I highly recommend David Sirota's Hostile Takeover -- just not for the reasons Mr.Sirota would probably prefer. First, it's considered a "must read" by Al Gore. Secondly, it gives clear insight into how some American liberals view economics and the world in general. To which I say, good for them. I love an open dialog with people of all political values. Mine are all over the place. Mr. Sirota's book outlines a number of problems with our society and prescribes specific solutions ...
Read the whole thing here .
Windows Vista has gotten a lot of bad press. A lot of it is unfair but as any Vista user can tell you, a lot of the bad press was avoidable. Even the finest product can be marred by a handful of minor decisions that affect the overall experience. In the case of Windows Vista, Stardock has identified these problem areas that Vista needs to resolve (either in a future SP or in Windows 7): We need an OS, not a nanny. Vista has too many nags, confirmations, and reminders. Vista is t...
Skinning first started getting popular around 1999. Back then, it was mostly about skinning Winamp and WindowBlinds. Today, people expect to be able to customize virtually every aspect of their PC experience. From the moment someone boots to the time they shut down, everything a user sees they now anticipate the ability to personalize somehow if they choose to. In the beginning, the content came from the community. The software itself was developed within the community as well. A given ...
I didn't get to read much in January. I basically got up, went to work for 8 hours at the office, came home, worked for another 8 hours, and went to bed and repeated that. Very busy time in those last weeks of Sins of a Solar Empire , new year business work, GalCiv II: Twilight of the Arnor, MyColors, WindowBlinds, DeskScapes, Impulse, etc. But now I'm back. So now I'm starting to read again. This month I'm reading " Arrest Proof Yourself " which I got to learn more about wh...
I'm going to go into this more when I have more time. It saddens me a bit that people let their ideologies determine their realities to such a large degree. If we had a doctor writing articles about tips for better health, I would take those articles pretty seriously. At the risk of being an "arrogant prick" I think that having someone who started with nothing who is now "rich" providing observations on behaviors and about how the world actually works as opposed to how people wish it wor...
What I like about the Vasari in Sins of a Solar Empire is that they are ridiculously powerful. What you're actually dealing with in the game is the remnant of their exodus fleet. The entire TEC is fighting against what is effectively like their equivalent of Battlestar Galactic, a ragtag, fugitive fleet fleeing something horrific.
After years of being told that PC gamers are really just console gamers but with different game controllers (mouse and keyboard) and that in-depth strategy was dying, we now have some conclusive evidence that no, that serious strategy games are alive and kicking. Behold: #1 at Gamespot: #1 at IGN: #1 at 1Up: And what about sales? #2 at Amazon.com, #3 at EBGames.com / Gamestop (And it sold out, they've replenished) Why is this significant?
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One nice thing about Vista is that it requires 256x256 icons which ups the visual quality of things. This is a 128x128 thumbnail of the Sins icon.
Since 1999, Stardock has been a pioneer in digital distribution. The original Galactic Civilizations was the first PC game to be released at retail and digitally at the same time. Its flag-ship product, Object Desktop, made the transition from being a retail product to being digitally distributed with a subscription in 1999. For the past few years, Stardock has distributed its content with Stardock Central: Stardock Central And while Stardock Central was very cuttin...