One day, the ship-wide newscasts show you something odd. A small, but vocal portion of the alphas are protesting about income inequality. You watch the story, figuring they will talk about the big divide between the alphas and the betas, but they don’t. Instead, they are complaining that 1% of the other alphas control too large a portion of the collected wealth of the alphas. In other words, there are 1,000 “alpha primes” that have really pissed off the alphas.

Now, given that you are a beta, how much do you care about the plight of the alphas?

Translated to our own world (via the Global Rich List), if you make at least $25,140, you’d be an alpha.

It is with some concern that I note that no HGTV program appears anywhere near the “top ratings” lists in the late night time slot. In fact, late night HGTV programming consists of little more than repeats of episodes aired previously in the day. While traveling recently, I hit upon an idea for a show your network could create that could provide some ground-breaking late night content (and, likely, more than a little buzz for HGTV).

The background of this idea comes from an experience in a hotel, but it can be universalized to homes, apartments and so on. When people walk into a room that they and their significant other will sleep in, such as a hotel room, they spend some time looking around, noticing the furniture, closets and so on. Somewhere in the back of their heads, one of the things they are evaluating is if and how they will have sex in that room (though some will probably not admit this). Is that table strong enough to sit on? Is that ottoman the right height? Once you start noticing this, you will quickly realize that private spaces, including people’s own bedrooms, are often set up totally wrong for this kind of activity. Here is an example:

In a large hotel in Las Vegas, a room contains a bathtub constructed for two. It looks like this:

Now you might think that, being a bathtub built to be used by two naked people, there would be some possibility of those two people, naturally, having sex in that bathtub. You could argue, in fact, that this is the whole point of such a tub. But take a good look at the photo. Do you see the problem? Why is the faucet exactly in the spot where one of the occupant’s head would be? Any fantasy you might have about fun in a tub for two is totally ruined by the harsh reality of smashing your head into a piece of metal that should have been placed a meter to the side. And why is that? Why was the faucet placed so stupidly? I submit it is because there is no source that trains designers to think about this kind of thing. It is a real concern people have, but it is never talked about openly, and therefore, not noticed as a need worth serving.

A late night show on HGTV could change that. As a working title, I suggest something like How Are We Supposed to F*$k on That?, though you might want to go with something less provocative. The format would be much like other design shows on HGTV, except that content would be exclusively devoted to design for “personal spaces and needs”. To gain an odd sort of credibility, hosts for the show (one man, one woman) might be drawn from the adult film industry. You are virtually guaranteed to find adult stars with design experience. (A quick Google for “porn star interior designer”, for example, finds this article from ABC news.)

At a guess, the show would likely target a younger audience than some other HGTV programming. I think you would find fairly long list of sponsors as well, looking to get their products noticed in a legitimate venue. An obvious choice, for example, would be Liberator, Inc, who produces furniture intended entirely for sex, but I’m guessing a lot of less overtly sexual products would be interested in buying time or product placement on your show.

As an example, search the Linen & Things web site for “waterproof mattress pads”. You can walk into any L&T and find these in stock, in all sizes. Why? Well, some of it might be for people with bladder problems, such as kids wetting the bed, but in a king-sized bed? I’d wager that the population of people who both have bladder control issues and sleep in a king-sized is vanishingly small, certainly not enough to warrant stocking stocking products for it in every L&T in the country. No, the reason they are there is because lots of people buy waterproof mattress pads to protect mattresses from sex (and not, as you might guess from the pictures, from mysterious blue water). These products are not marketed as such, of course, but that is the reality, one that this show could bring to the public’s attention through product placement.

Naturally, I’m sure you all can think of a number of other ways to push the basic idea of the show, which is why I’m giving the idea to you. Think about it.

(By the way, if anyone feels like designing the title graphic for this show, please put a link to the result in the comments.)

For example, in addition to its 160-page rulebook, Gamma World, now comes with several decks of cards. None of the previous six editions of the game used cards, but now they are required for play. While it is possible for the end user to produce card-like artifacts themselves fairly easily, the end result is not particularly satisfying or sturdy. Producing actual cards is fairly difficult, requiring specialized paper, techniques and equipment. Why would you bother going through the expense, when you can just buy the professionally produced artifact for cheaper?

And that, really, is the point. It’s an end run around the electronic age. Rather than combat the bittorrenting horde, gaming companies will just build products that can’t be replicated in a satisfying way from an electronic copy, at least not without spending more than it would cost to just buy the original.

Cards are only one option (and we’ll see how long it takes before making quality cards at home becomes painless). Gamma World also comes with “two sheets of die-cut character and monster tokens”. These are, in effect, a cheaper version of miniatures but, even so, they are still artifacts the home user would have to do special work to replicate themselves. This would be easier than making cards, but still a hassle that many would be willing to pay to avoid. Plus, even more would rather use real miniatures anyway. If Gamma World is anything like Dungeons & Dragons 4E (and, being rules compatible with D&D4, it is) it relies heavily on tactically maneuvering pieces on a map, creating a market for the miniatures artifact. It is probably not a coincidence, for example, that the Gamma World setting can make use of many of the figures in Wizards’ Heroscape line of miniatures that would be out of place in D&D (such as the omnicron snipers).

In a similar vein, the $100 game Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay is based entirely around custom made dice and comes with “more than 300 cards”. (No doubt it will find uses for the extensive line of Warhammer miniatures as well.)

None of this is particularly new. Games like BattleTech, which is more of a board game than an RPG, have long offered game artifacts, like the old Reinforcements boxes, with card stock versions of most mechs with little plastic stands, and recently their map packs have become a bit more interesting. But RPGs used to focus mostly on books. Those days, it seems, may be ending.

As with my earlier auction, I am keeping a couple of things: the gilded Limited Edition and the Dreams of the First Age box set.

(Also, I’m selling a surplus microphone as well, if that interests you.)

Let me say this again: you can now buy Tim Tams at Target.

Some readers may not appreciate the importance of this news. Perhaps they have never been in an international airport in Australia and witnessed the stores containing nothing but Tim Tam cookies, and watched as visitors buy cases of them for their return home, or open their large carry-on bag to reveal only an empty void they then fill to the brim with Tim Tams. Perhaps they have seen this, but never have done a Tim Tam slam with tea, coffee or hot chocolate so don’t know what all the fuss is about.

On the other hand, maybe you do know about Tim Tams, but think the American versions are inferior. All I know is that even if that is true, the American versions still induce involuntary biological reactions. I had nearly repressed the memory of Tim Tams to avoid the pain of not being able to get them locally.

Repress no more.