Quick Blog on the 2nd Amendment

"No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms," Thomas Jefferson wrote. "The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government." Jefferson also said, "When the government fears the People, that is Liberty. When the People fear the Government, that is tyranny."

-- Jim Lesczynski

While I found much of the original article rather - out there - I found this part to be self evident, yet forgotten.

For more great stuff than you can shake a stick at, read: The Right to Bear Arms.

Or see Kennesaw, Georgia "Gun Town, USA."

From Wikepedia:

Kennesaw has the nickname of "Gun Town, USA" due to a city ordinance passed in 1982 [Sec 34-1a] that requires every head of household to maintain a firearm with ammunition. It was passed partly in response to a 1981 handgun ban in Morton Grove, Illinois. Kennesaw's law was amended in 1983 to exempt those who conscientiously object to owning a firearm, convicted felons, those who cannot afford a firearm, and those with a mental or physical disability that would prevent them from owning a firearm. It mentions no penalty for its violation. According to the Kennesaw Historical Society, no one has ever been charged under the law.

Criminologist and gun-control critic Gary Kleck attributes a drop of 89% in the residential burglary rate to the law (Kleck, 1991), and Kennesaw is often cited by advocates of gun ownership as evidence that gun ownership deters crime (see, for instance, this 2004 sheet of talking points from the Gun Owners Foundation). Other criminologists dispute the 89% figure, using the FBI's Uniform Crime Reporting data, and find instead a small, statistically insignificant increase in burglaries after the law was passed (McDowall, Wiersema and Loftin, 1989; McDowall, Lizotte and Wiersema, 1991).

The city's official website is at http://www.kennesaw-ga.gov.

RIAA: Guilty of not following the market

I've read a series of interesting articles finding historical occurances of where businesses have acted like the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America).

History Repeats Itself: How The RIAA Is Like 17th Century French Button-Makers
In France, button-makers, faced with competition in the form of (gasp) cloth buttons, got the government to impose a fine, and, not yet satisfied, "demanded the right to search people's homes and wardrobes and fine and even arrest them on the streets if they are seen wearing these subversive goods."

The premise being, of course, that the RIAA, like the button makers before them, have forgotten what business they are in, and see new ways of doing things as a threat to their (now outmoded) business model.

The author goes further:
Step One To Embracing A Lack Of Scarcity: Recognize What Market You're Really In
Positing that if horse-drawn carriage makers had realized they were in the transporation business, not the horse-drawn carriage business, they might have leapt on automobiles rather that go out of business holding onto their old model.

People didn't want a horse-drawn carriage, they wanted something that got them from point A to point B. Similarly, the MPAA and the RIAA act as though they are in the business of controlling how movies or music is sold, when actually they are in the entertainment business, and these models have changed.

If you're looking to catch up on the posts in the series, I've listed them out below:

Economics Of Abundance Getting Some Well Deserved Attention
The Importance Of Zero In Destroying The Scarcity Myth Of Economics
The Economics Of Abundance Is Not A Moral Issue
A Lack Of Scarcity Has (Almost) Nothing To Do With Piracy
A Lack Of Scarcity Feeds The Long Tail By Increasing The Pie
Why The Lack Of Scarcity In Economics Is Getting More Important Now
History Repeats Itself: How The RIAA Is Like 17th Century French Button-Makers
Infinity Is Your Friend In Economics

RIAA vs. The Market
I don't knock the RIAA's responsibility to its investors nor the position it has come to hold over time. I think they are unwisely playing a delaying game with the market and it's going to bring them to their knees within 10 or 20 years.

I don't condone freeloading and think that Apple got something right with the idea of micropayments and it's iTunes store - a song for a buck. (Personally I dislike micropayments because the average consumer has trouble thinking of a dollar as something of value enough to give them pause in a knee-jerk transaction, but hey, that's business.) It's a new market that has arrived and existing business models are having trouble adjusting. The RIAA doesn't want performers to move en mass to this new model because it devalues the one they have put so much time in, instead of doing the smart thing and, say, buying iTunes, or becoming the lead contributor (and secondary beneficiary). That would be protecting their investors interests.

