We are on track for a December release of the second expansion pack, Galactic Civilizations II: Twilight of the Arnor.

However, as we work on it, we realize that we have a historic opportunity to do the beta releases in such a way that we can reintroduce each major civilization with its new unique technology tree.

But as some have observed, the compressed beta schedule doesn't allow for us to really give each civilization that kind of reintroduction that they (and we) think they deserve.  That each civilization now has unique ship parts, planetary improvements, and technologies which can significantly alter the game play means that having time to really enjoy the civilizations as they are released seems important.

On the other hand, many will want to have this expansion pack finished in time for Christmas.

So we put the question to you guys: Which would you prefer? An early December release date for Twilight of the Arnor or an early January release?

Advantages of coming out in December:

• You get it sooner
• It can be purchased as a Christmas gift for other people
• Stardock gets prestige for releasing two good expansion packs in a single year

Advantages of coming out in January:

• More time for the public beta of the expansion pack.
• Brad (me) can spend more time enhancing the computer AI before release.
• More time to get preview coverage.

So you tell us. We can go either way. There is a web poll on the left side of the main page of GalCiv2.com. Vote there and post here and we'll go with the majority.

Stardock has released WindowBlinds 6.01.  WindowBlinds is a program that allows users to completely change their Windows XP or Windows Vista visual experience. It does this by applying system-wide skins called visual styles.

Visual styles can change nearly every element of the Windows GUI from the Start menu, task bar, title bar, push buttons, scrollbars, and nearly everything other part of either Windows XP or Windows Vista.

WindowBlinds works by extending the native drawing routines of the operating system. It does not replace system files or modify data on the user's PC. It has been used by Microsoft, ATI, nVidia, Alienware, and countless other companies to create alternative visual styles to Windows.

WindowBlinds 6.01 is largely a maintainence release fixing reported bugs, tweaking performance, as well as adding support for 64-bit Windows XP (registered version only).

WindowBlinds is a free download and can be registered for $19.95. The registered version adds additional features such as colorization, font control, blur support, and more.  Users can also get the registered version as part of Object Desktop, Stardock's complete suite of desktop enhancement utilities.

 Screenshots:

 Download: www.windowblinds.net

Stardock has begun writing the SkinStudio 6 tutorials. The first chapter is now available. If you've ever wanted to try your hand at skinning, pick up the SkinStudio 6 beta and check out the tutorials.

An Introduction to making skins

The term "skin" refers to the concept of changing the surface look of something. There are skins to change the outside of cell phones. Their are skins to change what your computer case looks like. There are skins to change the look and feel of particular applications like media players. And there are skins that can change the overall look of your computer operating system. The skins designed to change the look of the Windows operating system are typically referred to as "visual styles". But for our purposes, we'll use the more generic term "skin".

Our kinds of skins are made up of dozens of little images called bitmaps. When you look at your Start bar or title bar, you can see that these things are ultimately a bunch of images.  If these images are replaced with new ones, you can dramatically alter the look and feel of your computer desktop.

When someone creates a skin, they have to create images to replace the parts of their computer interface that they want to change. They also typically have to tell the program that is applying the skin how those images should be used.

WindowBlinds is an application that takes specially made skins and applies them to change the entire Windows GUI (graphical user interface). 

WindowBlinds has been around since 1999. Back then, it would apply skins to Windows 95, 98, and Windows NT 4.0.  At first, WindowBlinds just changed the title bars and borders of windows. Over time, it added push buttons, scrollbars, radio buttons and other common controls on Windows.

When Windows XP came out, the Start bar was enhanced and explorer windows gained "task panels".  WindowBlinds was updated to support skins that had those elements in them as well.

Over time, WindowBlinds came to be able to change just about every part of Windows.  Each subsequent version of Windows -- from Windows 2000 to Windows Vista, added additional new elements.

As you can imagine, creating a skin that makes full use of what WindowBlinds can do became increasingly complex.  To address that, Stardock created SkinStudio.

SkinStudio is an application that allows users to create and edit skins for use by WindowBlinds.  It makes it much easier to create a skin that contains all the images and data needed to enhance and extend the entire Windows GUI.  The finished skins are then applied by WindowBlinds.

This tutorial documents and explains how you can use SkinStudio to create WindowBlinds skins. It covers SkinStudio version 6 (and beyond).  SkinStudio 6 was a complete rewrite over the previous versions.  Previous generations of SkinStudio had grown in complexity along with WindowBlinds. Eventually, it became so complicated to use that only the truly committed could create skins with it.  SkinStudio 6 is designed to allow casual users to make skins again.

