One of the benefits of having been an only child is that there was always room to store all my stuff and I had no siblings to break them.

I always told my mom that one day I'd give my children my toys. Well, sure enough I did.

Here's Ryan with my matchbox cars all lined up.

What an awful day it was today. It started well. One of our key developers is leaving to go to Microsoft whic is a bummer but we had a last day lunch and movie (saw Van Helsing which was pretty good). Then it all went down hill.

Various technical problems - Stardock Central messing up, can't make news items via our internal news syndication system, and other minor mishaps.

And then the contract negotations with publishers on one of our upcoming games. I'm faced with some unpleasant choices. Got one offer with a huge advance on royalties but one that pretty much assumes we won't ever see any additional royalties due to the way the deal is structured. And it would demand that we give up a lot of control over the game which we normally don't do (on GalCiv we took care of the on-line support, sold teh game directly, and put out lots of updates).  The other deal lets us have that freedom but have a much more modest advance and is from a smaller publisher so it won't likely sell anywhere near as many copies.

But negotiations are always tense and when you're dealing with six figure payments, they're quite intense. I feel exhausted and demoralized since I just don't know what the right path to do is. It's the classic freedom/less money vs. less freedom/money scenario. And it's easy for me to answer for myself what I'd choose but I have to think of the welfare of our employees and our customers and frankly, our customer community.

Some people who have auto-updated their Stardock Central on Thursday or Friday of this week have reported problems where it wasn't completing the auto-update. We've updated the current release to fix that, but if you are currently having trouble, please reinstall from the link below on top of your existing Stardock Central.

 

A new build is available. In the short time we've had sicne the last beta, we've tried to address as much of the feedback as we can.

Please tell us if we're on the right direction and which big trouble spots you see that we need to address.

Thanks!

This whole war on terror thing seems rather all over the place doesn't it at times? What does Iraq have to do with 9/11? Americans asked the same questions in 1942 when Americans were attacking French soldiers in North Africa -- what did France have to do with Pearl Harbor?

Wars only seem neat and tidy in hindsight. Only when all the facts and information are publicly available after the events are over can the tangled web of a global strategy be made to make sense.

This war is no exception and because of the complexities of international relations in this day and age, the strategy is even more convoluted. So here is my succinct way of explaining what the US strategy is based on the past 2 and a half years of following these details on a daily basis.

On 9/11 thousands of Americans were murdered by Islamic extremists who crashed planes into buildings and such. This was really the culmination of nearly a decade long series of attacks by the same group of extremists calling themselves Al Qaeda.

As a response, the USA declared war on all international terrorist organizations and the states that support them. Iraq, Iran, and North Korea were explicitly put on notice in early 2002 as the "Axis of Evil" as states that support terrorism. Contrary to some claims, Iraq was never linked to be part of the 9/11 attack, they were simply one of the leading overt funders of international terrorism.

The first battle was in Afghanistan which was to remove the Taliban regime which actively supported and aided the specific group responsible for 9/11. Once the Taliban regime was removed, the US moved to stage 2 which can be described as "draining the swamp" phase. That is, trying to change the environment in that part of the world that creates terrorists.

Part of that stage 2 plan was to remove Saddam Hussein in Iraq. Iraq had been funding terrorism and it was believed (correctly as the Kay report makes clear) that Saddam had WMD programs that, eventually, would have yielded serious weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) which could then be delivered to terrorist organizations who would be more than happy to deliver them to the United States.  It was also believed (wrongly as the Kay report makes clear) that Iraq had vast stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons that could in the short term be used against the US. These stockpiles were, unfortunately, used by political leaders to create a sense of "imminent threat". This was particularly the case in Britain where Tony Blair explicitly made the case that Saddam was an imminent threat (in the US, Iraq was not pushed as an imminent threat as much as simply a threat that the US could no longer tolerate in a post-9/11 world).

So the US and its allies (UK, Australia, etc.) went into Iraq with the primary objective to remove Saddam and as a secondary objective to "drain the swamp" by putting into place a stable government that would, ideally, be a representative democracy (the same thing they're trying to do in Afghanistan).

If you look at a map of the region, there are 5 major sources of terrorists (or were): Going east to west you had Afghanistan. Then Iran. Then Iraq. Then Saudi Arabia. And finally Syria.  If these 5 states can be converted to stable representative democracies, it is believed that the terrorist problem will largely dry up (or at least be degraded to a manageable point).

