The Standards Albatross
Much fuss is made about the concept of standards compliance. Put simply a browser is standards compliant if it adheres to certain Web standards as determined by an organization called the W3C. The array of acronyms is impressive. HTML. XML. XHTML. DOM. CSS. XFORMS. SVG. SMIL. XSLT. XSL-FO, XPATH, XSD. The list goes on and on. Standard after bewildering standard, the vocabulary of the Web, a common language that can be used by all Web browsers, so that no one company controls the destiny of the Web.
Or so the theory goes. However with each passing year, the number of standards grows. Several of the technologies outlined above have "levels" and "versions", and the W3C produces new drafts, recommendations, and specs with regularity. Given how many individual technologies are vying for attention, it's no wonder that something new is happening with one of the technologies cited above nearly every month.
Look at the list. To implement the staggering array of technologies being actively developed by the W3C is an impossibility. It's insane to try. Moreover, any real-world browser has to implement obsolete levels of some technologies. For example, a compliant browser would have to implement HTML4 in order to be useful, so implementing the latest and greatest XHTML version adds redundancy and bloat in the real world. You run into similar problems with a spec like XForms, which invents a whole new vocabulary to describe what ultimately end up being the same widgets as far as a desktop browser is concerned. CSS adds new selectors with each revision. XPath adds new functionality with each revision. The latest and greatest versions of specs like XForms place dependencies on implementers, requiring them to implement a staggering array of foundation technologies before they can even begin to tackle the specification itself. XSLT and XForms need XPath. XForms needs client-side schema validation.
Standards have spun out of control. Years after specs have been introduced and finalized, browser implementers that actively care about trying to implement these standards are still struggling with the edge cases and the insane interactions that get created when all of these disparate technologies collide in a page. Any browser that implements all of these standards can't stay small, and has a hell of a time staying fast. It has to wrestle with code footprint and with the difficulty of retroactively rearchitecting when the emergence of a new standard suddenly calls into question a layout engine's entire structure.
The pain also extends to authoring tools, which struggle to display everything that the latest and greatest Web browser can display. They have the unenviable task of finding ways of expressing these standards in a user interface that can be understood by the average Web page designer. As the options grow, however, so does the complexity. Editors also have to deal with server side options and authoring (ASP, PHP, ColdFusion, etc.), which have grown to rival client-side technologies in their scope and breadth.
I can't help but wonder if all of these W3C standards will simply fade into irrelevancy as bandwidth considerations ease. Will new technologies like Curl or Flash become sought after as alternatives to the hopelessly complex language of the Web? Time will tell.
Princess Leia is a Terrorist!
Now this is an amusing read. At first glance it's funny, but then when you really think about some of the points, the implications become disturbing. David Brin has an interesting article that seriously probes into the Star Wars universe. Brin does make one serious factual error, however, since he seems to believe that Darth Vader was responsible for blowing up Alderaan when Grand Moff Tarkin actually destroyed the planet. Ok, yes, I am a geek.
Reading Material
Since I've been on sabbatical, I've been reading a lot more. Lately I've been on a Peter Hamilton kick. Hamilton writes immensely entertaining space opera stories. In terms of scope and scale, his books are every bit as epic as David Brin's Uplift War series. I had already devoured Hamilton's Night's Dawn trilogy a while back. I had the good fortune of overlooking the blurb on the back cover of the first book, The Reality Dysfunction, and so I had no idea what the book was about. Once the shit hit the proverbial fan midway through the first book, I couldn't put the book down. I just didn't see it coming. :) The entire series is like that. Anyway, Hamilton has a new book out called Fallen Dragon, and it's IMO even better than the Night's Dawn books. After plowing through that book in about 24 hours, I went and ordered the author's Greg Mandel series. They're pretty enjoyable too, although not quite as addictive as the other books I mentioned.
Another author that I recently discovered is Lyda Morehouse. Specifically I read Archangel Protocol. Cyberpunk meets The Prophecy. ;) It was a really fun read. I just got the second book, Fallen Host, today from Amazon and can't wait to curl up with it.
I also just finished Robert Sawyer's new book, Hominids. The first book I read by this talented author was Calculating God, and I went on to read practically all of his previous novels. I found Hominids to be extremely disappointing, but I also recognize that it is the first book of a trilogy, so I'm going to withhold judgment until I've read the other two books. The book just felt like a flimsy pretext for Sawyer to express his idea of what his utopian society would look like. It's not that I necessarily disagree with his vision of utopia. :) I just didn't find the idea that Neanderthals would naturally settle into this sort of society very believable. In particular, the idea that Neanderthals would never have developed any sort of religion throughout their history, I just couldn't swallow.
