July 2001 Archives
Time for some monkey business: Yes, I did go see Planet of the Apes (or, as several recent searches prefer, Marky Mark and the Monkey Bunch) this weekend. And I enjoyed it as the Summer Blockbuster I expected, though I doubt it will ever be considered a classic. However, I'm coming to believe that a lot more depth has been read into the original than was ever really there in the first place, so who knows? Anyway, all the training the cast took to imitate ape mannerisms paid off, and the big battle scene was worth the price of admission by my (admittedly low) standards.
The very end, however... There are major spoilers concerning that, but essentially, don't even try to read any Meaning into it. Aside, of course, from Tim Burton bucking for a sequel.
Even cooler, this material may help circuits maintain their state, even when the power is turned off; therefore, you could create a chip that would start back up in the exact same state in which it was shut off.Unlike the insulator used by today's chips - silicon dioxide - perovskite oxide are far more efficient at blocking current. The upshot is that chip designers need far less perovskite oxide to separate circuits, allowing the electrical paths to be crammed closer together, than silicon dioxide. So not only can they cram more circuits onto a given size of chip, but there's less risk of signals interfering with each other and causing data corruption or other malfunctions.
Abolish Monday mornings and Friday afternoons."
The other's on a hunger strike, he's dying by degrees;
How come even Jesus gets Industrial Disease?
— Dire Straits, "Industrial Disease", Love Over Gold
- While a variety of soil types on the bio-deck allow you to grow a variety of crops (and please various alien races), the two most useful types are probably hot and wet (for fast-growing food crops) or cold and dry (for plants that produce valuable alien artifacts).
- If you get a bomb warning, pause the game to search for it; you can't interact with anything in the station, but can move your viewpoint as easily as ever. There are three ways to safely dispose of a bomb: transport it to a deserted secion of deck to explode harmlessly, beam a security scuzzer next to it to disarm it, or drop it into a laboratory analyzer.
- Your scientists can reverse-engineer any technological object placed on the analyzer if it hasn't been discovered, or research a direct successor on the technology tree if it has. Once an object and all its direct children have been researched, scientists can improve it (lowering its production cost); if no specific item is available to analyze, scientists will improve random existing discoveries. Analyzing a plant will increase that plant type's growth rate. By the way, you can download a complete technology tree from the website.
- Sick bays and laboratories work more effectively with a wider variety of diagnostic equipment or scientific gear.
- Always build a comsensor (and hire Targ staff to operate it) early on. Even if you don't have the facilities to deal with merchants, patients, or tourists, it only takes a couple of solar flare alerts (always allow VAL to collect extra energy) to pay off your investment.
- Place (or leave room for) security columns next to your ports. They'll automatically start blazing away at any assassins or enemy agents who show up; even if they don't kill intruders, this will allow you to identify them so you can tag them for your security forces.
- If you put a rival out of business, all his abandoned sections are yours for the taking. You can only take over one section at a time, but once you take a section and its doors start to close, you can re-open the doors and take over the next section immediately. Repeat as necessary.
I was wondering just the other day (while re-reading a Dick Francis novel about an injured ex-jockey) what kind of keyboards were available for people with only one hand, and I can see how this would also be useful for mouse-intensive applications. I'm kind of surprised nobody's trying to sell a chording keyboard for the PDA market, though.The HalfKeyboard ingeniously maps the right hand side of the keyboard onto the left side. The right hand side of the keyboard is mirrored onto the left side so that touch typists can use the same finger to type letters (while holding down the space bar) they would have with their right hand. Holding down the space bar toggles the keyboard from left side letters to right side letters, so you only type using your left hand. This leaves your right hand empty for all of the stylus tap, tap, tapping that you need to do. Sounds complicated, right? Well, it is, and it isn't. This device exploits your brain's ability to be ambidextrous. The way that it works is in many ways, very natural. While at the same time, I won't say that it's easy. This keyboard does take some adjusting to. It took a few hours for me to really get the hang of it.
