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A Loki Timeline
Al "Alkini" Koskelin writes: "Matt Matthews, with the help of the LinuxGames staff and some ex-employees of Loki, has put together a Loki timeline. The timeline is an attempt to document every major event in Loki's past, starting with the announcement of SDL and the Launch of the Loki Website through today, when Loki is officially ceasing operations." They're also looking for more information to make the timeline more complete.
He will be missed
Show me That Smile (The Growing Pains Theme Song):
Show me that smile again.
Ooh show me that smile.
Don't waste another minute on your crying.
We're nowhere near the end.
We're nowhere near.
The best is ready to begin.
As long as we got each other
We got the world
Sitting right in our hands.
Baby rain or shine;
All the time.
We got each other
Sharing the laughter and love.
Alan Thicke's Journal
My Slashdot ads say "
"The end."
since trolligula won't let me get a decent first post today, i claim this THIRD POST for myself. Piss on my grave, please.
Reading Slashdot for content is like picking peanuts out of shit.
The link to the actual timeline is here:
http://www.linuxgames.com/articles/lokitimeline/
liB
January 31st, 2002 : Loki Timeline Slashdotted.
You limp dick, this is funny.
you
And thanks a lot for your amazing work. I hope you'll be back in some years, when people will have understood that Linux != free beer.
{{.sig}}
Rob Malda, I tried to create an account called Prisoner Of Gravity. It said "We have mailed the password to your email address." So where's my fucking email, bitch? Is it because I have negative Karma? If so, does that mean that you LIE to people with negative karma when they try to create a new account, CLAIMING that the email is sent even though it hasn't been?
Has anyone else noticed the increase in posts being labelled as trolls? I can't seem to understand. Maybe this is due to the fact that the moderators are butt buddies with that ass clown Katz and the rest of the slashdot crew.
Read the rest of this comment...
Posted by timothy on Thursday January 31, 2002 02:10PM A Loki Timeline
I hope that about covers it.
At least it's not another Enron
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
my linux box could run games... That is only a dream.
That is truely a shame to see Loki games go. Hopefully most of their programmers will not have too much trouble finding employment. I was hoping for a few more ports from them.
:)
Anyone interested in taking on any projects?
dumb moderators
How about a graph that tracks the loss of money across Loki's lifetime? It would be instructive to see such a burnrate in action.
Also, how come no node pointing out the day that Loki management realized that no money was going to be made selling programs to people accustomed to downloading software for free?
If only every company that tanked (no offense to the good folks at Loki, I loved your work and am sorry to see you go) kept a record of what went on during the birth, life, and death of the company. What a resource for budding entrepreneurs that would be- especially if the timeline was cross-refernced with earnings, stock price, etc.
I'm sure much of this information can be found out there via old shareholder's reports, etc, but compiling and centralizing it is a great idea.
Some men spend their entire lives trying to kill themselves for having been born. --Ross MacDonald
secondly, linux and loki both suck and are doomed for failure.
Would there actually be any intrest for a volunteer group of programmers to port games? I.E. A group of people doing what Loki was doing but in non-profit status?
I am picturing this: A group of coders being allowed by companies to port their code over to Linux. Companies takes a X% cut, programmers get paid so they can keep doing this, extra gets donated to FSF etc.
Does this sound insane?
Objects in the blog are closer then they ap
Give me the games man! I don't care about what you did as a company!!
I. American Democracy - a Myth, Political Rights Infringed
By elevating itself to a model of democracy, the United States continuously hawks American-style democracy to other countries. Under the pretext of safeguarding this kind of democracy, the United States continues to make rash criticism of other countries and interferes in their internal affairs.
Nevertheless, well-informed people know that the so-called democracy has been a myth since the United States was founded more than 200 years ago. Political rights of the US citizens have long been infringed.
Although the US Constitution, adopted in 1787, stipulates the citizen's right to vote, the right to vote for every American, regardless of race, color or creed, was not implemented in law until 184 years later.
Owing to discrimination based on race, gender, property, education, age and residency, the African Americans, women and American Indians as well as roughly one-third of white American males were long deprived of their legal right to vote. The African Americans, women and American Indians gained voting rights in 1870, 1920 and 1948 respectively.
In addition, the voter eligibility limitations connected to property, poll tax and low education levels were removed in 1856, 1964 and 1970 respectively.
In 1971, nearly 200 years after the founding of the United States, the federal legislature approved the 26th Amendment to the Constitution, stipulating that age cannot be a legitimate reason for depriving any American of his or her right to vote, and setting the legal voting age at 18. This marked the beginning of universal voter's rights.
Although every American 18 or older is legally guaranteed the right to vote, voter turnout in America has remained at a comparatively low level. Since the beginning of the 20th century, the voter turnouts for elections for the House of Representatives have been ranged between 30 and 60 percent.
Meanwhile, the highest voter turnout rate in the history of presidential elections, which have been touted as major US political events, stands at 65 percent.
Under US law, any presidential candidate who wins the majority of votes wins the election. Over the years, President- elects only won 35 percent of all the electorate or less.
The voter turnout rate for the 1996 general election was only 49 percent, and only 25 percent of registered voters nationwide voted for president. Thus, the results of US general elections has not represented the will of the entire people or the majority.
The 2000 presidential election further exposed the inherent flaws of the US electoral system.
The two candidates, separately representing the Democratic and Republican parties, filed lawsuit after lawsuit on the counts and recounts of ballots in Florida and engaged in non-stop partisan bickering.
Some organizations even issued commemorative coins for the election turmoil. The 2000 general election was accompanied by civil demonstrations and protests.
In line with the electoral system in the election law which has been carried out for more than 200 years, electoral votes ultimately decide which candidate will win.
The 50 million voters who cast ballots for president represented less than one-fourth of the 205 million eligible voters nationwide, an all-time low in US election history.
Since the right to vote is evidently meaningless to the majority of eligible voters, the myth of American democracy was further exposed.
The Associated Press reported, "Some were shocked that a nation often held as a model of democracy could also stumble."
American democracy has always been a game for rich people. In the United States where politics is highly commercialized, any bidder for official post needs to spend a significant amount of money to win. No presidential or congressional candidate will go far without financial backing.
The general election in 2000 cost about US$3 billion, 50 percent more than that in 1996 and setting a record.
The congressional races in various states cost another US$1 billion. While not forbidding political donations, US law sets upper limits on donations from individuals to candidates, political commissions and parties, but allows any amount of "soft" donations from companies or trade unions to political parties.
The soft money collected by various parties and candidates in 2000 reached 648 million dollars, four times the amount of four years ago.
During the election campaign, at least 20 donors spent more than one million dollars each. Actress Jane Fonda gave a US$12 million check for supporting a new pro-abortion group.
According to an Associate Press analysis of Federal Election Commission data which was released on November 9, 2000, 81 percent of year 2000 Senate winners and 96 percent of House winners outspent their opponents.
The AP analysis found 26 of 32 Senate races and 417 of 433 House races won by the candidate with the most money to spend as of October 18, the last date for which figures were available.
Larry Makinson, executive director of the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan group that studies money and campaigns, said, "The depressing thing about American democracy is I can check the fund-raising balances at the Federal Election Commission and tell you what the election results will be before the election. "
Thus, the key to American democracy is money, which directly impacts the election results. A Spanish daily, El Mundo, referred to money as the "cancer of American democracy." No other country has seen cancer as disastrous as that in the United States, the newspaper said.
Freedom of the press in the United States is also influenced by money. Wealthy people have the power to manipulate mass media, which can serve as their mouthpieces.
If it can gain financially, the American establishment will turn a deaf ear to international covenants. According to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, any dissemination on advocating war or ethnic and religious hatred among peoples must be prohibited by law in any country.
However, ignoring the international covenant and universal practice in many countries, the United States has sold or allowed sales of Adolf Hitler's "Mein Kampf" since 1933.
During World War II, the United States took in more than 20,000 dollars worth of tax from sales of the book. For the next 34 years, the US Department of Justice collected taxes from book sales amounting to 139,000 dollars.
After buying the book's copyright in 1979, the US publisher Houghton Mifflin continued to sell the book. Experts estimated that the publishing house has sold at least 300,000 copies, netting profits worth between 300,000 and 700,000 dollars.
II. Rampant Violence and Arbitrary Judicial System Are Jeopardizing the freedom and lives of US citizens
The United States, the only country where carrying a private weapon is a constitutional right, is a society ridden with violence.
The United States is the world's number one "gun nation" with more than 200 million private guns, or nearly one for each American.
The number of registered weapon vendors in the country exceeds 100,000, more than the total number of overseas outlets of fast food giant MacDonald's.
A tracking investigation of 70,000 guns conducted annually by a US agency has shown that about 50,000 of them were used in assaults, and the rest turned up in criminal investigations: 5,000 were used in murders, 5,000 for assaults, several thousand were used in thefts and robberies, and some were used in drug-related assault incidents.
The excessive number of privately owned guns has resulted in countless gun-related assaults, resulting in tragedy for many innocent people:
On February 29, 2000, a six-year-old boy in the state of Michigan killed a girl, one of his classmates.
On April 18 that year, a man in suburban Detroit, who became angry when his neighbors complained about him, fired on the office of the apartment complex, leaving three women dead or injured.
At the night of April 24, seven children were senselessly slaughtered by a gunman at the Washington National Zoo.
