Re:An Interesting Alternate Universe Idea
on
Superhero Smackdown
·
· Score: 2
I knew there was some reason why I kept chuckling while I was typing "Uberman." That's the reference! Thanks for the clarification--someone did have that idea already.
I zee...this is all well and good, but I do not zee your PAPERS. You must have the proper papers! Vere are your papers!? Don't wait for ze phone delay--answer me now!!!
Re:An Interesting Alternate Universe Idea
on
Superhero Smackdown
·
· Score: 2
I like the pun of the title: Red Son, since Kal-El was born under a red sun.
That will be a very interesting read. Thanks for the heads-up! That Kal-El would be very interesting to see at work, especially once the USSR falls--or would it in this alternate storyline? I would like to think that some bigwig in the USSR would bring the world to the brink of war, and want Kal-El to start it or manupulate the situation by threatening with nukes.
I would think that Kal-El wouldn't be a drone and have serious morality and ideological problems with meeting the demands of being a supreme Soviet citizen versus following instructions that causes world destruction, including the destruction of the USSR. Heady stuff.
An Interesting Alternate Universe Idea
on
Superhero Smackdown
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
It's probably been done before, but imagine Kal-El dropping down on Earth, but in Nazi Germany, not the U.S. Nazis train him to become their supersoldier, their ubermann.
In the U.S., Bruce Wayne is a major contributor the war effort, and does his Batman thing. When he hears of the this "superman" laying waste to many of his finest weapons supplied to the Allied effort, he does a little research and takes on this new menace, personally.
Now THAT would be an interesting Batman/Superman story, hero and antihero, and without Superman's current morality limitations. Nazi Supes would crush Batman without a second thought unless Batman was very, very careful.
I've been seriously considering a move to other ways to publish, with Moveable Type and Radio UserLand looking quite nice for support of images and the like (things I can't do from the free Blogger subscription). Now, it looks that I have a much bigger reason.
Given that Windows systems have proven themselves so insecure that they'll soon be susceptible to catching the the Common Cold, and that every other operating system outside of Microsoft is essentially a UNIX flavor, this officially scares the hell out of me.
Most viruses and worms are written with specific hardware or processors in mind, so I guess I shouldn't worry as much with my Mac OS X system...or should I? If the code is really written to leech around or through a typical process in a UNIX flavor and not be concerned about hardware, then--oh, boy.
Thank God Mac OS X has many vulnerable services such as Apache, FTP, SSH, and the like switched off by default so you can't easily hose yourself. But one well-written trojan run on my computer could be a problem if I don't stay wary.
I love X Window's flexibility in adding window managers. I also hate it because I never, ever get the same convenience and experience in navigating an operating system as I do with Mac OS X and Windows. KDE and GNOME have gone through great changes to make this easier, but they are desktop managers, not window managers. Nowandays the distinction is subtle, but significant when you're trying to pawn off Linux to your mom.
That said, while Mac OS X (my choice) doesn't use X (but can with the XDarwin OSS project), a user can get quite minimalistic even with Apple's OS X interface. For instance, unlike previous versions of the Mac OS, you don't have to show one damned icon, or even the dock, in Mac OS X. To do it:
1) From the Apple menu, choose Dock-->Turn Hiding On. This hides the dock until you move the mouse towards the dock's hidden location.
2) Click on the Finder button in the dock (or click on the desktop) and choose Preferences from the Finder menu. Uncheck the options under "Show these items on the Desktop." That rids you of any hard drive, removable media, or network drive icons.
3) Move any other document icons (the only things that can be left) into a folder in your Home folder, or elsewhere.
4) Change your desktop background to something pleasant.
The only thing left on the desktop now will be the menu bar.
Users who prefer to navigate their applications in a menu-centric style can create an alias (shortcut/symlink) of their Applications and Documents folders and place them in the dock. From there, users can just click on the folder and, ala the Start button or typical window manager menu, navigate through to the item they need.
1) The woman works at a PR firm--a business where Macintosh systems are fairly strong, albeit not quite as much as advertising and the graphic arts. So, what kind of Mac did she switch from? A crappy 6-year old Mac or something ancient? Hell, anything would make you switch from that.
