What the hell is Brizzard thinking? My friend Sean just sent me this link over at Starcraft-Fans.com that discusses Blizzard Entertainment's justification of their decision to eliminate LAN support from Starcraft 2 entirely.

Boneheads!!!

Although it won't affect Blizzard's decision in the least, I had to show my support for SC2 LAN play by signing the petition that Starcraft-Fans.com has set up. Here is what I wrote in my petition entry:

This is a poor decision that will alienate more players than it prevents from pirating the game. Has no company learned from examples like Stardock? If you make a quality, fun and well-supported product, people will pay for it even if it completely lacks copy protection. Eliminating what many diehard fans consider a 'core function' of the game will only anger the people that made the first game (and the series) as popular as it is and cause many more to pirate the game that would otherwise have not in the first place. Just hurts to see that money is more important than being loyal to the fanbase...

Link: http://www.paris-air-show.com

This year's Paris Airshow at Le Bourget seems to be pretty interesting so far, mainly because of two big pieces of news.

The first is that the European 'budget' carrier Wizz Air has made an agreement to purchase 50 more A-320s from Airbus, which is a major deal that will mean around $3 billion in sales for the company at a time when it is needed most (read below).

The other significant piece of news was the notable lack of both the Boeing 787 Dreamliner and the Airbus Military A400M. As many know, both aircraft are centerpiece projects for their respective companies that are both experiencing severe cost overruns and technical delays. The A400M program in particular found itself in jeopardy when it was announced that the payload capacity was found to be below what was initially specified, which instantly caused the German government to question the viability of the program and it's participation in it.

The A400M problems come close on the heels of Airbus' issues with A380 development, which eventually led to orders being retracted for all A-380F cargo models that were to be produced. Not a good trend for the European aerospace giant!

Link: http://www.orlandoweekly.com/boo2009/poll.asp

Don't miss your chance to vote on your picks for Orlando Weekly's 'Best of Orlando 2009!' Voting only runs till midnight on the 18th, so hurry hurry HURRY!

Click on the image for a full-res version

I've been struggling a lot with my redesign of the ajtone.com website redesign. Initially, I was thinking of a very minimalistic website that would sink into the white background of the browser, using a very conventional page structure. The more I worked on this the more I realized just how disgusted I was with the thing as it just seemed to be a shoddy and bland version of too many other sites on the web.

But the other day while driving with Cate I had an idea flash into my head for something a little more unique, and so luckily I had a pen and an old envelope handy with which to secure my vision onto paper. (lest it be forgotten!) Today, finally, I had a chance to complete the above Photoshop mockup of my idea and Amanda at AJTone has seen it and is very enthusiastic about my 'version 2' interpretation of the site.

Although this new design would be an ideal candidate to take advantage of Flash, I am going to code it up as straight XHTML/CSS to save time and achieve the required animation affects with the use of some neat Javascript code I've been eyeballing like JonDesign's SmoothGallery. The flourishes are basically placeholders, as these came from tutorials I had on hand to quickly knock out the mockup. So while those will change, the general look will be quite the same.

What do you think?

After watching Dr Phil for a little bit last night with Cate, I quickly reached a point of disgust that actually made me feel like I had to just drop it and walk away.

Last night's much-hyped episode featured the so-called octo mom Nadya Suleman. Suleman discussed her much-publicised situation and took a few questions from the audience which is all fine and good. Dr Phil even went as far as to several times state that he thought what she did was irresponsible, selfish, etc, but now is now and we need to help her for the kids.

Whatever.

What really made me upset is the fact that there seems to be no effort underway to punish this woman and her fertility doctor for the reckless decisions they made. Even worse, while the general public attitude towards this woman borders on disgust, there seems to be an absolute lack of public demand for federal legislation that would at the very least highly discouragethis type of action. What the hell happened to personal, professional and social responsibility in this country? Why don't we care that these people (Nadya and her doctor) were at the very least morally and socially in the wrong and nothing is being done about it?