Look at me! I took the SAT!
I'm fairly certain that Blake's recent blog entry is nothing more than a flimsy excuse to flaunt his knowledge of the word animadversions.
Cooking Lessons
Blake has an interesting recipe for crafting a successful browser.
Recipe for success:
1. Find a platform with a selection of awful web browsers.
2. Create a slightly less than awful web browser.
3. Notify the press.
4. Release.
Please e-mail the chef if you have any questions.
Hah, you're funny. Ok, because you started it, I have a better recipe for you. It goes something like this:
1. Don't pick a platform. It's too hard to choose, so just target them all.
2. Create a browser with 80,000 clickable areas in its chrome, because you can never have too many choices.
3. Add 3 cups of useless icons and features.
4. Release.
Please email the chef if you have any questions.
Chimera News
The meme that wouldn't die. Now OSOpinion is writing about Chimera. Also, Stuart had some things to say about Chimera in his blog. I thought I'd respond here to some of his concerns.
I recently tried out versions 0.2.7 and 0.2.8. The startup time, while faster than Mozilla, is about 4 seconds slower than Internet Explorer.
In my measurements Chimera was slower than IE on a cold start, but it was faster on a warm start. The difference was fairly negligible for me. IE scored 10/7 to Chimera's 14/5.
I was unable to download files using Chimera. This alone stopped me from being able to use the browser.
Yes, this is a major missing feature. I'm surprised no one at Netscape has stepped up to the plate to code this, since it's also a problem with Mach-O builds. You can at least download files by Option+Clicking or by using the context menu though. The part that doesn't work is the automatic downloading via clicking (since the helper app detection code isn't wired in yet).
When using the "smooth text" option, which is on by default, the browser renders pages much slower. I don't understand why this is on by default.
How else will we shake out all the bugs? It isn't going to get faster if we just leave it off and don't make people use it. We all know that it should be the default, so in order to get there, we need to flip it on and put it through its paces.
While sitting idle, in the background, Chimera would go from using 0% CPU to nearly 100% causing my system to slow down greatly.
Yeah, this is a pretty easy problem to solve. You just have to be willing to fork off into some Obj-C at a low level in Gecko. Right now Chimera has to poll, since we don't have any Obj-C code to use run loop callbacks for on-demand processing. That polling obviously sucks, since it means Chimera is a bad citizen and is constantly running a little bit of code to see if any Gecko events have arrived.
No "Home" button on the toolbar.
I was unable to locate a place to set my home page.
The Home button can be brought in by customizing your toolbar. I do not personally believe the Home button is needed by default. Here we may just have to agree to disagree. As for setting the home page, in the latest Chimera you can launch the System Prefs from Chimera's prefs and change your home page settings. This is actually system-wide and part of the OS.
Remember, if everything worked, this would be at 0.9.8, not 0.2.8. The version numbers don't lie. I think people are more excited by the potential of Chimera than by the reality of Chimera. It is the only OS X browser out there that doesn't have a major flaw right off the bat. Mostly it is just missing GUI features, and those are easy to crank out. Hence the rapid progress.
I see.
From my sister's Web pages:
One important question in tectonics is, based on the available information we have, how long should we expect the topography of mountain belts to persist? In order to answer this question, I worked with both 1D and 2D finite difference algorithms to look at the decay timescale of bedrock channels, first looking simply at detachment-limited bedrock erosion, and then incorporating other factors such as flexural rebound and alluvial cover in the channel bed.
Accessible from my brother's blog:
GrailEXP is a software package that predicts exons, genes, promoters, polyas, CpG islands, EST similarities, and repetitive elements within DNA sequence.
Ok, so in the entire history of my blog, I've never used words like "polyas" (which sounds like a multi-sided hind end) or "flexural" (which just sounds even worse when used in conjunction with "polyas"). I am so clearly in the wrong field.
Whee!
Hixie claims that I just craft blog entries in order to be quoted. Hah, clearly you've found me out. My goal is to make otherwise reputable news sites sully their good names by linking to my chaotic ramblings. The latest to join in the fun is MacGuardians. I was amused at this comment:
Und jetzt ist David Hyatt, die treibende Kraft hinter Chimera, nicht aufzutreiben (so abwesend kann der allerdings nicht sein, sonst hätte er keinen Blog-Eintrag über den TheReg-Artikel schreiben können!).