Patents will protect the RIAA for only so long before the pressure of a changed market obliterates their current business model.

RIAA Legal Tactics
Having read in depth the RIAA's civil suit strategy, from filing the suit in the wrong jurisdiction and pushing forward with so little regard they've netted dead people, grandparents, and folks who moved in after the fact, or calling people and threatening them over the phone with legal actions they can't take -- I call that a desperate last gasp, and like the button makers, parallels what's happening.

The RIAA wants the freedom to bypass laws the police obey in regards to invasive searching. As an American, that kind of incenses me.

See RIAA versus the People , a law firm specializing in handling their tactics, or how a typical case unfolds.

Penny Arcade gives in to pressure

First, the guys at Penny Arcade thought that (Sony Exec) Jack Tretton's claim that he would pay a $1,200 bounty for every PS3 anyone could find sitting idly on a store shelf was ludicrous. So they showed, by way of comicry, how stupid that claim really was [their write-up on the same day].

The next comic cycle, Wednesday, brings us to a complete opposite view: that the PS3 is really a great machine, it's only Sony's failure to understand how to communicate this awesome potential of optimism they have in their lambasted PS3 and PSP consoles.

But this view directly conflicts with the facts they brought up on Monday: PS3's are sitting idly on store shelves, un-bought and unsold. An unmentioned corollary is how poorly the PSP is doing compared to the Nintendo DS. The bottom line is that gamers vote with their purchases, and folks aren't purchasing enough PS3's or PSP's to keep Sony's #1 spot, and in the case of the PS3, #2.

I know Jerry / Tycho isn't stupid, I believe he sees this - I think he's just capitulating because a swath of angry readers e-mailed him vitriolic hate mail, stating basically "How dare you speak against my sacred cow? You suck, and so does your comic."

Update:
A friend of mine pointed out that Tycho has colorful language, but trouble getting ideas across, which makes for some great comics where Tycho tries to explain something and Gabe misunderstands him, but hurts the dynamic duo on this point. His point isn't that the PS3 is gold, it's that it is capable - it is not lacking in horsepower to do things.

This sounds accurate, though of course Tycho could use some clarification in point here.

Europe is Dying

Brad Wardell, creator of the Galactic Civilizations series and lead AI programmer for the version I know and love (among other things), is a hard working business and family man. His latest blog reveals something true:

Europe is dying. Or more accurately, several countries in Europe have a declining birthrate, and within several generations, if the trend continues, the existing population may find immigrants no longer a small minority.

What's insightful is what Brad attributes to be the cause of the problem:

"My opinion is that it is entitlements. Consider this: Why have children? What is the incentive other than biological urge, to have children?

Or more to the point, what is the incentive to have more than one child? Maybe you have a girl and want a boy so you have 2?

In the time before cradle to grave entitlements, people had children for a very specific reason: Because they needed them. They needed them to work the farms. They needed them to help out in the household. They needed them to take care of them when they became old and infirm.

But now? What do we need kids for? Mother government will provide for us. The more urbanized, the lower the population growth. All those government services are so convenient. It takes a village right? And when you get old, you don't need children anymore. No, the government will pay for your medicine, house you if necessary, and provide money to allow you to live pretty well."

Read the entire blog /article.

My comments? I agree, and with four children I'm currently out producing Brad by 2 to 1! Hah! But we can't have any more due to Maria developing worse complications each pregnancy, and Brad can raise my bet by "I have a company with more than 60 employees," at which point I fold.

Is a proposed game good? The 10 minute test.

Pierre-Alexandre Garneau, a professional game designer, submitted an article on how to tell if a game idea has merit in 10 minutes flat.

His criterion? Simple.