On December 28, four masked gunmen broke into a home in Philadelphia fatally shooting seven people and injuring three.
This year on January 9, a gunman killed three people in Houston, Texas, and on February 5, another gunman killed four people and injured four others at a factory near Chicago.
Statistics have shown that over 31,000 people in the United States are killed by guns each year, and over 80 people are killed in gun-related incidents every day.
Police brutality is not uncommon in the United States.
Each year, thousands of allegations of police abuse are filed across the country, but relatively few police officers who violate the law are held accountable.
Victims seeking redress faced obstacles that ranged from overt intimidation to the reluctance of local and federal prosecutors to take on police brutality cases.
During 1999, about 12,000 civil rights complaints, most alleging police abuse, were submitted to the US Department of Justice, but over the same period just 31 officers confessed or were convicted.
The judicial system in the US is extremely unfair, with the death penalty exercised in 38 of the 50 US states.
By July 1, 2000, there were 3,682 people on death row in the nation, 90 percent of whom had been victims of sexual abuse and assault.
Most of them had to rely on officially appointed lawyers as they were too poor to pay for their own attorneys.
After reviewing the 5,760 death penalty cases over a period of 23 years starting 1973 in the US, a team of Columbia University professors revealed on June 12, 2000 that 68 percent of the death penalty sentences in the country did not fit the crimes.
They said that on average more than two of every three death penalty sentences were overturned on appeal.
The rate of erroneous judgment on death penalty in the state of Florida was 73 percent, while the figures rose to as high as 100 percent in the states of Kentucky, Maryland and Tennessee, said the professors.
A total of 660 people have been executed since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976 by the Supreme Court of the United States; 500 people were executed in the past eight years.
In 2000, over 70 people were executed, accounting for 11 percent of the total.
The United States violates international conventions by convicting and executing juvenile and mentally retarded offenders, and failing to provide defendants facing execution with competent attorneys.
Thirty mentally retarded people have been executed in the United States in the past decade.
Citing figures from the US Department of Justice, the American newspaper USA Today reported in its August 8 edition that about 6.3 million men and women in the US were on probation or parole, or were in jail or prison at the end of 1999.
The figure represents 3 percent of the adult population of the United States. The "correctional population" increased 2.7 percent from 1998 and 44.6 percent from 1990, according to the newspaper.
Under US law, whose who are serving prison terms and former inmates out on probation or parole are disenfranchised, and one quarter of the states denied the right to vote of those who had served their sentences.
It is estimated that over one million Americans who have finished serving their sentences are deprived of their right to vote.
A report of a US judicial policy research institute showed that more than two million men and women were behind bars by February 15, 2000, up 75 percent from the 1.14 million reported 11 years ago, accounting for one-quarter of the total across the world, and ranking first in the world.
The US Department of Justice also revealed in August 2000 that the rate of incarceration had reached 690 inmates per 100,000 residents by the end of 1999, also the highest in the world. The state of Louisiana took the lead with 736 inmates per 100,000.
Despite huge spending that far exceeds the federal budget for education, US prisons are overcrowded, prison violence is rampant and prisoners are badly treated.
Statistics show that in 1998, 59 inmates in the US were killed by other inmates, and assaults, fights, and rapes injured 6, 750 inmates and 2,331 prison staff.
Estimates by non-governmental groups in the state of California have shown that over 10,000 sexual assaults occur daily in US prisons, and male inmates are sexually assaulted by their roommates. In the most extreme cases, the raped inmates were literally the slaves of the perpetrators, being "rented out" for sex, "sold," or even auctioned off to other inmates.
Despite the devastating psychological impact of such abuse, perpetrators were rarely punished adequately.
A report released in September 2000 by the US Department of Justice said an "institutional culture that supports and promotes abuses" was in place in US prisons.
Frequent reports of physical abuse by prison guards include brutal beatings by officers and officers paying inmates to beat other inmates.
At Wallens Ridge State Prison, Virginia's super-maximum security prison, 50,000-volt stun guns were often used against inmates.
The Virginia Department of Corrections reported that between January 1999 and June 2000, prison guards at Red Onion State Prison, Virginia's super-max security prison, shot a total of 116 blank rounds and 25 stinger rounds of rubber bullets and discharged stun guns on 130 separate occasions.
At Corcoran State Prison in California, eight prison guards drove a group of inmates to a small playground for a wrestling match that resulted in several deaths.
Over 20,000 inmates were placed in solitary confinement in special maximum security facilities, where they were locked alone in small and sometimes windowless cells and released for only a few hours each week.
They were handcuffed, shackled and escorted by officers whenever they left their cells.
At Wisconsin's new super-maximum prisons, inmates were subjected to round-the-clock confinement in isolation, subject to constant fluorescent lighting in their cells and 24-hour video monitoring.
III. Widening Gap Between Rich and Poor and Deteriorating Situation of Worker's Economic and Social Rights
The latter part of the 20th century was the most economically prosperous period in US history, with the economic growth rate rising steadily 118 months by the end of 2000.
However, the gap between the rich and poor widened and the living standards of the laborers went from bad to worse. Pressing issues such as poverty, hunger and homelessness proved difficult to solve.
The gap between the rich and poor in the United States grew at the same pace as the economic growth. Statistics show that the richest 1 percent of the US citizens own 40 percent of the total property of the country, while 80 percent of US citizens own just 16 percent.
Since the 1990s, 40 percent of the increased wealth went into the pockets of the rich minority, while only 1 percent went to the poor majority.
From 1977 to 1999, the after-tax income of the richest 20 percent of American families increased by 43 percent, while that of the poorest 20 percent decreased 9 percent, allowing for inflation. The actual income of those living on the lowest salaries was even less than 30 years ago.
An article in the February 21, 2000 issue of US News and World Report pointed out that the average income of the richest 5 percent of families in 1979 was 10 times of that of the poorest 20 percent of families. In 1999, the income gap had been enlarged to 19 times, ranking first among the developed countries, and setting a record since the Bureau of Census of the United States began studying the situation in 1947.
The income of the executives of the largest US companies in 1992 was 100 times that of ordinary workers, and 475 times higher in 2000.
According to an assessment by the US journal Business Week in August 2000, the income of chief executive officers was 84 times that of employees in 1990, 140 times in 1995, and 416 times in 1999.
A survey shows that the real income of the one-fifth richest of the families in Silicon Valley has increased 29 percent since 1992, while the real income of the one-fifth poorest of the families in the valley decreased during most of the 1990s, and the current income for the poorest has bounced back to the same level in 1992, with the employees at the lowest rank now earning 10 percent less than a decade age.
A great number of Americans suffer from poverty and hunger. According to the statistics of the US government, over 32 million citizens, or 12.7 percent of the total population of the country, live under the poverty line. The incidence of poverty is higher than in the 1970s, and higher than in most other industrialized countries.
An investigation by the US Department of Agriculture in March 2000 showed that 9.7 percent of American families did not have enough food, and at least 10 percent of families in 18 states and Washington D.C. often suffered from hunger and malnutrition.
In 1998, 37 million American families did not have enough food. In the state of New Mexico, 15.1 percent of the families were under threat of hunger.
The number of homeless Americans has continued to increase. A study in the mid-1990s showed that 12 million US citizens were or had been at some time homeless. According to a survey of 26 large cities conducted by the Conference of Mayors, the urgent demand for housing increased in two-thirds of the cities in 1999 over previous years.
A report in The New York Times of July 9, 2000, said that housing in New York was in the shortest supply of recent decades. More than 130,000 families in the city were waiting for public housing at that time, and homeless shelters sometimes had to receive 5,000 families and 7,000 individuals for a night.
Serious infringements upon worker's rights have been reported. Compared with other developed countries, the working hours of laborers in the United States are the longest, while their social security benefits and rights are the worst. According to a report in US News and World Report in March 2000, the average working time of US citizens was 1,957 hours annually, longer than in other developed countries.
In Manhattan, about 75 percent of the people with high-level education aged between 25 and 32 years old work more than 40 hours a week. In 1977, only 55 percent of the people worked the same amount of time.
A newly published book in the United States said that some female cashiers and workers on production lines have to wear protective undergarments because they are not allowed to take time to go to the toilet.
The International Confederation of Free Trade Unions submitted a report to the World Trade Organization in July of 1999, saying that the rights to organize and strike were not guaranteed in US labor laws.
When employers decide to break up or prevent the establishment of trade unions, laborers have no legal redress. Only 13 percent of US workers have joined trade unions.
More than 7 million of the 14 million functionaries in the state and local governments have no right to collective negotiation, not to mention the right to strike.
Millions of workers, including farm laborers, domestic workers, and low-level supervisors, were explicitly excluded from protection under the law guaranteeing the right of workers to organize.
In the 1950s, hundreds of workers were retaliated by employers for exercising their right for association. By the 1990s, the number climbed to 20,000.
Worker's rights and social security cannot be guaranteed for U. S. workers. A study by the US Department of Energy in 2000 showed that the incidence of cancer among workers in nuclear weapons production was much higher than workers in other industries due to exposure to harmful radiation and chemical substances.
Since the end of World War II, 22 forms of cancer have been diagnosed among the 600,000 workers in 14 nuclear plants in California, Washington and other states; this incidence rate was several times that found in ordinary factories.
The US government treads lightly on this issue until it was exposed by media in recent years. Under public pressure, the US government had to acknowledge the mistake.
