I was reading a debate on global warming today and the smugness and arrogance of the human-produced global warming crowd always seems to try to try to bolster their argument by trying to make believing in global warming to be akin to believing in evolution.

To which I responded:

Kurt, there’s a lot more evidence supporting evolution than human produced global warming.

Global warming “theory” essentially argues that CO2 is a green house gas and it has been going up a lot since the industrial revolution. The recorded global average temperature has gone up since 1976. Therefore, humans are the cause. That's it. 

It’s a hypothesis at best. What makes global warming seem like a religion to us “deniers” is the venom and smugness of global warming zealots.

It comes across as a religion because of the reaction its believers have to those who “don’t believe”. Non-believers are considered heretics and insulted, patronized, and even physically assaulted at times. Sounds like the actions of a religions zealot.

A lot of us do know the facts. Have done the research. Are scientificaly oriented. And we aren’t convinced that humans are the cause. That doesn’t mean we can’t be convinced, but we don’t find the existing evidence compelling.

Worse, the typical “believer” has done little more “research” into the matter than watch Al Gore’s movie — as if that suddenly makes them an expert. And given how quickly the “believers” become smug and obnoxious on the issue tells me that their belief has more to do with emotional satisfaction — a trait of religion — than scientific merit.

Anyone notice some of the subtle improvements to JU this week? More coming next week.

Add your own in the comments area.

Have Windows Vista? Feeling a little adventurous? Try DeskScapes 2.0 Preview. It's free.

Stardock is pleased to announce that the DeskScapes 2.0 preview version is now available.  DeskScapes allows users of Windows Vista to have animated wallpapers on their desktop. It runs the Stardock created .DREAM format which can contain videos as animated wallpapers or dynamically generated content.

What makes DeskScapes special is that animated wallpapers can be run that use hardly any system resources (obviously this will depend on what animated wallpaper is chosen). It integrates seamlessly with the Windows Vista desktop background dialog so picking animated wallpapers is much the same as picking any other desktop wallpaper.

The Preview build comes with 3 DREAMs:

1. Watercolor. A dynamic dream that randomizes your desktop background.
2. Silent Hill. A brand-new video based dream.
3. Stardock Cube. A simple 3D cube dancing on the desktop

The goal of the preview version is to evaluate the variety of hardware configurations out there running Windows Vista in order to see how well different types of Dreams run.  The three included Dreams were especially chosen to check out 3 very different types of capabilities.

Stardock expects to release DeskScapes 2.0 later this month in time for Object Desktop 2008.

Get DeskScapes 2.0 Preview.

Sins of a Solar Empire v1.03 has been released! The new update adds dozens of new features to the game based on player feedback.

In the month since its release, Sins of a Solar Empire has sold nearly 200,000 copies worldwide (with revenue split pretty evenly between retail and Stardock's digital distribution system). It is also the highest rated PC game of 2008 thus far with Editor's Choice Awards from every major PC game publication and website.

The game blends real time game play with “4X”. With epic level scalability, multiplayer games that can be saved and restored, and fantastic visuals, Sins of a Solar Empire has become the highest rated and best selling new PC game of 2008.

The new version adds dozens of new features into the game including:

  • Many new game setup options such as fleet size, pirate options, income rate speeds, build speeds and more
  • Players can use the + and – keys in single player to control the game speed
  • Improved black market provides a more volatile market
  • Players who drop can now be placed by cunning computer AI players
  • Vastly improved computer AI
  • New difficulty level “Unfair” for really hard core players
  • Computer players will surrender
  • Improvements to Ironclad Online
  • Lots of tweaking and balancing based on feedback
  • MUCH more…

We have a lot more updates in the works. The primary purpose of v1.03 was to improve the computer AI and get it to replace dropped players. Once the demo is released, Ironclad and Stardock will be working on v1.04 with even more new features and enhancements.

To get the update: From within the game, press the "Download Updates" button on the main menu. Please note that v1.03 is not compatible with save games or replays from older versions.

Change Log: v1.03 update notes

The Stardock Design website has gotten a re-design. But what should the About page say?

I was thinking something like this:

---

Stardock has long been a pioneer in developing first-to-market technology for the PC market.  It was the company that essentially created "skinning" technology on the PC with products such as WindowBlinds, DeskScapes, DirectSkin, DesktopX, IconPackager, ObjectBar, and more.  Through Stardock's technology, Windows users could, for the first time, completely customize the Windows experience.

To meet the growing demand for Windows customization content in the form of skins, themes, icons, and animated desktops, Stardock launched Stardock Design. Stardock Design brings together the world's top GUI design specialists and teams them up with some of the best artists in the world.

Leading corporations including ATI, nVidia, Microsoft, Touchstone Pictures, Goodyear, General Motors, Universal Studios, Nintendo, and countless others have already taken advantage of Stardock Design's attention to detail and technological innovation granting them an undeniable competitive advantage over others in their industry.

Today, Stardock Design leverages key partnerships with Dell, Toshiba, Hewlett Packard, Gatway, Alienware and more to deliver its cutting edge designs combined with its mature, reliable customization technologies to ensure their customers have a unique and compelling experience.

--

What do you think?

Greetings! Ironclad has been hard at work on an update to Sins based on player feedback. We've got lots of new features in this build that we hope you find compelling.

Version 1.03 will be released later this week. We can assure you that we are intensively play testing this new update over. And over. And over. Because we love you guys, we are going that extra mile in making sure the update is just right by playing it all day and all night sometimes. That's the kind of sacrifice we are willing to make just for you!

Here is the full list of changes:

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sins of a Solar Empire v1.03 Changelist
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Gameplay / Balance:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
-New Game Options Screen:
-Locked/Unlocked Teams
-Fleet Size
-Pirates or No Pirates (arrrr!)
-Income Rate Speed
-Build Speed
-Ship Speed
-Research Speed
-Culture Speed

***REMINDER***
-In singleplayer you can accelerate / deccelerate time by pressing the +/- buttons respectively. I'm mentionning it again because this request is coming up a lot even though it was implemented in the v1.02 patch.

-New Market System:
Highlights:
-Random fluctuations in addition to user influence on price.
-Can cause crash or boom by selling/buying too much.
-Known exploits removed.
-Can now buy and sell resources on the market in large increments again.

-Improved Group Phase Jumping for large groups of ships. The group will only wait for 90% of the value of the ships to be ready. The stragglers will follow shortly after. Typically, its only a couple ships that cause the whole operation to stall so this should eliminate the majority of problems.

-Research subjects queued in different fields can now upgrade in parallel.
-Overseer's Nanite Reactive Armor ability can now properly stack heals (but not the armor and max HP bonus).
-Kostura Cannon now only disables enemy units and structures at the target planet as originally intended.
-Autocast for many disabling abilities improved.
-Disciple's Transfer Antimatter no longer targets other Disciples when autocasting.
-Transfer Antimatter can no longer target entities with full antimatter.
-Can't attack unbuilt structures anymore.
-You can now change game options when loading save games.
-Defeated players can no longer give or be given resources in unlocked teams games.
-Defeated players can no longer place bounties in unlocked teams games.
-Fixed unintended halving of galaxy culture coverage in the game statistics. Pop Idol achievement is now actually achievable.
-No pirate maps removed due to new game option to remove pirates.
-Large and Huge random maps split into single and multi star system variants.