Diplomatically, the United States can't just go east to west overthrowing regimes. It has to have a casus belli (justification to satisfy international sensibilities).  9/11 gave it a casus belli for Afghanistan. The UN resolutions against Iraq and violation of the 1991 cease fire gave the US a casus belli in Iraq (barely).  But there isn't one for Syria, Iran, and Saudi Arabia.  That brings us to phase 3:

The Bush administration's goal is to make Afghanistan and Iraq stable prosperious open societies that will increase the rate of westernization of Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Syria in the hopes that those countries will open up and become less repressive (or as Dr. Rice put it "End the freedom deficit").  I am skeptical, especially given the idiocy of a handful of US soldiers in their horrific mistreatment of Iraqi POWs, that this is an achieveable goal.

I fear that the US won't be able to do what really needs to be done in the middle east until a major US city is destroyed by a nuclear weapon smuggled in by terrorists from Iran, Syria, or Saudi Arabia. At whic point, gentler responses will no longer be available.

For Americans such as myself, that is really what this is all about. in the 90s it was bombs and such against US personnel overseas. In 2001 it was the spectacular hijacking and crashing into the world's largest buildings murdering thousands. What we don't want to see is in the 2010s nuclear weapons being smuggled in by these same groups. That is the end goal - to stop these groups now or at least try our best.

 

Longhorn is being showed off at Winhec. It's still over 2 years away so much will happen between now and then.

From a customization point of view it's going to be exciting though fundamentally different.  Check out the screenshot included here to see what I'm saying.

This build of Longhorn still includes two of the old fashioned techs for doing visuals (Jade and Slate).  It's the Longhorn style that shows off what is possible. So what does it mean for skinning?

In a nutshell, customization (Based on the current direction in Longhorn) will have to deal with the client and non-client areas seperately. There's no "uxtheme" type stuff here, this is all handled by the compositer (though like I said, this build still includes the old type of visual styles which are being phased out).  Customizing the non-client area will be interesting depending on how its implemented. 

The client skinning portions, by contrast, will likely be more like traditional skinning has been done in the past for compatibility reasons (XAML based apps though are still up in the air).

More to come shortly.

If I were trying to model what it takes to become a world power in a competitive strategy game these would be the key factors I'd use:

• A single contiguous common market (currency, language, culture)
• A large population
• Abundant natural resources
• A free press
• Sufficient access to the ocean
• Relatively low tax rates (limited government)
• Relatively few impediments to starting a business
• Strong property rights laws (both physical and intellectual property)
• Light regulation on businesses
• A reasonably educated population
• An egalitarian culture

A nation would need most if not all these things to be a major world power economically. Most of these are matters of degree (how "free" does the press need to be for instance). As a model, I would put a weighting factor next to each and then rate each category. Then it would be a matter of multiplying the weighting and rating and then summing up the total.

Americans, for example, tend to believe that they live in the most powerful country in the world due to their inherent American spirit of liberty and equal opportunity. But that's really not the whole story.  The United States benefits from these factors in ways that most countries simply cannot. Let's look at these with a bit more detail.

First off, the United States has a continent spanning contiguous market that is roughly the size of Europe. But unlike Europe, which has dozens of native languages actively spoken, English is predominantly spoken as the native language regardless of whether you're in California or Indiana.  This is key as it lowers barriers to entry for products and streamlines the introduction of services.

Secondly, the United States has a population of around 300 million people. That's a lot of people you can sell to without having to go through much effort.

Thirdly, the US has massive amounts of natural resources. It's not commonly known but the United States is the world's largest producer of oil.  Not Saudi Arabia, not Kuwait. It's just the US uses so much oil it still has to import. But that should give you an idea of the kinds of natural resources the US has going for it across the board -- because it's also the world's largest producer of food. The two basic things for a modern society -- food and energy, the US has a lot of it.

Fourth, a free press is important because it helps ferret out corruption and act as a information channel for new products and services based, largely, on merit.

Fifth, the United States has the world's largest coastline. The movement of goods, particularly industrial and food, are still done largely by ship. Bulk goods are too expensive to be flown from destination to destination. You need waterways to import and export cheaply and the US is geographically located with an ocean that connects it to Asia and another one that connects it to Europe and Africa. 

Sixth, the US has relatively low tax rates. This is important because it creates an incentive for people to start their own businesses. Wealth is a powerful motivator. It also has the side effect of keeping the government (relatively) small as a share of the GDP which keeps it from mucking things up too much.

