Super Rich".

The "Super Rich" are simply the people who have benefited the most from the "system" we are all part of. Generally people feel that these people have done something to deserve to have managed to benefit more then "the rest of us" and I'm fine with that assumption.... BUT... and this is important... they wouldn't have has a system to benefit the most from if it hadn't been for "the rest of us".

Worst Case Scenario
For me, the worst thing that could happen would be for the government to bankrupt itself and collapse... no one would be able to sue anyone, the police and the military wouldn't get paid, and as such... barring social pressure... anyone could do whatever they wanted and we'ed have gangs of former police officers and former military people setting up little mafia's all over the place and justice being meted out by the mob... there would be rampant theft and people would stop working because getting paid wouldn't matter any more because you could just steal whatever it was you wanted... obviously a bit of an imaginative overstatement but if the system breaks down a new system that favours the strong would take it's place... and as a smart weakling I don't want that to happen. The meritocracy totally benefits me.

But... Socialism?
Let's start with all the stuff that at least 80% of us can agree on (that's a made up 80%... I have no idea what the real stat is but that seemed a reasonable guess):

Central organization is more efficient and fair for certain services. "Central" can mean community, municipal, county, state, federal, co-operative or corporate leadership in this context but the thing is that roads and the justice system (including police) and utilities just don't work so well if every single person does it for themselves... sure you can dig a well and put up a fence and hire a guard for your property but it's cheaper and fairer if you pay some central agency to do it for you.

For most people the way they "pay some central agency" is by paying taxes.

Up here in Canada we added Healthcare and Education to that list of stuff that would be better organized if we just had the Government take care of it and it sorta worked out and sorta didn't... to be perfectly frank it needs to be done right in order for it to really be more cost effective to pay that extra tax instead of paying a private insurance provider like y'all get to do in the states... so, I'm not going to tell you WHAT needs to be socialized because I don't know... I just want you to realize that there is a reason for it.

Now... Back to those Folks with an "Abundance of Wealth"
So... assuming you agree that the "system" is worth maintaining... doesn't it seem "fair" for those who have "benefited more then their fair share" from the "system" to contribute "more then their fair share" back to the system?

A lot of people talk circles around this issue but it comes down to a very simple concept. Taking money away from the rich and giving it to the poor doesn't hurt anybody but the rich.

Let's say there is a person who is "too poor to eat" because they don't WANT to work and you give him food... sure it makes that poor person doesn't have to work in order to eat so he doesn't get a job and stays "too poor to eat" forever. So? How is that guy's full belly and comfortable spot on the pavement hurting you? Who cares if he spends all day doing nothing while you work... you were going to work anyway because you want a house and a car and want to be able to feed your family and buy a new TV and maybe get an iPhone if you really work hard and succeed. You haven't lost anything but some food... assuming there is 1 guy out there who doesn't want to work for every 10 guys who do want to work... that guy who doesn't want to work and is happy to not work get's to live another day for 1/10 of your personal food budget... that's like $200 a year... it's pittance.

... but the best part is that your not even being ASKED to pay for the guy who doesn't want to work. If you don't have a legitimate reason to not work you don't get welfare moneys. We're not talking about lazy people here were talking about people who are too busy taking care of their children to have a job, or people unemployed due to a dip in the economy in their area of expertise, we're talking about people who are having trouble finding a job so they went back to school... so the worst case scenario is that someone is cheating the system... to me, if you don't support welfare because people abuse the system you are essentially telling me we should throw everyone is jail to make sure they don't commit a crime.

In my ideal option anyone who is (or is unable to be) a productive member of society would get a living wage. Which brings us back to the "Taking money away from the rich and giving it to the poor doesn't hurt anybody but the rich." thing again. I've seen a lot of noise over this Florida "drug test for welfare" thing... but let's right down to it... if someone who is on welfare legitimately (they are willing to work but unable to do so for some reason) then who are they hurting if they spend their food money on drugs and alcohol? Well, themselves... right? The glitch is that the people making this rule seem to be missing out on the whole "you die if you don't eat" thing... also the "if you are an addict you will get drugs no matter what" thing... the fact that these people are getting Welfare from the government instead of a paycheck doesn't make them any more or less likely to spend that money on drugs... and if I spend money at Walmart to buy something made in the USA there is a good chance SOMEONE in the supply chain is going to use some small percentage of that money for drugs... it's totally the same thing except that in the case of Welfare the person receiving the money in unable to work.