Basically they mention that I'm on sabbatical, but then go on to note snidely that I'm obviously locatable, since I blogged about the Register article. Well, look, guys, now I'm blogging about you! :)
Eep.
Sometimes I forget that people are actually reading this thing and developing grand conspiracy theories. I especially like the part where I'm referred to as a "long-time Mac nut." Until about 3 months ago, my Mac desktop was a glorified paperweight, Cocoa was something you drank, and Objective-C... well, I would have just blinked and responded with "Objective what?"
Just to set the record straight on this conspiracy theory... all Netscape employees who were hired before AOL took the company over are eligible for a six-week sabbatical after four years of employment. You also have to take the sabbatical within one year of becoming eligible for it, or you have to go through the hassle of filing for an extension. As of July 5, I'll have been working for Netscape/AOLTW for 5 years, so I had to take the sabbatical now. It also seemed like a good time to do so since Mozilla 1.0 is wrapping up (and in very good shape). This sabbatical has absolutely nothing to do with Chimera.
A Perfectly Valid Question
My brother Doug had this to say in a recent blog:
Oh, there's also this 9-year-old wunderkind who uses phrases like "under-the-desk, lanky T6 engineer" and demonstrates Zen-like wisdom beyond his years... Yes, well, errmm, what's a T6 engineer?
Back in the old days (before the dark times, before the Empire) Netscape had a ranking system for engineers. The ratings ranged from 1 to 7, with 1 being the lowest and 7 being the highest. You could basically only become a T7 by leaving this plane of existence in a grand rite of ascension. People would refer to a person's current position as his "T rating." Usually you'd see someone use it in a sentence like so. "I can't believe Slappy McDougal is a T5! That guy writes some of the worst god-damn code I've ever seen!"
Anyway, T6 meant Principal Engineer, which was really just a nice way of saying, "Congratulations. You've just been promoted into irrelevancy. Now stop checking in and breaking the tree. Go attend meetings instead." AOL actually uses an even more pretentious term, Chief Architect, which again, is just a polite way of saying, "For the love of God, man, go work on the Mac or something."
Link this!
Hixie wrote:
Hyatt also needs to tune his Web logging skills: he desperately needs to learn about linking at all. He has entire entries, totally devoid of any links at all! One of the corner stones of Web logging is the proliferation of linking, as a method of skewing Google's PageRank™ system.
Hey, Hixie, here's a link for you.
The Delta Effect
One of the reasons I linger so much on the extra problems present in Netscape 7 and not present in Mozilla is the trap I mentioned in my earlier blog. The problem can be summarized rather simply. People tend to think of Netscape as providing only the delta between a release of Netscape and a release of Mozilla. Mozilla is chock full of cool features, an awesome layout engine, and (on Windows and Linux at least) is now doing quite well in terms of performance and footprint. It's clearly a browser worth using.
Netscape 7 also has all of these cool features, the same awesome layout engine, and is comparable to Mozilla in performance and footprint. It does take away a feature or two, like popup blocking, but it also adds a useful feature or two, like spellchecking. The problem is that Netscape 7 is also loaded with useless marketing junk, and this is where the trouble starts. People have this perception that a wonderful open source community built Mozilla, and that all the Netscape engineers do is sit around implementing the delta and throwing it into the Netscape tree.
This delta effect causes people to bash Netscape and to view Netscape contributors to Mozilla with negativity or distrust. It damages engineers' reputations with the Mozilla community and it leads to a tension between contributors that work for AOL and contributors that don't. Netscape engineers' motives are frequently questioned, and they are accused of doing something because "AOL wants it" when frequently they're acting only in the best interests of Mozilla. The recent image bug fiasco that Chris Waterson had to deal with is a good example of this problem.
So hopefully you can see why I react so emotionally to the negative content present only in Netscape 7. It casts a pall over all Netscape engineers, who generally want what's best for Mozilla and want to make an awesome Web browser. It's frustrating that people forget so easily that Netscape engineers are responsible for a vast majority of the Mozilla code, that Netscape has hired over 20 people out of the Mozilla community, enabling them to work on their passion full-time, and that some of the best features in the Mozilla 1.0 product were made possible because of the hard work of people at Netscape. It's a shame that this can be so easily forgotten because of the small amount of poisonous code that is injected into the Netscape release.
Overreaction
mpt, you're overreacting. People at AOL appreciate honest feedback. It's not like we work for some totalitarian regime. If you read my blog, you'll see that most of my issues with Netscape 7 PR1 stem from pain during installation (and dealing with all of the new buttons that have to be hidden). Obviously, if you take the time to clean up the UI clutter by hiding buttons and tweaking prefs, you can get Netscape 7 to look identical to Mozilla 1.0. I suspect that Netscape 7 will end up being a decent product in the end. Although it doesn't compare favorably with Mozilla 1.0 in terms of first impressions, you can at least get rid of the extra icons, shortcuts and toolbar buttons with a little bit of effort.
