This is an idea that is so simple, it's shocking that no one has done it yet. People spend tons of money each year on their fantasy sports leagues... and every year, key players incur injuries that leave the fantasy users with no chance of recouping their costs. Fantasy Sports Insurance insures the top athletes for a certain premium and if they get injured, you get the entire entrance and transaction fees back.
Unfortunately, it seems to me that their insurance policies aren't really helpful. First of all, the cost for every NFL player on their list is the same... whether it be Steven Jackson or Peyton Manning. So collectively, they are trying to group-insure the top 50 players instead of offering a more expensive premium for players that are more suspectible to injury. This is interesting because it definitely makes those players easier to insure... but why would anyone want to insure a player who has no real history of injury?
While the costs aren't too bad (a little over $12 for a fantasy league where you spent $100), that's only if you look at the dollar amount and not the percentage. 12% of your entrance fee IS a lot of money, in my opinion.
August 27th, 2009 / paladinz / Tags: sports, fantasy sports / Trackback / Comments
Yeah I can't believe this is real either....
August 26th, 2009 / Binkley / Tags: television, music / Trackback / CommentsGamasutra is carrying a well-written article by Christian Nutt about Shadow Complex, a highly-acclaimed new Xbox Live game. Nutt, who is openly gay, questions whether or not it is proper to boycott the game because it is set in a world created by Orson Scott Card, who is a noted science-fiction author and a man who is opposed to gay marriage.
In the comments section, Peter David, who wrote the game's dialogue, joins the discussion and it gets a little heated. However, the entire discussion raises some good questions about the role of boycotts in media consumption. How much involvement is sufficient to boycott a product? Don't you just hurt everyone else who worked on it? Is mere discussion enough, as Peter David claims it is? Or is that one of our duties in capitalism to try and express our opinions with (or without) our wallets?
August 25th, 2009 / paladinz / Tags: video games / Trackback / CommentsMagic + Monkey + Japanese Variety Shows = Awesome!
August 24th, 2009 / Binkley / Tags: monkeys, television / Trackback / CommentsIf you want to get married and don't have the budget, consider a 99 cent wedding.... the discount chain 99 Cents Only Stores has launched a rather unique new promotion.
From The Examiner
We can finally see if there is any truth to the assertions that a cheaper PS3 will drive its sales and make it a competitive platform to the Xbox 360 in the western world.
The slim PS3 will be priced at $299 and will have a 120 GB hard drive (and a Blu-Ray drive, of course). Reading between the lines, it seems that it will not be backwards compatible, just like existing PS3s in the market.
The slim PS3 will be on sale the first week of September.
August 18th, 2009 / paladinz / Tags: video games, sony, playstation / Trackback / Comments