When you look at your computer and how you control it, what are the primary pieces? What are the specific parts you use to control what you do? 

1. The Start Menu.  The Windows Start menu provides access to your programs and data.
2. The Task Bar. The task bar contains the Start button as well as displays your running tasks, your quick launch menu, and your system tray.
3. Title Bars & Windows Frames. When you interact with your windows, they are surrounded by a frame. Typically, the top of  a window has a title bar (though WindowBlinds skins are capable of placing the title bar on any edge of a window). On the title bar you have the title and controls to minimize, maximize, and close the window.
4. Window controls. You also have controls such as push-buttons, radio buttons, check boxes, scrollbars, menus, toolbars, and lots of other little controls that let you interact with your programs and data.

The most basic skin for WindowBlinds would include replacements for those elements of the Windows GUI.  SkinStudio, however, will let users change as little or as much of the Windows GUI as they'd like. What the user doesn't change, SkinStudio will fill in with the native elements of the Windows GUI.

When SkinStudio is first opened, you have the option to create a new skin or to open an existing one. If you choose a new skin you will be presented with the default Windows GUI.

SkinStudio welcome screen

Choosing what kind of skin you want to make

When you choose a new skin, SkinStudio will ask you what kind of skin you would like to make.

Choosing the kind of skin you wish to create

The two basic choices are:

1. WindowBlinds Basic Skin. These are technically called UIS 1 skins. They are best used when you're making a skin that is basically the same as the Windows GUI but with different graphics. They are easier to make and faster. But they lack many of the more advanced features as they can only do what the OS can do.

2. WindowBlinds Advanced Skin. These are much more powerful in that you can have title bars and borders of any size, use alpha blending and shadows in your windows. They don't run quite as fast (still faster than Windows is by default) but they are much more flexible.

The SkinStudio Categories

Once you have chosen what kind of skin you want to make, you are presented with a preview of your current skin along with a panel of actions you can use to make changes to it.

The categories of SkinStudio

The categories of actions are:

• Full Preview. This shows you what your skin currently looks like.

• Edit Controls. This displays the various controls of Windows such as push buttons, tab controls, progress bars, scrollbars, etc.

• Edit Start Menu and Taskbar. This lets you alter the look of the taskbar and menu.

• Edit Explorer / IE Shell Parts. This option lets you change the special controls that are unique to Internet Explorer, Explorer (the main shell of Windows). This includes (on Vista) Internet Explorer tabs, the back and forth buttons and more. 

• Edit XP File Animations. When users copy or download files on Windows XP, an animation plays. WindowBlinds can change that animation.  This is where you can assign new animations.

• Edit Titlebars and Window Frames. The most basic part of the Windows GUI -- title bars and borders.  The frames of your window also include the close button, minimize button, maximize button, title bar text (technically called "the caption") and the system menu icon.  There are different types of frames to choose from depending on your design choice including per-pixel frames (these are frames with an alpha channel, use these if you want to have a shadow and have your windows be partially see-through) or UIS2 frames which are very powerful but don't have per-pixel options.

• Change Skin Colors. Windows is full of places that display text. You can control what color text is displayed as.

• Change Skin Fonts. Similarly, you can change what font face is used for different parts of the Windows GUI.

• XP Specific Sections. Windows XP has many unique GUI elements not present in other versions of Windows (including Windows Vista).  These include the logoff dialog, control panel styles, task panels (often referred to as shell styles), and toolbar icons. 

• Backgrounds. WindowBlinds can change the backgrounds of the desktop (the wallpaper) as well as add a background to explorer windows.

• Theme Part Details. This category displays the most common parts of a skin that people tend to care about. It provides short-cuts to get to different parts of the editor.

Now that you have an overview of SkinStudio, we'll start creating a skin piece by piece in the next chapter.

Skin Creation Tutorial

Chapter 1: Introduction to SkinStudio

Chapter 2: A Brief Overview of SkinStudio

Chapter 3: Skinning the Start Bar

Chapter 4: Creating images for the Start Bar

Chapter 5: Making a new Start Menu

Chapter 6: Saving Your Creation

Chapter 7: Changing the TitleBars and Borders

Chapter 8: Making Title Bar Buttons

Chapter 9: Skinning Windows Buttons and Other Controls

Chapter 10: Windows XP Specific Elements

Chapter 11: Vista Specific Elements

Chapter 12: Fonts and Coloring

Chapter 13: Tips and Tricks

Chapter 14: Conclusion and Resources

(c) 2007 Stardock Corp.