About 30 million US citizens had no social security eight years ago, and the figure has increased to 46 million currently. The British newspaper Financial Times reported on October 25, 2000, that 12.3 percent of US citizens had no medical insurance 20 years ago, and the rate has increased to 15.8 percent now, or one out of every six Americans.
The education situation in the United States is surprisingly poor. According to a report in USA Today on November 29, 2000, illiteracy is still a serious problem in such a highly developed country.
One in five high school graduates cannot read his or her diploma; 85 percent of unwed mothers are illiterate; 70 percent of Americans arrested are illiterate; 21 million Americans cannot read.
According to a child protection foundation, 71 percent of fourth graders are not at the education level they ought to be. College tuition has grown faster than the increase of middle class families' income. The dropout rate among college students has risen to 37 percent.
Statistics from the US Census Bureau show that the income of middle class families increased only 10 percent from 1989 to 1999, while the college tuition increased 51 percent during the same period. The average college tuition in 1999 was 8,086 US dollars, accounting for 62 percent of the income of low-income families.
The average tuition fee of private colleges was 21,339 US dollars in 1999, up 34 percent over 1989, accounting for 162 percent of the income of poor families, but only making up for four percent of the income of rich families. More than 30 million low-income families could not afford to send their children to community colleges.
IV. Gender Discrimination & Ill-treatment of Children
Gender discrimination is widespread in almost every aspect of US society. American women have not yet enjoyed equal constitutional rights compared to men. Women in the United States not only have weak voice in politics, but also are discriminated in terms of employment, job status and wages. The labor protection standards for women are below the international norms, and sexual violence, sexual harassment and domestic violence against women are also rampant in the United States.
Reuters reported on March 22, 2000, that as many as 1,100 women have joined a class action gender discrimination lawsuit, which was initiated by five women in 1978, against the US Information Agency and Voice of America on 48 charges involving job discrimination because of gender. Following an investigation, the court discovered that the human resource departments of the defendants had purposely overlooked female candidates through deceptive means such as revising test results and selecting beforehand. It was not until 2000 that the U. S. government was forced to accept an out-of-court settlement and paid 508 million U. S. dollars in compensation after 46 out of 48 charges were upheld by the court. The breadth and depth of gender discrimination in the US can be seen from this case, which involved the highest compensation for such a case since 1964.
A report released in November 2000 by an American institute studying policy on women showed that women are paid an average of 26 percent less than their male colleagues.
The number of female prisoners has been increasing markedly in the United States, and they often are the victims of various abuses. Since 1980, the number of prisoners in the United States has tripled, while that of the female prisoners has quadrupled. A report released by the US government in December 1999 showed that accusations against jail officers of sexual abuse and other negligent behavior are widespread and criminal prosecution of prison guards for abuse of power has been on the rise.
The following major cases have been reported since December 1999:
-- Eleven guards and one officer at a county jail were accused of sexual assault and sexual harassment by 16 female inmates;
-- a jail guard in New Mexico was convicted of sexual assault;
-- a prison officer in New York was sentenced to three years imprisonment with probation for raping two female inmates;
-- a prison officer in Ohio was sentenced to four years of imprisonment for conviction of sexual assault of three female inmates;
-- Some female inmates at a prison in New York disclosed that a number of female inmates were raped and even some of them gave birth to babies in their cells.
The majority of the female prisoners who have been sexually assaulted cannot get access to adequate legal protection. The state of Michigan stipulates explicitly that prisoners are not protected by civil rights laws.
Quite a number of women and children have been smuggled to the United States who are subject to slavery and torture. According to a report released by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in November 1999, as many as 50,000 women and children are smuggled from Asia, Latin America and Eastern Europe to the United States every year. They are often forced to become prostitutes or ill-treated workers and servants, the youngest of whom are aged nine. Despite as many as 100,000 women and children were smuggled to the country in recent two years, only 250 of whom are listed as the victims of relevant cases. The New York Times reported on April 2, 2000 that in 1999, the US Immigration and Naturalization Service conducted an investigation in 26 cities and found smuggled women in 250 brothels. An article carried on the " Insight" weekly in December 2000 revealed that the human trafficking and the sexual slave trade has become the third largest illegal trade in terms of business volume in the United States, following
Children in the United States live under worrying conditions, and they are often the major victims of violence and as many as 5, 000 children are shot fatally annually. The percentage of gunshot victims under age 14 is 21 times that of 25 other industrialized countries. Some 1.5 million children, or two percent of the country's total, have one or both parents in prison. The United States, one of five countries that have the death penalty for juveniles, has the highest number of juveniles sentenced to death in the world. Twenty-five states of the country give death penalty to juveniles, four of which set the lowest age for the death penalty at 17 years and the other 21 states set 16 years as the bottom line or have no age limit at all. Since 1990, 14 juvenile criminals have been executed in the United States, and in the first seven months of 2000, four juvenile criminals were put to death, more than the figure of other countries combined in the past seven years. By October 2000, 83 juvenile criminals, who wer
Many children in the United States are threatened by poverty. According to an investigation conducted by the UNICEF, the poverty rate of children in the United States ranks second among the 29 members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. In 1998, the poverty rate of American children hit 18. 7 percent, 2.5 percent higher than that of 1979. To date, as many as 13 million children live in poverty, three million more than the figure of 1979.
Reuters reported on January 20, 2000, that children in 15.2 percent of the families in the US are starving, and that children aged below six years in 16.3 percent of households don't have enough food. About one million immigrant children who do not hold U. S. citizenship are not covered by the medical insurance system. More than one million children in the country live on the streets, 40 percent of whom are under 5, 20 percent suffer from hunger, 20 percent are not covered by the medical insurance system, 10 percent have seen murders, shootings, rapes and violence, and 25 percent have experienced domestic violence.
In the United States, at least 290,000 children are working in factories, mines and farms where working conditions are dangerous. Children working on farms often have to work 20 hours a day and run the risk of pesticide poisoning, injury and permanent disability. They account for 8 percent of the country's total child workers, while the job-related deaths among them make up 40 percent of the country's total occupational death toll. Among these child farm laborers, merely 55 percent have graduated from high school. It is estimated that there are one million cases of human rights violations against these child farm workers in the United States every year; yet the US Labor Department listed only 104 such cases in 1998.
V. Racial Discrimination Prevails, Minorities Ill-Treated
Racial discrimination in the US has a long history and is well known throughout the world; it stands as one of the most serious social problems in the United States.
A US report on implementation of the International Convention on Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination submitted to the United Nations in September 2000 admitted that racism exists as one of the most daunting challenges facing the US
The minorities in the United States have been called the "Third World of the First World."
Racial discrimination is evident everywhere in America. The Washington Post reported on February 3, 2000, that even in large U. S. cities, few residential areas are actually racially integrated.
In the 1990s, the actual earnings of high-income families increased by 15 percent on average; however, the rich-poor gap between whites and minorities remained unchanged.
A survey made by the US Federal Reserve in March 2000 indicated that in 1998 the average net wealth of a middle-income family of Latin Americans, African Americans, or other minorities stood at 16,400 US dollars, equal to just 17.28 percent of that of a white family. The percentage was basically unchanged compared with 1992's 17.23 percent.
In 1998, 72.2 percent of the white families owned their own homes while the proportions for African American and Latin American families were only 46.4 percent and 44.9 percent respectively.
Even worse, nearly two million aboriginals were living on streets of big cities in the United States and 40 percent of them went without food for up to three days at a time. They are the poorest people in the world's richest country.
The Christian Science Monitor reported in May 2000 that immigrant families account for over one-fifth of the US poverty- stricken population and one-fourth of the total number of poor children. Among the immigrants in the US, over nine million, or 43 percent of the total, do not have medical insurance. In contrast, 12 percent of white people do not have medical insurance, according to a research report released last year by the Journal of American Medical Association.
The report also indicated that 41 percent of white youths could receive higher education while the rate for young Latin Americans was only 22 percent.
The discrimination against minorities is deeply rooted in America. The unemployment rate among African Americans is double that of whites.
An investigation made in 1996 indicated that 90 percent of the chief executives or managers of US companies have never given any black people the same status and responsibilities.
Computer giant Microsoft had a staff of over 20,000 in the US in 1999; only 557 of them were African Americans. The number accounted for 2.6 percent of the company's total employees. The company has 5,155 mid-level administrative personnel and only 82 people, or 1.6 percent, are African Americans.
A report in USA Today in 2000 said that charges of sexual harassment on immigrated workers had witnessed a fast increase, up 10 times from 1986 to 1999. About 2,200 cases were reported in the 1980s, while the figure became 15,150 in the 1990s.
Racial discrimination has also emerged as a very serious problem in the courts. A total of 98 percent of the judges in the US are white while most of the people receiving prison terms or the death sentence are blacks or other minorities.
Twelve percent of the US population are African American; nearly half of the two million prison inmates in the US are black, and another 16 percent are Latin American.
Black men are eight times more likely to be in prison than white men, with an incarceration rate of 3,408 per 100,000 black males compared to the rate of 417 per 100,000 white males. In 11 states, the incarceration rate of African American men is from 12- 26 times greater than that of white men.
The US Department of Justice estimated that 9.4 percent of all black men at the age of 25-29 years were in prison in 1999, compared to one percent of white men in the same age group.
Also in 1999, the juveniles belonging to minority groups constituted one-third of the adolescent population in the United States, but they comprised two-thirds of the young people confined in local detention and state correctional systems. One of every three young black people were confined in juvenile facilities or out on bail.
