Going to San Francisco in about an hour.  Going to be showing off WindowBlinds 4.5, DesktopX, Blog Navigator, ObjectDock, and Galactic Civilizations II.

See ya in a week!

Let's get this question out of the way now:

Is Konfabulator better than DesktopX for the creation and usage of widgets?

I don't think it is. I *like* Konfabulator but it's not nearly as easy to create widgets for and the final widgets are .widget files and not EXEs like they are in DesktopX.  Its default widgets ARE more polished than the typical DesktopX widget for sure. 

But we're getting our butts kicked by Konfabulator. At least in terms of market share now.  I'm not sure where we're going wrong. But we're going wrong somewhere.  It's not in features that's for sure. If anything, we have too many features. And DesktopX costs less, doesn't time out and doesn't have a nag screen.

And it's in a positive cycle now.  Robert X. Cringely wrote a terrific article about emergency systems using Konfabulator as part of his solution.  Some students read it, write the app and contact their local newspaper. Newpaper runs it and pretty soon it's picked up everywhere: http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=20631

Somewhere, something has gone wrong.  I've been reading the riot act to our PR agency for months. I think perhaps it's time get a new PR firm since they haven't managed to get any stories going.

So this next week I'm off to visit the game magazines.  It's almost the same time of year that I went to show off Galactic Civilizations I.  We didn't get much preview coverage. Maybe..just maybe it's because the graphics were awful and looked like shareware from the 80s?  Look at this first screenshot.  This is where Galactic Civilizations I was at that point.  Look at the top left, you'll see the frame rate.  36 frames per second.  Which was certainly fast "enough". It's funny though because people always assume that if the graphics are bad, the hardware requirements must be low.  But that's not necessarily the case.  The graphics improved greatly between the GalCiv Alpha and the final game just as the graphics will improve from the GalCiv 2 alpha to the final game.

Now fast forward 3 years and here's what we're taking on the media tour (similar view).  Look at the frame rate in the top left. 166 frames per second. Same hardware as the above screenshot was taken. That's the benefit of 3D acceleration.  So ironically, Galactic Civilizations II, with much better graphics, may have lower hardware requirements than the first one. I suspect for most players, GalCiv 2 will run a lot smoother and faster than the first one.

The graphics are still pretty rough. But comparing to where we were in relation to the first one, we're doing pretty well I think.

Well there's only 10 more days left in January and Firefox has ONE skin in that section. Suffice to say, it's not a section that's in demand it appears.

Barring a miracle, on Feb 1 it's no longer going to be displayed on the site by default (the section won't be removed but it will no longer show up).  It'll go with Beatnik and KewlPad and other programs whose skins aren't heavily in demand.

We hadn't planned to launch this until February but we're a bit ahead of schedule.

So here is the official site for Galactic Civilizations II. It's still under construction. Lots of features left to be added still. But this should give you a taste.

You can pre-order Galactic Civilizations II now by clicking on the purchase link on the left. You get a discount on the price (the final SRP is expected to be $49.95) and you'll be able to get the March beta of the game.

The final game isn't expected to be released until the end of this year or early the following so you'll have a lot of time to give us your thoughts and feedback on what you want in the game.  Check out the Journals area to keep up on our development progress and the Databank will give you the details on the game.

And if you don't have the original Galactic Civilizations, you can still get that over at www.galciv.com. This sequel isn't just some v2.0 of the same game, it's a significant departure in terms of gameplay.  We're really excited about the new game mechanics and we hope you like what we're doing with it.

We hang out in the forums so let us know what you think.

What a difference 4 days can make.  So as I mentioned in my last journal, I was concerned that the visuals of Galactic Civilizations II wouldn't be where we want them to be.  But if you can compare these in-game screenshots with the ones I did just 4 days ago, you can see how much just a few days can make. And bear in mind, we have nearly a year of work to do. So you can imagine how cool this stuff will be when the final graphics are done.

The planet interface still needs some artistic help but the mechanics of it are working very nicely. One of the things that I really like, that wasn't in GalCiv 1 is that I can queue up stuff very intuitively right here. That is, I can literally go onto a planet and go from usable tile to usable tile telling it what I want to build and it'll just put it in the queue. So it's a true win-win scenario. The planets will have much more depth to them and yet require less micro management than the first game.  I think of all the features in the new game, this is one of my favorites.  To be honest, I felt that GalCiv I's economic system was a joke.