The Arcean Empire is an ancient civilization. A planet that united at the end of the "Great conquest" that nearly destroyed their world at a time when humans were still living in the jungle.

Arcean society and technology stagnated shortly after the uniting of the world. Change and "progress" were looked upon with suspicion and the world slowly developed space travel in the subsequent tens of thousands of years.

It was only when they encountered the humans, in the 22nd century (Earth Time) that the Arceans were awakened to the need for technological progress.  The humans, in a short amount of time, had gone from riding horses to colonizing moons and planets in the blink of an eye. The universe, as the Arceans had known it, was ended.

The Arceans realize that research, even with the newfound knowledge of its importance, doesn't come easily to them. The technology tree of the Arceas is a bit more expensive.  On the other hand, the Arceans had a lead in one particularly interesting area -- weather control.  The Arcean technology tree allows them to build weather control zenith's which can increase a given planet by up to 3 levels -- a significant advantage.  Of course, they'll need those advantages to overcome the more expensive nature of their technologies and their relatively poor diplomatic skills (making it harder for them to trade technologies).

This is the story of the Arcean Empire in a tiny quadrant known as the Crucible. In it, the Drengin, Arceans, and humans vie for supremacy.

This game play example is using beta 1b (internal) of the expansion pack Galactic Civilizations II: Twilight of the Arnor.

A promising beginning

The Arcean capital in this quadrant has a human colony near by. But we have control of the important influence resource.

The starting conditions of Galactic Civilizations II: Twilight of the Arnor are significantly different from the base game or Dark Avatar.  For one thing, Tourism is now worth 10X as much. This makes a huge difference at the start of the game where players now can expect to see 70bc in revenue.  However, the starting funds have changed to be only 3,000 instead of 5,000.  So it will be up to players to build up their economies a bit more gradually.

Each civilization gets their own tech tree. Even familiar technologies are often placed in a different order than they once were. The Arceans get Weather Control which is a pretty big deal.

On the other hand, the Arceans are terrible at propulsion. Unlike the humans and other races, there is no Impulse Drive or Warp Drive or anything like that. They have to build Navigation Centers on their planets to get a speed boost.

The thing about Navigation Centers, however is that the technology itself gives you a +1 to your ship movement. Then, with the navigation center, you get another +1. Thrown in Sub-Space Drive which is basically a computer based navigator and you get another +1.  What this means, ironically, is that in the early part of the game, the Arceans are the fastest race out there with ships that might be doing 5 moves per turn.  In the long-run, however, they're slower but it's a big deal early on.

The Build Up

By RIGHT-CLICKING on the technology on the screen, you can find out what the technology does.

The Weather Control Zenith. The pride of the Arcean Empire. Up to 3 tiles made available.

In this version of the beta, the Arceans don't get Xeno Engineering (which is being addressed). Luckily, I was able to trade for it so I could build better starbases.

Meanwhile, the Drengin are building up.

One thing of note is that the Arceans only have one Particle Beam weapon technology (most of the others get multiple). The bad news is that it is very expensive. The good news is that there's only 1 and then it's on to bigger and better weapons.

What are they doing?

So what are the other civilizations doing?

The Drengin are moving along. Their slaveling labs aren't as good as ours. But they have less maintenance. Slaves are cheap -- less effective though.

The humans are doing pretty well. Though I happen to know their AI hasn't been updated one bit. Despite that, they have automatically adjusted to the new technology tree.  Which means, of course, they'll automatically adapt to your technology tree that you create with the technology tree editor!

Fate of the Quadrant

The Terran Alliance had shrewdly managed to become the the dominant power in the quadrant.  After consultations with the home guard, we were given permission to formally ally with the rising stars of the galaxy.  That still left our old nemesis, Lord Kona and the Drengin Empire.

...To be continued...

Exit polls are wonderful. They cut through all the speculation and inuendo and simply ask the actual people who voted what their opinions are on a variety of issues.

The exit polls for the 2004 election are available here.

Here, without commentary, are some of the results:

Overall: Bush won 51% to Kerry's 49%. Bear this number in mind.

Men: Bush: 55% to Kerry's 44%.

Women: Kerry 51% to Bush's 48%.

Income is less than $15,000: Kerry 63% to Bush's 36%.

Income is greater than $200,000: The reverse.

Do you WORK full time? Bush gets 53% to Kerry's 45%

Did you drop out of highschool? Kerry 50% to Bush's 49%.

College Graduate: Bush gets 52% to Kerry's 46%

Did you go on for post graduate study? Kerry gets 55% to Bush's 44%

Are you an atheist or agnostic? Kerry wins by 67% to Bush's 31%

Are you a Protestant? Bush wins 59% to 40%

Have you served in the military? Bush wins by 57% to 41%

Married people went for Bush: 57% for Bush to 42% for Kerry

Do you have children and are also married? Bush by a larger margin: 59% to 40%

Are you gay OR bisexual? Kerry wins by 77% to Bush's 23% (note: 4% of the population identifies themselves as either Gay or Bi-sexual).

Do you think the tax cuts were bad for the economy? Kerry got that by 92% to 7%

The government can do more to solve your problems: Kerry 66% to Bush's 33%.

I'll put commentary in the comments area...

Over the years I've gotten to see first hand how people make decisions that make them financially successful or financial basket cases.

The sad thing is, it's not very hard to be financially successful. It takes no luck. It takes no particular skill. All it requires is a sense of DELAYED GRATIFICATION.  A sense that, sadly, most people don't have.

Becoming financially successful is the simple matter of building assets that appreciate in value over time at a greater rate than inflation.

That's it.

And yet most people don't do it.  Most people are consumers. They take their earnings and use all of it to consume things -- music, TVs, stereos, cell phones, video games, consoles, dinners out, lunches out, clothes, vacations, etc.

In a recent demographic study, most people defined as "poor" (family of 4, household income less than $30,000) owned at least 1 cell phone, owned a car, had a DVD player, had at least 2 televisions, had one computer game console (the study was a couple years ago so it doesn't say what console they had). And near majorities had a computer, had an Internet connection.

In other words, the poor are generally consumers. What they make they spend on consumables. 

I see it all the time first hand. People who make relatively little still manage to have new cell phones, iPods, nice clothes, a console, a better car than they really can afford, etc.

Companies can offer 401K plans, even with matching funding, and still most people won't make use of it.  They can't, they say, because they have debts.  But if one looks closely at those debts, you'll find an expensive hobby or expensive consumption of other kinds going on.

Consider this:

If someone at 25 puts in $2,000 a year into a matching 401K, by the time they hit 55, they will have about $600,000.

Even if the person only puts in $1,000 a year, a trivial amount (less than the average annual raise people get), they'd still have $300,000 or so at 55.

But people won't. Because they have no impulse control. No delayed gratification. They want stuff now...

..and many of them will bemoan the minority of people who do actually build assets and end up letting compounding interest make them financially successful.

One last thought to consider:

You have two young men, both are 25 years old and make say $45,000 a year. Not a bad amount of money.

Person A blows it all on going out to eat every night, having the latest greatest gadgets, etc.

Person B spends pretty good too but eats out a bit less, replaces his cell phone and computer once every other year, etc.  And instead puts in $3,000 into a matching 401K.

Time passes. Person A is 55 years old and has nothing to show for his consumption.  Person B has $900,000 in the bank! At 65, if he continues forward, he has $2.2 MILLION.

I try to hammer this home to as many people as possible.  Most people know they should be doing this but they don't.

That's why I ultimately say "oh boo hoo" when I hear people complain that there's a "shrinking" middle class. The answer is, yea, you have some people who invest (a small %) and most people who consume. And there's your single biggest difference.

Hi all!

Those of you who have a MySpace account, post here if you'd like and maybe we can add some friends to our networks.

My account is www.myspace.com/draginol

What's yours?

Former Secretary of Labor under Bill Clinton, Robert Reich, has written his view on how taxes should be done. It really puts in very stark terms how American liberals really view the concept of property.

To liberals, you have no property. It all belongs to the government. Therefore, it's just a matter of deciding how much of what you earn they should let you keep.

So how much do Democrats think "the rich" should be taxed?

What's fair? I'd say a 50 percent marginal tax rate on the very rich (earning over $500,000 a year). Plus an annual wealth tax of one half of one percent on net worth of people holding more than $5 million in total assets.