An investigation funded by the Justice Department indicated that the number of young black inmates jailed on first offenses is six times higher than that of white youths. Among the violent crime cases, the number of incarcerated black youths is nine times higher than that of the white youths.
Fifteen percent of juveniles under 18 are black; while among the confined people of the same age group, 26 percent are African American.
Among youths held in adult prison facilities, 58 percent are black. The likelihood of conviction for black youths is much higher than that for whites.
In California, children of color are 6.2 times more likely than white youths to be charged with crimes, and seven times more likely to be sentenced to prison when they are tried as adults. The proportion of black men sent to state prisons on drug charges to the state's total population is 13.4 times greater than that of white men. The number of black youths sent to correctional facilities for drug offenses is 48 times higher than that for whites.
In at least 15 states, the number of African American men sent to prison on drug charges is 20 to 57 times more often than white men. In seven states, 80 to 90 percent of all drug offenders are black men.
Although the majority of crack cocaine users are white, almost 90 percent of convicted federal drug offenders are black.
In the 200-plus years since the US was founded, a total of 18, 000 people have been sentenced to death; only 38 of them were white, accounting for 0.2 percent of the total. No white man has ever been sentenced to death for raping a black woman.
Between 1977 and 1998, African Americans comprised 10 to 12 percent of the total US population. However, out of the 5,709 people sentenced to death, 41 percent were black.
A report from the Department of Justice issued on September 12, 2000, acknowledged that in the past five years, lawyers proposed to sentence 183 offenders to death, 20 percent of them were whites, nearly half of them were blacks, around 30 percent were Latin Americans and the rest of were other minorities.
Of all death penalty sentences upheld by the US federal courts since 1995, the number of colored people accounts for 74 percent. The ratio of African American and white murder victims was almost the same; however, since 1997, 82 percent of the total number executed were African Americans who had murdered white people.
VI. Waging War Frequently and Rampantly Infringing Upon Human Rights of Other Countries
The United States, assuming an air of self-importance and practicing power politics in the world, has done a great deal of damage by encroaching on human rights in other countries.
The United States has, over a long period of time, built many military bases over the world. Hundreds of thousands of US troops stationed in these bases have committed a series of crimes that violated the human rights of local residents. Such acts by the US troops have occurred frequently since 2000 and numerous scandals have been exposed.
In 1995 a Japanese schoolgirl was raped by three American soldiers stationed at Okinawa, sparking a massive protest by the Japanese people. Following this incident, a serviceman with the US Marine Aircraft Group at Futemma Air Station was imprisoned for allegedly attempting to rape a Japanese woman in the city of Okinawa on January 14, 2000. That same month, three servicemen of the US Navy in southern Nagasaki sexually harassed two 15-year- old Japanese girls; on January 9 this year, a seaman of the US Navy sexually assaulted a 16-year-old Japanese girl in Okinawa.
On January 13, 2000, a US soldier on peacekeeping duty in Kosovo raped and killed an Albanian girl. The incident aroused strong indignation from Albanians in Kosovo. In July last year, Green Korea United, an environmental protection group of the Republic of Korea (ROK), revealed that the American military base in Seoul discharged embalming fluid used for its servicemen into the Han River. The group reported that since 1991 another US military base in ROK has discharged waste oil into a local river, which is the source of drinking water for 210,000 local people. The actions of the American troops seriously polluted the local environment and endangered the health of local people.
A Cuban newspaper reported on November 6, 2000, that an environmental group found more than 50 areas in some island countries such as Fiji and Kiribati that had been seriously polluted by dangerous refuse. All of the material has been traced back to US military interests or other interests of the US
The acting vice-minister of foreign affairs of Panama revealed on July 24, 2000, that during its nearly 100-year occupation of the Panama Canal, the US has stationed troops in the area, and numerous Panamanian women were used and cast away by American soldiers, leaving hundreds of thousands of fatherless children. When the US troops withdrew from the Panama Canal area at the end of 1999, they left behind 700 pregnant women in Panama and Colon provinces alone.
The United States butts into the internal affairs of other countries and cultivates its influence in secrecy, infringing upon human rights in other countries. The US Department of Defense launched a research institute for safety cooperation in the western hemisphere, while the predecessor of the institution is Escola Das Americas affiliated with the US Army Forces, which is famous for training Latin American and Caribbean troops to torture suspects, carry out secret executions and mail threatening letters to political dissidents. The school, described by international human rights organizations as a training base for "dictators, hangmen and assassins," trained 56,000 people during the period between 1946 when it was first established, and December of 2000 when it was closed.
The school also trained numerous personnel for various purposes. Many notorious human rights violators and ringleaders of criminal gangs are graduates of this school, and nearly all of the major massacre cases in the Latin America and Caribbean areas have connections with these graduates.
A terrorist organization formed by graduates of the Escola Das Americas slaughtered 767 innocent villagers in a remote area of Columbia in 1981. Among those murdered were people over age 90 and less than two months old.
Nearly 10 years have passed since the end of the Cold War. Peace and development are now the common aspirations of people the world over.
However, the United States, as the only remaining superpower, has yet to relinquish its Cold War mentality. It stations troops abroad, boosts military spending, sells ammunition to other countries and regions, and rattles its sabers around the world. The US has become a major threat to world peace and stability, and infringes upon the sovereignty and human rights of other countries.
A report released by the US Department of State and the US Congressional Research and Service Bureau said that the US military spending and ammunition exports rank first in the world: Its military expenses account for one-third of the world's total and exports of ammunitions amount to 36 percent of the global total. Its military spending budget for 2001 increased by 12.6 billion US dollars compared with the 200 billion US dollars for 2000.
Incomplete statistics show that the United States has waged wars in foreign countries and regions more than 40 times in the 1990s. The country uses cluster bombs and depleted uranium shells, which are banned by international law, and new weapons of mass destruction in foreign countries, killing and injuring local people and also wreaking havoc on the eco-environment in these places.
Reports say that US troops tested depleted uranium (DU) weapons in shooting ranges in Panama 30 years ago. The US army dropped 940,000 DU bombs in Iraq during the 1991 Gulf War. About 10,000 DU bombs were dropped by the US army during the 1994-1995 Bosnia-Herzegovina war. The US army also tested DU weapons in military maneuvers in Japan's Okinawa in 1995 and 1996. In 1999, the US army used more than 31,000 DU bombs in 112 locations in Yugoslavia. The number of cancer patients has increased by 30 percent in Yugoslavia due to DU radiation, and at least 10,000 civilians have died of radiation. About 40 out of some 80 babies born in two months in a Bulgarian town adjacent to Yugoslavia have suffered from physical deformities. A number of European soldiers and civilians once served in Bosnia, Croatia and Yugoslavia including Kosovo have contracted "Balkan Syndrome," and at least 27 of them have died.
The U.N. Environmental Program has analyzed samples collected in Yugoslavia and confirmed that they contain radioactive substances, according to a spokesman for the U.N. secretary- general. Although it is well known that uranium is a sort of radioactive heavy metal, the United States refuses to admit that DU is harmful to human health, and prevents other countries and international organizations from investigating the matter. It even refuses to stop using DU bombs. Currently, the US troops stationed in Kosovo are still equipped with DU weapons.
In fact, the United States has long since had full knowledge of the harm brought by DU weapons. Before the breakout of the Gulf War in July 1990, a test panel affiliated with the US army pointed out in a report that the explosion of DU bombs would produce strong Alfa radiation that is cancer-inducing, and soldiers carrying out tasks in DU weapon-stricken areas must take preventive measures. However, in the same area, the local residents had not received any notice from the US army and they thus became victims of DU bombs.
The United States has always adopted a passive attitude towards international human rights conventions. Although the United States was a founding member of the U.N., it did not accede to any key international human rights convention until 1988 when it joined the convention the Convention on The Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. That is to say, the United States did not ratify the treaty until 40 years after it was signed. In addition, it did not ratified the International Covenant on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights for 28 years and 15 years respectively after it signed them. The United States still has not ratified the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, although it signed it 24 years ago. The United States is one of the only two countries in the world that have not acceded to the International Convention on Children's Rights, and one of several countries that have not joined the C
The United States has always opposed the right to development as a human right, and it is the only western country that has voted against the Declaration on the Right to Development. Although it is a founding member of the Organization of American States, it refuses to accede to the Human Rights Convention of America and other human rights conventions approved by the organization. As for the international conventions it has already signed, the United States has always ensured that the enforcement of the conventions is strictly limited to within the scope of the US constitution and laws, or let them only apply to the federation instead of states, by making reservations, declarations and allowances for them. In this way, the United States has reduced the international conventions into nothing but empty rhetoric.
Actions speak louder than words, and the public champions justice. The promotion of human rights is the common task of all nations in the world. The United States not only closes its eyes to its own serious human rights problems, but also releases the " Human Rights Report" annually to condemn other countries' human rights records. All these realities have exposed the true face of the United States, showing it to be a defender of power politics rather than human rights.
people find themselves suddenly out of a job and way too much time on their hands.
if only they could do something cooler, like add all of their source into sourceforge for the world to build upon.
Last word on Loki
I suppose "Last word" doesn't actually mean last word. Of course, with the editors saying F*** you to
Lawrence Lessig is my personal hero.