Let's be real, in GalCiv 1 the planets had these arbitrary magical planet classes that just by landing on them gave you tons of benefits. Everything you built on there just added bonuses.  That meant that the AI had a real advantage because if it could just land on the good planets, you're screwed because there's very little skill involved in getting a lot of benefit from high class planets.

But now, planet classes simply mean how many usable tiles there are on a planet to start with. A given factory won't produce 20% more shields. Instead it'll  produce 5 shields. Period. Want more production? Build more factories. Oh..no more room? Too bad. But now it's up to the person to actually make full use of their planets. If you only have 10 usable tiles, that means that you'll have to make some tough choices. Is this planet my tax revenue planet (lots of farms to increase population?) or is this my industrial world? In other words, there's actual skill involved.  Whereas in GalCiv 1, come on, let's be honest, late in the game we just set the governors to build EVERYTHING.  Why not?  No skill in that.

Now there's tactics and skills. And this means that good players will be able to really shine. Moreover, it gives me, the AI developer a chance to show off my stuff too. I used to get pretty fed up with players claiming that they lost to GalCiv because the AI "cheated".  But in GalCiv 2, it'll be obvious that the AI won because it planned out its planets better for its overall strategy.

Since you're not able to play the game yet, I can't really communicate what a cool thing this new system is. Normally something that requires more skill means more micro management.  But here you get to demonstrate your skill without it getting tedious and I think that's just great.

I'm totally jazzed about the zoom out features.  If you zoom out enough, this screen turns into a tactical map. It still needs work (guys the colony ship you start with shouldn't be big, tinier icons please).  But it's really cool.  Here I've just zoomed out and moved the camera a little. We also now operate in a truly 3D space in the sense that stars and other debris have "paralax" scrolling but it's true 3D - some things are simply further away than others.  The screenshot doesn't give it justic.

Not that everything is happy.  The first screen has "Start a new game" that doesn't quite fit right. The "Please wait" dialog has a done button even when it's waiting. My turn button is still missing. And there's of course tons of missing features (the mini-map is useless IMO right now).  Plus the unusable planets need more variety and the default ships look crummy (Alex, get me more cool looking ships!).  The alien setup screen needs work.

For instance, there should be two connected buttons or something for each alien that says "Active" or "Inactive" with whichever button is selected being very highlighted.  Right now, I have to double-click on an alien race to choose it which isn't going to be intuitive.  We also need to have more obvious highlighting (probably some animation) so that people know which races are already selected.  The new system is very nice though compared to the old.  We'll have more alien races than you can actually play against this time around.

But like I said, look at this journal and the screenshots from my last one on this topic.  4 days and they were able to make these huge improvements.  And we haven't even started with the beta yet. That won't be for another month and a half. Lots to do there.  At least the performance is good. It plays much faster on my ThinkPad laptop than GalCiv 1 did.  BTW, if you have an older Intel integrated video adapter on your computer, you're going to be out of luck. GalCiv 2 won't work on it. Sorry. Nothing we can do. They don't support true type fonts in games and we need this DirectX 9 feature too much to go without it.

There's still a lot to do of course.  I'm not convinced that the mega nebula look is the way to go. The background stars are still too uniform. And there's not enough of them. But we'll see what players say. Stay tuned!

Last week I had a cold. A pretty strong head cold.  And the only thing really unusual about this is that I've never had a cold before.  I'm 33 years old and I've never had a head cold.  I didn't realize that the "common cold" was really common.  Since I'd never had one, I just assumed plenty of other people hadn't had it.

As my mother, college roommate, and my wife can all tell you, because I've never had a head cold I've also never had to blow my nose. Ever.  I've had the "sniffles" before but nothing ever approaching a stuffed up nose.

My wife would watch me pathetically complain in the past when I'd have what I'd considered previously a stuffed up nose "Honey, look, if I breath in really hard in my nose, there's definitely something slightly obstructing my breathing! Can't you hear it??"