It's a Preview Release!
Blake says the following in his latest blog:
I certainly wouldn't want to work at any company that forbids speaking the truth on your weblog (although, admittedly, I think advocating not using 7.0 was going overboard).
I did no such thing. I said that PR1 should be avoided. I have hopes that the final version of 7.0 will fix some of the worst problems with the release, e.g., cache corruption, chrome corruption, forcing the installation of Instant Messenger, and slamming the desktop and task bar with too many icons. I blogged on the preview release's problems in the hopes that some of them will be fixed in the final version.
AOL's Bad Rap
It occurred to me that with my recent Netscape 7 blog, I fell into the same trap that many reviewers have also fallen into. Netscape 7 is so full of annoying marketing-driven nonsense that it's easy to forget that at its core it really is the same browser as Mozilla 1.0. The single biggest contributor to Mozilla 1.0, and without a doubt the driving force without which Mozilla would not have been possible, is AOL. It took immense courage to fund an open-source project of this magnitude for so long, and when AOL took over Netscape, they largely left the project alone. They allowed it to grow into a full-fledged community of contributors and as an open-source project, despite the delays, Mozilla has been immensely successful.
The reality is that AOL pays a large number of engineers to work on Mozilla, and in order to keep those engineers employed, they have to find a way to make money off of Netscape 7. Unfortunately those people responsible for trying to figure out how to make money off a Web browser just don't seem to have any good ideas, and they seem completely unable to distinguish between good ideas and terrible ideas. They're also willing to employ desperate tactics like trying to reset the home page in order to gain revenue from pilot error.
mpt corrected me earlier when I stated that OS makers had an advantage that no one else has when building a browser. Open source communities also have that advantage. The reality, however, is that Mozilla wouldn't exist if not for Netscape, and it wouldn't be approaching its 1.0 milestone if not for the hard work and dedication of many people currently employed by AOL.
Perhaps Netscape 7 is a small price to pay if it also brings with it Mozilla 1.0. While it's easy to take potshots at AOL, it's important to remember that there are many people working for Netscape that have labored very hard to build the best Web browser out there. AOL made that possible.
Reiteration
Remember, this is the true face of Blake.
Cycle of Gaming
Blake called it The Hyatt Cycle of Gaming, but Doug rightfully points out that Blake's analysis doesn't really apply to him at all. It's really a Dave trait to obsess briefly over something and then move on to something else. This personality trait of mine applies to just about everything I do, from programming to games to books, etc. There's always a shiny new bauble just around the corner, waiting to distract me from my current pursuit. I suspect that my friend Andrew Wooldridge is the same way. Just look at all the neat things he keeps discovering on the Web! I'm pleased to state that I am still obsessing over Morrowind. I am playing the game and still working on my mod. This may be a new record. ;)
Netscape 7 PR1
Despite my negative comments about the CNet review of Netscape 7, I should say that I actually think the browser compares rather unfavorably with Mozilla 1.0. Let me walk you through my hour of pain. I downloaded and installed Netscape 7. Netscape 7 forces you to upgrade any components that you installed with Netscape 6. Unfortunately in Netscape 7, the instant messenger client is now required in order to install mail. Because I installed mail with Netscape 6, I now had to install both mail and IM when upgrading to Netscape 7. I didn't need the Netscape IM client. I didn't want it. I had to take it anyway.
Then the installation tried to reset my home page back to netscape.com. What a pathetic marketing ploy. This sleaze is worthy of RealPlayer. Speaking of RealPlayer, it was installed despite my not wanting or needing a new version of this software. Upon completion of the installation, nine (YES, NINE!) icons were added to my desktop, including offers for Free AOL!, RealPlayer links (redundant), links to Netscape IM, Netscape Mail, and Netscape 7.0. The executable name was changed so that my old shortcuts became invalid, so I had to hand correct those and then pare out the redundant shortcuts.
Upon launch I ended up with the Clodern skin. I was just thankful that I didn't see the activation dialog. Did I just get lucky? After switching skins, I managed to correct that problem, and then I discovered that my cache was completely corrupted since images and plugins wouldn't load. Emptying my cache fixed that problem.