Fairness
One more topic to touch on here is fairness... we live in a Democracy (at least for the most part) and as such it sometimes happens that the "Majority Rules" which is actually a good thing... it means that the 80% of us who  AREN'T "Super Rich" can simply pass a law to tell them to give all of it to us... except for the whole constitution and bill of rights thing... I guess with enough popular support we could repeal that too but as it is right now it's still in place and that's a good thing... because it's means that in addition to the Majority getting to decide everything we have this great little chunk of the law that says that we need to ensure that they Minority don't get bullied... and right now the most visible minority is the Super Rich so it wouldn't really be "fair" for us to take all their stuff... no matter how much it would help.

But I've got a bunch of questions for you, my non-existent readers, that are essentially the reason that I wrote this whole mess down... so:

If you work hard and smart and get Super Rich should your children be treated better then the children of the "too poor to eat"? Even if you believe that anyone who wants to work can earn a living wage and therefore the only people "too poor to eat" are those who don't want to... can you really say it's fair that the Super Rich guy's kid get's healthy food, a tutor and an education at the best private schools and universities (and on daddy's dime to boot) while the "too poor to eat" guy's kid is malnourished and goes to a public school that doesn't have a budget to buy computer or tutors... or even books and has to work 40 hours a week while attending community college and still end up in dept until he's 40 himself and has to help his own kid go to school?

I'm not saying the Wealthy shouldn't be able to give their own kids every opportunity in life but maybe they should also pay more then the rest of us in tax so that my kids can go to a good school too?

It might not be "fair" for them but it's "fair" for society as a whole.

So, what are we to take from this?
I have no freaking clue. I just wanted to get this stuff out of my brain.

[Crazy Idea] Platform Agnostic January Geek Celebration

Wintereenmas was established by Tim Buckley through the character Ethan in a January 2003 Ctrl-Alt-Delete comic as, essencially, an excuse to stay indoors and play video games because it was so freaking cold outside.

Unfortunately, while January is still freaking cold and an excuse to be geeky is always welcome, the proposed holiday was indelibly associated with Ctrl-Alt-Delete and Tim Buckley who, as an avid reader of Penny-Arcade and Player vs Player, I am inclined to think of as a Jerk (capital J intentional).

This said, it's still freaking cold in January and a celebration of all the things one can do without having to leave the comfort of your home is still worthwhile. For me this time of year has primarily consisted of wearing video game related t-shirts, bringing video game controllers to work and trading in a few hours when I should be sleeping for a few extra hours of gaming.

In 2007 Scott Kurtz's series of Wintereenmas lampooning "Pixmas" strips pointed out that gamers already spend too much time being gamers... it's not like we're not spending multiple hours a day playing video games and wearing gamer shirts the rest of the year... so making up an reason to do so but more so was essentially a slacker wanting an excuse to get out of working... and I'm not sure if he meant it as social commentary but, by concocting the "Newbish" as a group of people who like the idea of celebrating gaming but not Pixmas itself and "Pwonzaa" as a competing gamer holiday in the same time-frame, he shows us that there are many roads to geekery. We don't all play the same games in the same ways.

Also, the name "Wintereenmas" sounds like a made up competitor of Christmas for non-christians instead of anything video game related.

While, yes, I'll grant that making up excuses to celebrate being a geek is a little self-indulgent; I still like the idea of celebrating geekery and I like the idea of doing so in the awful "dead of winter".

So, the last week of January, in the proud tradition of the christians co-opting solstice and other various holidays when they picked a date for Christmas and African Americans co-opting the Christmas season so they could celebrate their heritage with Kwanzaa... I think it's probably OK for me to decide that the last week of January each year I will celebrate "Platform Agnostic January Geek Celebration" and make up whatever traditions I feel like.