My wife listened in mute amusement as I had to figure out how to blow my nose.  Apparently this is absurd. But if you think about it, if you're 33 and never had to blow your nose, it's not as straight forward as you might think.  Blowing air just out your nose really hard. Never had to do that. Some people can curl their tongues (I can't do that either). 

So picture me in the bathroom having concluded I need to blow my nose because I'm truly all stuffed up.  And I'm coughing because I'm unsuccessfully trying to blow air through my nose but can't get it to jsut go through my nose and so the air coming through my mouth ends up making me cough.

I did eventually figure it out. And a couple days later it was over. The virus had done whatever it is it does.

I haven't gotten much sympathy about this.  Like I said, I didn't realize that most people had to blow their noses before. I thought only people with sinus problems or chronically sick people had to blow their noses. I was the normal one and other people were the sickly people.

That's not to say I don't get sick.  I had a fever in the Winter of 2001 for instance for a day.  And I had Mono when I was in 5th grade.  And I got some nasty stomach flu at Christmas of 2002 (that was awful) that everyone around me had already gotten.

But this cold thing (I didn't have a fever so it wasn't the flu) was defintiely the pits. I had to use cough medicine.  I didn't really know about off the shelf cold or flu medications until I met my wife.  I knew of asperin growing up. Not that it ever came up growing up with either my mom or myself.  I got ear aches when I was a kid too I should add.

So my review is - colds aren't fun.  I don't like them.  Hopefully it'll be another 33 years before I get another one.

Being the only child of a single parent with no extended family nearby gave me some pretty warped views on a lot of things.

One of those things was the concept of love.  Since the only relationship I had growing up was my mom, I came to believe that love was a finite thing.  I.e. If I felt close to others, I would feel less-close to my mom.

Of course, that went out the window the minute I fell in love. My first true love was a girl I met at the end of high school. We were together for a few years until my senior year of college.  I broke up with her for reasons I won't go into here. But while I obviously did not want to be with her anymore, I found that my feelings for her remained quite strong. 

Much of this would be lost to me now except that I kept a journal during all those years. So I most definitely know that during that time, I was convinced that I was damaged goods. That because I still had lingering deep felt feeligns for this woman I'd broken up with, I would never be able to experience a deep love again with someone else.

Which, like before, went out the window when I met the woman who would become my wife.  My feelings for her dwarf any kind of intimacy I had ever felt before.  My wife became my soul mate. The one person who truly understands me.  And all this happened without diminishing or eliminating the feelings I've felt for others in various ways (whether that be romantic love I had for my ex-girlfriend or the love a son and his parent).

Not being the brightest bulb in the cabinet, when my first son was born, I experienced a whole different kind of love. I have no siblings so there's nothing even remotely similar to what I felt towards my new born son. The love a father has for his son.  So the dim bulb part comes into initially objecting to the idea of having a second child.  I was "all loved out".  But my wife, working her wiles on me (She's constantly making me say "These aren't the droids you're looking for"), gave birth to our second son and my love for him is no less than the love of our first son.  But it is a quite different even if it's in teh same category.

I've also felt strong feelings for others that I cannot classify since I've got such piss-poor experience in these matters.  For instance, my feelings for my sister in law are in that "love" range but they are different than what I've felt for others.  If I had siblings I imagine that is probably what it would be.  Who knows, since we can't imagine things we never had.

And I have strong feelings for other people too in various ways. And what I've come to learn, is that love doesn't have some maximum capacity.  Each relationship is different in its own way.  And that relationship doesn't diminish the others you have.

One thing that is both amusing and frustrating about the left in the United States is the claim that we went into Iraq mainly because of WMD.  That this was the only real justification for going into Iraq.  Left-wing comedians like to make a lot of noise on this.  John Stewart on the Daily Show, like many left wingers uses the "I'll make a snarky one liner to make the other side look stupid even though it's a strawman argument".

Here is the resolution that congress voted on:

Joint Resolution

To authorize the use of United States Armed Forces against Iraq.