I then launched Internet Explorer only to find that icons had been added to my Links Toolbar and Bookmarks (from AOL and RealPlayer, thank you very much). I had to strip those out of IE, and then I rebooted my machine. Upon reboot, I was surprised to discover that Netscape 7 launched. It launched in order to pop up an IM login window. I didn't even want Instant Messenger in the first place, but there it was getting unavoidably in my face!
Popup blocking was also turned off in Netscape 7. I guess Netscape is scared that 10% of its users (all 100 of them) will turn popups off and cause them to lose 3 cents per year.
At the moment, this preview release is an embarrassment. Stick with Mozilla, and stay away from this marketing vehicle. Show AOL and Netscape that you won't put up with these kinds of business tactics. Download Mozilla.
Get a clue, Rex Baldazo
Rex Baldazo claims in his woefully inaccurate review of Netscape 7 that Mozilla copied tabbed browsing from Opera. Pick up the clue phone, Rex. You know, the thing with all the buttons that sits on your desk and makes that irritating noise? Mozilla had tabs before Opera had tabs. Opera's MDI interface is not the same thing as tabbed browsing. Opera only added tabs in its newest version after Mozilla had them already in its trunk builds. Also, neither browser can take any kind of credit for inventing tabbed browsing. NetCaptor had tabs when Opera was still limited to vanilla MDI, and Mozilla had nothing at all.
I think Netscape 7 has plenty of problems, Mr. Rex, but your review is still completely lame. Slam it for the right things, not for ridiculous minutia that you're wrong about anyway. This is the kind of sloppy 30-minute review I've come to expect from CNet. Why people even bother to visit that Web site for product advice is beyond me.
Oh, come on
The West Wing season finale was a huge disappointment. I was infuriated by Simon Donovan's poorly scripted demise. Here we have a Secret Service agent, decorated and experienced, gunned down during the holdup of a convenience store. First of all, he was in New York protecting C.J. from a stalker. He would have been wearing a bulletproof vest. Even though the stalker was caught that evening, it's not like Simon had any chance to go somewhere and change. He was even still carrying his gun. He would also have been wearing the vest.
I didn't see if Sorkin wrote this or not. If so, Aaron, consider yourself smacked. You're better than this. Also, everyone knows you don't actually try to foil robberies. You put people at risk by interfering. It's better to just let them get out of the store with the money, so you don't endanger the lives of innocents in the store or the clerk behind the counter. Even if you forgive that lapse of judgment, Simon then just assumes there's only one shooter? Why? After subduing the first shooter, he cockily walks forward, even though the clerk clearly is still terrified and still has his hands up.
What a sorry excuse for an episode. Please, for the love of God, just bring back Sports Night.
The Buffy Finale
The season finale of Buffy was awesome. You're left with a feeling that happier times are ahead, and that all of the horrible trials these people have been put through for the last year are at last behind them. Next season should bring happier times. I was frustrated with the ambiguity of Spike's transformation though. My theory was that he'd become completely human, but it's hard to tell from the ending if that happened or not. Either he's now like Angel, a vampire with a soul, or he's been fully transformed back to his original state (William). I guess I'll have to wait until next year to find out. Oh well, there are worse cliffhangers to have to wait for, *cough*Alias *cough*.
At the End of the Day...
... you get nothing but trouble. I had heard that the producers of 24 filmed three different endings to the series. At first I assumed that they did this just for misdirection purposes to avoid leaks to the press. After seeing the finale, though, I'm pretty sure their motives were different. They clearly filmed endings based off whether or not the series was going to get renewed or not. Since 24 did get picked up by Fox for next season, we got to see the most exciting ending... the one that keeps the story going! While I still don't really buy the identity of the mole at CTU (don't worry, I won't give it away here), it did make for a suspenseful hour of television. Perhaps they can salvage this plot after all. The mole did not work for the Drazens after all, so this person's motives are still unclear.
Bad Willow
Am I the only one who thought Warren's death at the end of last week's Buffy was particularly, well... icky? This show has just been so unbelievably dark this year. I was very happy to read this article at TV Guide. In particular, Sarah Michelle Gellar had this to say:
"[This season] was a little dark even for me," she admits to TV Guide Online. "So I think we're going to go back to a much lighter Buffy. This whole arc was, she was buried alive, she got out, and now she realized that she wasn't living and she wants to. So I think it's going to be — and I'm hoping for — the fun Buffy. I miss quippy Buffy."
So do I. Enough with all the gloom and doom and despair. Bring back quippy Buffy! Even the scary season finale of Angel yesterday had a lot of great humor. The humor is what elevates Buffy and Angel to a higher level.