-Mission durations increased by 10 mins.
-Mission failure penalties to happiness reduced.
-Rebalanced happiness losses for killing various items (Killing enemy scouts no longer causes a loss of happiness).
-Phase Jump Inhibitors:
-cost reduced slightly.
-slot cost reduced from 3 to 2.
-jump charge rate penalty increase from -250% to -700%.
-Passive allegiance shift rates increased by 100%.
-Allegiance shift rates from culture increased 25%.
-Illuminator, Javelis, Assailant:
-Increased credit cost by approx 10%.
-Increased resource cost by approx 20%.
-Increased range by approx 30%.
-Illuminator and Assailant survivability tuned to be proportional to Javelis's on a per supply basis.
-Siege Frigates:
-Survivability reduced by ~20%.
-Build cost increased by ~25%.
-Supply cost increased from 12 to 15.
-Development Mandate research subject's max level reduced from 2 to 1.
-Tier 1 research times increased approx 40%
-Tier 2 research times increased approx 20%
-All other tiers research times increased 5%

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Graphics:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
-Fixed sometimes drastic frame rate drop when chat messages are displayed.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sound / Music:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
-Sins handles no soundcard now.
-Added sound option for varying music vol in battle.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
AI:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
-AI now knows how to surrender (based on time elapsed, relative economy, relative fleet value, resource reserves, and allied strength). Also, an AI player will not surrender if he has a human ally.
-AI is now smarter about retreating and is willing to commit local suicide or accept local Phyrric victories if the global gain is higher and will also factor in local allied forces.
-Fixed various AI researching and building stall outs for the various trees (military in particular).
-Rewrote AI siege building and attack logic.
-Improved AI use of Black Market.
-Autocast for many disabling abilities improved.
-New AI Difficulty "Unfair" that gives the AI a tax income bonus and resource income bonus from resource asteroids (there is no other AI cheating in the game even at the Unfair difficulty level).
-Wide variety of AI upgrades.
-Improve AI taunting.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Networking / Multiplayer:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
-AI will now take over for dropped players.
-You no longer have to kill all a dropped player's planets to win even when the AI takes over for him.

-Unified the in-game and ico chat system. They now share the same irc/wow like commands. Full autocomplete with tab/shift-tab. Autocomplete will attempt to either complete the name field or cycle through the available names.



Commands:

: send to all
in-game: send to all human players in game.
ico: send to all players in current lobby

/w: whisper
in-game: if player is in game, uses the game chat system (will be recorded), otherwise go through ico.
ico: send directly to player (even if playing a game). tab autocomplete will cycle through all players in channel.

/a: send to all allies
in-game: send to all human allies in game
ico: n/a

/f: send to all ico-friends
in-game: send to all ico-friends, even if they are not in game
ico: send to all friends no matter where they are

/wa: whisper ally
in-game: same as whisper, but tab autocomplete will be constrained to only allies.
ico: n/a

/wf: whisper friend
in-game: same as whisper, but tab autocomplete will be constrained to only ico-friends.
ico: same as whisper, but tab autocomplete will be constrained to only ico-friends.

/r - doesn't take in a name for the second parameter, will send automatically to the last player who send a whisper
in-game same as ico

/wr - allows you to autocomplete with through all players who have recently sent a whisper.
in-game same as ico

-You can now send whispers to players with spaces in their names by using quotes. Autocomplete properly handles these names.

-Rewrite of ico friend status. all clients are now kept up to date on the current status of every friend at all times. This allows for a more friendly ui, the friend list is colored to show who is logged in/playing games. There are globbal events to notify the user of what friends are doing. This can be disabled like the channel notifications.

-Channel name list now saves the visual and selected state on any change, so it is now possible to select players on busy channels.
-There is now a setting for if the user wants to see " has left/joined channel". checkbox in ico chat screen for controlling the setting.
-Players now leave their chat channels when playing games.
-Players rejoin their old chat channel when quitting a game.
-Quitting a game now brings you back to the lobby screen chat tab instead of the join or create game tab.
-Simplified game filtering.
-Hooked up the ability to change game options for ico games.
-Changed how the lobby screens get their game options so that it will come from the save files when needed.
-ico server now ignores case when searching for games.
-Deep checksumming is now employed before joining multiplayer games (to help avoid crashes and desyncs caused by modded data).