Whereas in 1990 in response to Iraq's war of aggression against and illegal occupation of Kuwait, the United States forged a coalition of nations to liberate Kuwait and its people in order to defend the national security of the United States and enforce United Nations Security Council resolutions relating to Iraq;

Whereas after the liberation of Kuwait in 1991, Iraq entered into a United Nations sponsored cease-fire agreement pursuant to which Iraq unequivocally agreed, among other things, to eliminate its nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons programs and the means to deliver and develop them, and to end its support for international terrorism;

Whereas the efforts of international weapons inspectors, United States intelligence agencies, and Iraqi defectors led to the discovery that Iraq had large stockpiles of chemical weapons and a large scale biological weapons program, and that Iraq had an advanced nuclear weapons development program that was much closer to producing a nuclear weapon than intelligence reporting had previously indicated; Whereas Iraq, in direct and flagrant violation of the cease-fire, attempted to thwart the efforts of weapons inspectors to identify and destroy Iraq's weapons of mass destruction stockpiles and development capabilities, which finally resulted in the withdrawal of inspectors from Iraq on October 31, 1998;

Whereas in Public Law 105-235 (August 14, 1998), Congress concluded that Iraq's continuing weapons of mass destruction programs threatened vital United States interests and international peace and security, declared Iraq to be in `material and unacceptable breach of its international obligations' and urged the President `to take appropriate action, in accordance with the Constitution and relevant laws of the United States, to bring Iraq into compliance with its international obligations';

Whereas Iraq both poses a continuing threat to the national security of the United States and international peace and security in the Persian Gulf region and remains in material and unacceptable breach of its international obligations by, among other things, continuing to possess and develop a significant chemical and biological weapons capability, actively seeking a nuclear weapons capability, and supporting and harboring terrorist organizations;

Whereas Iraq persists in violating resolution of the United Nations Security Council by continuing to engage in brutal repression of its civilian population thereby threatening international peace and security in the region, by refusing to release, repatriate, or account for non-Iraqi citizens wrongfully detained by Iraq, including an American serviceman, and by failing to return property wrongfully seized by Iraq from Kuwait;

Whereas the current Iraqi regime has demonstrated its capability and willingness to use weapons of mass destruction against other nations and its own people;

Whereas the current Iraqi regime has demonstrated its continuing hostility toward, and willingness to attack, the United States, including by attempting in 1993 to assassinate former President Bush and by firing on many thousands of occasions on United States and Coalition Armed Forces engaged in enforcing the resolutions of the United Nations Security Council;

Whereas members of al Qaida, an organization bearing responsibility for attacks on the United States, its citizens, and interests, including the attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, are known to be in Iraq;

Whereas Iraq continues to aid and harbor other international terrorist organizations, including organizations that threaten the lives and safety of United States citizens;

Whereas the attacks on the United States of September 11, 2001, underscored the gravity of the threat posed by the acquisition of weapons of mass destruction by international terrorist organizations;

Whereas Iraq's demonstrated capability and willingness to use weapons of mass destruction, the risk that the current Iraqi regime will either employ those weapons to launch a surprise attack against the United States or its Armed Forces or provide them to international terrorists who would do so, and the extreme magnitude of harm that would result to the United States and its citizens from such an attack, combine to justify action by the United States to defend itself;

Whereas United Nations Security Council Resolution 678 (1990) authorizes the use of all necessary means to enforce United Nations Security Council Resolution 660 (1990) and subsequent relevant resolutions and to compel Iraq to cease certain activities that threaten international peace and security, including the development of weapons of mass destruction and refusal or obstruction of United Nations weapons inspections in violation of United Nations Security Council Resolution 687 (1991), repression of its civilian population in violation of United Nations Security Council Resolution 688 (1991), and threatening its neighbors or United Nations operations in Iraq in violation of United Nations Security Council Resolution 949 (1994);

Whereas in the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution (Public Law 102-1), Congress has authorized the President `to use United States Armed Forces pursuant to United Nations Security Council Resolution 678 (1990) in order to achieve implementation of Security Council Resolution 660, 661, 662, 664, 665, 666, 667, 669, 670, 674, and 677';

