New Credit Scoring Model Could Help MillionsWritten by James Dimmitt
Mark and Beth, a young married couple in their twenties, established a goal to buy a home within first three years of their marriage before starting a family. They budgeted and used their money wisely in order to save for down payment. Whenever they purchased something they always paid cash - no credit cards for them. Why waste money by paying interest to a credit card company ?Within two years they’d reached their savings goal and began house hunting. They found their “American Dream” home in a new community with lots of amenities that seemed perfect for their soon-to-be family. They were elated that their years of saving were about to finally payoff. But, they ran into a big problem when they went shopping for a mortgage. Even though they had enough income to make mortgage payments and enough money saved to afford down payment, they had no credit history. Lenders had no FICO score to evaluate their creditworthiness in order to offer them a loan. Fair Isaacs Co. established a credit scoring system in 1980’s and since then FICO scores have been used to determine if someone will qualify for a mortgage and interest rate they would pay. Over 50 million U.S. adults fall into same category - they have either too little credit history or no credit history at all. But now thanks to a new FICO formula, called FICO Expansion Score, lenders will now have opportunities to extend credit to consumers based on non-traditional credit data that are excluded from credit bureau reports. FICO Expansion will consider a wide range of financial transactions including payment activities such as rental payments, deposit accounts, payday loans, book or CD club payment plans, and retail lay-away plans.
| | RPG:table and computerWritten by Efimov Peter
RPG: table and computerIt’s not a secret that table RPG games are not so popular as they used to be. However a certain number of amateurs are still fond of them. What is so particular about a pasteboard box or a book with rules? It seems that all advantages have their ” younger computer brothers”: no manual calculations, no bricks ( number of which is from one to almost 20). In general, no additional efforts are needed- just relax, play and don’t worry. But nothing of kind- groups of maniacs with burning eyes run to special shop( if there is any), buy another book, and having met in some dark place in evening, start to crunch with pens and tinkle dice. Why are these poor things so attracted by this desperately ancient way of entertainment? Let’s try to answer this question by displaying most similar and different features of table and computer RPG. Firstly, any RPG is a Role Paying Game, which is supposed to have a character, and a system of his development. This feature is typical for both “brothers”. The character as player’s realization in created RPG world is very important. Your playing capabilities depend on his features. Secondly, any decent RPG is based on some world (sometimes, realistic but more often-fantastic one). The depth of world ( The card details, atmosphere entirety, detailed development of world components) and , so to say, mood (optimistic and colorful or destructive and gloomy, funny or extremely rigid, strict),- all this taken together defines audience of game. These two points have a great meaning, they allow player to associate himself with a certain character and being in his shoes to go through situations which are impossible in ordinary life. All this is very good but let’s return to our muttons: to difference between computer and table RPG. Probably, trite comparison of books and films will be to place here. The former make us use our brains and imagination, latter give us everything ready-made. The peculiarity of table RPG, its strong and at same time weak point is hope for player’s imagination.. In classical table RPG you’ll find a text, some illustrations and… all rest you should imagine yourself. It’s true, that during gaming process everything depends on leader (Dungeon Master, Game Master, etc.) and on players. The leader explains situation, describes characters and events orally (yes, he does it with help of words!!!) and players perceive this information judging from their abilities. What are advantages of such a game play? They are quite evident: everyone perceives game in his own way (with help of his imagination), but at same time, if game is rather good, a special “field” of common perception and mood is formed. It’s not an allegation as author has great experience of playing table RPG and so he knows all ins and outs. When game has a success, players seem to be in same “information field” and sometimes they don’t even perceive events in real life. It’s just like reading a thrilling book. But sometimes such beauty turns into a terrible thing. What is so horrible about it? The trouble is, game may be a complete failure if it’s leaded by a talentless and not very experienced master, or if players turn out to be so-so (that is less critical). In such a case game fails no matter how beautiful original RPG world is. Everything gets wrong when after each word master utters: ”well, eh, oh…” and it takes players 10 minutes to think over each further act. The game reaches a deadlock, a perfect illusion is breaking into small pieces of separate sentences. I must admit, sometimes it’s all RPG developers ‘fault that such failures take place, especially when rules of game aren’t logical or overcharged with unnecessary details. May fans forgive me, but last time author had to play AD&D, there was such a situation: -Player:” I want to kill that Gobline!” -Master: ”throw dice for marksmanship. Uph, you shoot in darkness-that means, fine should be taken into account. Well.. have you got bonus? Aha…I’ll find it, wait a bit… Oh… throw these three bricks on D-20,…Hmmm…where is that table? OK, we are going to count all damages and take into account his armor and spell and that’s all!” I don’t say everything was exactly so, but on whole-just way I described. What absorption into fantastic world can we talk about if you have to remember 20 figures and throw dice dozen times for each act! But not all table games have such a disadvantage. Besides, we may ignore too “hard” rules.
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