The Altarians do not call themselves Altarians. It is the term humans call the residents of the third planet orbiting Ara Centauri. Known as "The Altar", it has become simply known as Altaria since it is the only planet with intelligent life in that part of the galaxy.

The evolutionary history of the Altarians is a story on its own. The Altarians name for their own planet is loosely translated as "Elemental". But how they evolved on this world is something of a mystery.

Long ago, a sentient species evolved from warm blooded lizard-like beings that became known as the Drath.  And yet, multiple humanoid species evolved in a short amount of time despite the lack of any primate species on the planet.

There are many theories on how so many different sentient species could arise on the planet. But the various myths and religions on Altaria insist that it was the result of the presence of the dark Mithrilar Draginol whose influence caused a single humanoid species to evolve alongside the Drath.  This attracted the Precursors whose conflict had not matured.

The Precursors fought a series of proxy wars using the fledgling Altarians as their clients. Different Precursors modified the young Altarians in different way resulting in a series of subspecies and early nations.  The Drath found themselves in the middle of this conflict and eventually was forced to flee the world with the help of sympathetic Precursors.

In the meantime, a series of incredible wars were fought out on Altaria with different factions laying claim to the world. At the end of one particularly brutal war, the planet is nearly destroyed in what becomes known as the cataclysm. Nearly all life on the world is wiped out. 

While the world recovers, the war between the Precursor factions raged across the galaxy in what becomes better known as the Arnor/Dread Lord wars.  The war is concluded just as the world begins to heal itself.

The post-cataclysm Altaria recovers slowly with different factions vying for control. The world itself is littered with artifacts of the Precursor wars which threaten to ultimately destroy the world again.

Much of the history between the rebirth and modern Altaria is lost.  What is known is that the modern Altarians are highly peaceful and benevolent.  They also have the genetic ability to manipulate what is known as "dark energy".  It is a difficult concept to grasp. Just as different species can recognize different light spectrums, the Altarians have the capability to inherently make some use of dark energy.

This inherent ability has only limited use in a technological society. As the rise of the Drengin Empire and Arcean Empires show, technology is the ultimate equalizer.

Physically, Altarians look identical to humans. They are not, however, humans. They are not genetically compatible and do not share the same DNA. But they are similar enough in DNA to ensure that there is some unknown connection between the two.

I'm using the "release candidate" of Windows Vista SP1 and so far, it's been pretty buggy.  My big grief is with Internet Explorer. It regularly will just hang. It doesn't take down the system but there's nothing quite so annoying as having a long post you're working on get lost because IE7 just starts to hang.

I'm really going to have to reconsider using Safari I guess at this rate.

Since political debates on this site are so common and debate over the budget is very common, here's a handy link to detailed information on the 2007 Federal Budget:

http://www.answers.com/topic/united-states-federal-budget-2007

Highlights:

Below is federal spending and federal tax receipts by year:

Merry Christmas to the entire WinCustomize.com community!

What a wonderful year it's been. It's been a real job to hang out with you all in the virtual sense and especially these last few months where we've been able to start showing off the wonderful creations made by members of the community.

WinCustomize is a rarity on the Internet. The site exists because people from all around the world generously share what they create with the rest of the world. How many communities can truly walk that walk? In an age where people often ask "What's in it for me?" here we have a place where we exchange ideas, work together, and make available some awesome things.

It has been a real priviledge to be associated with all of you this past year. And it has been an honor to be able to show off and promote the wonderful things you guys have created.

Regardless of where you are today, we wish you a Merry Christmas!

I have a confession to make. I generally enjoy the company of left-wingers to right-wingers. It's true.  I love to have lively debates but the main observation I have about left-wingers is that they tend to at least think about things more so than the average person.  Sure, most of their opinions are poorly thought out (grin) but I enjoy talking to people who have thought about more than what they've eaten today, what they hope to eat tomorrow, and what they've eaten in the past which seems an increasingly common topic with people as I get older.

