Listen to this, it’s worth it

A good friend of mine sent me a link to this episode of “The Moth”: http://themoth.org/posts/stories/anonymous

It’s about a popular teacher who nearly saw his career ruined by hateful, anonymous rivals who took snippets from his blog to paint a horrible, completely inaccurate picture of him.  It illustrates the disproportionate power of cowardly, anonymous people have to inflict harm on others.

The power of malice

I can relate to this in a very personal way.  Not a week goes by where someone doesn’t take a snippet from something I’ve written and uses it to smear me in a very personal way.  I’ve been blogging since 2001 and posting on forums for much longer.  As you can imagine, I’ve got thousands of writings out there and if you are willing to sift through them and cherry pick you can probably put something together that sounds horrible. 

The power of narrative

The Internet makes us all into empty vessels that people pour their hopes and dreams or their bile and venom into.  I’ve been both kinds of vessels during my career and neither one remotely resembles reality.  Once a narrative gets started, it’s difficult to change its course. It is easy to become a passenger on the narrative that ultimately forms your reputation – for good or ill.

We already have over 30 minutes of music up for GalCiv III founders!

Go here: https://forums.galciv3.com/449660/

Aren’t a GalCiv III founder? Go here: https://www.galciv3.com/store

WindowBlinds 1.0 was released in November 1998! Since then, it’s gotten over 100 MILLION downloads!  Over on CNET’s Download.com version 8 has received over 18 million downloads. 

It was the first program to enable users to customize the look and feel of the Windows GUI.  15 years later it is still going strong. Let’s take a look at its evolution in pictures.

Version 1

Changed window frames, menu bars.

Yea, this was the config UI we had..cough..

Version 2

Adds per-window skinning, semi-transparent explorer windows, skin colorizing

Desktop light sourcing

WindowBlinds gets into retail!

WindowBlinds used to send data back to us on what skins people had. We took this out because users were unhappy about their “privacy” (anonymous data being sent). Seems quaint now.

WindowBlinds skins supported adding buttons and other objects into the frames (such as this stock ticker).

Remember AOL? Their client was a huge pain the skin correctly. Also, look at the BeOS skin.

MacOS’s “Aqua” look for its newly launched MacOS X helped make WindowBlinds incredibly popular for Windows users who suddenly recognized how ugly Windows NT/2000 were.

In fact, making Windows look like other, less ugly, OSes was a big deal.

Version 3

Designed with Windows XP in mind, 3.0 was the first version that could skin every part of the Windows GUI. The competition had stiffened as Microsoft had released uxtheme.dll that, once hacked, allowed people to create GUI skins freely. WindowBlinds thus had to provide significant value-add to justify $20.

The quality of the skins had to really go up to compete with the bland but free uxtheme skins.

Third-parties began licensing WindowBlinds for marketing purposes (Nvidia here)

(Nintendo)

(The Microsoft XBox team here – one wonders what the Windows team felt about this at the time)

Sometiems it was just a matter of making Windows XP look a bit nicer than Windows XP defaulted to.

Other times it was about reminding power users just how gimped the Windows XP “Luna” UI made Windows.

Version 4

Version 4 was the point where WindowBlinds “won” the contest versus uxtheme.dll in that it could not only do everything it could do and more but version 4 made use of DirectX draw acceleration to make WindowBlinds substantially faster (i.e. noticeably faster) than using Windows XP without it.

However, this popularity would come at a price – the quality of the average skin submitted became substantially lower. WindowBlinds skins acquired the reputation for being ugly, gaudy, fat.

WindowBlinds 4 added a lot of neat controls for controlling how coloring worked. 

Version 5

The era of Aero had arrived. Microsoft was finally taking the aesthetics of Windows seriously and created a new glassy looking UI called Aero.  WindowBlinds 5 was designed to support per-pixel alpha blending, toolbar button changing, progress animation improvements, animated per-pixel Start menus, title bars, etc.

Aero all the time

Our own take on Aero

However, the problem Stardock and its community faced was that a “complete” skin was a significant amount of labor. Thus, a lot of the most talented skinners began finding other things to spend their time on. It wasn’t “fun” anymore.

Version 6

WindowBlinds 6 added the ability to apply effects such as Gaussian blurs to skins in real-time. However, the biggest change came in the new configuration because it was becoming clear that the number of high quality new skins was dwindling (while the user base continued to increase). The new config allowed end users to heavily modify their skin library.

That dragon is fully animated and so is the title bar.

The new config allowed users to do all kinds of crazy things to their skins and then save them as a sub-style

The official World of Warcraft skin got a second life with WindowBlinds 6

The Elemental skin for WindowBlinds 6

Version 7

It is with some irony that WindowBlinds 7 was ready in time for Windows 7 (the versions being the same was coincidence).  WindowBlinds 7 introduced a new type of skinning format called UIS0 which allowed users to just modify the existing Aero skin.  This made WindowBlinds a lot more popular for people who liked Aero but wanted a bit nicer look and feel to it.

A new, simpler and just as powerful config window.

Stardock began contracting professionals to make skins to ensure that there were some good, new, benchmark skins available.

