Now, I don’t have a problem with pre-mades (teams who play together online). That’s a great thing in fact as long as the other side understands that.

What I would like to see is something like the above. Where it looks at the player’s record and sees how many games this person has had the other people on that team in their game. Just information so people can make choices.

Today the boys and I began harvesting honey. But it quickly becomes a race against time because even as we put the frames in the extractor, yellow jackets are everywhere trying to steal our honey (well steal the honey we stole from the bees).

Soft: 75

 
Soft: 100

No HDR.

Still working on lighting. I still worry it’s not…happy and friendly enough. But I’m not sure.  What do you think?

Everyone’s Hitler these days.  And everyone is looking for comparison to Hitler.

In this article, I said that Obama creeps me out. He creeps me out because he seems to encourage the cult of personality much the same as Adolph Hitler did.  That doesn’t make Obama Hitler, but it should send up a flag that people are supporting a set of policies but rather are supporting a man and I find that dangerous.

It creeps me out when any political leader tries to associate themselves with a personalized logo for themselves.  Just like it creeped me out when Bob Dole talked about himself in the third person, people trying to turn themselves into a political movement unto themselves is disturbing – especially when that person has the power of the government behind them.

When people begin to fall into the cult of personality, bad things happen historically. 

I’m reading a recent book called The Singularity is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology.

Written by Ray Kurzweil who is a fairly known futurist having predicted things from the Internet as we know it (Back in the early 80s), iPhones (well, basically the iPhone) as well as having developed a number of interesting technologies himself, Kurzweil makes a pretty interesting case that by 2045 (his predictions are very specific to invite comparison when the time comes) humans will have become essentially immortal.

Now, putting aside the ramifications of immortality for a moment, how do we get from where we are today to immortality in merely 40 years?

The answer, it seems is the exponential growth of knowledge and technology. According to Kurzweil, by 2020 we’ll be well into the nano-technology economy where we’ll be able to make devices easily and affordably very small. In addition, the computer of 2020 will have access to so much data as such high speeds that we’ll be able to start integrating humans and technology together.

I’m way over simplifying here but the point being is that by 2045, we’ll have nanobots as part of our biology that clean up disease, repair injury, de-age us, and grant us access to limitless amounts of information and computing power that will be, by then, seamless.

It’s a very good read though I’m pretty skeptical since humans, by nature, tend to be more conservative in their adaption of things than what is theoretically possible.

More info

I use projectors a lot since I’m often having to meet with our development teams to go over tweaks and requested changes in our software.

Typically, it’s a tedious process because the projectors tend to be big, bulky, hot and then not nearly as portable as I’d like so I end up having to go to the conference room even for the quickest of things.

Enter the Samsung P400. It is tiny, has no traditional bulb (LED lights), very light, and a snap to hook up.

It’s native resolution is only 800x600 but I can still connect up 1280x1024 or whatever and it will downscale it just fine.  Because it’s not very hot, I can set it on my wood desk in my office and give quick demos or feedback on a given piece of software.  Like it very much.

More info:

Angie got one of these the other day and WOW is it cool.  I have a Verizon air card now that works very well but the difference here is that thing will provide WiFi access which is incredibly cool.

This week we’ve been messing with lighting in Elemental. Lighting makes the difference between something looking awesome and something looking awful.

Compare:

vs.

Only difference here is lighting.  I suspect lighting will be something we battle with for months to come. We have time since, ahem, the betas are all cloth map…

Okay, so me, Akil, and Leo got a few 3 on 3 games going. We got our butts kicked a few times. Leo’s laptop went into suspend mode half way through one game so he dropped out. But we got meshed as a team.  We decided to use Skype to interact (even though we’re all in the same lab area).

I tried playing as Sedna. I can see the appeal there in a 4 on 4 game or 5 on 5 but I’m not convinced in a 3 on 3 that having a Sedna is wise because the team lacks the DPS I think to achieve critical mass.

My favorite is the Oak but Leo likes to play as Oak so I tried out Unclean Beast whic I’m a bit of a newbie at. I’m torn between a speed build and a health build.  I will say this, anyone who doesn’t think Demigod has strategic depth should stop playing strategy games now. Having played some good teams today I feel safe in saying that Demigod isn’t just an outstanding game but is one of the best strategy games that’s ever been released for online play. 

I am definitely looking forward to more updates (more Demigods, features, etc.) but I also think that it will take a lot of time for it to be really good as a game where a stranger can just play others. Ready to Play (coming out next month in beta) should help but I tell ya, you get a couple buddies together and play against another group of buddies and you can have crazy levels of fun.

Starting today and over the next few days a 3 person Stardock pre-made team will be floating online practicing for a Tuesday match vs. PC Gamer in which we must avenge our friends at GPG.  So be on the look out for a Stardock Pre-Made game. If you' have a 3 person team of top players, feel free to get them together and find us.