1. Is the Game Distinctive?

   1. Does it stand out viscerally?

   2. Does the gameplay stand out?

   3. Does it involve the player socially in a unique way?

2. Can the Game Reach a Large Market?

   1. Is the idea behind the game easy to communicate?

   2. Is the game based on something the market already knows and loves?

   3. Is the target market large?

I quizzed him on Galactic Civilizaitons II, because no one expected it to become a Wal-Mart best seller, least of all Stardock (the developers), and he responded the same day (emphasis is mine):

"I haven't played Galactic Civilizations, so I can't comment on it much. My guess would be that while 4X games are a niche, it's a pretty big niche that's under-represented at the moment. My hunch is that a lot of people actually like turn-based games (witness the success of Civ 4 and Advance Wars), but very few quality titles are released for them.

There are also lots of external factors that can influence success. An otherwise unremarkable game could become popular after somebody influential becomes a fan, for example. Bejeweled reached a lot of hardcore gamers when the folks at Penny-Arcade kept talking about how good it was. Clever marketing -- like "I love bees" -- can help too. Lots of factors outside of the game itself can influence its success."

This makes a lot of sense - I love the turn-based / real-time mixup of Medieval II: Total War, Battle for Middle Earth II: Rise of the Witch King, and Star Wars: Empire at War.

Turn-based games became "dangerous" like making a point and click adventure, but I think part of it was the presentation. Galactic Civilizaitons II mixes turn-based with a truly great AI with many personalities, all of which you can change down to how much CPU it uses, with 3d ships that do combat, which you can view and review from any angle you desire.

Without a doubt, the 3d ship battles and the ability to make your 3d ships keeps Galactic Civilizaitons II from being your standard turn-based game.

Imprisoned Journalist Josh Wolf Speaks Out From Jail After Over 170 Days Behind Bars

Josh Wolf, 24, has spent almost six months in jail. More time than any journalist in US history for protecting his sources. He was jailed on August 1st of last year when he refused to turn over video that he had shot of an anti-G8 demonstration in San Francisco to a federal grand jury.
[source interview] [josh wolf's blog]

Fascinating.

Basically, the Federal Government is saying that it has the power to decide who is a journalist and who is not, despite how many traditional media outlets have given Mr. Wolf journalist awards. Who decides who is a journalist? The Government? That topic is broached here.

While Mr. Wolf sounds like the kind of anarchist I don't like, as a believer in liberty and freedom I don't think the government should have the right to round people up or dictate who is a journalist (and protected as such) and who is not. That borders on state-sanctioned journalism.

Casual Games break traditional distribution models

Source article, Casual Encounters
What I enjoy here is not the whole rant about Casual Games (I find parts of it highly inaccurate - the original console videogames were, by depth and involvement of the player, casual games), but the hidden truth behind how they are distributed.

Because "Casual Games" are not considered traditional videogames, none of the traditional rules of sales and distributions apply. How hard has it been for digital distribution to be achieved with traditional videogames?

Having used Steam and Stardock, I can say that these are the only working examples I know of, and of the two Stardock is better for one crucial reason:

While Steam allows you to purchase a game online, you get jack with it. You just bought a digital game, and get no box, no manual, just the rights to download it. Your price for this displeasure? The same as going to the store, where Valve makes less money on the sale than they do online. This makes no sense to me.

Stardock, however, lets you buy the digital game for store price and for the low, low cost of shipping ($4, about equal to what you'd pay in local taxes), they'll also send you the box, complete with CDs, a manual - something nice to put on your shelf. Your price for this displeasure? Paying $34.95 instead of $32.04, or $2.90. I'd save myself $3 if I drove to a store, which is less than the difference between a sale at one store and not another (which usually averages between $5-$10 for videogames).

Casual games may yet teach hardcore games lessons in distrubtions, but only by way of force. I doubt tried and true distribution models will go quietly. There's still advertising, shelf space and all of that jazz to think about.

The old Videogames are Evil rant

A user saw one of the series of videos I made when Maria's GP2X (handheld Linux gaming device) arrived and posted this admonition, to which I replied:

Jlife13300
Man, I would never get that for my duaghter not even the system. I watch this video and im thinking damn I feel sorry for this girl no offense.

