So Brad (Frogboy), I was reading your email update about your 25th year anniversary and thanks for making me feel really old! My last post here was about 10 years ago (15th year) and I have to say that things have gotten better. I've seen a lot of games, developers, and companies come and go over the years (as you have), but few have demonstrated both staying power and the ability to not stagnate.  Awesome job! I still enjoy playing the GalCiv  family today. 25 year anniversary ma...

  Disclaimer - I am not the original author of this article. Credits and original link are at the bottom.   I cannot be the only one who feels as if every new day brings a new assault on this nation and its people by this administration. Indeed, many people I know say they can't even watch the news anymore because it's so depressing. And it is.   Some of these assaults occur under the radar, and others are right out in the open. As an example of the former, la...

I AM AN AMERICAN - These rights and privileges are mine: I may think as I please. I may  speak or write as I please, so long as I do not interfere with the rights of others. I have the right to vote. By my vote I choose the public officers who are really my servants. I have the right  to choose my work, to seek any job for which my experience and ability have fitted me. I have the right  to try and improve my lot through various means. I have the right  t...

The Middle East is becoming more unstable by the hour. Two of the factors which have caused it to remain at a low to medium simmer over the last 40 years have been the strong backing of the United States for Israel, coupled with nominally pro-western (or at least heavily secularized) governments in Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Egypt. However the rapid weakening of our pro-Israel position by President Obama is causing the fanatical religious sects of Islam to gain increasing power in the formerly se...

Wow...I was just thinking about GalCiv (the original) game and realized that it has been 15 years since it was released on OS/2. Amazing. The AI was so groundbreaking that it made up for the block/tile graphics. I remember many many long nights playing games and my best friend and I waiting for the other person to finish up and get off the freaking computer. Nostalgia, nostalgia. My friend was one of the early beta testers for GalCiv II if I recall correctly, and I waited eagerly for it's releas...

I have read various portions of one of health care reform bills (HB3200) and found over the last few months that most people don't really want to have a discussion it. My experience has been that as soon as you start to address specific items in the bill or how they are worded and try to get people to talk about the potential ramifications and ultimate effect of these things, the conversation rapidly comes to an end. I would have to say that the majority of the people I have had conversat...

So we can find a gene responsible for hair loss , but with all the billions of dollars pouring into the world's research facilites we can't seem to isolate the gene(s) for prostate and breast cancer, Alzheimers, Parkinsons, and hundreds of other fatal diseases? And yes, I understand the entire concept of one discovery leads to another to a seemingly unrelated discovery, etc, etc, etc, but it still PISSES ME OFF . I have to wonder if the 4.7 Trillion dollars of debt the US just picked up ...

Arrgh. Having just dealt with yet another  PC which had a preloaded 90-day trial AV when they bought it - three years ago -, I had to vent. DELL, HP/COMPAQ, SONY, pretty much everybody who does this, I hate you. You both suck and blow. Like Megamaid. Go watch SpaceBalls. I doubt that 3 in 10 people actually go buy the AV package (assuming they understand that the need to in the first place) and the response is almost always the same: "Yeah, I have a virus program", (I bite my to...

I had a conversation the other day which lead me down a long train of thought I won't bore you with, but it ended here: Isn't it ironic that so many proponents of "human rights" are Darwinists? Ironic in the sense that under a strict Darwinism or Evolutionary Humanism, there can be no such thing as "human rights". Am I the only one to see irony in this?

I see in this whole debate a fundamentally flawed assumption that few seem to be willing to address. This assumption is (I believe) actually the core problem and there is a simple solution – which means that it will probably never get addressed. Granted the solution isn’t without its own flaws, but it is probably better than the morass of laws and lawsuits we are heading into right now. Flawed assumption: Marriage is a civil function. It isn’t. Marriage is a religiou...

As I look at the RC of Windows 7, I have to wonder (longingly) where - no how - did IBM screw up so badly? I'm not just talking about the loss of their OS/2 user base (which they screwed over), but all the smaller developers that invested so much into OS/2, which was the most stable PC OS platform (except for AmigaOS) for its time, with application segmentation that is still not even approached by Windows. And Win32s wasn't such a bad API. Really...it wasn't. Honest.   Not to mentio...

So explain this to me: Why is it SO hard for cable and satellite TV resellers to understand that WE DON'T HAVE TV AND DON'T WANT IT?  Sheesh. My wife and I went to a home and garden show looking at some plants this weekend, and one of the vendors there was Direct TV. As we were passing by one of the guys asked us if we had TV, so we responded, "Nope, we don't have TV." Talk about a deer in the headlights. I followed that up with "Well we used to have Direct TV, but got rid of it." (whic...

So explain this to me: Why is it SO hard for cable and satellite TV resellers to understand that WE DON'T HAVE TV AND DON'T WANT IT?  Sheesh. My wife and I went to a home and garden show looking at some plants this weekend, and one of the vendors there was Direct TV. As we were passing by one of the guys asked us if we had TV, so we responded, "Nope, we don't have TV." Talk about a deer in the headlights. I followed that up with "Well we used to have Direct TV, but got rid of it." (whic...

I heard a comment on the radio the other morning with which I take issue. The guest on a local morning talk show said that "America (United States) is moving more to the center." Leaving out the whole semantic issue of what "center" means, I have to disagree. I believe that what is taking place is exactly the opposite, and that America (US) is polarizing to opposites. Part of this is reactionary on both extremes (you espouse this view, so I'll espouse a view that is even more contrarian to yours...

Just a quick reminder with the increasing prevelance of all sorts of nifty devices, don't ever take your debit card on the road. Use a credit card. While some banks do provide a measure of protection against theft, if your debit card is skimmed and your account drained, you are likely going to be up a creek for a long while. Debit cards do NOT have the same types of consumer protections in place as do credit cards. Use a credit card, then pay it off when you get home.