When you get together with your families this week for Christmas, observe how much of the conversation focuses around tactical living issues (food, clothing, shelter, children). You may find it depressing. 

That isn't to say that left wingers in general make interesting friends. There are plenty of left wingers who simply hate Bush for no particular reason.  And if pressed get into mindless regurgitation (Haliburton, Iraq, Big Oil, Kyoto).  But as a broad generalization, I just find talking to left wingers slightly more interesting.  Though admittedly, many left wingers don't like their beliefs held up to scrutiny and get physically angry at the idea that people might disagree with them (global warming being a particular topic that will set some left wingers off).

In my family, the left right spectrum is pretty evenly split. We've got people who make Col Gene look like a libertarian and people who make Gideon look like a communist.  It's all over the board which makes family get togethers lively with a common phrase being "How can someone as educated as you believe that X is true?"

And I'm the dumb one in my family.

Here are some pictures from this past year!

Captioning: My turtle Cuddles who celebrated his 20th year living with me this year. Ashley on the tramponline. Take a close look at the "family picture"... The toy in the garage at the cottage. Debbie in New York. Alex at Comerica Park. Stupid me and my stinging bees. My hot wife poses in the car. Ryan gets a base hit. Alex tries to crawl away on our beach. More bees. More shots of my beautiful Debbie.

For years I've read how two big problems have kept skinning from becoming truly mainstream.

The first problem was that the myriad of programs necessary to get adequate results was too complicated, too unreliable, too bloated, and too hard to keep up to date.

The second problem was that actually getting quality themes was too difficult, that even after people managed to get the combination of WindowBlinds, IconPackager, and other such programs cobbled together that it took too much effort to find stuff they liked.

And that's why I wonder if MyColors is going to be the future of skinning in the mainstream?

Right now, a user can buy Object Desktop for 50 bucks or so and has access to thousands and thousands of skins and themes out there to choose from.  But many feel that only power users can navigate the maze of software updates and skin galleries to get something put together that's good.

By contrast, MyColors works in the opposite direction - the software is free but the themes cost money instead. And the software automatically self-updates.

Here is a screenshot of the latest internal MyColors build:

The user opens up MyColors and the software detects if something has been updated, updates itself and voila, new version. No worrying about versions.

Moreover, if a given theme has been updated, the theme automatically updates (the apply button changes to update).

For example, I have the "beta" of the Chicago Bulls NBA theme installed. But the final version was released so it changes to saying:

When I click on it, the user interface isn't interrupted with some obnoxious dialog downloading the update. Instead, it's subtle and multithreaded:

The theme listed simply changes slightly with the % download complete. The rest of the program is still usable to apply a different suite.

Then when applied you get something like this:

Where the icons, wallpaper, and of course user interface reflects the new theme.  One can imagine this expanding over time to include animated wallpapers and logons and boot screens and such to provide absolutely complete experiences.

When someone wants to check out more they just click on "More themes and see"

Which lets them browse hundreds of premium suites.

Stardock's concern has been making sure that it ensures existing customers can benefit from this massive undertaking.  After all, to create these hundreds of suites (MyColors themes) Stardock hired a significant portion of the skinning community as full time professional artists (SkinPlant and Pixutdio now are all part of Stardock Design along with Essorant, VStyler, Pixel Pirate, Voo, and others). 

So in 2008, Object Desktop users will simply get MyColors along with some free inspirational themes as part of their subscription.

Which reminds me, another really cool thing is that the program automatically knows what themes you have rights to.  One annoying thing about the premium suites of the past is that if I reinstalled or something, I had to manually go and get themes. MyColors simply lists them all for download once it knows who you are. More themes are added just by putting in a serial # and it will grab that too within the program. No links. No special instructions.

We expect that within the next 5 years, most PCs will come with this kind of capability in some form.  As long as the quality and usability is there, people will want the ability to personalize their PCs just as they do everything else.