WOW. Not only would some people be expected to hand over half of what they earn to the federal government, but we would essentially pay a rental tax to live in the United States of 1.5% a year! And the "very rich" are now $500,000 a year. Remember that term "very rich" for later.

He then invents his own strawman argument:

You say the rich will leave the country rather than face a marginal tax of 50 percent? Let them, and take away their citizenship.

No, they won't leave the country, they'll just eliminate expenses (i.e. jobs). Taxes are simply another cost to "the rich". If taxes go up, something else has to get cut and the most obvious thing to do would be to cut jobs. That's what I would do. Not because I'd want to. Not because I demand having a fancy car or something, but because to keep my business intact, I'd have to make up for those new expenses in order to keep investing in growth of my business.

And most of the top 1% (as Reich partially admits) are "CEOs". Note how he uses the term "CEO" generically. There's only a handful of mega corporations, so the vast majority of those CEOs are simply small business owners. I'm a CEO – I founded my own company. But by referring to people like me as simply CEOs he gives the unwary the impression that he's really talking about "those big corporation fat cats".

To defend his argument he writes:

Taxing the super-rich is not about class envy, as conservatives charge. It's about the nation having enough money to pay for national defense and homeland security, good schools and a crumbling infrastructure, the upcoming costs of boomers' Social Security (the current surplus has masked the true extent of the current budget deficit, but it won't for much longer), and, hopefully, affordable national health insurance. Not to mention the trillion dollars or so it will take to fix the Alternative Minimum Tax, which is now starting to hit the middle class.

Please. Of course it's class envy. Why else would you insert so many strawman arguments. For instance, we have enough money right now to pay for national defense, homeland security, good schools and infrastructure. In fact, we have so much money that we are now debating whether to provide health insurance to middle class children. Here's a link to Encarta's general table on where federal outlays go. Ask Reich to explain in detail was "Health" and "Income Security" are. Ask him to go into detail where "Other" goes to. So spare us the nonsense that we don't have enough money for the basics.

Liberals use class envy in order to enable the government to gain more power. The more money it has, the more dominating of society it can become.

Reich explains that these things have to be paid for:

If the rich and super-rich don't pay their fair share of this tab, the middle class will get socked with the bill.

Now also note this: In the course of a single essay he has already expanded the reach – now it's "super rich" and the undefined "rich". Remember, he defined "super rich" as any house hold that makes over $500,000 a year. So who are "the rich"? Who knows. But if history is an indicator, "the rich" usually end up being nearly everyone who holds a job.

Mr. Reich is concerned that "the rich and super rich won't pay their fair share of the tab". Except that "the rich" and "super rich" are already paying for nearly the entire tab right now.

Last year, 43 million Americans paid zero in income taxes. You want to talk about "fair share" of the tab. How about every adult American having to pay some token amount of taxes into the system? When 43 million Americans are paying squat, one can only imagine the needed mental gymnastics to reach the conclusion that the super rich aren't paying their fair share. The rich bastards, how dare they work, create jobs, and new opportunities.

Right now, the top 1% (the people who make $500,000 or more) are already paying for 40% of the income taxes.

Let's sum that up: 1.3 million Americans are paying for 40% of the tab right now. 43 million Americans don't pay a cent. Who's paying their fair share, Mr. Reich?

But Reich has an answer to this. He says it's a specious argument:

First, most Americans pay more in payroll taxes than in income taxes; in addition, state sales taxes have grown faster than almost any other form of taxation. Both payroll taxes and sales taxes take a much bigger portion of the paychecks of lower-income Americans than of higher-income. Viewed as a whole, the current tax system is quite regressive.

Unbelievable. Payroll taxes are where Social Security and Medicare come out. And in theory, these are taken out and set aside for that person. This means that Reich explicitly believes that you are supposed to be taking care of other people's retirement and healthcare. So much for the illusion that Social Security and Medicare were part of your "personal lockbox".

Secondly, sales taxes are hardly regressive. They're amongst the fairest taxes there is. The more you consume, the more you are taxed.

Reich also fails to make the case as to why it needs to be Federal Government that needs all this money. Schools, infrastructure, police, fire, and nearly all the other government services that normal people make use of are provided by their state and local communities.

The fact that Reich would prefer to see the money transferred to the Federal Government instead of letting states and local communities decide what they need done and taxing as needed belies the underlying liberal goal – power concentrated in a powerful central government.