Hopefully last weeks report on Slashdot earned them some last sales. I know I bought 2 games when I knew I wouldn't be able to later.
- Marco
A Loki Timeline
Legend:
Game demo release informationGame beta test informationProgrammer or staff informationDevelopment informationInformation about a game going gold and being released or shippedAnnouncement, press release, interview or web posting
1998
22 January
The Simple DirectMedia Layer (SDL), on which most of Loki's games would be based, is announced by Sam Lantinga on USENET in this post. At this point, the version number is 0.3. 10 December
A LinuxGames reader sends in note that Loki Software is now online with a website claiming they are the "first and only company dedicated to commercially porting top selling computer games to the Linux." A press release from Loki is also issued. 31 December
Loki signs a contract with Activision to port Civilization: Call to Power to Linux. 1999
4 January
Coding begins on the Linux port of Civilization: Call to Power 2 March
Loki calls for beta testers for their port of Civilization: Call to Power14 April
Loki announces that Civilization: Call to Power for Linux has gone gold and is ready for duplication.30 April
Archive: See Loki's webpage as of 30 April 1999 here. May
The Loki technical support office is set up in Utah, and staffed by Nate Ashford and Brad Barton. 3 May
Civilization: Call to Power for Linux is shipped. 10 May
Programmer Stephane Peter begins work at Loki. His initial work was on the port of Myth II. Later he would work as the lead programmer on Heroes of Might and Magic III and SimCity 3000 Unlimited. Behind the scenes, he worked on much of the infrastructure, including SDL, SMPEG, SDL_mixer, and the installer, Loki Setup. He also assumed responsibility for Kohan, after Andrew Henderson departed, and worked on it until he left on 30 March 2001. 12 May
The SDL MPEG Player Library source is released by Loki under the GNU LGPL. This is the first of several free software tools that Loki would release. 17 May
Loki announces that it will port three more games: Myth II: Soulblighter by Bungie Software, Railroad Tycoon II and the expansion pak: "The Second Century" by PopTop Software and finally, Eric's Ultimate Solitaire by Delta Tao Software. 18 May
Loki attends the LinuxExpo 1999 in Raleigh, NC and gives the first public demonstration of Civilization: Call to Power running on Linux. 1 June
Programmer Michael K. Vance joins Loki. While at Loki Michael would work on Myth II (including all of Fear and some of Loathing) and Fenris, the bugtracking system based on Bugzilla. He would also be lead programmer on Heavy Gear II, Soldier of Fortune, and Tribes 2. In addition to games, Michael contributed to OpenAL, Mesa, Glide, and SDL. He would eventually depart from Loki on 29 January 2001. 11 June
The first patch for a Loki game, version 1.1 of Civilization: Call to Power, is released. This is also the first release of the LinuxPPC binaries for a Loki game. 12 June
Beta testing for Myth II begins. Karl Rollibard is the lead programmer. 19 June
First report on LinuxGames of a sighting of Loki's version of Civilization: Call to Power in a brick-and-mortar store. 14 July
Loki announces a parternship with Terra Soft Solutions to bring games to Linux on PowerPC hardware. 22 July
Jake Simpson of Raven Software announces that a port of the client of their first-person shooter, Heretic II, will be handled by Loki. 30 July
Loki releases a Myth II demo. 30 July
The beta test for Railroad Tycoon II begins. 8 August
Loki starts running a server with newsgroups for discussion about their games and open source projects. 12 August
Loki wins the "Best of Show: Entertainment" award at the LinuxWorld Expo for their port of Civilization: Call to Power. 13 August
Comments by Scott Draeker confirm that Loki will port Activision's mechanized combat game, Heavy Gear II. 18 August
Preorders of Myth II ship to eager Linux gamers. 24 August
A comment by Michael Vance in the Loki newsgroups removes all doubt that Heavy Gear II is being ported to Linux. 25 August
Job openings at Loki are posted on their website. Specifically, they say they are "looking for enthusiastic game programmers with a love for Linux and a desire to contribute to the growth of Linux as a premier gaming platform." 30 August
Archive: See Loki's 30 August 1999 site redesign here. This is the style of their website for the rest of their existence. 8 September
Loki releases the SDL Motion JPEG Library as free software under the GNU LGPL. 9 September
The beta test for Eric's Ultimate Solitaire begins. 17 September
Loki announces Loki Hack '99, an event where Linux coders will be given temporary access to the Civilization: Call to Power source code so they can compete to make the coolest enhancement in 48 hours. It will be held at the Atlanta Linux Showcase on 11-13 October. 29 September
Civilization: Call to Power 1.1 is released for Alpha machines running Linux. 5 October
The beta test for Heretic II begins. Bernd Kreimeier and Jim Kutter are lead programmers. 11 October
LokiHack officially begins at the Atlanta Linux Showcase. A group of 18 Linux hackers are locked away to add improvements to the Linux version of Civilization: Call to Power. The improvments will then be judged by Sam Lantinga of Loki and Jeff "Hemos" Bates of Slashdot. 11 October
Loki and Activision announce a partnership to bring games to Linux. Civilization: Call to Power, Heavy Gear II, and Heretic II are all Activision games that Loki was known to be porting at this time. No new titles are announced. In the press release, Scott Draeker is quotes as saying, "Earlier this year, people wondered if there was a market for commercial games on Linux. We have put those doubts to rest." 11 October
Loki announces that the program they use to install games, Loki Setup, has been released as free software under the GNU LGPL 11 October
Andy Mecham begins part-time work handling QA at Loki. 12 October
Loki releases a demo of Civilization: Call to Power. 15 October
LokiHack winners are announced. Christopher Yeoh's first place hack added several units to the game as well as a modification to the existing spy unit. Other winners were Andrew Henderson, Ryan Gordon, Chris Swiedler and Joshua Shagam. Henderson and Gordon would later work as full-time Loki employees. Daniel Vogel is also a participant and would later work at Loki. 18 October
Loki's third port, Railroad Tycoon II ships to gamers. 29 October
Creative Labs, makers of the famous SoundBlaster and SoundBlaster Live! audio cards, announces that they will be working with Loki on 3D audio for Linux. Loki and Creative would announce OpenAL, a cross-platform audio API for Linux that includes 3D effects, on 3 March 2000 1 November
Andy Mecham joins Loki full time as the sole member of the QA team.1 November
Through a comment in a Slashdot post, it is made publiic that a Railroad Tycoon II demo is available from Loki. 1 November
Rick Johnson, of Raven Software, announces that a port of their upcoming first-person shooter, Soldier of Fortune, will be available for Linux. Upon clarification, he says that Loki will be handling the port, just as they're handling Raven's Heretic II. 3 November
Loki officially announces that they are porting the 3DO Company's popular game, Heroes of Might and Magic III, to Linux. 4 November
The patches from LokiHack are made available to the public. 4 November
Loki's CVS server goes online, hosting SMPEG, SMJPEG, Loki Setup, and SDL. 7 November
The beta test for Heroes of Might and Magic III begins. 14 November
Loki announces that Heretic II and Heroes of Might and Magic III will be going gold almost immediately. They would be available on store shelves during the Christmas shopping period. 22 November
The Linux version of Unreal Tournament is available online. It uses Loki's Setup tool to install the binary and reads data from a Windows UT disc. In most areas, UT hasn't even hit store shelves yet. This is the first commercial game, outside of Loki's ports, to use Loki's installer. 1 December
Loki and VA Linux partner to publish the Debian distribution, packaged with a demo version of Myth II. 2 December
Loki announces that they will be publishing the Linux version of id Software's Quake III Arena. Of particular interest is that the Linux version will be packaged in the limited edition tin boxes that were made in limited quantities for the Windows version. Bernd Kreimeier would act as producer of the Linux Q3A and later take on the role of maintainer when Dave Kirsch left id Software in early 2000. 3 December
To get the Linux version of Q3A to Linux gamers by Christmas, Loki says they'll ship just the CD and the CD key and ship the tin boxes and other materials later. 4 December
Loki's Linux port of Heretic II ships. 7 December
Loki announces that the Linux port of Quake III Arena has been approved by id Software and is being sent for duplication. 7 December
SDL, used extensively in almost all Loki ports, reaches version 1.0. Many Loki programmers contributed to SDL and the use of SDL in Loki's games pushed the API more quickly towards maturity. 7 December
A LinuxGames reader sends a report that the Linux version of Quake III Arena had arrived by FedEx. The game had been officially reported to be in duplication only hours before. It is made public that initially a Matrox or 3dfx card will be required for the hardware OpenGL acceleration on which the game depends. 20 December
Loki reports that their port of Heroes of Might and Magic III is shipping. 22 December
Programmer Joe Valenzuela joins Loki and starts working on OpenAL immediately. In addition to his critical work on OpenAL, Valenzuela contributed code to Heavy Gear II, Soldier of Fortune, SimCity 3000 Unlimited, Rune, Unreal Tournament, Tribes 2, and the unreleased Deus Ex. He also worked on code for Kohan and Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri, but that work was never released. He would eventually depart from Loki on 29 January 2001. 25 December
Loki programmer and SDL creator Sam Lantinga reports that he has ported the recently released Quake source code to use SDL. 30 December
Loki programmer Michael Vance says that a port of Q3Radiant, the Quake III mapping tool, is being considered. 31 December
The year ends with Loki shipping seven games: Civilization: Call to Power, Myth II: Soulblighter, Railroad Tycoon II, Eric's Ultimate Solitaire, Heretic II, Heroes of Might and Magic III, and id Software's Quake III Arena. 2000
11 January
