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Slashback: Quinn, iBackups, Wikipedia
Peter Quinn exonerated. An anonymous reader writes "Groklaw is reporting that Peter Quinn, the man who terrified Microsoft by moving part of the Massachusetts government to ODF, has been exonerated of any alleged impropriety concerning his trips to tell others about Massachusetts' move to ODF."
Honda debuts new ASIMO robot. Tomo Hiratsuka writes "Honda's ASIMO robot has received his annual refit and now has the power to carry objects with a cart, serve drinks, and run with both feet off the ground at up to 10mph."
911 now available to Vonage users. Ben writes "Only a month after Vonage 911 Deadline Passed the VoIP phone service announced today that all of its customers now have access to 911 services."
Nathan Peterson pleads guilty to copyright infringement. Chris Bradshaw writes "iBackups' owner Nathan Peterson pled guilty to two counts of criminal copyright infringement for illegally copying and selling nearly $20 million worth of computer software. The FBI was first alerted to possible software piracy by the Software Information Industry Association (SIIA) back in 2003. iBackups was selling pirated copies of software over the internet claiming that they were "backup copies" to be used by software owners in case of system crashes."
Wikipedia still just as effective as normal encyclopedia. AxelBoldt writes "The Australian newspaper The Age reports that Nature has run a formal comparison of the science coverage of Wikipedia and Encyclopedia Britannica. From the article: 'The exercise revealed numerous errors in both encyclopedias, but among 42 entries tested, the difference in accuracy was not great: the average science entry in Wikipedia contained around four inaccuracies; Britannica, around three.'"
Citizen e ink clock makes its debut. Tim Jones writes "The flexible e ink clock that Citizen announced what seems like ages ago is finally making an appearance in the real world. It's apparently going to be displayed at a Tokyo exhibition this week."
$100 laptop not quite so ineffectual. segphault writes "Ars Technica posted a response to Intel chairman Craig Barret's criticism of MIT's $100 laptop. From the article: 'Despite Barret's criticism, interest in the $100 laptop remains as strong as ever, and lightweight, affordable technology continues to weave its way into the classroom with great results. Young students in Olathe, Kansas now read their textbooks on Palm handheld computers. According to survey statistics, 28 percent of American school districts offer handheld computers for student and teacher use. A study done at a high school in South Dakota in 2001 found that the the availability of school-provided handhelds actually improved student grades. Eric Johnson, educational sales director for Palm, says the public schools represent a US$300 million market. If handheld computers can do so well in the public school system, surely the $100 laptop can too.'"
"For example, who would have thought that David Weber of Honor Harrington fame was also responsible for developing the third editions of the famous Starfire board game?"
Anybody who has read more than his trendy stuff and/or the backs of pretty much any of his books? He has done and is famous for *much* more than Harrington and in fact many, like myself, think that is some of his weakest works. Although it's pretty much all train jumpers know.
Cypherpunks: Civil Liberty Through Complex Mathematics. Those who live by the sword die by the arrow.
Anybody who has read more than his trendy stuff and/or the backs of pretty much any of his books?
:-)
Lemme see: I'm pissed off because he didn't write more Dahak, Starfire is almost better than HH because it spans a much greater period of time, and I really wish he hadn't helped write 1633. 1632 was much more realistic without Weber's hard edge "those BASTARDS!" style of writing in it. Of course, 1634 is a snooze, so who am I to talk? No, I haven't read the March Up Country series. It hasn't interested me yet.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
The March Upcountry series is actually quite good. It reads like more of Ringo's work than Weber's, for what that's worth. The series works out to be a pretty good coming of age tale, and the paeans to the martial virtues are not overblown. I caught the first two books when they were in the free library and then bought the last two.
Ahh Starfire. The original pocket edition is one of the best games of its generation. It hasn't stood up well - although I prefer the 2d6 weapon rolls to the 1d10 just because I love the feel of the 2d6 bell curve- so I'm playing Full Thrust these days, predominantly online with FTJava - multiplayer, transport over email so not realtime, fog of war, and fighters coming this week in the 1.0 release. Starfire was cursed with mediocre expansions and overcomplex campaign games. Weber came along for the 2nd edition and rewrote the game to be more complex to handle the large battles he wanted (yes, that's what happened). And he wrote novels. They degenerated into one massive assault through a warp point after another. There's no ftl travel, you go through warp poitns and come out in another system. And they're easily defended with vast minefields and ginormous fortresses. Ungameably ugly in my opinion, you're forced into brute force up-the-middle attacks. This forces fleet sizes upwards to sustain the horrific casualty rates (90% attrition in fighter units in battle after battle, 90% percent people. Add in an even more extreme version of the technological one-upmanship in the Honor Harrington books and you get a really flashy strategic situation that's utterly boring to play.
On the other hand, the game for the Honor Harrington series is based on the excellent Attack Vector, which manages to put 3d Newtonian space combat on the tabletop. They're calling it the Saganami Island Tactical Simulator and yes, I do have a (small, non-financial) interest in the company. It's on my Christmas list for myself, just ordered it now (yes, I've been good).
Veteran, Bermuda Triangle Expeditionary Force, 1992-1951
Ahh Starfire. The original pocket edition is one of the best games of its generation. It hasn't stood up well
:-(
Indeed. The current owner is only maintaining the game part time, and is 100% focused on distributing rules over the Internet rather than complete game packages. The fourth edition rules have been clarified (as promised), but in the process completely lost any hope of explaining to a new player how to play the game. It was a full two weeks before something finally clicked in my head and I was able to play a one ship on one ship game. Considering how easy such a game is, that's just pathetic. I still haven't managed to work out the empire building, but that may be in part because of how busy I am.
Weber came along for the 2nd edition and rewrote the game to be more complex to handle the large battles he wanted (yes, that's what happened). And he wrote novels. They degenerated into one massive assault through a warp point after another.
I'm thinking that's because of the introduction of Imperial Starfire. He first created a separate game set in the same universe so that he could have the empite building aspect. Then he went about combining the two concepts into one, with predictably unpredictable results. Still, a lot of players swear up and down by the Third Edition. I would have gone for third instead of fourth, but I couldn't figure out all the materials I needed to order. Galactic Starfire came in a bundled set (two manuals, two counter sheets, two hexmaps, and a 10 sided die), so it was much easier at the time to order that.
On the other hand, the game for the Honor Harrington series is based on the excellent Attack Vector, which manages to put 3d Newtonian space combat on the tabletop. They're calling it the Saganami Island Tactical Simulator
I've been hearing nothing but good things about both Attack Vector and Saganami Island Tactical Simulator. Is the latter really as good as everyone is claiming? At the very least, the idea of getting a well thought out, well commercialized, game with professionally crafted pieces for about the same cost as Starfire is very appealing. When I got the Starfire kit, I couldn't help but feel a bit disappointed in the artwork on the counter sheets. (Yes, they're still using the same artwork that goes all the way back to 1st edition.) The 3D artwork on the manual covers isn't much better.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
P.S. I can't stand Ringo, so that's not exactly a ringing endorsement. ;-)
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade