One trend that is dear to my heart is the furthering of customization of PCs.  At CES, we're seeing a lot of customized cases.

Various cases seen at CES

Alienware has a very impressive set of cases including the one pictured above. While I personally would probably not personalize my case (my case is under my desk) it is pretty cool to see how far the quality has come and like the idea of PC users being able to customize their PCs far more than previously.

While most attendees pick up badges and badge holders for the show, bloggers were introduced to a somewhat...different experience.  To get their badge holders (i.e. the things you put your badge into) you had to go onto a great journey.  Here you can see bloggers making th etrek away from the show into the dark reaches of South Hall to get the official badge HOLDER for the badges they already have.

That said, bloggers do get to enjoy all the goodies of being the press. 

Last year I spent a lot of time reading up to improve my business skills.  This year, I am prepared to make better use of what I have learned as well as administer some tough love in the process that will, on the surface, violate a lot of the rules of business management.

So below are some New Years resolutions I've made for business:

1. I'm going to administer less and be more hands on to discipline ourselves on how we get things done. Not that I'm going to be some sort of nasty bastard (or more than I already am) but I'm going to take a much firmer hand on what is being worked on throughout the company.
2. We're going to focus less on consensus and more on stream-lining the process so that we don't end up with too many chefs in the kitchen.
3. I'm going to work harder to make people goal oriented.  Self-esteem comes from genuine achievement. My job isn't to make people feel good about themselves. My job is to ensure people achieve so that they make themselves feel good about themselves. That means telling people what they are doing wrong that is interfering with their objectives.
4. I'm going to kill a lot of darlings. That is, we have a lot of very awesome ideas. But we can't pursue them all.  We're going to focus on the things we do best and other things will have to be pushed aside.
5. I am going to push people a lot harder to do their best.  People will always feel better about themselves in the end if they believe they are excellent. But I saw a lot of dithering on a lot of things that kept us from getting as much done as possible.
6. We're going to raise expectations on what can be accomplished in a given time frame.  We work at one of the coolest places in the world. That's why our voluntary turn-over is basically zero.  The way to keep it that way is for people to not feel like they're having to carry the load of others.  Compassion for compassion sake is poisonous in business because it leads people to spend 90% of the 10% who produce almost nothing rather than remaining 90% of the people who are doing a good job and could really benefit from having more direction and face time.
7. I'm going to listen more but be more forceful in the final analysis.  We are raised to be polite and to believe that everyone is entitled to their own opinion. But not at work they're not. Not on the company's dime.  I am going to listen to feedback and suggestions but will make the final call and enforce that.  I feel at this stage that my track record makes it clear that I know what I'm doing and that my way of doing things not only works tactically but strategically as well. Put another way, my way of doing things may not be gentle but the people who work directly with me tend to have the highest morale and best results because they know I'm not gentle and thus praise actually means something and they feel good because they know they're excellent.

I think all my New Years Resolutions revolve around a single truth: People feel good about themselves mainly from what comes from within. And at work, the best way to achieve that is through success. Therefore, my job has to be to help lead people to being personally successful at what they do. To help them achieve.

A friend of mine quipped that I used to be like Palpatine but in the past year or two, I've gone soft and spent too much time trying to be a delegating business executive.  The one part of the company I've remained  "emperor" over was the games side of things (i.e. the game that just won Expansion Pack of the Year from GameSpy and is up for strategy game of the year from numerous other websites and magazines).  The part of the company with no voluntary turn over in years, super high morale, massively high productivity, etc.  This year, I'm going to bring that to the rest of the company. It's going to be a tough few months I suspect.

We're getting ready to head to Las Vegas for CES 2008. There's going to be a number of big announcements this next week in the technology industry.

We'll be live blogging at www.vistablogging.com as well as on www.neowin.net and www.wincustomize.com.

If there's any areas in particular you want us to check out, let us know!

The good news is that Galactic Civilizations II: Twilight of the Arnor Beta 4 has arrived on schedule. If you've pre-ordered the expansion pack, you get download the latest version now. It adds the Thalan Empire and Altarian Resistance.

The bad news, if you can call it that, is that we've decided to substantially push back the release date -- all the way to the end of March. 

However, we ARE going to continue forward with our original release schedule of this month for getting out what will be called a "preview".  My beef is that as the AI developer, there's just so much cool new stuff to make use of and as beta testers (and we ourselves) have discovered, this expansion pack has turned out a LOT better than even we had expected.

So while delaying the game may set back my plans at getting a jewel-encrusted segway, I think given the way the expansion pack is going, we have a real opportunity to release something that will be remembered long into the future. 

What we'll do with that extra time is continue to flesh out the unique civilizations and beef up the computer players to be increasingly more interesting and unique per player. A big thing I'd like to do is to use the time to have the computer players also play uniquely on top of having unique technologies (that includes the minor races btw).

We are going to keep the "beta" open so that anyone who pre-orders can automatically download the latest version and by the end of this month, it should be pretty close to "release" condition in terms of stability and base content.

You can see what's in beta 4 here.  There won't be a beta next week as many of us are going to be at CES. But the following week we'll have another beta which will add in the new winning condition and the first new serious AI updates. 

After many moons of effort, the efforts of Stardock Design are starting (and I emphasize starting) to be seen publicly.

The first free new skin from Stardock Design for WindowBlinds this year is called Elegance.

Designed by Alexandrie, Elegance shows her eye for detail and subtlety in a world that seems increasingly dominated by "glass".

Learn more about it:

• View Article
• Download Elegance

Elegance is here

About a year ago, Stardock formed a new skinning team called Stardock Design. It brought in many of the top skin authors from around the world into a single place as full time skinners. It also provided a budget to be able to contract some of the part-time skinners as well. 

The work is starting to pay off. And this year you will begin seeing a significant increase in free skins coming from Stardock Design.  The idea is to help provide examples and help to other skinners as well as ensure that users have a steady supply of very high quality skins.

The first skin release of the year is Elegance. Designed by Alexandrie, the co-founder of Pixtudio who now works full-time at Stardock in Plymouth Michigan, Elegance is an attempt to provide an alternative to all the glass-style skins you've seen in recent months but one that is clean and...well elegant.  Having used it for awhile, I believe this is one of the best skins of all time. It combines high polish with high usability.

Subtlety is the rule

You can download it here:

[Download Elegance for WindowBlinds 6]

RWN has a great collection of obnoxious quotes made by famous people last year. Here are some examples:

34) "Perhaps the outpouring of sympathy for [the falsely arrested Duke lacrosse players] Reade Seligman, Collin Finnerty and David Evans is just a bit misplaced....As students of Duke University or other elite institutions, these young men will get on with their privileged lives....They are very differently situated in life from, say, the young women of the Rutgers University women's basketball team." -- Nightline co-anchor Terry Moran explains how the men falsely accused of rape got off light compared to the women who were called "nappy headed hos"

33) "I do believe that it's the first time in history that fire has ever melted steel. I do believe that it defies physics that World Trade Center tower 7 - building 7, which collapsed in on itself - it is impossible for a building to fall the way it fell without explosives being involved. World Trade Center 7. World Trade [Center] 1 and 2 got hit by planes - 7, miraculously, the first time in history, steel was melted by fire. It is physically impossible." -- Rosie O'Donnell talks Trutherism

32) "And I think the almost undeviating support by Great Britain for the ill-advised policies of President Bush in Iraq have been a major tragedy for the world." -- Jimmy Carter castigates the British for cooperating with his own country

Check them out here:

http://www.rightwingnews.com/mt331/2008/01/the_40_most_obnoxious_quotes_o.php

Over on partner site, Neowin.net, I wrote 10 resolutions for the PC industry.  Below are 10 resolutions for the game industry.

1. Stop with the obnoxious DRM. If people are going to pirate your game, they're going to pirate it. Reward the people who buy your games. Make it more convenient to be a customer than to be a thief.
   
2. Don't release games until they're finished. People will forgive you for moving a date back for quality, they don't forgive you for rushing out an unfinished game.
   
3. Don't forget that not everyone has brand-new hardware. Make sure your games will work on the hardware that people have today.
   