In other news, the President of the United States has announced the appointment of a fox to the chair of his Special Commission on Henhouse Security.If you thought the Cabinet was a little heavy on corporate types, check out the second-tier appointments. The new secretary of the Air Force is James Roche, vice president of Northrup Grumman, the giant defense contractor, which wants billions in new Air Force contracts. The secretary of the Navy is Gordon England, vice president of General Dynamics, which is seeking billions in new contracts from the Navy. The same spirit of corporate participation is found in other second-tier appointments as well, according to Jim Hightower's newsletter. Bush named Linda Fisher, the top lobbyist for Monsanto in Washington, to be deputy administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency. Bush picked James Conaughton, a Washington lawyer for ARCO and General Electric, to head the Council on Environmental Quality. And for the No. 2 slot at the Interior Department, which oversees mining on public land, none other than J. Steven Griles, lobbyist for the National Mining Association.
They also plan to publish details of how WPA will work. If they loosen up the restrictions I find objectionable, I might consider upgrading somewhere down the line, but I'll damn sure be reading the fine print. I certainly have no intent of purchasing a product that I'd have to crack to meet my needs; if I can't legitimately upgrade, I won't do business. Just the same, the WPA mess has gotten me to really reconsider whether future upgrades will be worth the expense and trouble.Windows group product manager Shawn Sanford has been telling journalists that when XP ships it'll be possible to change four pieces of hardware before reactivation is required, and that the frequency of changes will also be taken into account. So Microsoft will limit you to four changes within a given period (60 days, 90 days, six months - it's not set yet), and after that it'll reset, and you'll be allowed to make more changes.
Finally, I've written a review of my most recent computer game obsession. I may also put up a few game hints some other time. In the meantime, I'd like to know what readers think of this review and whether they'd like to see me write others; there should be an e-mail link around here somewhere.
At its heart, StarTopia from Mucky Foot Productions is a resource-management game with a combat element thrown in. You play the administrator of a space station — or to be precise, part of a space station — trying to meet the needs of your alien visitors and employees, and sometimes of patrons who set major goals. Each space station in the game is an identical toroid (donut-shape) with three decks, each of which is divided into sixteen wedge-shaped sections. You start out controlling one section on each deck (at least, each deck available in the given scenario), but can expand into adjacent sections as needed. Empty sections usually cost a set fee to open; enemy-occupied sections must be taken by force.
This game is heavily influenced by the "Dungeon Master" series of games. Your station is rendered in wonderfully detailed 3-D, and you can scroll and pan your viewpoint around to look at things from practically any angle (or follow any alien in an "over the shoulder" cam), with appropriate localized sound effects that help bring this virtual world to life. The user interface is minimal: A small menu and status display sits in the upper left screen, and a messages (advice, events, goals, etc.) are dropped into a queue in the lower right. Nearly everything else works by interacting with your environment directly. A left mouse-click allows you to "beam" certain objects to and from a pattern buffer (with familiar Star Trek sound effects), while a right-click gives you an appropriate context-sensitive menu or dialog.
Your station is populated by a variety of aliens, from the familiar Greys (medical specialists who claim to have given up their cattle-mutilating ways) to hulking Kasvagorians (noble warriors who serve as security forces and soldiers). Each race has its own preferences and specialized abilities, and each individual has its own name, skill level, and work habits. Visitors come and go, spending their cash in your facilities, and most are open to offers of employment. Even once you hire an alien, you have no direct control over it; it will work in the appropriate facilities, but to its own schedule. One minor aspect I dislike about StarTopia is that the aliens are overspecialized, only capable of filling one or two roles; compare this to Dungeon Master at which a variety of creatures can work the same job, albeit at different degrees of effectiveness. You must also buy or manufacture "scuzzers" (robots) to perform general maintenance, security, and construction tasks. You have a little more control over your scuzzers, with the ability to program their priorities or beam them next to a task you need done immediately.