The Writing on the Wall
America Online is in trouble. It's obvious to anyone who has been following the company, or to anyone who works for an arm of the company. AOL and Time Warner haven't successfully merged together in any beneficial way. Investors' dissatisfaction with the current state of the online unit is clearly reflected in the abysmal stock price. Microsoft is chipping away at AOL's membership, and its campaign to win users will only grow more aggressive over time. It's already begun.
The similarities between AOL's current situation and Netscape's situation 5 years ago are eerie, and I fear the end result down the road will be equally similar. AOL's growth is slowing. MSN's is not. Dissatisfaction with the AOL service is high, in part because of the same repulsive business practices that Netscape has also employed in its browser. AOL's user base is no longer growing as it should, and soon it will start to decline. Microsoft will chip away at AOL's user base with methodical patience and by offering a service free of AOL's problems, and in the end, AOL will be nothing but a distant memory. Sounds familiar, doesn't it? :)
It may not be too late, but America Online is going to have to fix the many problems with its service if it wants to avoid the inevitable loss of users. It has finally been confonted with a real competitor, MSN, and it can either learn from this competition, responding to the threat with strategic changes to its own service and user interface, or it can continue down its current path and slide slowly into oblivion.
First and foremost, AOL needs to focus on the user experience. They have to rid the service of the features that drive users crazy. The single worst problem with AOL is spam mail. AOL needs to deal with the spam problem in an intelligent way, finding a system that can work to cut down the amount of irritating (and obscene) emails that sneak into users' inboxes. Second, AOL needs to ditch popups. Popup advertisements only serve to annoy users, especially when they are untargeted and unpersonalized. When the AOL service doesn't know enough about you to provide an ad that targets your interests, all the service is providing is an annoying extra window that has to be closed by a frustrated user. Third, AOL has to work on its chat facility and clamp down on obscene broadcasts, e.g., "Meet PYT27 on The Street Corner for Hot Sex Now!" Fourth, the user interface is clunky and dated, and it needs to be revised to be more eye-catching and user-friendly.
Finally, AOL needs to let Netscape play with the big boys and get the Gecko engine into AOL. As long as Internet Explorer lurks within the AOL client, it acts as a vector for infection by Microsoft. The IE virus can be used as a weapon to lure people to MSN even from within the AOL service. By using IE as its primary content vehicle, AOL will become dependent on Microsoft-specific technology and features like .NET, and will not be in a position to innovate on its own in the layout engine space.
Unfortunately, AOL shows all the signs of being terminally short-sighted. I suspect that in the end, when their online unit has gone the way of the dodo, people will be asking "Why did this happen?" as if surprised. I won't be one of those people. :)
Oh. My. Heck.
Those of you who followed Survivor no doubt heard Neleh utter the phrase "Oh my heck" about a thousand times. Typing it into Google revealed the following article from a Utah paper. Oh my heck indeed. :)
Morrowind Mod
I've been working on a mod for Morrowind after playing an assassin in the game. There is really only one guild of assassins that you can join in Morrowind. The group is called the Morag Tong, and they execute writs for the Emperor. In other words, the whole practice of assassination has been legalized by the Empire. I decided to make a new faction that wasn't officially recognized. Plus it gives the player an opportunity to operate as a mole, playing the two guilds off against one another. Taking a page from Alias, you can work as a mole for the Morag Tong, and when given an assassination by the head of my guild, you can go receive a counter mission from the head of the Morag Tong.
I also got to play with Morrowind's scripting language, since I made my guild use forged Morag Tong writs. Normally when a Morag Tong assassin is accused of a crime in Morrowind, they can present a writ to the guards that justifies the execution. The player's crime level then gets dropped back down to zero, and he doesn't have to serve any jail time. My guild uses forged writs that degrade over time. Each day that goes by without you performing the assassination, the writ degrades by one point. When you finally present the writ to the guards, you have a percentage chance of fooling the guards that is equal to 100 minus the number of days that have passed. This adds a fun new time pressure element to performing executions for my guild.
The editor is so wonderfully simple and easy to use. I've had a lot of fun crafting the new quests and buildings. So take that, Blake, I haven't soured on Morrowind yet. ;)
House of Cards
Am I the only one who thinks 24 is collapsing under the weight of its own plot twists? Sure, it's fun to watch, but it stopped making sense a long time ago. Fox has even picked up the show for a second season. Looks like "Today is the longest day of my life" won't be an accurate representation of the first season any more. :)
Hmmm.
From the Web page of my brother's employer.