Carol Gilbert recently wrote an article regarding the Georgia legislature's bizzare response to the Suleman case, Georgia Senate Bill 169. While the legislation appears to be garbage that draws incorrect conclusions from the situation and appears more as political opportunism by right-to-life advocates than truly necessary legislation, Gilbert's following excerpt really hits home with me:

Octo-Mom Nadya Suleman's controversial decision to have 6 embryos implanted at one time through in vitro fertilization, a decision which led to the birth of the first surviving set of octuplets, sparked nationwide outrage. The press depicted Nadya Suleman, aka the Octo-Mom, as irresponsible. She was not a childless woman longing for a baby or even a parent of one or two children hoping to create a typical size family. Nadya Suleman has been widely reviled because she had 6 children ages 7 and under yet chose to have 6 embryos implanted at once- at a time when she was unmarried, unemployed, dependent on her parents and public assistance for support, and already overwhelmed by the responsibilities of caring for 6 young children.

Most of us already knew this, but let it sink in again- We, the voting public, allowed this woman and all that follow to do this. I'm not talking about restricting a woman's natural right to have children, so don't even look in that direction. What I'm talking about is that someone who is a single parent living at taxpayer expense who already has 6 children under 7 years old (!) was permitted by law without repercussion to have a whopping 6 embryos implanted in her that resulted in her 8 new children.

If you think this is ok, then I feel sorry for you because by accepting this you also reject the general concept of social responsibility, ignore the core issue of overpopulation, and totally dismiss the additional strain this places on already-broken, publicly-funded, social services.

Which brings me to the real question, did we ever really care about these things in the first place, or are we just going to keep chugging along like idiots into oblivion while things crumble down around us?

Please follow my lead and contact your state senators and district representatives and let them know just how disgusted you are with this situation. Below is the form email I sent to Bill Nelson, Mel Martinez and Suzanne Kosmas:

[name of senator/representative],

I am writing to you today to express my dissatisfaction with a lack of federal legislation that could have prevented Nadya Suleman's doctor, Michael Kamrava, from implanting 6 embryos at once in a woman whom at the time was unmarried, unemployed, dependent on her parents and public assistance for support, and already overwhelmed by the responsibilities of caring for 6 young children.

Please bring this subject to light amongst your colleagues and work toward introducing actionable legislation that will discourage and/or punish this kind of action by irresponsible doctors and parents and serve to reduce the resulting burden on taxpayers.

Thank you for your time!

Jonathan Walters

What say you?

Link: http://vimeo.com/3365942

I've always been intrigued by the posibilities offered by virtual reality and virtual world simulations such as Second Life, and to a lesser extent, games like The Sims. I think for me the holodeck on the Enterprise 'D' was one of the most fascinating depictions of the common use of VR technology (albeit a few hundred years in the future, even in a fictional universe). While persistent online multiplayer games like World of Warcraft or A Tale in the Desert offer an alternate means to interact with people socially, they are still just games that are structured exercises for the user.

Of all the VR games/sims that have ever existed, only Second Life really seems to even touch on the grand possibilities offered by this technology, and elements of that promising simulation can be seen in the fantastic and very moving video below by Bruce Branit:

World Builder from Bruce Branit on Vimeo.

Link: http://www.totalwar.com/empire/

Words cannot properly convey just how stupid-excited I am right now... Why, you ask?

EMPIRE: TOTAL WAR will be released in little more than 8 HOURS! That's right, because if you happened to pre-order or plan on buying it online via Steam tonight, the game unlocks at midnight to coincide with tomorrow's retail launch!

For those PC gamers out there that don't have a pulse, E:TW is the latest installment in the famed Total War strategy series. This game focuses on the epic Napoleonic era, and many (including myself) are psyched because this installment introduces a full naval combat engine!!

Below is an excerpt talking about on of the first real reviews of the game:

IGN praised it as a "masterful combination of all the things that I love about strategy games—a great setting, a first-rate presentation, tactics that reward maneuver, and a strategic layer that requires flexibility in your plans." The reviewer said that Empire's 18th Century setting was "a perfect setting for the game design, and the new naval battles, while a tad clunky, finally deliver the series' one missing component." The reviewer did however note that "the end game still drags a bit and there are some small, rough edges in the tactical battles, particularly at sea." His final comment was "Simply put, if you're a fan of strategy games, this is one game you must have in your collection."[33] IGN UK also gave the game 9.5, saying that the game "deserves to be mentioned in the same breath as the greatest names in gaming history."

Methinks tomorrow will be a sick day from work... ;-)

Link: http://www.ajtone.com

Here is a mockup for my latest project, a complete redesign of AJTone.com:

To view at full size, click here.

Photography by Mandi Jane, new logo, layout, etc. by me.

Comments?