News leaks of more Loki ports: Interstate '82, Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri, and SimCity 3000. No confirmation is received from Loki. Interstate '82 was never mentioned again. The other two were eventually ported and released by Loki. 12 January
In an interview, Dynamix employees discuss a Linux port of their upcoming game, Tribes 2. 13 January
Programmer Ryan Gordon begins work at Loki. While at Loki, he would head development of the Descent 3 and Heavy Metal: F.A.K.K. 2 ports and release the Heroes of Might and Magic III Map Editor. His last day was 30 March 2001, although the announcement wasn't made until April. 25 January
Loki releases a Heroes of Might and Magic III demo. 28 January
The beta test for Heavy Gear II begins. 7 February
In an interview, Scott Draeker indictes that Loki will port a RTS (real-time strategy) game and a sports game to Linux in the year 2000. In total, Loki hopes to publish 16 games in 2000. 3 March
OpenAL is released to the public. 20 March
Heavy Gear II goes gold and is ready for duplication. 1 April
Leonardo Zide joins Loki as a programmer. While at Loki, he would work primarily on the Quake 3 Arena SDK. He would eventually depart on 30 March 2001. 3 April
Heavy Gear II ships to Linux gamers. 8 April
The Heroes of Might and Magic III Map Editor is released for Linux in beta form. 14 April
Loren Osborne departs from Loki, having worked on both Heavy Gear 2 and Civilization: Call to Power. 14 April
The beta test for SimCity 3000 begins. 18 April
The beta test for Soldier of Fortune begins. 18 April
Dynamix says that they will be using OpenAL in their game Tribes 2. 17 May
Daniel Vogel begins work at Loki as a programmer. He would handle the maintenance of the Unreal Tournament client as well as the ports of Rune and Deus Ex, until his departure at the end of December 2000. He also patched Heavy Gear II and ported the Building Architect Tool for SimCity 3000 Unlimited. In addition to heavily optimizing the OpenGL renderer for UT Linux, he added the ability for NVIDIA cards under Linux to use the high resolution textures on the second Unreal Tournament CD. This work was eventually ported to Windows, one of the few examples of Linux users getting a feature before Windows users. 17 May
Mike Phillips joins Loki as a member of the QA team. 18 May
The beta test for Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri begins. 18 May
Loki announces that their SimCity 3000 port will actually be a port of the enhanced version, named SimCity 3000 Unlimited. 18 May
Loki releases an updated Q3A SDK, including tools for building mods and maps under Linux. 2 June
Loki announces that they will port Descent 3 to Linux. 2 June
Loki releases a demo of Solider of Fortune for Linux. 6 June
The beta test for Descent 3 begins. 20 June
Loki announces that they will port Cognitoy's game MindRover to Linux. 20 June
Loki releases a demo of their port of Heavy Gear II. 30 June
Programmer Jim Kutter departs from Loki. While at Loki, Jim contributed to Heretic II and Soldier of Fortune. 6 July
Loki and theKompany announce a deal to distribute a development suite known as PowerPlant. 13 July
Loki begins to ship Solider of Fortune to Linux gamers. 13 July
Loki releases a demo of their port of Descent 3 for Linux. 28 July
Announces that their port of Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri is completed and ready for duplication. They also release a demo to an eager public. The game would not actually ship until 17 April 2001. 31 July
In a GameSpy interview, Scott Draeker reveals that Loki will have a booth at E3 in the Spring of 2000. By the time of the show, Loki would be far behind schedule on some games and some key programmers would have left for employment elsewhere. Loki would never actually have a booth at any E3. 7 August
Loki and Epic Games announce a partnership under which Loki will maintain the Linux port of Unreal Tournament. Along with maintaining parity with the Windows version of UT, this is the first time that Linux users can receive full technical support for the Linux client. Daniel Vogel is the lead programmer on UT at Loki, and uses that background to quickly port both Rune and Deus Ex to Linux in the winter of 2000. 7 August
The beta test for MindRover begins. 9 August
In a Slashdot post, John Carmack talks about Linux, gaming, and some points about Loki. In particular, he says he thinks Loki did a great job handling the Linux distribution. He also says that Loki has been pushing for binary only patches to Linux versions of id Software games to deter the conversion of a Windows version into a Linux version through the download of a full Linux client. Carmack say he hates binary patches because they are difficult on the end user and will not be using them. 13 August
Descent 3 ships to eager Linux gamers everywhere. 14 August
Reports from the floor of the Linux World Expo that Deus Ex is being shown at Loki's booth. This photo proves its existence. Loki would never ship any version of Deux Ex, although the port was ready for beta testing at the end of 2000 with only a few known bugs. 15 August
Bernd Kriemeier and Michael Vance, two Loki programmers, hold a workshop at the Linux World Expo on the issues of porting a Windows game to Linux. 25 August
Loki wins "Best of Show" at the Linux World Conference and Expo (LWCE). 25 August
Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri runs under LinuxPPC, but is still not shipping. 1 September
Loki releases a demo of SimCity 3000 Unlimited. 4 September
Loki announces that SimCity 3000 Unlimited has gone gold and that it should ship the following week. 6 September
Loki and TrollTech announce a strategic partnership, part of which will include Qt functionality in SDL and the Loki Setup tool. Further, the press release mentions Loki's newly formed "Applications Group", to port applications to Linux. 8 September
Loki announces that they have signed an agreement to port TimeGate Studios' real-time strategy game Kohan: Immortal Sovereigns to Linux. 22 September
Loki announces that QLITech will begin selling PCs, called Advanced Multimedia Workstations, that come bundled with Loki's Civilization: Call to Power, Heavy Gear II, and a Loki Games Demo CD that includes the full installation of Eric's Ultimate Solitare. 28 September
Loki announces that SimCity 3000 Unlimited has finally shipped. 29 September
The Tribes 2 Beacon, an online newsletter, reveals that Loki has been contracted to port Tribes 2 to Linux. October
MindRover gold master is signed and approved. It would not ship until 24 May 2001, almost 7 months later. 4 October
Loki announces that Scott Draeker appear at a conference on the subject of Free Speech. 25 October
Raven announces that version 1.07 of Soldier of Fortune will incorporate client authentication and server browsing through GameSpy and drop the connection to WON. The Linux client, which Loki ported, is never updated to adapt to this change. 26 October
Loki releases a trailer (in MPEG format) for their upcoming port of Kohan. 9 November
Loki officially announces that they will be porting the Tribes 2 client to Linux. 17 November
The beta test for the Loki DemoCD begins. Sam Lantinga is the lead programmer. 27 November
Loki posts the news that their port of Soldier of Fortune has been chosen by Linux Journal to receive the year's Best Game Editor's Choice Award. 1 December
Loki issues a call for beta testers for the Linux version of Deus Ex. Subsequently, no beta test is ever held. 31 December
The year ends with only 4 games published by Loki. In February, Scott Draeker had commented that Loki would publish 16 titles by the end of 2000. 2001
4 January
Loki announces a partnership with Gathering of Developers (GOD) to port and publish Heavy Metal: F.A.K.K. 2 from Ritual and Rune by Human Head. Loki asks for beta testers for these two games. 5 January
Loki Vice-President Lance Colvin leaves Loki. 16 January
New projects from Loki are released to make getting demos and updates even easier: Loki Update, Loki Uninstall and the Loki Demo Tool. 17 January
Another tool, Loki Patch is released for making binary patches in conjunction with Loki Update. 19 January
The public is informed that Daniel Vogel has left Loki and is employed at Epic Games. 21 January
A demo of the Linux version of MindRover is released. 29 January
Programmers Joe Valenzuela and Michael K. Vance depart for Treyarch, a company specializing in console games. 1 February
The beta test for Rune begins. 9 February
Programmer Andrew Henderson announces his departure from Loki to take a position as an embedded systems engineer in Irvine, California. Development of Kohan is handed over to Stephane Peter. 18 February
Tribes 2 for Linux goes back into beta testing after a hiatus. 27 March
Loki releases a port of the Tribes 2 dedicated server for bringing up a Tribes 2 server with the Win32 CD. 28 March
Andy Mecham departs Loki after running the QA team since late 1999. He begins work at NVIDIA shortly afterwards. 30 March
Programmer Stephane Peter and sysadmin Rafael Barrero leave Loki to work at Codehost, Inc.. Ryan Gordon also leaves, although this would not be announced until 13 April. Programmer Leonardo Zide leaves as well, and begins work for Treyarch. Programmer Bernd Kreimeier had left a couple of days earlier. While at Loki, Bernd led development on Heretic II and Quake III Arena. He also contributed to Heavy Metal: F.A.K.K. 2, Descent 3, and was the main architect of the OpenAL specification, among other projects. 11 April
Loki announces they will soon ship Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri and Tribes 2. The port of SMAC had been completed on 28 July 2000, over eight months before. 13 April
LinuxGames posts a farewell notice by programmer Ryan Gordon. 17 April
Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri actually ships to gamers and resellers. 18 April
Tribes 2 for Linux begins shipping. 19 April
An interview by Linux Weekly News with Loki's Scott Draeker reveals that they've been hit hard by a lack of funding. This has led to several staff departing but they are now in a position to continue work off of existing revenue. 21 April
In an interview with IT World, Scott Draeker explains Loki's past and current situation: "We had scaled up to a point, anticipating a certain level of growth, and anticipating a lot of new products coming out. The slowdown caught us by surprise. Now what we've done to address that is we've scaled down through attrition, we've hunkered down. Now we're ready to start releasing products again." 16 May
Loki announces that they will provide games for Nokia's Linux-based Media Terminal, a set-top box. 19 May