Aside from the on-station population, a couple of off-screen voice characters bring a lot of personality to the game. VAL — Virtual Artificial Lifeform — is your (somewhat prissy) computer assistant, who issues advice, mission goals, event notifications, and the occasional SF in-joke. ("I have this pain in all the diodes down my left side...") From time to time, you also get a hail from sleazy space-trader Arona. His prices aren't the best (though he'll be glad to tell you what a big break he's giving you because he likes you), but he usually has the items you need most, and you don't need any special facilities to trade with him. Other passing ships may request docking permission for various purposes (medical emergencies or tourist parties), and once you build a star dock (big and expensive), you can start trading with merchants from various races. Each race has some goods that it can supply cheaply, and others for which it will pay a premium.
The lower two decks of the station, the engineering deck and the recreation deck, are where you build the facilities your visitors and employees need. You can create your own "hardplans" if you have the technology, or buy them from passing traders; once you place a hardplan, your scuzzers will wander over to build it. Some facilities (energy collectors, star hotels, lavotrons) have set footprints, and you move and rotate your hardplans wherever you want them built. Others (sick bays, berths, love nests) are rooms that you can size and furnish to your needs. A few structures can be built on either deck, though most are unique to either engineering or recreation. A couple of facilities have to be built along the outer hull of the station. The third deck is another matter entirely. The bio-deck is the top level of your station, constructed beneath a glass ceiling through which you can see the curve of the station and the space around it. Instead of an flat plain on which you build facilities, the bio-deck is an artificial environment filled with "nano-soil" that you can sculpt to your liking with a few simple controls. Aliens come here to relax, and farmers grow a variety of plants that you can transform into supplies and trade goods. By adjusting soil temperature and moisture, you can create different types of soil in which your various types of trees and bushes can grow.
Neighbors can be a bit of a problem at times, which is where the combat aspect of the game comes into play. A security scuzzer (yours or an opponent's) can breach the section barrier separating you from an enemy and launch an attack. Employees of certain alien races, along with security scuzzers, will start blasting away at each others; again, you have no direct control, but you can set rally points and specify priorities for various targets. Battle generally continues until a scuzzer breaks the lock on another bulkhead and closes it; to the victor go the spoils, whatever facilities or cargoes remain in the captured deck section. An administrator who loses all his energy collectors can no longer power any of his rooms, and is therefore out of the game.
There are three major modes of play. A series of ten scenarios challenge you to accomplish various patron-defined goals, such as setting up a hospital to cure a given number of patients, or driving out competitors operating in other segments of the station. This campaign mode is probably the best way to learn the game — especially given the limited manual — as you are introduced to more and more complex aspects of play. A sandbox mode allows you to set your own goals, or play an open-ended game if you prefer. Finally, an online multi-player mode allows you to pit your skills against those of other administrators, in an attempt to put them out of business by economics or by force.
The game does have a few technical flaws. Even with a computer reasonably above the stated system requirements, rendering an active station requires a lot of polygon-crunching, and the can really bog down the game at times. What's worse is that I still get an occasional crash, where the game just shuts down and disappears without a trace. Neither problem kept me from playing StarTopia into the wee small hours, or from coming back for more.
Adobe may be as displeased with these self-motivated attack lawyers as the college who received the letter. In the meantime, the college professor who created KIllustrator has agreed to rename it Kontour.Several law firms in Germany have taken up the business of writing "Abmahnungen" [cease and desist letters] to anyone who earns money with a product that can somehow be construed to infringe on somebody else's copyright. The cost for these notices, usually linked with a desist order which costs a fixed amount of money each time a (further) breach can be proven, is payable by the offending party. So far so good.
Since then, it seems that Adobe has contacted the creator directly, and both of the involved parties look like they're trying to sort things out a bit more amicably. However, they may not have managed to rein in the attack lawyers yet.Worse still the lawyers demanded that the University pay $2000 to cover their costs. That's right, the lawyers, supposedly hired by Adobe, were demanding that the person receiving their cease and desist letter, pay for the privilege.
...the German lawyers rejected Sattler's initial suggestion that he simply change his product's name and in a rather pouting letter, asked him: "Do you know any lawyer who works for nothing?" Just to hurry things on in the all important "lawyers must get paid" department they added the threat of a $400,000 (1 million DM) lawsuit.