4. Fun trumps graphics. Nintendo is doing well because they remember that games are supposed to be fun. The latest blood spatter particle effect won't beat out a fun game.
   
5. Expansion packs should not be glorified patches. This is like #2. If your game does have bugs, fix them in an update, don't charge for them in the form of an expansion pack.
   
6. Help Jack Thompson find a real hobby.
   
7. Please make a sequel to Planetscape: Torment.
   
8. Make better user manuals.
   
9. We don't need every movie to have a game tie-in.
   
10. Don't make me be on-line to play your game if it's a single player game.

Happy New Year!

Warning: Spoilers below.

The Thalan have the most unique technology tree in the game because they come from the future.  Here are some of their unique technologies:

Hyperion Domination (Evil Only)

Hyperion Domination incorporates a number of various tweaks to ship design that results in a 10% bonus to ship hit points.  Unfortunately, the work to do this is very dangerous. Luckily, the steady supply of slaves abducted across the galaxy to work on these special ship design improvements ensures our ships will remain in peek condition.

Xeno Brain Washing (Evil Only)

Having studied the way the humanoid species of this time period think, we have devised new ways of making more money from their tourism while at the same time greatly increasing a planet's influence in the galaxy.

Weapon Magnifier (Evil Only)

By making use of an unstable energy source, the weapons on our ships now gain a 10% boost to their damage.  The only downside, if it can be called such, is that the lifespan of those on board will be shortened and it causes increasing pain over time to those who work the weapons. However, we have staffed the most dangerous parts of the ship with lowly abductees from other worlds.

(Good and Neutral Techs are also present and are considerably more powerful).

Xeno Colonization

The planets in the galaxy are truly alien to our species. When the colonization fleet entered this space-time, we had overlooked a number of key factors that in hindsight should have been obvious. For one thing, our species has had little experience dealing with the surface of worlds. In our time, in a dying universe, the ability to exist on the surface of planets in an unprotected environment is unthinkable. As a result, none of our equipment is well suited for being used in an untamed environment.

Xeno Colonization begins the process of adapting our equipment and strategies to working on untamed planets. As a result, our population growth will increase by 10%.

Alien Soil Studies

Now that we have begun to colonize planets, we are quickly discovering that we are not adapted to the various kinds of bacteria and fungi that exists on different plants. While we are inoculated against most diseases carried by animals and planets, we did not take into account the kinds of bacteria that exist in the soils. Alien Soil Studies will decrease our sensitivity to the bacteria we come across.  This will improve our population growth rating by 10%.

Stellar Production

The logistical underpinnings of our civilization were based on a premise that does not exist in this space-time. That premise is cheap, nearly unlimited energy. The Apocalypse that originates in this space-time in their near future does not reach our space-time for a considerable amount of time. As a result, we have developed energy sources that are far beyond anything that is present here.

Unfortunately, the Hyperion Matrix we brought with us, the source of our advanced technology, is all based on what would be called "Expert Gravitronics". This is a technology that simply does not exist in any form and would require decades for us to re-invent.  As a result, we have to make use of portable fusion reactors that we buy on the open market or manufacture ourselves.

Stellar Production is the adaptation of our tools for technological and manufacturing production to use fusion reactors as opposed to Gravitronic Reactors. The side-effect is that while our production will be far beyond what anyone else is capable of, the maintenance of our systems will be an order of magnitude greater as well.

Technological Adaptation Level 1

While the other civilizations of this galaxy make use of various means to research new technologies, those means are not consistent with the way we've evolved to research new technologies. That isn't to say we can't use "Research Labs". It is that we simply do not fully grasp how a bunch of individuals can simply come up with new ideas.

Technological Adaptation involves taking our Hyperion Matrix to form a Technology Matrix which makes use of vast amounts of energy to take existing technologies and automatically generate, over time, improvements to them using advanced probability systems to determine the likelihood of acceptable improvement to a given technology.  The down side is that they require immense amounts of energy to operate which requires the relatively inefficient fusion reactors.

