Over at MacRumors they have an article reporting on benchmarking results from PrimateLabs. 

The iPhone 5 comes in with a total score of 1601.  The iPad 3, by contract, is 766. 

Mine’s on order.

Some of you may recall that I was going on an extended sabbatical after War of Magic shipped.

I still remain active online but as I detailed on Freakonomics, the long hours over many years had taken their toll and I was going to diversify what I spent my days doing.  What started out as a sabbatical after War of Magic evolved for the reasons I outlined on the podcast into a semi-retirement.

My libertarian friends have called it "Going Galt". But that's really not an accurate way to put it. I'm not striking or taking my ball and going home. 

What I did was take the approach with Stardock that had been taken with Neowin.net (we are a co-owner of that site).  Which was to be hands-off. I'd stay involved in smaller ways (write computer AI, help with web design, transfer skills).  

On the games side, Derek Paxton took over Stardock Entertainment.  His experience making Fall from Heaven (the Civ IV mod that is) and his business experience at Novell has really helped transform the games side into producing much better quality games than we previously were capable of doing.

On the software side, Jamie McGuffie, former VP of Compuware joined us and has really improved the way software gets made here.  We make a lot fewer things but we make them a lot better.

It took over a year to make that transition but for the past year, it's been a different world for my family, myself, and the companies I participate in.

But stepping back isn't "going Galt". I'm still the CEO of Stardock, for example. It's just that my primary sources of income no longer come from these entities. 

Instead, the new team has the vested interest in the company's performance. My role is to play it forward. Transfer skills and help people achieve what their individual goals might be.  

By contrast, Going Galt is a reference to the book Atlas Shrugged where the "movers and shakers" went on strike in response to a society that increasingly believed the individual should be sacrificed for the collective.  

I don't buy into that philosophy. I just find that such beliefs are too simplistic for this age. At some point, people's priorities change. What matters to them changes.  I wonder how Rand's writings would have been if she had had children, for instance.  

The problem with wealth is diminishing returns. At some point, it stops making much of a difference in your day to day life.  And my point in saying that is that in John Galt's world, there were no diminishing returns. Industrial accomplishment and wealth were infinite drivers. But they're not.  

http://michellemalkin.com/2012/09/14/if-its-friday-in-the-muslim-world-its-time-for-another-islamic-rage-boy-riot/

It's Friday and you know what that means, the Islamic world is rioting.

They sure like fire. Perhaps it's because that's about the most advanced technology their culture is capable of producing at this point.

I wrote many, if not most of the quests in the Elemental games. And I did it with notepad. The system, is pretty arcane.  I've asked for quest editors to be made internally but the problem boils down to - I'm free and I make quests so they can't justify budgeting a quest editor for me.

But being painfully familiar with the XML structure of quests, my suggestion would be to ignore the way the XML is made and instead focus on what types of quests you want.

So I'd set it up as a wizard of some kind.

1. What is the name of your quest?
2. What image do you want to use to represent your quest?
3. What is the description of the quest?
4. What do you want to be the reward for completing the quest?
5. What triggers the quest (Turn Number or a specific Quest location)
6. If Turn Number, what is the earliest turn it can be triggered?
7. If quest location, what tile design do you want to use?
8. What are the odds of this quest coming up during the game (or turn)?
9. What is the text for accepting the quest?
10. What is the text for rejecting the quest?
11. What is the response you want the player to get for accepting
12. What is the response you want the player to get for rejecting?
13. IF they accept...
14. What tile design do you want to use for the quest destination?
15. How far away should the quest destination be?
16. What image should be used to represent the quest destination?
17. What text should be used when they arrive at the destination?
18. What text should be used to describe entering the quest destination?
19. What text should be used to describe aborting the quest?
20. What monsters should be at the quest destination? (provide names)
21. Upon winning this encounter, should the quest be considered complete?
22. IF No
23. What is the description of the next step in the quest?
24. GOTO 9

Once you have this working, which handles the typical quest, you can expand on it.