DavidBeoulve
Well if your take is "hooking kids on videogames" then I should let you know that they have a set time limit on their Wii which I check daily (it contains a log of how long each game was played and a total). The GP2X was allowed to be used in the car (anytime) or by permission, for example, while watching over her siblings a couple times a week, for some reason she could watch both, I never could. Trust me, I tested her.

The core of the issue is responsibility. This girl also cooks dinner sometimes (she's 9), makes breakfast 3 times a week, cleans her room and parts of the house every day, and gets solid A's in school. So... what am I to do with such a good daughter? Not give her anything? No. I'll give her a GP2X and teach her to be responsible with it, and she is.

...

I'll go on to point out here that this same girl can rattle off the differences between menial and mortal sin, makes acts of sacrifice (such as giving up anything that tastes good for a day) during holidays usually only adult Catholics fulfill (my wife says she, within reason, followed them as a child and I agree, our children learning to take discomfort in stride has only made them better people). Exactly what else should I do? Flog her?

This child has enough weight put on her, caring for her sick baby brother (or caring for him when he's not sick, but a sick baby is much worse), working hard at homeschool (all of which is graded by St. Mary's in Kansas, not her mother), walking, feeding and watering the dog, bathing her smaller siblings when her mother is busy or feels like giving her the responsibility (my wife loves making our children work, including the baby boy - he has to get into his car seat by himself).

So anyway, little rants like this get under my skin - these children face a much harder life than most American kids today (excepting those in poverty).

Rewarding them doesn't seem obligatory, but essential.

"Who killed the webmaster"

Despite what's said in the title article, I think they have it wrong. It's not "too much technology for one man to handle," nor the "underwhelming dot com bust" that has killed the webmaster, it is the absorption of webmasters into the traditional corporate structure.

In order to be a webmaster, it's assumed that person not only knows the Web and the website, but they have some control over the latter. When webmasters became gainfully employed by corporations, they never got high tier positions, and in many cases, webmastering was something given to the lowest form of life in the company. Quickly, all control over what was going on with the website was out of their hands, and they were a "webmonkey."

Today it doesn't matter what webmasters know or don't know about how to do websites well (for those few that did), because it's not for them to direct much of anything. Webmasters were never destined to become bosom buddies with the existing management class, and there - you have the death of the webmasters.

Ubisoft grows thanks to Wii and XBOX 360

"Fuelled by the launch of Wii and PlayStation 3 (in some territories), next-generation sales accounted for 63% of the third-quarter totals, compared to a figure of 18% in the previous year. This was further split into Wii sales accounting for 21% of total sales; Xbox 360 titles contributed 28% towards sales; whilst titles for the hugely popular Nintendo DS made up 9% of Ubisoft's total. The results saw the French publisher famous for brands such as Splinter Cell, Prince of Persia and Rayman achieve the position of No.1 independent publisher on Wii and No.2 on the Xbox 360, throughout North America and Europe."

[source]

PS - Oh, and the Wii is doing well as far as online connectivity and overall sales are conserned.

The Keel, the Sheer and the Rudder

I have been doing far too much reading on pre-cannon era ships...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Square_rig
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Points_of_sail
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windward
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broach_sailing
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clew#Clew
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brig
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brigantine
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermaphrodite_brig
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caravel
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Celeste
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boat_building

Dungeons & Dragons 3.5 is great at confusing me. A two-masted, square sailed ship, from 100 to 150 tons traveling at 2mph. What?

First of all, strickly square sailed ships can't sail agains the wind, ever, unless they have oars. Secondly, that speed is abyssmal. But, as my Dungeon Master pointed out "While the metric might not make sense, we can rest assured it's balanced with the rest of the movement rates in the system."

What have I learned so far? I've learned that there is a lot of terminology I need to learn to play my next character.

Superheroes without TIghts

Someone put up an excellent slideshow that shows snips of comics that have worked at telling the real story of superheroes, usually without tights. From an ex-villian in a witness protection program trying to live with his ex-villian mind reading wife to an ex-superhero who delves into politics and has to face the harsh reality of compromise over his earlier years of truth, justice, and no mercy.