Mac inspired skins remained popular

So with UIS0, you could apply a texture and color to the existing Windows 7 Aero making it look, imo, much nicer.

Version 8

Version 8 was mostly about getting WindowBlinds to work on Windows 8. Microsoft essentially gimped the underlying window theming system they had – they killed Aero! No Aero, no UIS0.  They replaced it with the stripped down UI seen in Windows 8 and 8.1.

Once again, a new and improved configuration UI.

BEYOND 8

WindowBlinds 8 is still very new, what but the challenge going forward is coming up with new and interesting ways to skin the Windows GUI that make it attractive for new users!  Visit www.windowblinds.net to learn more about WindowBlinds!

Every few weeks someone writes an article comparing some amazing statistic from the Nordic countries in Europe and then compares that statistic to the United States in total.  It’s always some ridiculous apples and oranges comparison that results in a meaningless comparison.

So just as a reminder, the populations of these countries are:

• Sweden: 9.5 million
• Denmark: 5.6 million
• Finland: 5.4 million
• Norway: 5 million

In addition, demographically and culturally they are relatively homogenous.

By contrast, the United States has a population of 314 million. 

Next time you see someone playing the stats game with a Nordic vs. USA make it a bit more relevant.

Let’s use a US state that is similar to Nordic countries like say Massachusetts: Population 6.7 million.

Now, I picked Massachusetts originally because it has some similar basic demographics (population and culture).  Though, as you can see even here, while Massachusetts is relatively homogenous for a US state, it can’t touch Sweden.

None of this is meant to make one look better than the other. In fact, the chart above makes it clear that both have their own strengths.  The point is that when someone tries to compare a homogenous nation state with a population of that of a smallish US state with the entire United States, put on your skeptics hat on.

I haven’t done one of these in a while but holy cow so many cool things going on with so many things being announced so recently that I think we owe it to you guys to share what’s happening here.

So as some of you know, Stardock’s an “indie” in the sense that it’s still owned and run by its founder (me). So there is no question whatsoever who I am responsible to: My coworkers and you.  I don’t have stock holders to please and that lets us do lots of new and interesting stuff.  So let’s talk about it.

Oxide

2 weeks ago we announced Oxide Games (www.oxidegames.com). Oxide is an independent studio that is dedicated to making cool and interesting technology and games.  It has a bunch of things it’s already working on but the one that has gotten the most attention is the Nitrous 3D engine.  It is the first (as far as I know) engine to use SWARM (Simultaneous Work and Rendering Model) or anything similar. What SWARM means is that graphics are processed completely concurrently with your cores. The more cores you have, the faster it runs. The engine has no concept of a “main” thread or a “graphics” thread or what have you. 

SWARM

From a developer’s perspective, it has the ease of writing a “single threaded” game while the engine just splits everything up between the various CPU cores. SWARM matters because the much of the eventual improvement in visual fidelity in PC and the new-gen consoles will come down to making use of all those cores and the Nitrous engine makes full use of them.

MANTLE

Another piece of news that’s actually a pretty big deal for PC gamers (and those who own any consoles that happen to be powered by AMD – like Xbox One and PS4) is Mantle. This is AMD’s competitor to DirectX. There’s no sugar coating it. Mantle is as much an alternative to DirectX as OpenGL is.  And I can tell you, it’s pretty amazing and Oxide is supporting it (see AMD’s press release).

CRAZY GRAPHICS

What all this will mean for games is that you will be able to have games with the visual fidelity of movies.  Let me be specific: Remember the beginning of Revenge of the Sith with that massive space battle? We can do that now. Same level of visual quality at >30fps.  Or remember the battles in Lord of the Rings? Same thing. The hardware and with Nitrous, the software has reached the point where those CGI scenes can be done in real-time.  There are games in development right now that will deliver this.

RAMIFICATIONS

One interesting side effect will be - where will gaming go after this? If the hardware and software has reached a point where we’ll start having real-time, photo-realistic scenes with thousands of things at once and uncanny valley is due only to talent limitations, what happens next? 

Stardock Plymouth

With the recently launched Mobile unit (HEY! Go get Deadman’s Draw, it’s awesome!) and with the long-stated goal of having 2 game development teams internally running at the same time, we’re building out our lower floor.  Here are some pictures:

This is the café we’re putting in where people will be able to eat launch, play video games, hang out. 

We have an in-house nutritionist that does cooking demos and so the lower floor will have a much expanded kitchen/bar area where she can teach different recipes.

Before anyone asks, we have a nutritionist because let’s face it, many people in our industry (cough…cough) eat crap.  Now that I’m in my 40s, I really regret the things I ate and I wish I knew then what I know now.  So this is one of those things we can do to help those who are interested eat healthy good food.

The kitchen on the main floor is being converted to a fitness room.  Our in-house trainer works with those interested in physically training (mostly flexibility and weight related training).  I did this because, again, now that I’m in my 40s and I can barely touch my knees due to 2 decades of sitting at a computer, I wish someone had told me or..ahem motivated me (i.e. a trainer) to take just a little time each week to stay in better shape.  It’s voluntary of course but the response has been really positive.