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
UserInterface / HUD:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
-Added culture flipping planet event.
-Made the use of 'strike craft' when refering to both fighters and bombers more consistent (often just fighters before).
-Various text color updates.
-Improved description of Development Mandate research.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Modding:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
-Can now mod in different textures without copying the entire texture directory.
-Fixed corrupt particle effects when loading mods up in-game.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Misc:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
-Various crash fixes.
-Game stats infocards now sort by value.
-Game stats now track the number of active units instead of built so that the graphs are more interesting.
-Game stats no longer tracks the number of units lost in combat as this was confusing with number of units killed and the information is now apparent from the number of active units stats.
-Scenario names are now localized, no longer use the filename, but instead use a string inside the file.
-Removed no pirate maps (not needed as its a game option now).
-Other very minor additions and changes.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
End
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

The next stop is the demo version and then it's on to v1.04.

 
Object Desktop 2008 Guided Tour

Introduction

Object Desktop is the defacto standard when it comes to changing your Windows experience. If you want to take control over how Windows looks, feels, and functions, Object Desktop is the way to do it.  Since its original release for Windows back in 1999, Object Desktop and its components have garnered millions of users worldwide.  Parts of it have been licensed to virtually every major technology company you can think of at one time or other.

Over the years, Object Desktop got bigger..and bigger...and bigger to the point where it had dozens of programs that came with it. Needless to say, it became a little unwieldy for the average user.  So for 2008, Stardock has split the product into two versions:

• Object Desktop (WindowBlinds, IconPackager, DesktopX, DeskScapes, SoundPackager, MyColors)
• Object Desktop Ultimate (the above plus over a dozen other programs)

In addition, Object Desktop 2008 marks a major change in Stardock's approach to the desktop experience: It will be including content as part of the package.

When someone purchases Object Desktop, they not only get everything that's in it right now, they also get a one-year subscription to ObjectDesktop.net. This digital distribution subscription provides automatic updates plus adds new programs to the suite as they become available.  At the end of the year, users can renew their access to keep getting new updates (and if they don't, they can continue to use what they have forever).

Overview of features in Object Desktop 2008

In the past, a user who purchased Object Desktop would receive in email a serial # and a link to Stardock Central. They then installed Stardock Central and were kind of left on their own to figure out how to get Object Desktop going.  This worked fine when Object Desktop was mostly used by power users.  But by 2008, customizing ones computer had become mainstream and such a clunky first impression was no longer viable.

With Object Desktop 2008, users now install Object Desktop 2008 as a single package which automatically sets up the primary components of the program for the user.

These 6 programs now make up the core of Object Desktop.  Users who opt for Object Desktop Ultimate get those 6 programs plus ObjectBar, RightClick, SkinStudio Pro, TweakVista, IconDeveloper, WindowFX, Keyboard LaunchPad, along with some new programs that are in development that should be out within the next year.

On top of the 6 core programs, however is something new: MyColors themes.  MyColors themes are premium suites designed to use the core parts of Object Desktop seamlessly. In the past, users who purchased Object Desktop were essentially expected to fend for themselves to find cool stuff.  With Object Desktop 2008, users will receive 4 premium MyColors themes through the course of the year plus discounts on all MyColors themes (normally they're $19.95 apiece but for Object Desktop users they'll range between $8.95 to 16.95 depending on licensing requirements).

In terms of value, the individual programs of the core of Object Desktop add up to over $100 not counting the premium themes.  However, Object Desktop remains only $49.95.

WindowBlinds

WindowBlinds is a program for Windows XP or Windows Vista that changes the look and feel of the Windows GUI.  It integrates seamlessly into Windows and allows users to alter the appearance of Windows safely -- it doesn't alter any system files (in memory or on disk).  A user of WindowBlinds can make Windows look like another operating system or something completely original.

WindowBlinds enables users to change the actual Windows graphical user interface to whatever they want. There are literally thousands of different visual styles (skins) to choose from.

IconPackager

IconPackager is the industry standard way of changing all the icons on Windows in a single click. Users choose a set of icons (known as an icon package) and then hit apply and IconPackager will change them all.  For users of Windows Vista, IconPackager is the only program that supports live folder icons on Windows Vista and will automatically enhance XP icons to support Windows Vista.

