Horizon Zero

Never Put Off Until Tomorrow What You Can Avoid Until November

The big powers have decided to give Iran until November before they start talking about imposing more sanctions on Iran. Since previous sanctions have apparently done zip to forestall Iran's nuclear ambitions, I guess delaying won't make much of a difference.

I have to wonder if we're agreeing to the delay because we don't have any other idea of what to do, or simply because we (or the Israelis) will have made the problem go away by the time November gets here.

Just what exactly went down in Syria at the start of this month?

Microsoft: XP Not Quite Dead Yet

Microsoft has announced that it is extending the sales life of Windows XP by an additional five months. MS had intended to cease sales of the superseded operating system starting 1 January 2008, but continued demand for it has caused them to delay putting that final nail in the coffin.

Now, when XP came out there was a small band of die hard Win98 fans that didn't want to upgrade, and Microsoft didn't bin new sales of Win98 for two additional years. But MS is very pointedly ignoring the elephant in the room this time around with regards to the large number of individuals and organizations that have elected not to migrate to Vista. Witness manufacturers such as Dell and Gateway bringing back XP as an OS choice after initially offering Vista only.

Land Warrior Meeting Mixed Response

The multi-billion dollar Land Warrior project - designing new technologies for future combat - has hit a bit of a speedbump lately, with nearly all of its funding cut after the initial deployable tech was poorly recieved by troops in the field.

One unit in Iraq is working with a scaled down version of the system. So how is it performing?

Designing future combat technology is a bit like trying to hit a moving target while blindfolded. Many of the  'high tech' systems in Land Warrior have been overtaken by civilian technology, but the civilian stuff simply can't stand up to MilSpec guidelines - if you drop your cell phone, you just drive down and get another one, right?

The current system weighs in at about 16lbs, which gets added to the 60lbs of stuff an infantryman already has to carry around.

Impend

WalMart claims that they will have plenty of copies of Halo 3 available for sale at 12:01 tonight, with special checkout lanes just for Halo 3 buyers. I'm not sure what the numerical value of "plenty of copies" is, exactly, especially for a location with just one WalMart and a Fort full of eager gamer aged privates, NCOs and junior officers.

My copy of the Collectors Edition (not the insanely expensive one with the mini Master Chief helmet, that's the Legendary one) will arrive at the office tomorrow. So swears EBGames! But I think I might swing down to the old Super Center to see if I can grab a copy of the regular edition. That way I can keep my Collectors Copy in it's pristine condition. (All the extras will show up on YouTube anyway.)

Shiver Yer Timbers Once Again

Aye, mateys, tis International Talk Like a Pirate Day!

I Believe in Master Chief

Unless you've been living under a rock, you're no doubt aware of a little series called Halo. It's a decent first person shooter, but there have been better examples of the genre. So why is it that the Halo franchise has become the prime mover for the XBox and now the XBox 360? What has made Master Chief Petty Officer John 117 "an icon for a generation"?

Simple, really. Bungie understands story. They make you believe.

It's an amazing bit of advertising, in my opinion, because it dares to sell the game not on graphics or gameplay, but on the universe that Bungie has crafted.

Anyone with a smidgeon of cultural literacy can pick up on the thematic hints behind the series. The Covenant seek an Ark. The Ark saved life from the Flood. The reason the Covenant wages an unrelenting war on humanity, the reason the Master Chief can interact with the first Halo, the reason the ultimate fate of the universe rests on Earth, is because the gods quite literally created man in their own image.

Even the Master Chief's name has some pretty interesting import - whether intentionally or no. The biblical John was the author of the Gospel of the same name, and the book of Revelations. And what does Revelations 1:17 say?

"And when I saw him, I fell at his feet as dead. And he laid his right hand upon me, saying unto me, Fear not; I am the first and the last:"

Now, I'm not advocating anyone converting to the Church of Halo or anything, but collectively, from the story of a species on the brink of destruction, to the display of battlefield bravery and suffering and on to the frankly messianic portrayal of the Master Chief, Bungie has managed to tap into something that many people find profound and moving.

Critics like Roger Ebert say that games cannot be art, that they're just mindless entertainment. But just this year, I have found myself deeply moved by games that dare to make you think about the nature of free will, about the releationship between a believer and his god, and about the everyday courage of common men and women that can change the course of destiny. If these experiences are without artistic merit, while soulless CGI fests and shallow comedies garner respect simply because they're "film", then I believe artistic merit is vastly overrated.

I believe in Master Chief.

Who Will Turn the Wheel?

Read today that Robert Jordan passed away this weekend. Jordan had been seriously ill for a while now, and was essentially in a race against time to get the last volume in his Wheel of Time series finished - a race he, sadly, did not win.

I have said some not so nice things about the later books in the WoT series. I'm not sorry I said them, because I think my criticisms were accurate. But I thought the last published book, The Knife of Dreams was a great improvement, and I was confident that Jordan could end his sprawling work on a high note. It's reassuring as a reader to discover that he planned for the possibility that he might not be able to finish A Memory of Light himself - the novel's outline is detailed and Jordan recorded his notes on the last book. His wife Harriet, who was also Jordan's editor, will finish the last 10% or so of the unfinished work. According to Jordan himself, the already completed ending has been kept under lock and key for years now.

This is also a lesson for any of us would be creators - you only have so much time to tell your story, and once you're gone no one will ever tell it the same way again.

Six Years Gone