2) By being a contractual employee of Microsoft, this ad really doesn't give MS a lot of credit for their product. Can't they simply find a relatively honest person to endorse? I mean, really! Not everyone hates Microsoft, and I'm sure there are enough people to say, "Sure, it works for me."
This can't be a good thing, and it only creates more alienation in a business where getting along still means a little something, if only to make friends before you merge your companies.
I've Always Wanted to Make a Web Site...
on
The Aging Gamer
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
...just for the older gamer, like me.
I'm 38, and I still enjoy most kinds of games. Least amused by D&D style games like Neverwinter Nights (great title, though). I still rock with FPS and easily kick the ass of most people my age. Been playing a long time, since the 70's and Mattel's handheld football, the Ataris, and even DEC terminals with Camel and Trek.
Passing time with Diablo II still, getting into some Sims, been really fragging the shit out of some young-ums in Quake 3, and looking forward to showing young meat how to catch a lightsaber when Jedi Knight II comes out for Mac OS X in a couple of weeks.
Yep, card carrying, Excellent Fragging Member of The Old Gamers Club: Where you are never too young to get your ass kicked.
I sincerely plan to be old but still able to hang and beat my grandchildren at whatever marvels show up in the future. I was around during the dawn of the electronic gaming age, and my "Tron finger" is as snappy as ever.
Most Blogs Are Rants, But...
on
The Weblog Handbook
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
A few blogs try to go the informative rant. My blog tries that and stays the course on one, and only one topic.
The real problem with blogs isn't blogs itself. That's like blaming the gun for the shooting of a person. The problem is that most people can't string a simple sentence together, which makes reading some sites a pain.
On the up side, people who can't write may find blogging to be theraputic--if they can stand the mail flames.
I personally like how I plug my own blog with my sig, like so:
Unlike most UNIX-based distributions, Mac OS X client arrives with its root account disabled (users are lower level admins or normal users) and all of its external services disabled by default. The root account can be enabled if necessary, but at least root breaches aren't immediately possible out of the box.
That doesn't make Mac OS X immune from common UNIX vulnerabilities, but it does mean administrators have fewer worries from these systems on setup since Apache, SSL, Windows File Sharing, FTP, printer sharing, Apple File Sharing, and Remote Apple Events are inactive, providing less of a target.
Mac OS X 10.2 finally provides a GUI for its ipfw firewall settings to lock out these ports, automatically preventing these ports from being open unless the user activates the service.
I agree with your comments completely. I guess I'm falling into that UNIX trap of geekness. I expected this book to be deeper because UNIX is deep, period. I guess I felt as if I got a tutorial book on quantum physics and felt cheated because they left out a section on building your own toroid quantum particle accelerator.
I wrote the review with/. folks in mind, of course. The book would have a glowing review otherwise--it's just not the book for most/.ers.
I agree--having to shuck a few thousand down for a class is a pain in the patootie.
I've already written one book. I'm hoping to take these classes and write study guides for the various Mac OS tests so we can all save a few bucks but get the training we need.
I've recently played with an Xserve and 10.2 Server for a few weeks. It does rock, but Apple really needs stronger and enterprise-based documentation. They write too often with consumers in mind, not IT people.
That's exactly the content I was expecting to find in this first OS X/UNIX book that O'Reilly offered. I did scan the book before I bought it and knew it didn't have what I was really looking for. It never hurts to have Yet Another Useful Reference Book, however.
Don't get me wrong--it's an excellent book. But in the past year or so, I've already outgrown it's content. I've dived into the UNIX innards of OS X quite often, and you can't help but learn the basics that way. This book was really for someone who has never used UNIX before but knows a bit about Mac OS.
The "UNIX Geeks" book definitely requires a read for me.
Some of the best games of recent memory for me were designed with technologies that are not particularly platform-specific. Id Software showed this during Quake III Arena beta development. Their initial public beta offering was available only for Mac OS systems in the first few days (specifically targeting a system at the time that came with a powerful video card).
