So it's that time of year again. The time for showing people how much you supposedly love them by buying a bunch of crap they probably don't want. So I got real drunk and went on Amazon. I happened to notice the "reccomendations for you" section, and I was intrigued. Amazon.com thought that I would be interested in a 5-user copy of Apple OS-X "Leopard" 10.5. I couldn't help but wonder why on earth Jeff Bezos and Company would think that I would want an Apple operating system. I own a mac, but I've never purchased anything from amazon for it, in fact I use it exclusively for travel because the battery is better than my PCs and the wireless is built-in. Thankfully Amazon tells you exactly why they recommend what they recommend. I was a touch surprised by the answer.

So what? Amazon thinks that since I have the capability to fence in an animal that I need a new OS? Do they think that I have a real live Leopard? Aren't they endangered?

So A.E. Vogler proposes that media studios will be replaced by venture capitalists, ala. Michael Clayton.

I love the idea, but He's forgeting about two VERY important data points, Uwe Boll and Pornt. Uwe Boll He has consistently pumped out shitty movies by helping wealthy Germans VCs exploit a tax loophole. He spent $3m making craptastic flicks that rake in a modest $15m. The system he describes is exactly what the porn industry does, and for every great "Redheads Attack 2:Fire in the hole" you have 1000 crappy "Anal Whores 3."

The point of this is that studio execs act as a crap filter. (although not a very good one) What I am concerned about is a proliferation of low-budget porn-esque shit-flicks. Imagine that you are an investor with 100 million dollars. Would you rather invest in a $100m star-studded sci-fi action-drama or 33 $3mil plotless wastes of film. Everybody smart enough to have that kind of money will diversify so that you end up distributing risk instead of risking it all on "battlefield earth 2."

There are certainly crappy movies, but the real problem is TV. TV is just bad. Dramas are formulaic and uninteresting, sitcoms are dead, and I'm convinced that "reality" TV is a plot by the chinese to make Americans even dumber. The only quality work on TV seems to be in cartoons.

Galactic Civilizations 3 Wishlist
I'm a huge fan of a game from stardock called Galactic Civilizations 2. It's much like Sid Meier's Civilization, but a lot less boring. The new expansion, "Twilight of the Arnor" looks great, but it got me to thinking of what would I do to make the game better. This concepts in this wishlist goes for Civilization or any other turn-based strategy game as well.

The way I see it, you are acting as a head of state for a civilization. States have three major overlapping functions, Defense of Territory, Economic, and Social development. As these games go, 90% of your time is based on managing military assets. While this might be accurate for pre-industrial society, no head of state in the world controls where their military units move from day-to-day. (Except maybe Kim Chong-Il) What I would like to suggest is as much detail paid to modeling the social and economic functions of society, and a streamlining of military functions.

Economic functions.
For guidance, I would suggest looking at Superpower 2. It's a fine, if simplistic game, but the economic simulator is *worlds* better than most games. Rather than a slider that says "tax rate" that trades money for "happiness" how about separate tax rates for citizens, industry, trade, and results that compound on each other. Higher income taxes increase govt income, but reduce spending, thus dragging down consumer spending and hurting the commercial sector revenues. Raise import tarifs, drop import profits, reduce imports to tax/happiness/foreign relations/etc. How about setting interest rates to adjust inflation? How about adjusting spending on government services to promote development or save money? How about letting corporations do the R&D, trade, and building of factories? (I set priorities, they respond for max profit) And lastly, why must economics be the same for every civilization? Why does a Thalan "Hive" need money? make their economic system based on time to produce vs food or something. Let them make money for trade based on their exports. (A different system for each civ?)

Social functions.
Civilization had a good idea with different government types, but it wussed out on making them actually different. GalCiv2 doesn't even try. Sure you can research new government types, but there is no functional difference. Let your government type affect your production capabilities, research capabilities, luck, taxation, soldiering etc. How about setting laws and having them ratified by dictate/legislature/popular vote/etc and have them affect the game. I like the ethical alignment feature, but it's too simplistic. How about a 3D alignment? Liberal-Conservative, Authoritarian-Libertarian and Violent-Peaceful. (just examples) Make the effects more dramatic in terms of foreign relations, trade, etc. Also, let's retain race-types when changing planet ownership. If I genocide a planet, then it's just me, otherwise I conquer/accept/whatever a new planet WITH it's people. These people operate a bit different, etc...

Military Functions.
The Galciv governors are a good start, but they're way too simple to manage a large game. I propose the ability to create military regions. An area of space where I can centralize production, and ease Command and Control functions. Ships needn't be "owned" by a region, but it can act as a management tool. This also opens up opportunities for military coups, partisans, etc. Next, enough with the ridiculous distributed shipbuilding. Ships are big and expensive, that's something that has to be centralized to capitalize on economies of scale. Instead of 50 planets making ships that I have to individually guide, how about making shipyards that produce many ships. These ships default to a fleet. A fleet is (assigned?) to a military region and contributes to requested tasks. As an ancillary military function, intelligence plays WAY too small of a role in these games. Let me be a terrorist or spark a revolution. Let me steal technology, or pirate ships. Let me understand order-of-battle and effectively target in military engagements.