I found it here on "Slate" which states the premise of the list, among other things.

Sony has Lost It

According to Sony executive Jack Tretton, the PS3 includes too many costly pieces to have it's cost reduced (big surprise). What kills me is this:

Concerning the PS3's "New Car Price" scandal, "I think the consumers that get their hands on a PlayStation 3 clearly see the value and not only want to buy one for $599, in some instances they're willing to pay ridiculous prices to buy one on eBay," he concluded.

Uhh, what the hell? If money wasn't an issue I'd have a 52" flat Plasma screen for fun. I don't have $641.93 for a PS3 in Florida. Lots of people don't.

I live in the black section of town and I was talking to some neighborhood boys. I mentioned the Wii and they mentioned they have a PS2 and were hoping to get a PS3. The Wii, at $250, sounded expensive to them. So I told them the PS3 was $600. They looked at me like I had just told them they were HIV positive. There's no way they, or their parents, can afford that. No one on my street can, to my knowledge.

My Firstborn

Did I tell you Maria de Guadalupe gut punched me last week? Nearly doubled dad over. I'm not really sure I had it coming...

I was tickling Dulce and Alejandrita and grabbing onto them and keeping them from getting away.

So she comes into the mix to rescue them, and I grab her and we start tussling, but I'm still grabbing her sisters, as I know she won't actually leave them.

Her mother called her, or Jose Francisco fell, I forget which (I think it was the latter) and I wouldn't let her go, she told me to and I was tickling Dulce and didn't hear her, she got loose, I grabbed her upper arm and she swung around and nailed me with her opposite elbow, part accident part reflex.

I let go after that *chuckles*

Then, get this... at a public playground some pre-teen black boys were playing football. Well apparently they thought it was cool if they bumped into other kids while they did this around all the swings and slides and climbing sets.

Anyway one of them hits Maria in the right shoulder and she nails him - once again, in the gut - with her right elbow. He twirled a bit and stumbled, gave her this wide-eyed look, and ran off.

Another boy about her age decided to play tag with the girls she was with - apparently so he could shove them while tagging them.

He didn't try it on her but when a little white girl asked him to stop and he didn't, she warned him "You do that again I'm going to shove you." I asked him what his response was and she said "He didn't say anything." I asked what he did after that and she said "He didn't push them."

My Credo for Training my Judgment

From "The Painter, in Oil" written around 1920 by Daniel Burleigh Parkhurst

"Train your judgment. - Let us say, then, that you must train your critical judgment. How you to set about it?

In the first place, don't set up your own liking as a criterion . Make up your mind that when it comes to a choice between personal taste and that of some one who may be supposed to know, between what you think and what has been consented to by all the men who have ever had an opinion worthy of respect, you may rest assured that you (myself -ed) are wrong. It is when you have made up your mind to that, when you have reached the mental attitude, you have taken a long step towards training your judgment; for you have admitted a standard outside of mere opinion.

Another attitude that you should place your mind in is one of catholicity - one of openness to the possibility of their being many ways of being right. Don't allow yourself to take it for granted that any one school or way of painting or looking at things is the only right one, and that all the other ways are wrong. That point of view may do for a man who has studied and thought, and finally arrived at that conclusion which suits his mind and his nature, -- but it will not do for a student. Such an attitude is a sure bar to progress. It results in narrowness of idea, narrowness of perception, and narrowness of appreciation. You should try all things, and hold fast to that which is good, and even while holding fast to it, you should remember that was good and true for you is not necessarily the only good in true for some one else. You must not only hold to your own liberty of choice, but recognize the same right for others. If this is not recognized, what room has originality to work in?"

Neverwinter Nights 2: Nevermind

Neverwinter Nights 2 appears to be a disaster. I'll show my concerns in three parts...