A reader sends in an email they received from Loki stating that Loki is not currently involved in maintenance of the Quake 3 Arena client for Linux. 22 May
Timothee Besset announces that he has taken over the responsibilities for the Linux portion of Quake 3 Arena that had been maintained by Loki. 24 May
Loki ships MindRover, almost 7 months after the gold master was approved. 18 June
The beta test for Kohan begins. Sam Lantinga is the lead programmer. 21 June
Loki ships Rune to Linux gamers and resellers. 21 June
Loki releases a demo of Rune. 29 June
No Starch Press and Loki announce the release of PROGRAMMING LINUX GAMES: LEARN TO WRITE THE GAMES LINUX PEOPLE PLAY, authored Loki's John Hall. July
Programmer John Allensworth begins working at Loki. While at Loki, John ported Postal Plus in addition to patching Heroes of Might and Magic (1.3.1a), Tribes 2 (24834), and Kohan (1.3.1). Left incomplete were patches for Descent 3 and Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri. He would eventually depart from Loki on 18 January 2002, shortly before Loki ceases operations. 27 July
Mike Phillips departs Loki after just over a year of hard work for the QA team. 31 July
Sam Lantinga sends an email to the SDL mailing list in which he uses a signature including "Software Engineer, Blizzard Entertainment". This announces his departure from Loki. 3 August
Loki announces that Kohan and Halls of Valhalla (a stand-alone expansion of Rune) are both gold and should begin shipping on 15 August. 6 August
The beta test for FAKK2 begins. 10 August
Loki releases a Kohan demo. 13 August
A report surfaces that Loki has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy to receive protection from their creditors. 17 August
Scott Draeker clarfies Loki's position. They are seeking protection from their creditors so they may continue operations until such time as they can emerge from bankruptcy and satisfy their creditors. 20 August
Loki announces that Kohan and Halls of Valhalla will ship on 24 August. 20 August
In a Slashdot posting, John Carmack reveals that "the linux market is not viable for game developers to pursue" and that "Linux ports will be done out of good will, not profit motives". A later post explains that "All linux games sales EVER don't add up to one medium selling windows title. We are one of the creditors that aren't likely to see money that Loki owes us, so we have some idea just how grim it is." 27 August
Loki programmer Dan Olson gives notice that, unlike the Windows version, the Rune expansion Halls of Valhalla does require the full version of Rune to run. 28 August
Tux Games, a Loki reseller, reports that stock of Kohan has arrived and will be shipping shortly. 4 October
Ximian's Red Carpet service is reported to feature a Loki Demo channel. 5 October
The beta test for Postal Plus begins. 8 October
Loki announces their port of Postal Plus by Running With Scissors. 25 October
Scott Draeker comments on TransGaming, WineX and the business of porting games to Linux. 30 October
Loki announces that Postal Plus is now shipping to gamers and resellers. 30 October
Loki announces that the retail version of Red Hat 7.2 includes a Loki Demo disc. 14 November
Heavy Metal: F.A.K.K. 2 ships from Loki to gamers and resellers. 30 November
QLI Tech announces that they will include a free copy of Kohan with every multimedia system and laptop that they sell until 12 December 2001. 11 December
SuSE Germany states that they will no longer sell games for Linux, including Loki's past and new titles. 31 December
The year ends with Loki releasing 7 games total: Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri (with Alien Crossfire expansion), MindRover, Rune, Kohan: Immortal Sovereigns, Heavy Metal: F.A.K.K. 2, Rune: Halls of Valhalla, and Postal Plus. 2002
18 January
Programmer John Allensworth departs from Loki. 23 January
A leaked memo appears on FuckedCompany.com revealing that Loki will cease operations on 31 January 2001, just over three years after work on their first Linux port began. 31 January
Loki ceases operations and closes its doors. By: Matt Matthews, with assistance from John Allensworth, Lance Colvin, Ryan C. Gordon, Al Koskelin, Bernd Kreimeier, Andy Mecham, Stéphane Peter, Mike Phillips, Daniel Vogel, Joe Valenzuela, Michael K. Vance, Leonardo Zide,
It really is a shame they didn't survive. Loki was responsible for pretty much the only good games out there for linux.
Since computer games are such a big part of the personal computer industry, then actually having a variety of games on a given OS is almost essential for it's success in the home. If Loki had been more successfull, we might have seen more other companies start porting games. As it is I'll just have to go back to xpilot...
-Space for rent
Is it just me? Every time I go to the timeline, instant crash.
My mind works like lightning. One brilliant flash and it is gone.
Loki WAS doing it in non-profit status
Yeah, yeah, yeah, license agreemtns, blah blah. So what if you violate them? The company is no longer in existence, so the original publishers will have no one to sue anyways. :-)
They came, they saw, they CONQUERED.
Short, sweet and bullshit.
If voting were effective, it would be illegal by now.
perhaps that's why they went out of business..
You Linux people piss me off. How can you make something that works with your buggy crap like Mozilla, but not IE, the most standards-compliant browser on the planet?
..from the start.. I salute them. They tried valiantly to bring gaming to Linux.
Though I understand why they're no longer with us, I'm still sad to see them go.
Through them, we've proof that porting games to Linux won't cut it. Perhaps others will learn from their actions, perhaps not. At any rate, I wish their people the best of luck in finding new employment.
1)Loki decided to sell linux software
2)Nobody bought it
3)Loki went out of business
The Slashdot Effect: A new for
It seems to me that Loki had the same business model as a lot of dot-coms, namely "Hey! Look! We can do this!", rather than "Hey! Look! We can do this and make a lot of money doing it."
I notice a lot of entries in the timeline that state, "Loki released xxx for LinuxPPC." Did Loki do any market research determining that LinuxPPC was a large market that could support them? I doubt it. Look, if Linux is 0.24% of the desktop market share (and it was probably less in 1998-1999), how much of that is LinuxPPC? 0.1% of 0.24%? How many of that handful of people are willing to buy games for $50 each?
Did Loki do any cost/benefit analysis? Probably not, because it was 1999 and hey, there were certainly dumber ideas than porting games. But the fact remains that Loki's business model wasn't sound, and that they could have possibly prevented bankruptcy had they done some simple market research (even a poll asking people which games they would most like to see on Linux.) The fact that they didn't do that says to me that they were more interested in proving they could do something than they were interested in making money by doing something. That's not a strategy with which to start a company, and Loki just found that out the hard way.
Simpli - Your source for San Jose dedicated servers and colocation!
...but they alienated their retailers.
I was involved with a videogame website (handeye.com - don't worry, not a plug... the company's gone...) in spring 1999 that was launching a major advertising campaign centering around the release of Loki's Linux port of Civilization: CTP. What this "timeline" fails to mention is the CONSTANT, REPEATED, and UNEXPLAINED delays for Civ:CTP's shipment. We lost a lot of customers because of pre-orders and repeated emails by us that we had to delay shipment because of "distributor's delays."
Loki was a fine experiment, but Linux games wasn't the problem. Some blame has to be left with management. It can't be good when a company's first release is delayed half a dozen times...
I certainly bought my share of loki ports and it sucks they had to fold, but is this really necessary? It seems like a complete waste of time, not to mention being pretty fucking boring and pathetic. What's next, we lower our penguin flags to half mast and have a moment of silence?
Linux is NOT a viable gaming platform. You don't see people trying to run major websites on their Win 98 boxes, do you? Same situation here...
You don't see people trying to compete in auto races with 18-wheel trucks...
http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2-2002050329,00 .html
CmdrTaco, take note.
it woudl be very educational for us all to see cashflow tracked on the Loki timeline (e.g. the stats would help us figure out how big the linux games market would need to be for Loki to break even in some future round)
Oh look, you're all so sad to see Loki go. I wonder how many of you that post that crap actually bought something from them. How many of you stole something from them? If half the people that post saying what a shame it is they went out of business had actually purchased one of their products, they probably would not be out of business.
So yes, they proved that Linux is not only a toy OS for hackers. And this means a lot.
Loki has made Linux better, from technical point of view. We have SDL and OpenAL. We have a great book Programming Linux Games by Loki Software and John R. Hall. For all of these Loki deserves big thanks from all of us. We also owe them apology for not supporting them as we should. It's sad, but their economical failure is mostly our fault. We have to understand that.
Linux community is a pretty strange market. We're used to free speech and free beer. So I guess now we have to wait for WorldForge.
~shiny
WILL HACK FOR $$$
http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2-2002050329,00 .html
Follow this young man's example, and fuck these instead.
Loki opens
Loki sells nothing
Loki screams that their are linux games
Loki Files for chapter 1
end of story
Loki is name of character played by Matt Damon in "Dogma". Matt Damon is leader of FreeBSD team.
oh well.. just kidding.
They closed. Move on people!!!
wasn't the last article on Loki "The last word on Loki"?
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
But I can't help but think on how some folks helped push them over the edge in a twist on the tradgedy of the commons scenario. Everyone can have some free software only so long as no one gets greedy about taking advantadge of the good will of others, especially when the goodwill is provided by people whose side you are on. sort of. kinda. maybe.
