The Dilbert comics are pretty good at demonstrating how much waste occurs in really large companies. Large companies, however, usually have enough momentum (or at least inertia) to absorb a heck of a lot of waste. But companies that are moving from being a "Start up" sized company to being a small/mid-sized company don't usually have that advantage. Over the years, I've read a lot of books on building a business and one of the points that comes up time and time again is to beware of ta...
On the hierachy of lameness, you have: A guy playing a video game A guy watching his friend playing a video game A guy watching computer players play each other in a video game. I am at the bottom. I watch computer players play each other. To see what smart things they do in different situations and what dumb things they do. So much of good computer AI really boils down to play testing. The best algorithms in the world are no match for real world playing. And what looks like a g...
In beta 2, the AI was able to start using all the new features. But post beta 2, i.e. the builds that aren't publicly available, the serious AI work starts going in. And that's where tons of AI analysis, vs. AI gaming, AI vs. AI gaming, and so forth really gets going. Getting the AI better at using transports, better technology handling, etc. are all very important. Of course, to do all that, the AI bugs in beta 2 have to be fixed too (such as accidentally nulling of milita...
I play and I play and I play. And every tiem I play, I still see stupid AI stuff. Which is bound to happen because, realistically, unless one hard codes it, the AI will make mistakes. The challenge is always one of making sure that the AI is considering as many variables as possible and then tune it over and over and over and over. Tonight's game I won easily. Here were the results: Technologies researched (and in order): Player Drengin Empire Thalan Empire ...
CES is just about over. It's been a long week. If you're interested in seeing what I've been posting, visit my official work blog here: http://frogboy.joeuser.com .
In the year 2215, the Terran Alliance and Xendar Federation fought a war of annihilation. The Xendar were an up and coming civilization that was militarily aggressive and had already committed unspeakable atrocities. Believing that humans were weak, the Xendar attacked human colonies on the edge of Terran Alliance space. The Terran Alliance struck back with a determination that shocked all of the galactic powers. The humans had spent nearly a century building a reputation of peace through dip...
I must confess that I did not document most of the changes I made. Beta 2A was when the bulk of the advanced CPU option algorithms went in for the computer AI and there was just so much done there that it would have gotten incredibly lengthy to list every little change. Suffice to say that the AI, if the HIGH cpu options are used, should behave significantly more intelligent. Over the Christmas break, we're working on making final tweaks and such. For instance, Super Hive will pro...
As is told in "Dread Lords", the Drengin Empire had bided their time as the humans and their allies dealt with the Dread Lord menace. No alliance of convenience would be necessary. Kindar, the war leader of the Korath clan, counseled to let the Dread Lords and the sub-Drengin wear themselves out and the Drengin Empire would crush the diminished victors. And so it came to pass that it was the humans from Earth who proved to be most most lethal in warfare to the Dread Lords. T...
via email... What a difference a century makes! Here are some of the U.S. statistics for the Year 1906 : ************************************ The average life expectancy in the U.S. was 47 years. Only 14 percent of the homes in the U.S. had a bathtub. Only 8 percent of the homes had a telephone. A three-minute call from Denver to New York City cost eleven dollars. There were only 8,000 cars in the U.S., and only 144 miles of paved roads. The maximum s...
We have a big deficit and some people think the only way to reduce it is to raise taxes. The linked website below lets you play emperor with the budget. If given total power over the budget, could you reduce the deficit?
It's been a busy year for the so-called "Religion of Peace". It started with violent protests and attacks on Danish embassies over the publication of cartoons depicting the prophet Mohamed and ended with 6 Imams crying foul for getting kicked off a plane after behaving in ways that would have gotten anyone else booted. And in betwee, a big fat sandwich of violence. Islam, the violence-inducing ideology masqerading as a religion, managed to keep itself in the headlines with its followers...
Hour 29: By 3pm on Friday, I was definitely starting to feel some fatigue. Part of that was that my eating schedule had been messed up. I didn't really have a normal breakfast and lunch I walked over to McDonalds and had a burger and coke. I had a ton of meetings late afternoon on Friday and was able to function at relative full capacity. Hour 33: By 7pm I was ready to come home. Having gotten home and had dinner, I found myself abruptly starting to nod off. It came pretty ...
The joke at Stardock is that in the summer we might as well be in the landscaping business. Things get so easy going. But the Winter gets different. That's our busy season and this year is especially busy with Windows Vista on the way, the need to get Galactic Civilizations Gold Edition (GalCiv + Dark Avatar) put together for manufacturing for Walmart and elsewhere, and just the company's rapid growth has shown that our company structure hasn't scaled very well. To that end, I have ...
Testing testing testing. User error or site problem?
My friend Cordellia thinks she might be in favor of Obama in 2008 depending on how things go. I agree with her that it's hard to be certain without knowing who the choices are. But having looked at his positions and statements, I'm pretty sure I couldn't vote for him even though I agree with him on a lot of his votes. Let's see how we match up: Abortion: Support Affirmative Action: Strongly oppose Rights for gays: Support Teaching family values in public schools: No op...