1) The frightening "Top 12 Bugs/Problems in Neverwinter Nights 2" concerning online play and persistent worlds yields such highlights as:

1. The DM Client crashes the server regularly. This makes it unplayable.
2. The server itself tends to crash "quite a lot."
   
3. There is no Linux server, nor will there ever be in all likely hood. Windows server hosting games is rare and expensive.
4. The Toolset crashes so regularly I read of several people giving up until it was patched. I gave up "The Movies" for being buggy with large films and have yet to "go back" a year later.
5. Disconnects while loading new zones: players experience this while changing zones. It's more than frustrating.
6. Connecting to new servers should be easier than this 5 step process that involves manually installing a 3rd party application and configuring ini files...
   
7. Network Use Spike: Random bandwidth killer times out players on the server.
   
8. As with NWN1, Hak Paks and server specific files are loaded after you create a character, which means you spend time doing that before the server unceremoniously dumps you.
9. Scripting commands give limited information about objects, some of which NWN1 had solved. You have to create a creature/destroy a creature to figure out the height of the ground, for example.
   
10. The large size of modules combined with the 2 gig RAM limit severely limits the current modules. A module might take up 600mb of memory but still hit this theoretical limit.
    
11. Builders updating the module make it next to impossible for players to rejoin, as it's not as simple as downloading the latest module file and finding out what files need updating is not automatic, let alone knowing where to put them. People are trying to make jury-rigged tools to circumvent this.
12. Graphics engine bogs down nearly any PC for no good reason at all.
    

2) The game itself sucks. Atari told Obsidian to, essentially, "release it now!" and rather than say "But, it's not done" Obsidian meekly replied "okay." The ending is a single image with text on it saying the dungeon collapsed and everyone was killed, while the game starts with 5 CGI intros of the distributor, developer, Wizards of the Coast, etc. The game is so rail-roaded XP is doled out by scripts, not by in-game calculations. Even so the ending is so woefully unbalanced you have to reload constantly because every encounter rates as "impossible." Why? Because the game wasn't finished, and now it's dying so quickly it never will be.

3) I've heard that folks are pleading with players to not Uninstall Neverwinter Nights (1), because that actually works and there are Persistent Worlds still out there for it. That's nuts.

Supreme Commander Beta Review

Executive Summary:
Supreme Commander is, along with Company of Heroes and Rise of Nations, one of the best Real-Time Strategy games I have had the pleasure of playing. However, it's taxing to a $3,600 gaming rig.

Review Proper:
I found a MOD that allows me to play skirmish mode online, choosing how many and what kind of AI to go against, which is of immense value. I've played many games, one with a human ally, and here are my findings:

1. Pharra's E6700 Core Two Duo (2.66GHz) cannot handle four players with a 750 unit cap, which is a notch above the default 500 unit cap. 750*4=3,000.
   
2. There are up to 8 players in a game. 500*8=4,000. Pharra, a $3,600 computer, won't be able to max out the number of possible players in the game.
   
3. Three players at 500 unit cap appears to work fine - I'm not sure what four at 500uc would do. So while 3,000 killed, 1,500 was fine, and hopefully 2,000 will be too. I'll have to test this.
   

The AI is refreshing because most games feature: Easy, Normal, Hard, and Cheats; Supreme Commander, on the other hand, offers flavors. When playing RTS games you're really interested in changing what kind of game you're playing against the AI - are you attacking or digging in for a defense? Usually you can only control this by hand-selecting what kind of maps you play or making your own maps. Supreme Commander allows you to choose AI's that rush, build up a great economy and then rape you, or turtle in a difficult defense (and also still attacks, but not as much as the other two). This makes Supreme Commander highly enjoyable.

In my playtesting, I usually played against a Turtle AI with one ally, a Balanced AI. The Turtle is more than capable of countering everything the balanced throws at it until the Balanced AI reaches tech level 3, and then it can get hurt. However, Balanced AI never won by itself, it always needed me to help tear town Turtle AI's incredible defenses. Never in an RTS have I seen an AI turtle so well, with force fields galore, and so many AA guns even spy planes can't survive. We're talking SPAM amounts of AA guns, it's just incredible. I sent my ultimate Spiderbot monstrosity supported by waves of airpower and it was annihilated before it could tear down the shield generators, or even get in range of them. Nothing survives. Turtle AI lives up to the name.