[via BookNotes via Medley]Bush is not a man of letters. Not that a president has to be a Woodrow Wilson, a Franklin Delano Roosevelt or a John F. Kennedy. But the leader of the free world should be a person of native intelligence, whose command of history enables him to apprehend the currents of events before the electorate does. Too often, Bush -- unlike his bookish, well-traveled predecessor -- seems to be light years behind the electorate.
I am not sure, but I do know that most lower income people -- white males included -- believe that, short of being born into wealth, intellect and hard work are the path to success. Many lower income white men, like most blacks, saw Bush as a privileged smart aleck who never had to work for anything. They, unlike the men who identified with Bush, did not take him seriously.
I just get this funny image of the lights going out, and a bunch of motorized carts suddenly going berzerk.When the power failed, all of these units took off and most ran into things before the staff could stop them, trailing their cords behind them. I asked about this. It seems that there are several what appear to be glaring design flaws in these units.
Flash animation, cute and grotesque at the same time; check it out. [via Zap2itNinjai, The Little Ninja is our new online action/adventure series. We invite you to join Ninjai on his exciting, enlightening and humorous journey as he travels throughout the Ancient World.
The owners of the Alpha Picture Network, based in Santa Barbara, California, describe themselves as personal friends of Jean Guichard. On their web site are pictures from the sequence that graphically describe the moments before and after that one moment immortalised in the poster. They show the lighthouse keeper standing on the walkway, looking towards the helicopter and into the camera of Jean Guichard -- and then capture, moment-by-moment, his movements as he ducks back inside the lighthouse, to safety, an instant before the wave consumes the building.
Salon looks at the pseudo-children's-show star's fall from grace and current renaissance as delightfully oily game-show host Troy Stevens. Whatever the reason, I'm really enjoying his new gig on YDKJ this summer.Pee-wee Herman made those do-gooders nervous (conservative, liberal, it didn't matter, they all ganged up and rode him out of town), because he captured the essence of childhood innocence. And it wasn't the party-line version of innocence, where children are regarded as asexual, sheltered little vessels for us to fill with thoughts of "love thy neighbor" and recycling. Instead, Pee-wee beautifully conveyed that time in a kid's life when innocent things seem dirty and dirty things seem innocent. He was childlike in the sense that children can be naughty little devils with richly creative inner lives all their own, from which grown-ups are barred.
Elvis had damn well better be a recurring character, though.Desperate for money, Tucker joins the staff of a disreputable tabloid newspaper, housed in a surprisingly swank office in a seemingly dilapidated building. Not only does Tucker wind up partnered with Grace Hall a beautiful, multiple alien-abductee, but he comes to the shocking realization that, no matter how bizarre or unbelievable the paper's headlines are, they are all absolutely true.
Apparently, some folks are going around trying to put the fear of Microsoft into all the warez d00dz on IRC. It seems to be painfully easy to put out a spoof message from Microsoft claiming that They Know What You Did Last Download.
The thing is, I ran into an example of Microsoft anti-piracy hysteria this past weekend. I was in a chain used-computer store this weekend looking for a reasonably inexpensive secondhand monitor (17" ViewSonics for $129 — tempting) and overheard a guy talking to a couple of the store's young employees. The schmuck was bragging about being some sort of contracted Microsoft anti-piracy inspector. This swaggering middle-aged goon was making wild claims about MS being able to indentify pirates across the net (much like this hoax), and his power to pull together a Brute Squad to have a close look at the contents of your computer at his whim. I felt the bile rising, and chose to walk out before I got into some sort of confrontation.Naturally, The Reg was kind of suspicious about this. We thought the message was probably a hoax, but that it was quite an amusing one. Practically everybody in the world thinks that Microsoft will get up to this kind of thing one day, and practically nobody is prepared to state that it's obviously a hoax without doing some further checking.
Still, I wondered if I had gotten into inspector-boy's face, and he did turn out to have some magical power to invade my piracy, whether he had any chance to get me into trouble. Labyrinthine copyright laws aside, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have any problems; I've been trying to run a clean ship for the last several years, as well as trying to reduce my dependency on Microsloth's products. Still, if this guy was a real agent of the Gatesian Empire, he made clear their intent of cracking down on small-time pirates — down to the home users who install the same OS license on two different computers. I'm just as glad if they do; I'm sure that'll do more than to raide the tide of discontent even further.