This is the work area downstairs where Galactic Civilizations III’s team will be moving down into. That way the So—nevermind, the OTHER team will be have most of the top floor.

Old man Paxton (Stardock’s new VP, Kael) has been pushing to expand the QA team further which means, of course, more room.  I have tried (but failed) to explain that it’s the compiler’s job to do QA. If it compiles, that means it works.  For some reason, he disagrees.

Mohawk Games

Like Oxide, Mohawk is an independent studio.  Like Oxide, Stardock’s roll is to provide seed capital and the business management aspects (the stuff that tends to bog down start-ups). 

When I have more time, I plan to discuss in some detail the way the Stardock Investment Fund (SIF) functions. It doesn’t just throw money at studios. SIF also provides employee services (health insurance, 401Ks, accounting, legal, and bunches of other “stuff”) and then incorporates the studios into a wider development network that allows each group to share resources.

Those of you who are familiar with the game industry know how volatile employment at these places can be.  The SIF is designed so that someone can have a career at these studios without worrying about being laid off randomly because a project ended. Instead, the studios just contract resources between each other.

Mohawk is working on an economic conquest game code-named Mars (and I can’t think of anything to usefully compare it to except MULE but this is not like MULE other than being in the same genre).

More to Come

There are a few more endeavors that are starting to get close to being announced.  We’ll be talking about those in the coming weeks/months.

I'm writing this with the new.kindle fire hdx. 

I've seen reviews praising it. It is very light. It's even lighter than the iPad Air. But I'm not liking it.

First, the keyboard hi is terrible. As I type this, there is an additional row of commands right under the keyboard (which you can hide but they shouldn't be there in the first.place, it's.just bad UI.

The auto correct.is.even.more.obnoxious than ios. For.example.if I type ios it wants to,change it to it's. It wants.to change hdx to hex. And only the manual selection of the word.I typed from its suggestions will fix it.  

The keyboard layout is similarly bad. The spacebar is skinny with the period button right next.to the spacebar. The delete key is also down next.to the spacebar. Needless to say, typing is.not.fun.

The screen itself is pretty but like all android based tablets there.is, for.me, a noticeable delay between when I touch the screen and it reacting. It is probably.around u nd a 100's delay but it's.noticeable.

Where it is nice is, of course, as a kindle. I am firmly entrenched in Amazon's ecosystem. So it.does work well for reading. I prefer my Kindle Paperwhite for most reading but anything with illustrations works.better here.

Bottom line, as a tablet, very mediocre. As a Amazon ecosystem consumption device, quite.nice.

Windows 8 comes with the new Start screen which is, especially if you have a tablet, a good way for people to organize their apps.  What it doesn’t come with, which is a bit surprising, is a quick launch bar (like iOS and Android have).  Launch8 addresses it.

If you have Windows8, definitely give it a try.

-> www.stardock.com/products/launch8

Civilization IV designer, Soren Johnson has launched a new studio called Mohawk Games.

• Press Release
• Website

It’s been founded by Soren Johnson, Dorian Newcomb and myself.  Soren, as CEO comes up with what games we’re going to make and is also the creative director for the company.  Dorian, the art director of Civilization V is in charge of how the games will look and feel.  And me? As President, my job is to make sure Soren and Dorian have the necessary resources necessary to get the job done.

The first project is code-named Mars which will be using Oxide’s recently announced Nitrous 3D engine. We won’t have anything we can publicly show for awhile but I think strategy gamers are going to be very pleased with it.

As an industry, we’re entering an exciting new age. With retail finally officially dead (as far as PC games are concerned) and with 64-bit, multi-core game development finally having arrived, we are finally free to create some amazing, innovative strategy games that are also commercially viable.

During the retail age, people bought their games at the store and if the game wasn’t at the store, it wasn’t commercially viable.  As a result, game developers were either “indies” making very small games or they were huge (>$20 million), AAA titles that were increasingly “safe bets” in order to get onto store shelves. 

Now that PC gamers are comfortable going to Steam, you can create exciting and new types of games. These games can take a bit of a risk because there’s infinite shelf space for well crafted games.  And with a reasonable budget (still millions but nothing like $20 million) combined with 64-bit (for handling gorgeous scenes that were getting very hard to do in a 32-bit strategy game since they have to hold all the world in memory at once) we can have games that are both innovative and visually stunning.

That’s Mohawk’s mission. To create awesome core strategy games for this new age of gaming.  We’re in for some exciting times!

I have finished extracting he honey!  First 3 people to respond here will get some! (must be in USA, can't ship honey overseas).

I'm typing this on my iPad Air.  So far, big thumbs up.

i had an iPad 3 which is what I used most morning s and evenings to post and respond here.  The air has two major improvements over the 3.  First, it's noticeably lighter which makes holding it much easier.  Second, they shrunk the sides of it which makes it easier to reach the keyboard.  I'm able to yep probably around 50 word per minute on the Air versus maybe 30 on the iPad 3.

if you have an older iPad, I recommend it. I actually chose this over the iPad mini retina and am pleased with that choice.