IconPackager makes it a snap to apply entirely new sets of icons to Windows XP or Windows Vista.

DesktopX

DesktopX is the grand daddy of desktop enhancement programs. It was the first program on any platform to allow users to create mini-applications on their desktops (commonly called today "widgets" or gadgets"). Long before there was a Mac Dashboard or Konfabulator or Windows Gadgets, there was DesktopX.  But DesktopX is so much more than that.  It can build entire desktops from scratch. Its integrated editor makes it a snap to share your creations with others users.

For Object Desktop 2008, DesktopX gets updated to support Windows Vista more fully. Now, DesktopX creates can be exported to be placed on the Windows Sidebar.

DesktopX makes it a snap for users to add cool stuff to their desktop.

The latest version of DesktopX can even export your creations to natively integrate into the Windows sidebar!

DesktopX lets users combine their objects together to build entire desktops of their own design.

DeskScapes

DeskScapes is an animated wall program for Windows Vista. It takes advantage of the new Windows Vista compositor to do animation without impacting performance.  Object Desktop 2008 will come with DeskScapes 2.0 which is designed to run on all versions of Windows Vista.  While currently only available for Windows Vista users, Stardock is investigating some of the recent video driver advances on Windows XP...

DeskScapes runs .DREAM files as animated wallpaper. .DREAM files can contain either video content or dynamic content.

SoundPackager

SoundPackager is a pretty straight forward program. It lets users change their Windows sound scheme. What's amazing is that somewhere along the line, Windows quit allowing users to load up distributed sound schemes. You are now expected to set each sound individually (a far cry from the Windows 95 days).

SoundPackager, by contrast, makes it a snap to make your own sound schemes and distribute them out. It also comes with some really high quality sound schemes.

SoundPackager makes it a snap to create and trade sound schemes. There's already a ton of sound packages available on WinCustomize.com.

MyColors

MyColors combines the 5 preceding elements together into a symphony. A MyColors theme can dramatically alter the look and feel of Windows by changing the Windows GUI, the icons, the background, add widgets, and change the sound scheme.  MyColors themes are created exclusively by Stardock to ensure a bullet proof experience.  We may open it up to others down the line to create MyColors themes but for now, we want to focus on making sure that the user experience is exquisite.

For Object Desktop users, Stardock will be releasing at least 4 MyColors themes per year. The longer one keeps their access to ObjectDesktop.net, the more MyColors themes they'll accumulate.

MyColors brings it all together.

Impulse

While not technically part of Object Desktop 2008, Impulse will debut with it.  Impulse is Stardock's next-generation distribution platform.  Existing users can still use Stardock Central if they want, but Impulse will be available to easily manage not just software but content as well.

Impulse lets users manage, update, and get more software and content for their PC.

Object Desktop Ultimate

Anyone with an active subscription to ObjectDesktop.net on March 31, 2008 will automatically get upgraded to Object Desktop Ultimate free of charge.  Object Desktop Ultimate will be $69.95 for new users.

Object Desktop Ultimate is designed for the ultimate PC power users.  It adds a host of additional programs. While Object Desktop Ultimate is a better deal (you get a lot more for just $20 more), it is intended for users who know are looking to turbo-charge their Windows experience to the ultimate level.

Availability

Stardock is targeting March 31, 2008 as the release date for Object Desktop 2008.  If you have previously purchased Object Desktop but your subscription to ObjectDesktop.net has expired, now would be a good time to renew it so that you automatically get Object Desktop Ultimate.

Lately there have been a lot of articles that have painted the PC market as being "doomed" due to piracy. Piracy is certainly a major issue that PC game developers have to deal with. But there are other issues at hand that we think are larger.

If you're interested in our take on PC game piracy, read the article below:

>> Piracy & PC Gaming

The Stardock gang got together and gave some thought about the recent series of articles that have painted the PC market as if it is doomed from piracy and come up with our own views on the matter.

You can view it here: https://forums.galciv2.com/?aid=303512