Where Turtle AI falls short is defending it's perimeter. It usually picks two or three main bases and bulks those up like Sumo contenders, and leaves its outlying areas unguarded. It will respond via airpower when attacked, but if you just SPAM air superiority fighters, you'll counter it's counter-attack and win.

Where all the AI I've played with so far falls short is Navy. On a map where Turtle AI and me and my Balanced AI ally were separated by water, neither attacked each other except by air, and I saw no major troop landings from air transports. On ground maps, Turtle AI killed me once by overwhelming me with lame Tech 1 and Tech 2 units after it had built it's impenetrable defense - I'd wasted my resources trying to get to Tech 3 and didn't have enough forces to stop him.

In short, Supreme Commander looks brilliant, but I'm saddened that the game is so taxing. After the poorly coded Oblivion and Gothic 3, it is the only game that slows Pharra down. If the release is just as bad, than it will be the first well-coded game to do so. (If you don't believe Oblivion and Gothic 3 are coded poorly, then look at their bug fix logs and research Oblivion's development for the XBOX 360 prior to PC release, and how much money was spent optimizing for the XBOX 360, not the PC).

Multiplayer Review:
This is for those who love getting their game on against humans. Supreme Commander is all about pacing and balance. Resources cannot be depleted, the only thing that limits your growth is how fast you are gathering versus spending them. With the games revolutionary cueing system, the likes of which I have never seen done so well before, this game flows like water.

As I am, now being a father of four, mostly neutered and don't care to OwnZor other males in videogames as much, I can't speak further. I will say that the possibility remains that this game will net an intense multiplayer following. Longevity is based on MODdability, and Chris Taylor (Dungeon Siege) loves to make his games moddable.

Microsoft Lies, PS3 is dying

Part 1: Microsoft Lies
We've all read/heard that the XBOX 360 has over 10 million units sold right? Wrong. That's how many they've made and sold to resellers, not how many are actually owned by playing gamers. That number is 4.5 million, not 10, not 10.1.

"NPD Group figures put Xbox 360's US installed base at 4.5 million, with Wii at 1.1 million and PlayStation 3 finding its feet with around 690,000 US owners by the end of 2006."

Part 2: The PS3 is Dying
If you're informed, you also know that there are PS3's languishing on store shelves, unbought.

"The closest thing to a proper study into the question of Sony's stock levels is a check of the channel carried out by American Technology Research pundit PJ McNealy, who found that 28 out of 52 stores polled had units of the PS3 in stock, while none had Wii units. SCEA claims that this has more to do with good management of the supply chain for PS3 than actual demand; online speculation, of course, points to underwhelming demand for Sony's expensive console."

Broken Blu-Ray and New Car Prices? You think that could make people not want a PS3? How about Not Enough Software, something all new consoles suffer from, stacked on top of that?

HALO suit made real by inventor

Incredible work, and the guy's suits really are bullet-proof. Google the inventor's name if you want more.

SNES yellowing? Here's why....

Fascinating. Be sure to check out what's happening to the plastic.

"Thank you for contacting us. That’s an interesting question! For the Super NES, this is a normal condition and no cause for alarm. Cleaning or handling the system will have minimal impact to change or revive the original color.

The Super NES, as well as our other systems, are made with a plastic containing flame-retardant chemicals to meet safety guidelines. Over time, the plastic will age and discolor both because of these chemicals as well as from the normal heat generated from the product or exposure to light. Because of the light color of the plastic of the SNES and NES, this discoloration is more easily seen than with other darker plastics such as on the N64 and the Nintendo GameCube.

Thanks for your email!
Nintendo of America Inc.
Casey Ludwig

Nintendo’s home page: http://www.nintendo.com/
Power Line (Automated Product Info): (425) 885-7529"