That small example expresses a point when developing games. It's not all one world, and many people no longer accept that a particular game is available only for one device (PC, console, whatever). All of these platforms have already converged in technologies and aren't particularly different except for the game accessory hooks (Windows: DirectX, Mac OS 9: InputSprockets) that make porting a pain in the patootie. Some companies that port the most popular PC games to other platforms or develop their games with concurrent release are great at it, but something's amiss now. The lack of ports for Linux games is shameful, given that one of the most popular UNIX-class operating systems show that these games work in this area (Mac OS X). I know it's not a "just recompile" thing, but it shouldn't be that hard, right?
I'm not a programmer, but I've read the general qualms that make game development so richly rewarding and a pox on your soul. In a utopian game development world, I'd stick with these standards:
- USB devices with common, open source drivers that work anywhere (everything handles USB now). Screw proprietary or legacy connectors. - OpenGL, OpenGL, OpenGL: Everything works with it--just keep refining it - Clone John Carmack, Westlake Interactive, Blizzard, Aspyr, and any other company/person who thinks the game first, and the platform second
Are programmers so limited in skill that they can't develop without DirectX? Or are there plenty of politics that derail the idea of "code once, frags for all"?
One part of the Pathfinder landing was spun off in a movie, so I figure that was pretty dramatic.
The crash landing of the crew module in the movie Red Planet used airbags to cushion their landing, just as Pathfinder did.
Their landing was not without incident, however. The crew ended up diassembling the Sojourner rover (without using the project or rover name anytime in the movie--copyright concerns?) for its comm module to make an emergency communicator.
A good movie to waste a little time, if only to see Carrie-Anne Moss semi-nude for a moment. Hubba-hubba. Now THERE'S fine Canadian engineering.
Better than Mission to Mars in terms of believability, and not as much of a downer movie.
For the newbies, remember that Mac OS X is a UNIX family member, too, and comes with Apache as well. The Mac world is used to getting only one or two attacks over a year that it could be easy to skip over this one.
Thankfully, Apple thought about their security model, so Mac OS X ships with Apache (known in its System Preferences as Personal Web Sharing) and many other common access features switched off by default.
Switching Personal Web Sharing on can make your Mac just as vulnerable to some, if not all of the effects of this worm (if this or any other worm contains x86-specific code for its payload, little to no effect may occur).
Apple's already addressed these vunerabilities in their recent Security Updates. You can install them from the Software Update system preference or download them from Apple.
It could be a little complicated, but then, you would only have to rig your ship for fighting sail mode. No commander would ever have full sails up in a battle--that's the "kick me" sign that an enemy looks for--a little chain shot would eat the masts and sails for lunch.
Basically, then, all that would be needed would be servos to move the masts in the proper position, the rudder of course, and perhaps even some special device to chop dropped masts off to prevent them from fouling the helm.
Hellish modeling--but that's what makes thinking of this stuff fun.
Yeah, you're probably right. Constitution was built with near-1st-rate strength, and her hull wood was more dense than the balsa that England had, but Victory would scrap her with one good broadside, or leave Constitution's masts in a wreck.
Still--a good ship commander could maneuver Ol Ironsides faster than Victory and could get off some damn good shots because it would take longer for Victory to turn (she is, after all, a huge ship-of-the-line), and the Americans were reknowned for their skill at gunnery. So the question is, how many guns were fore and aft of Victory? 'Cause that's where I'd use a superfrigate like Constitution to blow a few chunks out of Victory.
In RC, this would be fun. But a little grape pointed at Constitution from high above would make for a Bad Day in the real world. Fun to ponder the possibilities, you know?:)
If you ever read the Hornblower books, you know how exciting they made fights of sailing warships in the Napoleonic Wars.
WWI/II era ships are too easy. You can steer them in any direction you want, and the damage is probably too tiny to see (it's confined to the small hull).
Why not build some serious fighting sail, like the HMS Victory (in history, commanded by the most famous and victorious commander in his day, Admiral Horatio Nelson), and pit it against America's jewel, the USS Constitution. Constitution never lost a battle, and, in its last battle against two British ships, did such incredible manoevers such as putting a sailing ship in reverse, and going on to disabling and capturing both ships (War of 1812, Constitution v. Cyane and Levant). For the Star Trek geeks, why do you think that Gene Roddenberry called the original USS Enterprise-type starships the Constitution Class? Gene knew history.