First off, this celebration is like a "module" that you can affix to whatever religion or lack-there-of belief or lack-there-of system or lack-there-of you ascribe or fail-to-ascribe to. If you happen to believe in a creator you might decide to thank god for creating video games and comic books and polyhedral dice. If you happen to ascribe to a belief system that is already expressly geeky (perhaps you attend the Church of Tetris, put Jedi on your census form, or worship Bahamut or Boccob [thanks Wikipedia]) then you might use it as an opportunity to introduce those around you to your particular brand of geekery.

Second, you can celebrate in whatever way you want. Personally I like to incorporate role and board gaming along with video games and tend to skew towards celebrating the history of gaming. Perhaps you just want to take the week off from work and play an MMORPG or build a transistor radio or code a video game or read Ender's Game or Snowcrash again... it doesn't really matter how you celebrate... well... as long as it it geeky.

The third thing that I think is important is to be public about being a Geek... wear your geek clothes... bring your transformers or legos or hero-clix to work... post on your social networks... spread the word that being a geek is awesome. If people already know you are a geek you might need to step up your game to make sure people notice that something is different about this week from all others.

So, paragraphs of useless ramblings later I ask you to share your ideas on what could be fun to do this PAJGC (pahdjuguk) Season and Merry PAJGC!

[CRAZY IDEA] Asynchronous Game Development

There is a very good chance that this blog post exists because I am reverting to old college habits in pursuit of NaNoWriMo... namely I am somehow avoiding something I "need" to do by doing that same thing to no purpose.

I don't know anything about developing a video game but...

So, I have never completed any programming project that took more then 6 months to develop. The occasions where I did complete projects weren't games anyway. So, while I may not be knowledgeable about making video games I know quite a bit about failing to complete video game projects.

I'm sure someone else has thought of this but...

There are many times when I have an idea and it later turns out that someone is already doing it or has proved it to be crazy and abandoned it. That said, I like writing down my ideas because it helps me "hone" them.

So I've heard there's this problem...

There are a number of examples I have seen of games getting to a certain point and being scrapped or taking so long to develop that by the time they are released they look dated or perform less well then recent games.  This comes because the engine and the assets and the game itself are essentially built, and tested, at the same time.

Now, this style of concurrent development makes a lot of sense because you can have everyone in the company working on the same project and deliver it and move on. You can also ensure that the graphics and engine and interface and play mesh seamlessly because there will be constant back and forth between the sections of the team.

All that said, here's what I think someone should do...

First, this would only really work well with a large development team working on a long project; preferably multiple concurrent projects.

Stage One would be game design, concept art, maybe get the development team in to do some mechanics demos to get an idea how the whole thing should work... block out the whole project from scratch, figure out what's essential to the release, what's modular and the timeline/roadmap for the project.  Everyone from every team working together for maybe 10% of the total development of the game.

Stage Two the story guys and game play guys and the art guys break down what assets are needed and then the art guys make those assets... but target them to work on an engine that they expect to be up to date at the end of the project.

When the art guys have figured out when their part of the project is going to be done the designers start working on an existing engine using existing assets and build a working example of the game play mechanics and further block out the needs from the final engine so that they finish around the same time as the art guys.

Stage Three the art guys and the designer guys go off and work on something different while the engine guys build the engine that will support the existing assets and game play. They may need to bug the art and design guys to make sure they are getting things right but for the most part, if it was designed and planned well it shouldn't be a problem.

Stage Four, everyone gets back together and makes sure the game works as it is, looks good, plays well, doesn't break etc... and essentially the rest of the project is bug fixes until release.

So...

Does that make sense? Am I solving a problem that doesn't exist or making an existing problem worse? I don't know but it seems to me that it would be a lot more rewarding at every stage of the process for those involved and it would result in significantly less waste on the "more expensive" aspects of the project.