David Chess always has some sort of mini form in his sidebar to let readers fill in whatever response they want. Today, the caption is, "Back home, they call me:" My answer was a short version of one of the more surreal periods of my college career: My "Terminator" days.
At Mississippi State, I majored in Computer Engineering, which meant that I spent a lot of time in Simrall Hall, the electrical engineering building. Simrall was, in itself, a very surreal place. EE and COEN were very male-dominated majors in that time and place, and very few women stayed in those classes past their sophomore years. (It was rumoured that a few of the introductory math and English classes were held in Simrall classes simply because that might be the senior engineering students' only chance to see an actual woman.) A lot of the guys in these classes fit the small, skinny "nerd" stereotype, having realized they were better suited to intellectual than physical pirsuits. These majors were also very high-pressure; every few semesters, someone would have to be Taken Away from the building when they had nervous breakdowns and started smashing lab instruments, or wandering from class to class scrawling gibberish on the blackboards.
(The building would be pretty quiet, except for the flow of rumors, for a few days following those incidents. Everybody was thinking the same thing: "I could be next.")
I'm fat, but I am built on a fairly large, broad-shouldered frame to begin with. There was a time in college when I'd developed a sort of unique style, wearing a "Crocodile Dundee" hat and an olive-drab duster when weather allowed. My eyes are fairly sensitive to bright light, and I was wearing sunglasses (usually mirrored a lot then, especially when I was just coming in from outdoors or going back out. I was starting to run into trouble in my electronics classes then; though I was starting to understand that my talents lied on the software side of things, I stubbornly stuck with computer engineering instead of changing majors to pure computer science. As a result, I often left my classes in a vile mood.
So, put this picture together. Big, door-blocking guy, striding about in mirrorshades, black hat, and a long coat, glaring at everything around him. Moderately intimidating, even if I wasn't trying to be. It was only after months of not realizing how the dense crowds of stick-boys parted around me that my roommate told me that I was widely known as "The Terminator". At the time, I thought that was pretty amusing. I'm sure that, in today's post-Columbine world, a lot of people wouldn't have taken it as well.
And then there was a time when certain friends of mine called me "Doctor Lecter". But that is another story...
Hi, my name is Brennan, and I'm a TiVo addict. I knew I had a problem when my TiVo couldn't make an update call for a week, and it appeared that the modem had broken. Then I talked to a pusher tech support rep, and managed to reset the modem with his help; I was starting to go into Withdrawal just thinking about having to send my recorder back for repairs.
Kids, just say no. It's an addiction.
Now, I'm not a parent, and don't expect to be one any time soon. However, I suspect that a bigger difference than the modern concept of childhood is the even newer idea of Parenting — at least, as a distinct activity from the rest of human life. I wish I could articulate this better, but the marketing aspect Carroll mentions seems like just the tip of the iceberg.Somehow, they forget that most children, in most times and in most places, got by pretty well without all the advice books and safety devices and rehearsed speeches. Some of them came out bad, but some of them come out bad right now in America. For most of human history, childhood itself — as an idea, as a stage of life — was unknown. Children were just little people, malign and generous by turns, not innocent, not stupid, merely uninformed and not yet fully hormoned.
Part of the problem is that parental guilt is seen as a marketing opportunity. If you choose to participate in the mediasphere, you will see numerous occasions of sin, and numerous suggestions for redemption. The redemption involves purchasing something.
Update: More detail on the deal, from a unique perspective.Even if the numbers could be inflated and twisted -- as is custom -- to project economic utopia with certainty, the politicians would almost certainly be using "casino economics" (my phrase), wherein it is assumed that all dollars spent in a new establishment are new dollars that don't come out of someone else's hide.
Every restaurant in town (and many retailers) can tell you that "new" casino spending is accompanied by reduced spending at their businesses, but this is never considered when casinos project their revenue "benefits" to the state. That's a key reason rosy projections aren't converted to reality.