Research functions.
R&D Needn't be a government function in all races/government types. Let society do it in response to your funding allocation, or have a society that gets by ONLY stealing tech. How about random breakthroughs and a societal influence on research.

These are just a few ideas, yours for the taking. Don't be afraid of complexity, society is complex. Use the races for people that want o play differently. (dictator vs compromiser, warrior vs pacifist, etc) and the the differences become true strengths and weaknesses.

We're all getting screwed on broadband.
I got a note in the mail today from Comcast offering me 12mbps cable modem internet as a way to increase my business's productivity. Aside from the fact that I have no business and my zip code is not in the Comcast service area (at least it shows that they aren't profiling me, or they suck at it) I fail to understand how faster internet would make ANYBODY more productive. I'm not suggesting that we should all stick with DSL speeds forever, but what business are you in where 12mbps actually increases the amount of work you can get done over, let's say 1 mpbs? I'm sure there are businesses that work with large media files (video, satellite images, whatever) but they are the exception. Bring this argument home, what do you do at home that necessitates massive bandwidth? Youtube? My DSL runs at 768k and I click start when the page loads with VERY few hiccups.

Ok, so the ISPs are selling consumers theoretically overpowered connections, no big deal. The real kicker is that we're paying out the ass for it. US taxpayers have contributed something like 200 Billion tax dollars ($666 for every American) to building the US broadband infrastructure, and what we have to show for it? 12mbps for $90 per month, speeds not guaranteed. I hate comparing the US to socialized countries, but lets look at France. For about $40 USD, you get an ADSL2+ running 28mbps, Digital HD cable TV, unlimited telephone with free international long distance. A deal like that in the US would cost HUNDREDS if those services were even available.

So, we're overapaying AGAIN for slow internet that is overpowered for today's available services. What a country.

Apple shafts it's customers again.
It's not the first time it's happened, but it's certainly very visible this time. Apple computer today slashed a whopping $200 off it's craptastic iphone. This is the reward you get for supporting a company built entirely off of the masochism of it's customers. They know who will be the first to line up, it's the faithful mac-addicts that desperately want to define their identity by their computer brand. Don't worry fanboys, papa Apple is always there to take your money.

I can't really say I blame apple, the thing was WAY overpriced when it came out. Everybody and their brother knew it, and the only people that bought it were those with more money than sense. $400 is still about $300 too much, but it's a clear signal that they haven't been selling as well as predicted. This could possibly be due to the fact that it's a fundamentally flawed concept of a design. Steve Jobs might not like buttons, but they serve a very important purpose. As evidence, I submit the universal remote control as an example. The industry had gone over to all soft-buttons for quite a while, until people got wise to the fact that it's hard to find the button you're looking for when it keeps moving. I predict the iPhone 2 will have no fewer than 12 hard buttons.

Either way fanboys, you get what you pay for.

Fuck Microsoft. I defend them constantly against an internet full of anonymous jackasses, and they do this shit to me. I use my PC as a TV. It's convenient, I like it. Recently, some programs have started popping up telling me that the broadcaster has restricted my ability to watch their programming. Well fuck that. When did they get the right to tell me what kind of TV I can watch their programming on? What's next, I have to buy a Sony TV or they cut me off? It's the broadcasters as much as MS, but MS is the one that did it. I'm not even recording, just watching. This is also taking place on BROADCAST NETWORK TV. As I understand, I have a legal right to that signal according to the FCC. Time to find a lawyer and juice these buster ass bitches.

So what exactly did Satan do again? Today I recalled an old conversation. It once occured to me that if you look at the bible in a different light, Satan doesn't really look so bad. Please keep in mind that I am not a satanist, atheist, or any form of religious. I'm merely throwing this out for the sake of argument because I am fascinated by the social aspects of religion.

Satan's whole deal is that he led people from God. His greatest offenses seems to have been
1) Rebelling against god and
2) Tempting Eve into eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge

The second resulted in the expulsion from the garden of eden. To me this has always seemed like a long story about how "ignorance is bliss" and not one of sin against god. Had we stayed as apes in trees, we would be blissfully unaware of the larger issues of society that our intellect has spawned. I for one prefer air conditioning to eating grubs.

The bible is fairly cryptic when it comes to hell, and makes only VERY vague references to the west's typical conception. The references to fire and burning seem almost metaphorical, and contradictory. More consistently, there are a number of references to hell as a place absent of god. Theologians don't seem to have a major problem with this interpretation.
"separated from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his power" 2 Thes 1 v9
"...he hath reserved under darkness in everlasting chains" Jude 13 v6

AFAIK, Satan is never credited with physically harming or killed anyone, torturing them for amusement, or demanding sacrifice to placate his ego. God can't make the same claims of innocence. Satan came up and spoke to people, influencing them, reasoning with them. God gave people free will, then routinely slaughtered them for exercising it.

The point is, that if we (for only a moment) ignore God's claim to be the "Alpha and the Omega" absolute truth of the universe, Satan looks downright heroic. He fought and lost a rebellion against a murderous, self aggrandizing tyrant, coming back to earth to try and free humanity from his grasp through reason. For those that don't buy into God's infinite power, the bible can look to be a long, boring, allegorical condemnation of religion. (that it shackles the mind to absolute truths that are not absolute)

Again, please look at this through an academic lens, not as religious opinion.
I truly respect the religious beliefs of ALL.