[STUFF] Facebook Inadvertently Fixes the App-Wall-Spam Issue

So, if you are like me and play Facebook games and also have a friend or two who do not, you have likely realized that people get annoyed when you game-spam them.

Earlier this month (I think) Facebook copied a useful Google+ feature which actually provides a great way to resolve this problem without being denied (or denying those friends who do play) great virtual swag.

Step One: Compile a list of people who actually play the game (or at least people you want to spam notifications to)

Step Two: Create a List of those Friends

A:

B:

C:

D: Add all the friends from Step One to the list

Step 3: Now, this only applied to wall shares so some shares you'll still have to work for but for those it DOES work for, its simple to only share with the "right" people by choosing the list when you share something.

A:

B:

As a bonus, you can view the list of players of a specific game and you are more likely to catch their wall posts too.

[Crazy Idea] Adopt a Novel

Let's agree, for argument's sake, that it is technically possible I am talking about books in the public domain or people who live in countries that don't have copyright laws that would restrict this activity, OK?

There are many novels in the world, and there are many people in the world.

As a rough estimate there are 147,093,357 "items" (mostly not novels, but its a number) and there are over 309,000,000 native English speakers in the world. I can read a novel in under a week so if we wanted to have every item in the library of congress read... and we had some kind of magical level of both participation and efficiency... it could be done in under a week. Nifty huh?

What there aren't many of are good quality, readily available, electronic copies of most novels published before about 1971... and really before the eBook market really started taking off in about 2010.

So that brings me to the [Crazy Idea]: Set up a way for people to adopt a novel, they would get (or create) a scanned copy of the book and they would spend some spare time over the course of however long it took to clean it up, format it into a properly transmutable format (like epub) and provide it back to the world.

Obviously they would start with an OCR system to get the basics but would have to go word by word to ensure the accuracy of the conversion and mark up the formatting. Ideally these books would be committed to a versioned repository and verified by general consensus, with minor patches being applied when someone noticed a wrong word or comma that should actually be an apostrophe and such.

Of course, no really good idea is truly unique so it turns out http://www.pgdp.net/c/ already exists.

[Opinion] Value of a Video Game

As with all discretionary spending, the true value of a Video Game is different for each person... which is why companies offer “self selection” price points.

The difficulty is that the companies making the video games are not able to truly control the price of these games due to variable distribution channels and monkey wrenches like the used games market.  The ideal solution appears to be to digital distribution.  Unfortunately game companies do not seem to realize that these channels represent a fundamentally different product then those available at retail, and as such, users are not adopting them.

That said, the prevalence of “game apps” on a variety of mobile devices has opened the floodgates in the general public to the idea of digital distribution... so now it’s up to the game companies to resolve the remaining value disparities or continue to waste potential revenue on obsolete market forces.

The “Real Value” of a video game

When a “real” game is released it costs about $70. Renting this game for a week costs about $10 so the assumption then is that this game will be used for 7 weeks, or sold/traded in after a certain number of weeks for the remaining value (calculated as -10% per week).

The first and most obvious difficulty comes from the fact that most people will “wait and buy it used” which represents a loss to the developer in the following way.

Player 1 Buys a Game at $70, Player 1 Sells the game for 40 after approximately 4 weeks, Player 2 Buys the game Used for $50.

In this scenario the material cost of 2 copies of the game is very low (disk and manual and packaging, let’s say about $10 at the highest). So the game company makes 60 dollars.

If the “used game store” was eliminated then the company would instead make, 60 from the first Player at $70 and then, 4 weeks later they could lower the price to $50 and sell a second copy making another $40 for a total profit of 100$... but that’s unrealistic.

The truth is that in the first scenario Player 1 is actually only paying $30 for the game and Player 2 is very likely to sell the game back 4 more weeks later for $20 and then he, too, will only have payed $30 for the game... and the “game store” will sell the game one more time to a third player for $30 recovering another $10 of their initial sale.

So, paying $70 for a digital version of a game is definitely a bad idea for Player 1 because he is actually paying $40 more for his copy of the game then if he bought a copy he could later sell to a used game store.