As a result, our Technology Matrices will be very productive but very expensive resulting in us probably not being able to make full use of them.

Technological Adaptation Level 2

This is the on-going struggle to improve the efficiency of our Technology Matrices so that we can bring the cost down.

Technological Adaptation Level 3

This is the final level of adaptation to our Technological Matrices that make use of fusion based power systems. They are still very expensive to operate but are superior to most other research systems in the galaxy.

Industrial Adaptation Level 1

Like most of our core technologies, our manufacturing capacity is based on the assumption of the availability of massive amounts of cheap power. Our Industrial Matrices operate by channeling immense amounts of power to replicate a pre-designed item.  The amount of power needed to do this is understood even by relatively primitive civilizations (E = MC^2). Our Industrial Matrices can product a great number of things but the energy requirements mean that they are relatively cost ineffective.

Our Adaptation systems rely on us finding more efficient uses of fusion based power while we try to supplement our power with gravitronic-based energy sources.

Industrial Adaptation Level 2

Through efficient use of power, we have managed to drop the maintenance costs of our Industrial Matrices by a considerable amount.

Industrial Adaptation Level 3

We have improved our energy efficiency about as far as we can get. But the results seem reasonably satisfactory until we can make use of Gravitronic power.

Basic Gravitronics

Gravitrons are the elementary particle of the universe. The universe exists in 11 dimensions. Some of the civilizations have a basic understanding of what they call "String Theory". In String theory, all matter is produced based on different frequencies of sub-atomic particles called strings.  What they do not yet understand is that these strings all rest on an arbitrary edge of an even more elementary particle called a Gravitron.  While they are correct that vibrating strings create all matter and energy, they do not yet realize that these strings are not arbitrarily positioned. The gravitron is 11-sided -- one for each dimension of the universe and each edge has its own strings.  Beings of a given dimension can only perceive a limited number of these edges (beings in the third dimension can perceive 3 sides but do not realize that all strings they are aware of are directed in one of three predictable angles because they cannot perceive the other 8 angles).

Gravitronics matters because once gravitrons (not to be confused with gravitons) can be harnessed, any conventional power system can be easily enhanced to produce 2^8th more power than it would normally produce.

Basic Gravitronics is about as far as we can get in this space-time because while our scientists on hand know the basics of Gravitronics, our colonization fleet did not bring anyone with an expert level understanding of gravitronics.

All of our key material and energy research rests on our understanding of how the universe actually works. The net benefit is that our ability to research technologies that other civilizations have equivalents of will take less time because they are making use of trial and error in their experiments where-as we are approaching our technological achievements through a more thorough understanding of the universe.

4D Phasing

4D Phasing allows us to increase the output of our fusion reactors by a considerable amount by making use of an additional dimension of energy. As a result, our ship building factories will see a significant boost in production.

Dimensional Exploitation

We have begun to integration our knowledge of 4D Phasing into our weapon systems which will result in those weapons producing additional damage.

Dimensional Weaponry

With the success we've seen with dimensional exploitation, we have focused on producing weapon systems that explicitly take advantage of 4D phasing (as opposed to merely a byproduct of other research). As a result, our weapons have become increasingly powerful.

Near Omnipotence

We have embarked on the path to conquer this galaxy through technological victory. For us, this means to recapture our full technological advantage. It will require immense amounts of scientific research to put together the necessary infrastructure to dominate the galaxy with incredible weapons, but we believe this is the best path to take.

Expert Gravity Channeling

Every interstellar civilization has some form of artificial gravity. Artificial gravity is merely the basic channeling of gravitational forces. Gravity is, after all, simply the indention of mass into space-time. The unified theory of force that all civilizations at this stage have recognizes that energy can be used to shift the gravity that is exhibited by mass in different ways.

However, what no other civilization grasps yet is just how much can be done with gravity provided that enough power is available. Basic Gravitronics allows us to shift the gravitational outline of a ship in ways that enable our ships to move more quickly through hyperspace. As a result, our ships gain a speed bonus.