Whereas in December 1991, Congress expressed its sense that it `supports the use of all necessary means to achieve the goals of United Nations Security Council Resolution 687 as being consistent with the Authorization of Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution (Public Law 102-1),' that Iraq's repression of its civilian population violates United Nations Security Council Resolution 688 and `constitutes a continuing threat to the peace, security, and stability of the Persian Gulf region,' and that Congress, `supports the use of all necessary means to achieve the goals of United Nations Security Council Resolution 688';

Whereas the Iraq Liberation Act of 1998 (Public Law 105-338) expressed the sense of Congress that it should be the policy of the United States to support efforts to remove from power the current Iraqi regime and promote the emergence of a democratic government to replace that regime;

Whereas on September 12, 2002, President Bush committed the United States to `work with the United Nations Security Council to meet our common challenge' posed by Iraq and to `work for the necessary resolutions,' while also making clear that `the Security Council resolutions will be enforced, and the just demands of peace and security will be met, or action will be unavoidable';

Whereas the United States is determined to prosecute the war on terrorism and Iraq's ongoing support for international terrorist groups combined with its development of weapons of mass destruction in direct violation of its obligations under the 1991 cease-fire and other United Nations Security Council resolutions make clear that it is in the national security interests of the United States and in furtherance of the war on terrorism that all relevant United Nations Security Council resolutions be enforced, including through the use of force if necessary;

Whereas Congress has taken steps to pursue vigorously the war on terrorism through the provision of authorities and funding requested by the President to take the necessary actions against international terrorists and terrorist organizations, including those nations, organizations, or persons who planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such persons or organizations;

Whereas the President and Congress are determined to continue to take all appropriate actions against international terrorists and terrorist organizations, including those nations, organizations, or persons who planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such persons or organizations;

Whereas the President has authority under the Constitution to take action in order to deter and prevent acts of international terrorism against the United States, as Congress recognized in the joint resolution on Authorization for Use of Military Force (Public Law 107-40); and

Whereas it is in the national security interests of the United States to restore international peace and security to the Persian Gulf region: Now, therefore, be it

Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled

--

If more left-wingers got their information from..you know..the origninal sources instead of ideological websites or left-wing media analysis, there would be less confusion on this.

Not too many good Democratic politicians these days. What we mostly hear are shrill idealogues who come across as pretentious whiners.

Not the new Senator from Illinois who has shown poise and intelligence in Condi Rice's senate confirmation.

Here are some observations from Belgravia:

OBAMA: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, members of the committee, Dr. Rice. First of all, let me say how grateful I am to have the opportunity to serve on this committee. I know that it has a wonderful reputation for bipartisanship. And that, I think, is partly due to the excellence of the chairman and the ranking member and the degree to which you both work together extremely closely. So I'm looking forward to my service here. Dr. Rice, it's wonderful to see you here. And I've been very impressed, obviously, with your mastery of the issues. Since it's the day after King's birthday, obviously, 20 or 30 years ago, it's unlikely that I'd be sitting here asking you questions. And so I think that's a testimony to how far we've come, despite how far we still have to go. And I think everybody rightly is extraordinary impressed with your credentials and your experience in this field. I've got three areas I'd like to explore that have already been touched on to some degree. I want to try to see if I can knock out all three of them with the time that I have remaining. The first has to do with the issue of nuclear proliferation, which has already been discussed. But I think it's important to note that in the midst of what was sometimes a very divisive campaign, there was strong agreement between President Bush and Senator Kerry that our number one priority, that our single greatest challenge is keeping nuclear weapons out of the hands of terrorists. And there has been enormous leadership on the part of this committee, and Senator Lugar in particular, working with former Senator Nunn, to move the process forward of securing nuclear material in the former Soviet Union. I am still concerned that less nuclear material, as I understand it, has been secured from the former Soviet Union in the two years after September 11th than the two years prior to September 11th. Now, it may just be that there was low-hanging fruit initially and it starts getting harder as time goes by. But I'm also concerned of the fact that we've never fully funded, it appears to me, the Nunn-Lugar program. I know that Senator Lugar is going to be presenting an amendment that gives your office more flexibility in this area. I'm hopeful that I'm going to have the opportunity to work with him and my colleagues on this piece of legislation. I guess my question is: How are you going to use this flexibility? Number one, are you going to be seeking full funding? Number two, beyond the existing mechanisms to lock down existing nuclear material, what else are we doing, for example, to make sure that Pakistan has a mechanism in place to ensure that those nuclear weapons or that technology is no longer drifting off into the hands of hostile forces?