Solution: Screw retailers... their bad for business.

So, the solution in my mind if for game companies to charge $40 for the game digitally if its being sold in store for  $70, this would represent the “real price”... and then, after about 10 weeks drop the digital price down to $30, then again down to $20 after another 10 weeks to target the “people who are willing to wait and then buy used” market.

The advantage here is that the whole system is a win/win. Players spend less and Game Companies earn a lot more off of each Player because now a sale represents one player rather then 3 or more. True, the player who buys the game at $40 is sort-of paying $10 more for his copy of the game, but he's also benefiting from not having to make two separate trips to the game store and the fact that many game stores only give "store credit" for the used games they buy.

[Crazy Idea] Kickstart my "Arcade"

There are a number of reasons why this is a [Bad Idea] but it’s still an interesting concept.

So my sister was in town and I was talking about how the idea I keep revising that would be the business I would open if I won the lottery (which would be difficult given that I don’t play the lottery) or became wealthy in some other way... was never going to happen.  We discussed a number of businesses following a similar model that actually exist and seem to be doing okay... so it's not so crazy an idea after-all... then she mentioned the possibility of Kickstarting the whole thing... and I was thinking:

Could I make a Kickstarter project to establish my dream business?

First, I would need to go over the “business plan” and revise it to meet the current version of my vision.  Second, I’d need to figure out what contributors would get out of contributing.

The biggest question is “Would I hire me to run my business?” and “Could it be described as mine if I contribute practically nothing to the start-up costs?”... essentially I would just be the idea guy... and the world is full of us.

But, all reasonable considerations aside let’s get back to dreaming:

My “Idea” is nearly impossible to describe using a single word, which is why I think it’s worth doing. So here is a list of things I would like to have.

•     Library of games and books for people to use
•     Couches, chairs, tables (gaming tables and cafe tables), private gaming rooms.
•     Arcade machines, pinball machines, computers and consoles (including vintage consoles like NES/genesis/colecovision)
•     Collectible Card games, board games, books and comics for sale
•     Food and beverages available for purchase
•     a stage where we could have shows and open mics and karaoke
•     pay showers, laundry machines and sleeping pods

I would also like to have regular events, every day and night if possible:

•     Tabletop war-game, card game, board game, video game tournaments
•     Expert led training sessions for geeky topics (how to DM DnD4e, how to build a beat down deck in MtG, writers worshops)
•     Club nights and lockins, book clubs, real-life meetings for guilds
•     all age concerts and mini-raves
•     programming competitions

...and that’s just the current jumble of ideas on my mind... in my mind all of this forms a cohesive “come, stay, spend money, bring friends” atmosphere from a chaotic series of disparate elements

Next would be to think of how to “Kickstart” the idea:

We would need to raise enough money to secure and outfit the premises and maintain operation for a certain amount of time, let’s say six months to establish a beach-head in the community and culture, my guess is around $100,000

There would be a certain number of “slots” for shareholders... but I wouldn’t want to exceed more then %40 of my funding by this means, so the first 400 people to spend $140 would get a 1/1000th share and a six month preferred membership.

The first 600 people to donate $70 would get a six month preferred membership.

And then we would need to make up the target with anyone else spending $50 getting a six month normal membership.

But then I was thinking... could I really cater effectively to 1500 members over 6 months with 100,000 of start-up capital... assuming that I will not be giving any merchandise away for free and that I need to be able to sell services to non-members?

So we need to start looking at math instead of making arbitrary guesses... but let’s start with some more guessing:

Each month has somewhere around 180 profitable hours... if I can sell 8 people (who may be members) something in each of those 180 hours that would net me 5 dollars of profit I would make 7200 dollars, and I would theoretically be serving 180x8=1440 of my members some “free to members” service in those same (and possibly in off-peak) hours. So sure, it could work... and that is assuming my facility can readily cater to 16 people simultaneously in each of those hours... which seems reasonable.

So randomly rounded math works out... we give people the option to kick in $15 to get a set of keen buttons and we’re golden... time to start my business plan and market research again.