We conduct genetics research and system development in genomic sequencing, computational genome analysis, computational protein structure analysis, high-performance biocomputing, bioinformation systems, biosystems modeling, and genetics information management.
From my sister's Web page:
My main interests are in isotope geochemistry and metamorphic petrology...
So my brother works on bioinformatics and computational biology, my sister works in isotope geochemistry and metamorphic petrology, and me? I add toner supply links to browser menus. Woo woo.
It's an Epidemic!
My twin brother Doug has started blogging. Given how quiet mine has been lately, I figured I'd point you people at someone who was actually writing something down. Check it out here.
World Building
Morrowind shipped with a construction kit that I can actually use. I've never been able to say that about any other game's kit. I think the key to its success is that they have exposed the entire game, so that you can actually figure out how the developers do everything. All you have to do is play through a section of the game to figure out what actually happens and then go into the editor and study how they accomplished it all.
The other important component is prefab pieces that you can snap together like Lego building blocks. I don't have to own 3DS Max to build a tavern or a guild hall. It's all really fun to play with.
The Hyatt Cycle of Gaming
I'm sure Blake will be mocking me shortly, but I have now discovered a new RPG: Morrowind. The game's graphics are awesome. I'll withhold judgment on the gameplay until I've gotten a bit further. Dungeon Siege, you are the weakest link. Goodbye.
Feedback
Chris Nelson responded to my earlier blog about the IE advantage. He writes:
But considering that there's so little revenue to be gained in browser software due to Microsoft's dumping of the browser on the marketplace, I'm curious to know how AOL/TW/Netscape could actually create a revenue-generating product by ripping out all the ads and product placements.
I should have clarified my objections to AOL's current strategy. Revenue generators really fall into three categories: harmless but useless, harmful and useless, and downright useful. At the moment the Netscape product is loaded up with revenue generators that fall into the harmful and useless category, but they do also have placements that serve useful purposes and that do provide benefit to the end user.
For example, picking the default set of bookmarks and pointing them to interesting AOL Time Warner content can be downright useful and still make money for AOL. The user who doesn't like the bookmarks can simply replace them with a new set. However aggressively trying to reset your home page back to Netscape.com, even after the user has changed away in earlier versions is downright harmful and rude.
What AOL TW needs to focus on is finding ways to really use their content to provide real tangible benefits to the end user. The sidebar is an example of an attempt to do this, but it is defeated by its muddled user interface and high barrier to entry. In my earlier blog I said that AOL TW needed to stop worrying about revenue and put the end user first. Well, the optimal situation would be if they could find a way to put the end user first by producing features that also generate revenue. Let's see some marketing vision, some innovation, some creativity. Polluting the chrome with cheap Web site tie-ins is taking the easy way out.
The Popover
You've heard of the popup. This is an annoying advertisement that comes up in a separate chromeless browser window. You may have even heard of the popunder. This is an annoying advertisement that comes up in a separate window behind your current window. It lurks in the background and is only discovered by unsuspecting novice users much later, after they finally close their main browser window. Both of these advertisements are insidiously irritating, but fortunately many modern browsers like Opera, Omniweb, Mozilla and Chimera have controls for blocking these annoyances.
I went to TV Guide tonight and was confronted with something that I'd heretofore only seen on Rotten Tomatoes. I call this new phenomenon a popover. I haven't delved into how the Web sites are doing it, but it appears to be an absolutely positioned element that comes up in the center of the browser's content area. It obscures the Web page content, preventing you from being able to read the content until you either click on the ad (to give the site its revenue) or wait for the time-consuming animation to finally play out.
The Web is unfortunately a victim of its own technological advances. You build a feature into a product that can be used for good, and instead you find it abused for profit. It leads one to wonder if building advertising controls into a browser is a futile effort. Will the Web site makers just keep coming up with clever ways to circumvent your restrictions anyway?
Seven Star Luxury
I was watching a travel show called Luxurious Hotels (or something like that) yesterday. The featured hotel was frickin' amazing. It was the Burj Al Arab hotel in Dubai. The building is shaped like a giant sail and was constructed on a manmade island that is connected to the mainland by a curved causeway.
One whole wall is actually made of two layers of fabric (separated by 15-20 inches to provide insulation). It is the tallest hotel in the world at 321 meters and has the tallest atrium in the world. A typical room is 800 dollars per night (cheaper than I actually expected), and has all sorts of cool technological perks. You even get your own personal butler! At the top of the hotel are the royal suites (9000 dollars per night!). These just blew my mind.