Seventh, it is very easy to start a business in the United States. Just fill out a few forms and you're set. In India, for example, it's a nightmare to get a business going. China isn't much better.

Eighth, property rights are key. The US has lots of courts and lawyers (arguably too many). The system is set up to make it easy to enforce your property rights. Some would say (including me) it's a bit too easy to sue people in the United States but it does have the advantage of discouraging people from pilfering other people's stuff in business or selling shoddy products.

Ninth, you can run your own business without being bogged down (too much) by regulation. This can have some nasty side effects (environmental, workers rights, etc.) but it does make it easier to have a business and if a strong economy is your goal (which it isn't necessarily everyone's goal) then less regulation is better.

Tenth, your population has to be well educated. I realize according to "tests" the average American is about as smart as a toad stool. But the question isn't who is smarter or better educated, the question is whether they are educated enough. So far, the answer is that whatever invisible threshold of adequacy exists, Americans still squeak past it.

And lastly, an egalitarian culture. Americans are by no means perfect here. There is still widespread discrimination between different races. But compared to other countries, the US is pretty egalitarian. Racism in the US requires a change in pigment (i.e. black, white, brown, etc.). In other countries, Japan, Korea, India, many parts of Europe, racism is between people of the same race (from our vantage point) because of family or geographical ties. In India, what caste you came from matters. It even matters in Japan. But that's nothing compared to what the middle east has going against it -- they discriminate against half their population -- women.  You throw out the potential contribution of half your population and you can't possibly compete against those who are using most or virtually all their potential.

On none of these issues is the United States perfect. A lot of this comes down to being in the right place at the right time. These factors weren't really imagined prior to the industrial revolution. And going into the future there are other nations who have the potential to exceed the United States.

For example, China has the potential to meet and exceed these items to become the world's most powerful nation. It has a lot of things it has to fix up first but they are on the right track. China isn't yet a single market in the sense we're talking. It has many regional cultures and languages that impede business. They also have to work on their internal infrastructure, educational system, and red tape problems. But these are all things that can be addressed.

By contrast, Japan is not going to be able to get much stronger than it already is. It's already about as good as it's going to get. It could be a bit more egalitarian but one could envision a future where Indonesia has caught up or surpassed Japan a hundred years from now.

India is another potential case. But it has multiple very distinct languages. You've got Hindi and Punjabi and dozens of others. But again, down the line, they could standardize on Hindi as the primary language (or English) and take care of that. But they also have massive massive problems with red tape there. The amount of regulation going on there to start a businesses is unreal. They also have serious egalitarian problems with the leftovers of the caste system. These cultural issues will take a long time to take care of so I don't really expect India to be a huge economic power in my lifetime but I could be wrong.

The European Union is not in very good shape on most of these issues. As individual units, Germany, France, UK, Belgium, Netherlands, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Poland, etc. are all pretty decent on these issues. Give any of them 300 million people, more natural resources, and voila, you have insta-super power. But the EU will not be greater than the sum of its parts -- not in the foreseeable future. It has massive language issues. It has excessive taxation in some parts. It has problems with scaling -- you'll hear someone say "Well, Finland is doing this and that..." And Finland has a population of 5 million people that are all virtually identical culturally (99% white). We have cities with larger populations than Finland. A lot of government programs don't scale too well when you get into larger populations over a wide geographic scale encompassing different cultures.

The biggest problem the EU faces is population decline. So even if it can manage to get the different components to like each other (i.e. not discriminate against each other in hiring) and understand each other linguistically and lower taxes, they still have the problem of actually losing population. They have to reverse that trend to even have a hope to deal with the other issues. I have friends in Europe and like I said, as individual countries do they do fine. But the EU won't scale so well.  In the United States, no one looks at someone's job application and thinks "Hmm, they're from Idaho, those bastards!" But I've seen how different people in Europe react to people from other parts of Europe, which part of Europe you come from matters and will continue to matter for the foreseable future.

Brazil is another potential but it isn't likely to supplant the United States. It has many of the same natural things going for it as the US does but not as much so. But I would expect Brazil to become a bigger player in the future.

As for Africa, the whole continent seems a lost cause. I can't think of a single nation in Africa with the potential to become a major player this century.

Meanwhile, Canada has a lot going for it but lacks the population. Its total population is less than California. It also has increasing polarization. There's a real possibility that 100 years hence we could see Canada break into 3 nations -- Quebec, Ontario, and the western provinces. The cultural differences between the 3 are quite stark.  The major issue is population and high taxes.  But because Canadians have a huge border with the United States, huge coastlines, great natural resources, and lower labor costs, it benefits a great deal from its location and if it can get is population growing faster, it will become an increasing factor. That said, it'll be a long time before it has any chance of being a global super power.

So that leaves Russia, one country that I think has an excellent chance of becoming a true economic super power. First, they have an educated work force. Secondly, they have incredible natural resources. Third, they are in an even better geographic position than the United States is for world trade -- it doesn't need ships to transport to Asia and Europe, it's already there!  So what's Russia's problem?  Russia has a massively corrupt domestic government, a corrupt judicial system, poor enforcement of property rights, a culture that has very little respect for property still (thank you communism), and an infrastructure that's decayed.  If it can solve these things, it's in great shape. It's relatively egalitarian -- more so in many ways than the United States. It has a cheap work force that is well educated and lots of people to sell stuff to locally. If they can just fix their government to be less corrupt they have an excellent shot.

So there you have it. When someone says that the United States is doomed to "decline" they need to look at what factors they think it will falter at and see if those things are likely to bring about this decline. Decline can come in two forms: Real decline and relative decline.  I can envision both scenarios for the United States.  The slow increase in regulation and taxation in the United States is slowing down business growth in key sectors (outsourcing has become a major issue -- start looking at how much stuff you use is now made in China).  The educational system is increasingly soft relative to its competitors which could make its workforce less competitive. 

But realistically, while I can envision decline scenarios, I don't see a scenario where the US ends up anything other than sharing the world economic superpower neighborhood with maybe China and Russia a hundred years hence and that's a big if. Those who dislike the United States and speak of its imminent decline seem to imagine such decline purely because they wish it very very much. Economic decline isn't magic. Wealth and success on the macro scale isn't based on karma and good will. Concepts like "Decadence" only become an issue if decadence is translated into governmental policy (such as massive entitlement programs for those who don't want to work as we've seen in France). Decline is based on very specific factors that are generally understood by economists. 

No one can predict with certainty where we'll be in 100 years hence or whether the United States or China or some other country will be the most powerful nation in the world. But I think we can reasonably project where they'll be -- for whatever it's worth.

The judges are in the process of voting on the best minimalistic visual style. We won't know the results until next week. This Friday the judges will begin looking at the best WindowBlinds power user skin. What skin works best at improving productivity for the user? There's some really outstanding power users skins in there. What are some of your favorites in that category?

The POW abuse case has really made the line between those who hate all things Americans and those who believe the United States is a force for good in the world.  I happen to be one of those people who falls into the latter category.  Some US soldiers abusing POWs is not a good thing. But it needs to be kept in the proper perspective. It's not systematic and it wasn't torture in the way that most people think of torture (it was more akin to pre-interrogation humiliation).  But regardless, compared to the behavior that goes on in the rest of the world, the US is clearly expected to behave at a higher standard.

And I agree -- the US should demand its people behave at a higher standard. But at the same time, the rabid anti-Americanism is not constructive. The US is the world's most powerful nation. But as world hegemon's go, the US is pretty benign. If the US were run by a ruthless dictatorship (which some left wing kooks claim we are anyway) the US's response could have been "Yea, so what? Whatcha gonna do about it?".  It's really hard to take the complaints about the US seriously when the ones doing the complaining couldn't get their act together to do something about Saddam who was far worse. It's not like France, Russia, and Germany are going to mobilize militarily over anything the US is doing. And the reason they don't isn't out of fear or weakness but because deep down they know the US is a benign power.

The United States is restrained by its own checks and balances. Let's not kid ourselves -- the POW mistreatment story wasn't broke by the BBC or Arab news organizations. It was broken by 60 Minutes, an American news show. And they found out about it largely because the issue was already under investigation by the US military. If the US were some global boogeyman, there'd be no 60 Minutes coverage. The mistreatment would never have been known about.

But let's say you're still wholly dissatisfied with the United States. Then let me ask this, what real world power would you prefer be in the US's position? China? Russia? France? Germany? Japan? UK?  In some cases, the world (or parts of it) already got a taste of what that would be like to have one of them in the dominant position.  The question isn't what some imaginary world power of perfection might do in a given situation, it is what would other real world powers do?

In short, perhaps rather than viewing everything the US does through the "USA is evil" glasses maybe cut it a little slack and recognize that, for all its faults, it is a force for good in the world. It's trying to do the right thing to protect itself and in turn protect others.