But this is the way I'd recommend handling it. I wouldn't try to make it a sophisticated tool because you'll never satisfy those who are really into making hard core quests.  But if you make something relatively simple where people just choose pictures and loot and monsters to fight then you can end up with a lot of users and an incentive to keep making it better and better.

 

We’re getting some beautiful weather here in Michigan this Summer. This morning I took the dog and went around taking some pictures from around “the yard”.

 

My dog sitting in the Ranger EV.  I intend to write up some impressions of this vehicle. We absolutely love it. It’s silent which lets us putter around the woods looking at wildlife but still a great utility vehicle for moving things around.  This picture was taken in the orchard.

 

It’s been a rough year for the bees. I lost 3 of my 5 beehives this Summer. CCD. The bees simply left. Hives full of honey (or were until the yellow jackets stole much of it before I could get to it).

This is the pond we had put in this year.  It helps reflect a bit of extra light on the solar array. There are a ton of frogs and minnows in it.

 

Another picture of the pond. 

So the iPhone 5 is out and naturally the fans and detractors have lined up.

For me, the iPhone 5 is a no-brainer upgrade. LTE.  I have LTE on my iPad and it makes a huge difference when I'm traveling.  If the only thing the iPhone 5 had was LTE, I'd still upgrade from my 4S to it.

Of course, that's not the only thing in the iPhone 5 delivers.

Here are a few of the things I care about to varying degrees:

1. It's about 20% lighter than the 4S.  I kind of care about that.  
2. It's about twice as fast as the 4S.  I don't care about that at all. The 4S is already plenty fast.
3. It has a slightly larger screen in the sense that it's now 16x9 so it's a bit longer. I don't care about that, if anything it's a negative.
4. The video camera now has dynamic low lighting support. I kind of care about this.
5. The WiFi is now dual-band. This means better performance and range. I kind of care about this.
6. It has a new connector. This means it's not compatible, without an adapter, with all the various iPhone/iPod connectors.  This doesn't bother me as the old one was clunky and dated.

FrogBoy	AI
Faction: Altar Strategy: Strangulation Capital City: Athica (4/3/2) Intelligence: Not much	Faction: Kraxis Strategy: Aggressive Capital: Goyarh (4/2/2) Intelligence: Challenging
Turn 10	Turn 10
Capital City has Enchanted Hammers. Capital City has Meditation Sovereign is level 3 First Pioneer is done	Capital City has Inspiration No second enchantment Sovereign is level 1 Pioneer under construction
Turn 50	Turn 50
Cities: 3 Outposts: 2 Sovereign: Level 6 (with Courage, Stoneskin, Burning Blade, Cloak of Thorns) # of Champions: 1 None of my new cities have essence	Cities: 2 Outposts 2 Sovereign: Level 2 (with Burning Blade) # of Champions: 2 Capital city now has inspiration and meditation (Karavox doesn’t have Enchanted Hammers) Second city has 1 essence (inspiration cast)
Turn 75	Turn 75
Has decided it’s time for the AI to die.	Doesn’t know they’re going to die.
Turn 100	Turn 100
Conquered their colony city Deb (Sovereign) is level 10. Use superior mobility to bypass screening armies to attack capital. Capital taken. By turn 110, they are dead.	Karavbox is only level 5 Capital is defended well. But they send out armies to try to thwart my build out.

 

(To be continued)

Screenshots:

I want that scroll!

AI bug found, they don’t put any concern on player build up unless THEY dislike the player.

Roughly even holdings in the world.

First enemy city taken.

They see my build up and try to send forces to take me out. I bypass those units and take their capital.

They want their capital back

Their final, desperate battle. It is the end for them.  They might have won but the AI failed to treat my ranged *spells* intelligently and as a result, they crawled towards me to try to get the first Melee hit. I took advantage of that to use flame dart on them.

…and so to work I go…

The US Ambassador in Libya was killed in an attack yesterday by "Islamist gunmen” blaming America for a film they said insulted the prophet Mohammad.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/09/12/us-libya-usa-attack-idUSBRE88B0EI20120912

If you’re playing Fallen Enchantress, which is best?

https://www.elementalgame.com/journals