AOL Stock Price: 18. Hmmmm. Maybe I should check out the Motel Six instead. ;)
The IE Advantage
One of the biggest advantages IE has over its browser competitors is that it is funded and distributed by the maker of the Windows operating system, Microsoft. Because it is a fundamental piece of the OS, Microsoft doesn't need to justify the product's existence through tie-ins to Web properties. It doesn't have to charge for the browser. It doesn't have to inflict painful advertisements on the end user. The makers of IE can simply concentrate on making the best browser for their platform without the interference of their parent company.
If only the rest of us were so lucky.
Netscape has to find a way to make money off its product. The main way AOL has of generating revenue to justify paying all the engineers to work on the product is through tie-ins to the AOL Time Warner Web properties. Examples of these revenue generating tie-ins are the default set of bookmarks (especially those on the Personal Toolbar), the default home page (netscape.com), the default choice of search engine (Netscape), the sidebar panels (AOL TW properties like CNN), advertisements when using AOL mail, the entire Search menu, the perplexing widget next to the URL bar, and the infamous activation dialog that displays when you first launch Netscape. Menu items and toolbar buttons are up for auction, whored to the highest bidder, be it Hewlett Packard (Print Plus) or Net2Phone (Personal Toolbar). Going once, going twice, sold, and all it costs you is a silly little thing called "end user experience." But who really cares about that, anyway?
Conspicuously absent from the latest builds of Netscape: the ability to block popups, the ability to block images, and the ability to have fine control over what Web pages can do with their scripts. Why? Because the precious advertisements rule. The end user experience is overruled in favor of the almighty dollar.
What about Opera? Can you use the browser for free? Well, sure, if you're willing to put up with a giant pulsating advertisement that completely distorts the default layout of your chrome. The company hopes you'll get so annoyed that you'll pony up the cash just to rid yourself of the attention-grabbing banners. Again, the end user be damned, let's find a way to pay for ourselves somehow.
Let's move to the Macintosh. What about Omniweb? Again, not a free product. Leave it idle long enough, and a giant "Unlicensed" fades in over your Web page like a scarlet A on Hester Prynne's dress. Feel the shame, adulterer, for using such a fine product without providing compensation to the makers.
Opera and Omniweb are funded by smaller companies, companies that don't have deep pockets like AOL or Microsoft, so in some small way they can be forgiven for the steps that they take to make money to support themselves. These browsers at least offset their nagging with the ability to block popups and images.
Here's a novel (and perhaps idealistic thought). What if companies like AOL Time Warner concentrated on the experience of browsing? What if, instead of focusing on making money, they instead made a browser filled with features that actually benefit the end user, instead of focusing on features of dubious benefit that only exist as a cheap ploy to lure people to a fading .com portal?
A browser wins market share by being good at one thing: browsing. It does not win market share by enabling you to check your stocks from your address book, by performing Web searches while composing a Web page, or by spamming you with popups as you browse from site to site. Let's be clear about one thing. Web sites don't spam users with popups. The browser does. The soldier who pulls the trigger is just as guilty as the officer who orders the execution. Is this revenue so important that it's worth compromising the end user experience? Perhaps a Web browser that aggressively blocked popups would differentiate itself from its competitors and be adopted by users desperate for an improved browser experience.
Proliferation of popups, nagging activation dialogs, and pulsating advertisements only provide one end result: user irritation. How can a browser expect to increase its market share when it displays such an offensive face to the user? Netscape is dependent on goodwill for adoption. It can't be crammed down the throats of unwilling customers. They'll just switch to the gloriously nag-free browser that already resides on their system: Internet Explorer.
Netscape will never make inroads into the market until it abandons its quest for revenue and focuses once again on making a browser that puts the end user first. Netscape hasn't made a product to be proud of in 5 years. It takes Mozilla, guts it by removing some of the most useful features, piles in poorly implemented and embarrassing additions like AOL Instant Messenger, the activation dialog, and the Personal Toolbar component buttons, and then throws it up on its Web site in the hopes that users will actually find it more palatable than Internet Explorer.
Well, I have news for you, AOL Time Warner. There's a browser that doesn't have all of these embarrassing blemishes. It allows you to block popups and images. Its UI may not be perfect, but it certainly makes browsing a higher priority than Web properties. That browser is Mozilla, and it's nearly ready for 1.0. The ball is in your court. You can rip out some of the features that differentiate Mozilla from Internet Explorer, but maybe - just maybe - you'll find that people choose Mozilla instead. Wouldn't it be ironic if, through your own efforts, you rendered your product obsolete?
May the best browser win. Unless AOL changes its tune, my money's on Mozilla.