Fights like these would show holes in the sails, masts getting blasted off, and your weapon choices would be better--some cannon can be armed with chain shot (two cannonballs connected by a chain to rip a mast off) or even doubleshotting (two cannonballs shot from the same cannon for short-range destruction). Too bad you can't simulate men on board, or you could even have a boarding and have men duke it out topside.
I loved a PC game that simulated great sail battles pretty accurately--Age of Sail II. A RC version would kick serious ass.
And, you, sir, are certainly not involved in any publishing circles, if your typing's any indication. Be that as it may...
I'm surrounded by SGIs at my current location. I agree with previous posts in that better PC boxes can be built now, and thanks to everyone for clarification. Right--my understanding, something that posts confirm and I've witnessed daily, was that SGIs have dramatically strong bandwidth. It's probably due in part to the great integration that IRIX has with those boxes. How long that advantage will hold between other competitors, especially since SGIs are very expensive--well, I'm not holding my breath for SGI.
I'm not a processor expert or anything, but this can't spell anything but good competition with Intel (not that they're evil or anything, but they haven't had a reason to make their chips better performers, and no, increasing clock cycles doesn't count). Won't hurt Apple either unless it requires their developers to rewrite stuff (haven't they done this enough already with the Mac OS X transition?)
Multiple processors in a chip? Good. AltiVec or similar number-crunching in combination? Great. If Apple pursues this, their boxes might--might achieve a performance that easily blows away the still-powerful SGI workstations and their slow-clocks-but-very-powerful processors (MIPS? Alpha? Can't remember right now).
I hope that some other enterprising company works up a PC mobo that can handle it for those not inclined to Apple products. That would light a file under Wintel's corporate ass to build something better.
Slashdot Mirror
I knew there was some reason why I kept chuckling while I was typing "Uberman." That's the reference! Thanks for the clarification--someone did have that idea already.
MS LICENSING AGENT [on phone, reviewing a file]:
I zee...this is all well and good, but I do not zee your PAPERS. You must have the proper papers! Vere are your papers!? Don't wait for ze phone delay--answer me now!!!
I like the pun of the title: Red Son, since Kal-El was born under a red sun.
That will be a very interesting read. Thanks for the heads-up! That Kal-El would be very interesting to see at work, especially once the USSR falls--or would it in this alternate storyline? I would like to think that some bigwig in the USSR would bring the world to the brink of war, and want Kal-El to start it or manupulate the situation by threatening with nukes.
I would think that Kal-El wouldn't be a drone and have serious morality and ideological problems with meeting the demands of being a supreme Soviet citizen versus following instructions that causes world destruction, including the destruction of the USSR. Heady stuff.
It's probably been done before, but imagine Kal-El dropping down on Earth, but in Nazi Germany, not the U.S. Nazis train him to become their supersoldier, their ubermann.
In the U.S., Bruce Wayne is a major contributor the war effort, and does his Batman thing. When he hears of the this "superman" laying waste to many of his finest weapons supplied to the Allied effort, he does a little research and takes on this new menace, personally.
Now THAT would be an interesting Batman/Superman story, hero and antihero, and without Superman's current morality limitations. Nazi Supes would crush Batman without a second thought unless Batman was very, very careful.
This certainly just pisses ME off.
(Why? See below.)
I've been seriously considering a move to other ways to publish, with Moveable Type and Radio UserLand looking quite nice for support of images and the like (things I can't do from the free Blogger subscription). Now, it looks that I have a much bigger reason.
Given that Windows systems have proven themselves so insecure that they'll soon be susceptible to catching the the Common Cold, and that every other operating system outside of Microsoft is essentially a UNIX flavor, this officially scares the hell out of me.
Most viruses and worms are written with specific hardware or processors in mind, so I guess I shouldn't worry as much with my Mac OS X system...or should I? If the code is really written to leech around or through a typical process in a UNIX flavor and not be concerned about hardware, then--oh, boy.
Thank God Mac OS X has many vulnerable services such as Apache, FTP, SSH, and the like switched off by default so you can't easily hose yourself. But one well-written trojan run on my computer could be a problem if I don't stay wary.