First, kudos for talking about the nuclear proliferation issue. There is no more critical foreign policy challenge impacting our national security. But, of course, everyone knows that. It's the part about the "low hanging fruit" that got me. Obama's obviously thought through these issues--he's not just going through the motions and scoring cheap points. We can quibble about the stats and methodology behind deeming nuclear material secured and such. But Obama was gracious, and showed he knew what he was talking about, by making the important point that it gets harder and harder going forward to secure nuclear materials after the "low hanging fruit" have already been accounted for (don't miss Obama's good follow up question on this issue either).

Next, Obama turns to the "train and equip" effort in Iraq--another immensely important issue. He concludes:

OBAMA: Mr. Chairman, I know my time up. I would just make this note, that if our measure is bring our troops home and success is measured by whether Iraqis can secure their own circumstances, and if our best troops in the world are having trouble controlling the situation with 150,000 or so, it sounds like we've got a long way to go. And I think part of what the American people are going to need is some certainty, not an absolute timetable, but a little more certainty than is being provided, because right now, it appears to be an entirely open-ended commitment.

Well, he's right. And he strikes the right notes. The American people can't tolerate an open-ended committment, of course, without feeling the government is playing it straight and has a real plan to train and equip Iraqi forces. But, unlike many in his party (Kerry all but did this in the campaign) he wisely states we can't expect an "absolute timetable"--ostensibly for either withdrawal of U.S. troops or an Administration declaration regarding when the "train and equip" effort would be finalized (we just can't know yet).

Next issue Obama broaches? AIDS--but with a twist.

Dr. Rice, I appreciate your stamina. I've got one very specific question that I'd like maybe a brief answer to so that -- even though it's a large question, and then maybe I want to engage with you a little bit on this public diplomacy issue.

You know, I think that you've done a commendable job in helping the United States rethink its international aid and development programs. So I know the Millennium Challenge Account, you were very active in.

I understand the president pledged $10 billion by fiscal year '06. To date, 2.5 (billion dollars) has been appropriated; my understanding is very little has been spent. The president also pledged, in 2003, $15 billion for HIV/AIDS, something that all of us care deeply about. But to date, only around $2 billion has been appropriated for HIV/AIDS, leaving $13 billion to be appropriated and spent over the next three years.

So my very specific question is, are you planning, and would you pledge here to make full funding of these commitments a central priority of the administration in its budget request for Congress?

MS. RICE: The MCA is a very important initiative for us, and we have been trying to get it right, and so it takes some time to negotiate compacts with these countries and to make sure that they are prepared to take on the obligations of receiving MCA funding. And so -- and we were also about a year late in -- not a year late, but a year in getting the Millennium Challenge Corporation up and running.

And so what we will do is we will make sure that the funding is there for the program that is before us. And we will, over time, certainly fulfill the president's obligation to, by 50 percent, increase American spending on development assistance.

SEN. OBAMA: Okay. The reason I make this point I think is not that I want us to spend money willy-nilly, and in the same way that -- on social programs if programs aren't well thought through and you throw money at them, it may be a waste of money, and we don't have money to waste, the same is certainly true on the international stage.

On the other hand, when we publicly announce that we're making these commitments, and if it appears that we're not following through, then that undermines our credibility and makes your job more difficult. And so I would urge that there is a clear signal by the administration in its budgeting process this time out that we're moving forward on this. And if in fact it turns out that the spending on this money was overly ambitious because we don't quite know how to spend all of it wisely, then that should be stated publicly and clearly and the time line should be extended. But there should be a clear signal sent by the administration on that. So that's the relatively narrow point. [emphasis added]

Again, no cheap soundbites about "where's the other 13 Bil"? Instead, a sophisticated understanding about how aid monies much be disbursed with care, not "willy-nilly," and the cogent apercu (if somewhat obvious but under-appreciated as an issue) that no follow through means no street cred on these issues.

Read his whole analysis.