For the first time ever, my main desktop machine is also a laptop. I never thought that day would come.

For the past 3 years, my desktop PC has been what I thought as a very powerful Pentium 4 based Dell XPS system.  But after getting a new ThinkPad T61 laptop, I did some benchmarks and discovered that the ThinkPad was substantially faster than the Dell (other than in the hard drive area where both are roughly equal).

During the holiday, I plan to work on computer AI in Galactic Civilizations and today I got the laptop set up with all the various development tools to get going on that. It's the first time I've coded on Windows Vista so it should be quite interesting to see how that works out.

I always plan to do little reviews on the books I read.  Unfortunately, time usually prevents me and still prevents me.  I tend to read a lot of magazines (US News and World Report, Games for Windows, PC Gamer, eWeek, Information Week, Entertainment Weekly even) and of course masses of on-line stuff.

But at night, when I'm starting to wind down, I like to read books. In a given week I'll typically read about 2 books. When things at work aren't stressful, I'll read closer to 3 depending on the size of the book.

Here's a picture of the nightstand in our room from tonight (my wife wants to straighten up for Christmas company):

Some of this I've read before and am just reading for comfort (Dune books, Watchmen, Feist).

I just finished reading Ann Coulter's new book. I'm struggling through "Power to the People" by Laura Ingraham. Her writing style is just not entertaining even though she's probably my favorite TV commentator (though Michelle Malkin is right up there).

The book "How Things Works" sucks and was a big disappointment. 

I just started the books on the bottom shelf this past week. I'm thinking of holding off on The World is Flat for my CES trip as it looks very entertaining and might make a good inflight book.

Right now, I'm in a holding pattern to see if anyone got me any books for Christmas (I usually don't get any books for Christmas ironically) and then will go on a mini spree to stock up for the next couple of months. There's a new Star Wars novel (Fury I think it is). There's also a longevity book I want to get.

I'll try to post these pictures every couple of months going forward if people are interested.

If you have 75% of the below attributes (and be honest) you are probably a gifted person.

[ ] Are you a good problem solver?
[ ] Can you concentrate for long periods of time?
[ ] Are you a perfectionist?
[ ] Do you persevere with your interests?
[ ] Are you an avid reader?
[ ] Do you have a vivid imagination?
[ ] Do you enjoy doing jigsaw puzzles?
[ ] Often connect seemingly unrelated ideas?
[ ] Do you enjoy paradoxes?
[ ] Do you set high standards for yourself?
[ ] Do you have a good long-term memory?
[ ] Are you deeply compassionate?
[ ] Do you have persistent curiosity?
[ ] Do you have a good sense of humor?
[ ] Are you a keen observer?
[ ] Do you love mathematics?
[ ] Do you need periods of contemplation?
[ ] Do you search for meaning in your life?
[ ] Are you aware of things that others are not?
[ ] Are you fascinated by words?
[ ] Are you highly sensitive?
[ ] Do you have strong moral convictions?
[ ] Do you often feel out-of-sync with others?
[ ] Are you perceptive or insightful?
[ ] Do you often question rules or authority?
[ ] Do you have organized collections?
[ ] Do you thrive on challenge?
[ ] Do you have extraordinary abilities and deficits?
[ ] Do you learn new things rapidly?
[ ] Feel overwhelmed by many interests/abilities?
[ ] Do you have a great deal of energy?
[ ] Often take a stand against injustice?
[ ] Do you feel driven by your creativity?
[ ] Love ideas and ardent discussion?
[ ] Did you have developmentally advanced childhood?
[ ] Have unusual ideas or perceptions?
[ ] Are you a complex person?

Now, before you answer these, be honest.  I've asked people some of these questions and they say "Oh yea, I love to read" and then I ask "What was the last book you read?" and I get an answer from months ago.  If you use "I don't have time to do X but I still love to do X" then the answer is, no, you don't love to do X. You may LIKE to do X but if you "love it" you have time.