I love X Window's flexibility in adding window managers. I also hate it because I never, ever get the same convenience and experience in navigating an operating system as I do with Mac OS X and Windows. KDE and GNOME have gone through great changes to make this easier, but they are desktop managers, not window managers. Nowandays the distinction is subtle, but significant when you're trying to pawn off Linux to your mom.
That said, while Mac OS X (my choice) doesn't use X (but can with the XDarwin OSS project), a user can get quite minimalistic even with Apple's OS X interface. For instance, unlike previous versions of the Mac OS, you don't have to show one damned icon, or even the dock, in Mac OS X. To do it:
1) From the Apple menu, choose Dock-->Turn Hiding On. This hides the dock until you move the mouse towards the dock's hidden location.
2) Click on the Finder button in the dock (or click on the desktop) and choose Preferences from the Finder menu. Uncheck the options under "Show these items on the Desktop." That rids you of any hard drive, removable media, or network drive icons.
3) Move any other document icons (the only things that can be left) into a folder in your Home folder, or elsewhere.
4) Change your desktop background to something pleasant.
The only thing left on the desktop now will be the menu bar.
Users who prefer to navigate their applications in a menu-centric style can create an alias (shortcut/symlink) of their Applications and Documents folders and place them in the dock. From there, users can just click on the folder and, ala the Start button or typical window manager menu, navigate through to the item they need.
Two things get me about this:
1) The woman works at a PR firm--a business where Macintosh systems are fairly strong, albeit not quite as much as advertising and the graphic arts. So, what kind of Mac did she switch from? A crappy 6-year old Mac or something ancient? Hell, anything would make you switch from that.
2) By being a contractual employee of Microsoft, this ad really doesn't give MS a lot of credit for their product. Can't they simply find a relatively honest person to endorse? I mean, really! Not everyone hates Microsoft, and I'm sure there are enough people to say, "Sure, it works for me."
This can't be a good thing, and it only creates more alienation in a business where getting along still means a little something, if only to make friends before you merge your companies.
...just for the older gamer, like me.
I'm 38, and I still enjoy most kinds of games. Least amused by D&D style games like Neverwinter Nights (great title, though). I still rock with FPS and easily kick the ass of most people my age. Been playing a long time, since the 70's and Mattel's handheld football, the Ataris, and even DEC terminals with Camel and Trek.
Passing time with Diablo II still, getting into some Sims, been really fragging the shit out of some young-ums in Quake 3, and looking forward to showing young meat how to catch a lightsaber when Jedi Knight II comes out for Mac OS X in a couple of weeks.
Yep, card carrying, Excellent Fragging Member of The Old Gamers Club: Where you are never too young to get your ass kicked.
I sincerely plan to be old but still able to hang and beat my grandchildren at whatever marvels show up in the future. I was around during the dawn of the electronic gaming age, and my "Tron finger" is as snappy as ever.
A few blogs try to go the informative rant. My blog tries that and stays the course on one, and only one topic.
I take other blogs with a grain of salt. Some I read for other professional/user perspective (such as Doc Searls or the venerable Dan Gillmor. I enjoy the casual thoughts from Meg, a cofounder of the Blogger blogsite, and, just for kicks and grins, read sites with attitude like Up Yours, which chronicles the happiness of a lovely mom in a twisted little world.
The real problem with blogs isn't blogs itself. That's like blaming the gun for the shooting of a person. The problem is that most people can't string a simple sentence together, which makes reading some sites a pain.
On the up side, people who can't write may find blogging to be theraputic--if they can stand the mail flames.
I personally like how I plug my own blog with my sig, like so:
Unlike most UNIX-based distributions, Mac OS X client arrives with its root account disabled (users are lower level admins or normal users) and all of its external services disabled by default. The root account can be enabled if necessary, but at least root breaches aren't immediately possible out of the box.
That doesn't make Mac OS X immune from common UNIX vulnerabilities, but it does mean administrators have fewer worries from these systems on setup since Apache, SSL, Windows File Sharing, FTP, printer sharing, Apple File Sharing, and Remote Apple Events are inactive, providing less of a target.