Hyperion Hull Design

Hyperion Hull Points make use of expert gravity channeling to constantly shift the gravitational center of a ship in such a way that even if the ship takes damage, it remains structurally sound far beyond the damage point where most other ships would be destroyed. While expensive, they will provide our civilization with a significant advantage when so equipped.

Hyperion Starbases

Other civilizations we have observed have a myriad of technologies that enable them to learn how to make the most out of starbases.  Luckily, this is a path our civilization took long ago.  With Basic Gravitronics in hand, we can now produce starbases with significant advantages in all conceivable areas in a single stroke.

Mechanized Warriors

While other civilizations seem to insist on training their citizens to die en masse in battle, we do not have that luxury. There simply are enough of us to spare as canon fodder.  Mechanized warriors are armies of robotic troops that can be controlled from afar. As a result, our troops are immensely powerful per man.

Defense Industries

Like the other civilizations, our weapons are broken up between mass based weapons, missile based weapons, and beam weapons. Unfortunately, all of our weapon designs rely on a manufacturing infrastructure that is simply not present in this space-time. We knew this would be a problem.  The challenge in traveling to this space-time meant that certain sacrifices would have to be made. We are able to skip some of the rudimentary weapon and defense systems that other civilizations apparently must go through, but in the end, we are going to be dealing with the same basic technologies -- except that ours will be of higher quality.

Temporal Mechanics

Our universe exists in 11 dimensions. There are also a near-infinite number of universes that are connected to each of those 11 dimensions. Destroying a universe is a non-trivial effort.  And yet, somehow, the primitive species of this space time have managed to do just that. Specifically, the species known as humans, in their near-future, manage to create such utter destruction that the resulting ruin feeds upon itself and permeates all of creation throughout every dimension.

The only bright side to this is that this destruction travels at the speed of light. The downside is that the destruction moves at the speed of light through folded space which means it will engulf the universe in far less than the 13 billion of their years that it would otherwise require.

We have thus brought a single strike force through dimension 4 to this particular universe in the hopes of averting this apocalypse. Thus far, the humans do not seem to be the type to unleash the kind of destruction that they apparently destined to do. But they are not what they seem to be either.  The humans in their government, the Terran Alliance, attempt to provide a diplomatic, peaceful coexistent front-end to their activities. They genuinely seem to be interested in living in peace.

And yet, these same peaceful humans are incredibly ruthless when motivated.  For example, we have learned that only 10 years (human years) ago, the humans wiped out a civilization known as the Xendar. The humans fight what they call "total wars" which is in contrast to the skirmishes that other civilizations seem to fight.  That is, humans seem to resist war to a point but once a threshold has been passed, the humans fight to win for all time.

In the current time, the galaxy is beset by an immense war with multiple factions. The most powerful faction is called the Drengin Empire. They are a ruthless, evil civilization whose motivation is control and conquest.  Their brethren, the Korath, are xenophobic and wish to wipe out all non-Drengin life.  The two are struggling for control.  The Korath are quite obviously being manipulated by the remnants of a the malevolent Arnor civilization called "Dread Lords" who lack the numbers to conquer the galaxy through open arms but are potent enough to use pawns to accomplish their ends.

At the same time, the main human fleet has disappeared to where we do not know. But not before leaving Earth protected by an Arnorian shield that nothing can penetrate leaving the Drengin frustrated in their attempts to final victory over the Terran Alliance.  The Terran Alliance still has a handful of task forces in the galaxy who are quite capable of being every bit as brutal as the Drengin when necessary.

And then there are the other civilizations who have chosen sides.  Our concern is with the humans.  Our goal is to build up enough of a force so that when we identify the cause of the ruin, we can act.

The Hyperion Matrix.

Every advanced civilization has played the hypothetical game of what if you could go back in time 1,000 years. What would you bring with you? We have done just that. And what we brought with us is the Hyperion Matrix, the store-house of our knowledge as well as enough equipment to get us on our feet.

We have enough equipment on hand to ensure that our capital world will be virtually unconquerable by anything but the most massive of forces.  The problem, however, is that we completely lack the infrastructure to replicate our equipment as-is.  Our objective is to research technologies that will aid us in making use of our vast technological advantages before external threats overcome us.