I invite you to get acquainted with an ex-Loki employee named 'Icculus' located at icculus.org. Among his famous Loki work is a port of Serious Sam, a port of the Build engine of 3dRealms/Duke Nukem/Shadow Warrior/... Not to mention hosting of former Loki technologies all for free.
We love our platform. Commercial support or not, we will make happen what we want to happen... Even if that means playing games.
To my mind, writing software is a SERVICE, with the end result free for all to use.
Sure. But what's the difference?
I tried for months to understand Direct X, and toyed with example after example... doing the same with SDL is tons easier and allows me to code the software in a real dev os instead of windows. (ok that was a harsh jab at windows... sorry... well. at least let me take back the sorry)
who fucking cares??? get lives you fucking nerds!!! damn, it is just another failed company! do we need a fanfare and eulogy for every damn company that fails??? i had a fucking lemonade stand when i was a kid. didn't do very well. want to make 25 fucking stories about it on slashdot so that everyone knows??? i think not. who gives a shit. you fucking nerds. get over it. they are gone, let them go. bunch of obcessive/compulsive fuckers, aren't you? think by dragging stories out and timelines and cvs access and other shit you will bring them back or one of your mysterious vc jackasses will march in and rescue them? i doubt it. get a lives you nerds. get a woman or something constructive to occupy your time!!!
Granted that this is offtopic but can someone please answer this?
..." -- Dave Barry ""
""... the Mayo Clinic, named after its founder, Dr. Ted Clinic
was the quote at the bottom of the screen. Can you pleeeaaasee explain this. I'm failing to grasp the hidden meaning.
I may have to keep that other OS for games after all ;-( I bought their games, and will continue to do so while they are still around. I hope someone picks up where they left off and continues with the good work.
I love stacking my barbecues in the shed at the end of summer - you can't beat a bit of grill on grill action.
If I learned anything in second grade, it's that a timeline consists of a long line, with two dates at either end, and has other lines splintering off it with pictures and labels and stories.
It seems like any old joe thinks he can throw together a list of events and call it a timeline. Sheesh, they must've been eating paste that day.
-Erik
The only way I see convincing regular gamers to using Linux as their primary gaming platform is to combine Linux and Win32 versions in a box. Windows is a safe bet for gamers because the games were designed to run on it, so they stick with it.
Because of Linux. But not in the way you expect it to be.
Many people on slashdot are from the US and therefore not familiar with European mythology. The penguin is the traditional bird on death. These pre-cristian traditions are very strong, especially in the nordic countries Norway, Sweden and Finland. You can very often find pictures even in churches showing a penguin with a scythe as a symbol for death and destructions. Just take the next medivial arts book and look for the picture of "Riders of the apocalypse" by Alrecht Duerer. If you look hard enough you see that one of the riders is in fact a penguin.
Most of you US guys will associate a skeleton with a agricultural tool as the grim reaper. That's because the climate in the regions where the first settlers landed is rather warm and there are no penguins. So this old European tradition did out in the US.
I always wondered why Linus selected the bird of death as a mascot for linux. Perhaps he did feel unconsciously that most commercial free software attempts will die a cruel death - just take a look at Loki or all the BSD troubles. So with the morbid mascot I suppose that most commercial Linux activities will die. Nobody in Europe will buy products from morbid companies. And above all a black bird with a scythe will stand and smile.
BTW: Why are so many penguin pictures on some of the stories ? Are these about dead people ?
Owner of a Mensa membership card.
If you have a game that uses the same source for Windows and Macintosh, and you port it to Linux APIs, then the Mac port means it's already endian-agnostic, and so the LinuxPPC port is basically a matter of "copy source to LinuxPPC machine, run make". How much effort is being wasted there?
Well it's sad that these guys have to close down now, they really took one for the team.
You can check out the Loki site at various points in time with The Wayback Machine.
here.
(I did a quick scan through the comments and didn't see any links to my favorite new internet contraption, The Wayback Machine, so I thought I'd post the link.)
but in this case it's true. I haven't bought a single Linux game. If I buy a Windows game, and it sucks, I can sell it. Also, I have the choice from which local dealership to buy it, so the price will be lower due to the competition.
I as a user expect vendors to make the Linux binaries available as a free download, just like they make patches and bonus map packs available for free download. I will always prefer games which I know have a Linux version.
So, Loki's business model of trying to sell Linux ports was flawed. Most gamers will want the Windows version, if only because using it eliminates a whole class of problems: interoperability problems with the Windows version your friends are using.
It is far easier to critcize what someone else is doing than to do it better oneself. I know that I could not have accomplished what Scott accomplished: the existence on Linux of games which I thought I would always have to boot in to Windows to play.
Scott Draker and Loki entertainment have made my life just a little bit better. I have only one computer right now; an older (circa 1999) ThinkPad which only runs Linux (the hard disk is too small to fit more than one OS), which I use for open-source development.
A good friend of mine and myself both enjoy playing Heroes of Might & Magic III together. Because of Scott Draker putting his neck on the line and making Loki games a reality, we are able to play this game together wherever I can put down my laptop (The game has a "hotseat" mode which allows multiple people to play the game on the same computer).
For this alone, I am glad that Scott had the courage to make a dream a reality.
I am saddened that it had to end so soon. I hope that, when the economy picks up again, we can make the dream a reality again.
There is one thing which I am certain of: Linux will survive these hard times that we are in right now. Its open source nature means that it can survive in a time which has killed BeOS. I will continue my own open-source development; it is only proprietary software that suffers in these tough times.
- Sam
The secret to enjoying Slashdot is to realize that it should not be taken too seriously.
Maybe some of those Mac users could lend some of their graphic arts talent and create a one page version of this timeline so that I DONT HAVE TO SCROLL THROUGH 40 PAGES OF TEXT WITH A LOT OF GARBAGE ABOUT NEW-HIRES AND OTHER MEANINGLESS DRIVEL.
who gives a shit really. Oh boy a company with a questionable at best business model went out of business. Sure we all wanted to see loki survive, but come on enough already. It's not that big a deal. You don't have to do a phd disertation on the life and death of loki software ok, it ain't that important.
So, basically, this means that nobody nowhere could ever make a dime off Linux? I mean, if you can't make money selling games, fer crying out loud.
So now that Loki's gone, what will happen to their open source projects? How about the domains that host their projects? Who will get the copyrights?
Prehaps they should take a look at assigning the copyrights to the FSF or other holding organization if this is possible with their creditor situation. What other ogranizations are there that we can trust to hold copyrights? It would be hard to assign a copyright to the FSF and keep the project under a BSD license for example.
I don't know about you, but I love the SDL and openAL. Lots of work has gone into these tools and it would be a shame to see them fall apart because the company supporting them went away.
Does anyone have any past examples of projects/copyrights that were assets of companies that went under? What happened to these?
IANAL - I don't even play one on slashdot.
--
Mike
bash: fortune: command not found, stupid.
-- Mike wildcard@illuminatus.org
What's the story with Deus Ex? The article says it was nearly done at the end of 2000. Why didn't it get sold?
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
This guy makes a lot of good points that we should all pay heed to.
What happens to their DNS entries when the close up shop? Loki owns a domain name, that, as far as I can tell, has nothing to do with their business.
I'd like to buy it. (Not lokigames.com - another more obscure one) How do I go about doing this?
--
#include <malloc.h>
free(your.mind);
But for nine months - nine months - poor Sam Lantinga was hanging out on the Loki newsgroups explaining that there was a problem about the artwork for the packaging.... and when the game eventually arrived, it came without the collateral that the PC version had, just a bare CD in a DVD-style wallet.
So what really happened? Were Firaxis messing Loki around? Were Electronic Arts messing Loki around? Had Loki just not got the cash flow to print the boxes? (I can't believe this - there must have been enough pre-orders. There was a lot of interest). Judging by the quality of the beta and the demo, I see no reason at all to believe that the game was not finished in June 2000.
Well, that's it, I suppose. Masses of Respect to Scott and to Sam and to all the troops. It was a brave effort; I'm really sorry it didn't fly.
I'm old enough to remember when discussions on Slashdot were well informed.
There are many open-source game projects, such as FreeCiv, OpenTux (not sure about this; the OSS fork of TuxRacer), and Crystal Space, just to mention a few larger ones. I'm sure every Linux game project could use help, but as a /. article on FreeCiv mentioned recently, they really need help on the art (and other content). You don't need to port commercial games; if we (the Linux community) can produce good games that are free, that could be a selling point for home users. Linuz already has a number of small games that are very well done (such as LBreakout and Penguin Command), but larger games could help to attract people.
I am currently working on a cross-platform game (currently closed, but the future is still undecided) with the goal of making a high-quality space sim. (If you want to see it, we have a small site).
They that quote Benjamin Franklin on liberty and safety deserve neither.
Did anyone else notice the crazy pop-up ads at that site? Is linuxgaming.com so desperate for cash that they have to spawn a pop-up every 15 seconds while we're on their site?
Sorry to see Loki go; Linux gaming will be worse off without them. Their code was good, just a bad business model. Not the first, won't be the last. Where is all the valuable programming talent from Loki going?
...Is that MY Slashdot ID # is TWO million less than Carmacks!!!!
Truth isn't Truth - Guliani
Whilst it's extremely annoying and frustrating this is hardly a new thing in the games industry and certainly not unique to Loki.