Mac OS X 10.2 finally provides a GUI for its ipfw firewall settings to lock out these ports, automatically preventing these ports from being open unless the user activates the service.
I agree with your comments completely. I guess I'm falling into that UNIX trap of geekness. I expected this book to be deeper because UNIX is deep, period. I guess I felt as if I got a tutorial book on quantum physics and felt cheated because they left out a section on building your own toroid quantum particle accelerator.
/. folks in mind, of course. The book would have a glowing review otherwise--it's just not the book for most /.ers.
I wrote the review with
I agree--having to shuck a few thousand down for a class is a pain in the patootie.
I've already written one book. I'm hoping to take these classes and write study guides for the various Mac OS tests so we can all save a few bucks but get the training we need.
I've recently played with an Xserve and 10.2 Server for a few weeks. It does rock, but Apple really needs stronger and enterprise-based documentation. They write too often with consumers in mind, not IT people.
That's exactly the content I was expecting to find in this first OS X/UNIX book that O'Reilly offered. I did scan the book before I bought it and knew it didn't have what I was really looking for. It never hurts to have Yet Another Useful Reference Book, however.
Don't get me wrong--it's an excellent book. But in the past year or so, I've already outgrown it's content. I've dived into the UNIX innards of OS X quite often, and you can't help but learn the basics that way. This book was really for someone who has never used UNIX before but knows a bit about Mac OS.
The "UNIX Geeks" book definitely requires a read for me.
"All these features are yours
except Aqua."
"Make no attempt at tweaking there.
"Use it together with XDarwin,"
"Use it in peace."
Hugs and kisses,
Apple
Some of the best games of recent memory for me were designed with technologies that are not particularly platform-specific. Id Software showed this during Quake III Arena beta development. Their initial public beta offering was available only for Mac OS systems in the first few days (specifically targeting a system at the time that came with a powerful video card).
That small example expresses a point when developing games. It's not all one world, and many people no longer accept that a particular game is available only for one device (PC, console, whatever). All of these platforms have already converged in technologies and aren't particularly different except for the game accessory hooks (Windows: DirectX, Mac OS 9: InputSprockets) that make porting a pain in the patootie. Some companies that port the most popular PC games to other platforms or develop their games with concurrent release are great at it, but something's amiss now. The lack of ports for Linux games is shameful, given that one of the most popular UNIX-class operating systems show that these games work in this area (Mac OS X). I know it's not a "just recompile" thing, but it shouldn't be that hard, right?
I'm not a programmer, but I've read the general qualms that make game development so richly rewarding and a pox on your soul. In a utopian game development world, I'd stick with these standards:
- USB devices with common, open source drivers that work anywhere (everything handles USB now). Screw proprietary or legacy connectors.
- OpenGL, OpenGL, OpenGL: Everything works with it--just keep refining it
- Clone John Carmack, Westlake Interactive, Blizzard, Aspyr, and any other company/person who thinks the game first, and the platform second
Are programmers so limited in skill that they can't develop without DirectX? Or are there plenty of politics that derail the idea of "code once, frags for all"?
One part of the Pathfinder landing was spun off in a movie, so I figure that was pretty dramatic.
The crash landing of the crew module in the movie Red Planet used airbags to cushion their landing, just as Pathfinder did.
Their landing was not without incident, however. The crew ended up diassembling the Sojourner rover (without using the project or rover name anytime in the movie--copyright concerns?) for its comm module to make an emergency communicator.
A good movie to waste a little time, if only to see Carrie-Anne Moss semi-nude for a moment. Hubba-hubba. Now THERE'S fine Canadian engineering.
Better than Mission to Mars in terms of believability, and not as much of a downer movie.
Well, gee...no...I just made that stuff up.
Didn't know it was FOR REAL!!! I'll have to listen in. Thanks for the funny.
Maybe there's a good reason for these to remain obscure.
"Look...in the sky! It's ChickenMan!"
"Guess that villain's leaving him a bit henpecked."
"He flies so smoothly...it's poultry in motion!"
For the newbies, remember that Mac OS X is a UNIX family member, too, and comes with Apache as well. The Mac world is used to getting only one or two attacks over a year that it could be easy to skip over this one.
Thankfully, Apple thought about their security model, so Mac OS X ships with Apache (known in its System Preferences as Personal Web Sharing) and many other common access features switched off by default.
Switching Personal Web Sharing on can make your Mac just as vulnerable to some, if not all of the effects of this worm (if this or any other worm contains x86-specific code for its payload, little to no effect may occur).
Apple's already addressed these vunerabilities in their recent Security Updates. You can install them from the Software Update system preference or download them from Apple.
It could be a little complicated, but then, you would only have to rig your ship for fighting sail mode. No commander would ever have full sails up in a battle--that's the "kick me" sign that an enemy looks for--a little chain shot would eat the masts and sails for lunch.
Basically, then, all that would be needed would be servos to move the masts in the proper position, the rudder of course, and perhaps even some special device to chop dropped masts off to prevent them from fouling the helm.
Hellish modeling--but that's what makes thinking of this stuff fun.
Yeah, you're probably right. Constitution was built with near-1st-rate strength, and her hull wood was more dense than the balsa that England had, but Victory would scrap her with one good broadside, or leave Constitution's masts in a wreck.
:)
Still--a good ship commander could maneuver Ol Ironsides faster than Victory and could get off some damn good shots because it would take longer for Victory to turn (she is, after all, a huge ship-of-the-line), and the Americans were reknowned for their skill at gunnery. So the question is, how many guns were fore and aft of Victory? 'Cause that's where I'd use a superfrigate like Constitution to blow a few chunks out of Victory.
In RC, this would be fun. But a little grape pointed at Constitution from high above would make for a Bad Day in the real world. Fun to ponder the possibilities, you know?
If you ever read the Hornblower books, you know how exciting they made fights of sailing warships in the Napoleonic Wars.
WWI/II era ships are too easy. You can steer them in any direction you want, and the damage is probably too tiny to see (it's confined to the small hull).
Why not build some serious fighting sail, like the HMS Victory (in history, commanded by the most famous and victorious commander in his day, Admiral Horatio Nelson), and pit it against America's jewel, the USS Constitution. Constitution never lost a battle, and, in its last battle against two British ships, did such incredible manoevers such as putting a sailing ship in reverse, and going on to disabling and capturing both ships (War of 1812, Constitution v. Cyane and Levant). For the Star Trek geeks, why do you think that Gene Roddenberry called the original USS Enterprise-type starships the Constitution Class? Gene knew history.
Fights like these would show holes in the sails, masts getting blasted off, and your weapon choices would be better--some cannon can be armed with chain shot (two cannonballs connected by a chain to rip a mast off) or even doubleshotting (two cannonballs shot from the same cannon for short-range destruction). Too bad you can't simulate men on board, or you could even have a boarding and have men duke it out topside.
I loved a PC game that simulated great sail battles pretty accurately--Age of Sail II. A RC version would kick serious ass.
And, you, sir, are certainly not involved in any publishing circles, if your typing's any indication. Be that as it may...
I'm surrounded by SGIs at my current location. I agree with previous posts in that better PC boxes can be built now, and thanks to everyone for clarification. Right--my understanding, something that posts confirm and I've witnessed daily, was that SGIs have dramatically strong bandwidth. It's probably due in part to the great integration that IRIX has with those boxes. How long that advantage will hold between other competitors, especially since SGIs are very expensive--well, I'm not holding my breath for SGI.
I'm not a processor expert or anything, but this can't spell anything but good competition with Intel (not that they're evil or anything, but they haven't had a reason to make their chips better performers, and no, increasing clock cycles doesn't count). Won't hurt Apple either unless it requires their developers to rewrite stuff (haven't they done this enough already with the Mac OS X transition?)
Multiple processors in a chip? Good. AltiVec or similar number-crunching in combination? Great. If Apple pursues this, their boxes might--might achieve a performance that easily blows away the still-powerful SGI workstations and their slow-clocks-but-very-powerful processors (MIPS? Alpha? Can't remember right now).
I hope that some other enterprising company works up a PC mobo that can handle it for those not inclined to Apple products. That would light a file under Wintel's corporate ass to build something better.