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new game: The Political Machine

A new game is to be released tomorrow (June 17): The Political Machine 2008…

“…a new PC game that puts players in control of the 2008 presidential campaign. Play as the campaign manager for a host of candidates including Barack Obama, John McCain, Hillary Clinton, historical candidates or design one from scratch.

“Players then choose their campaign battlegrounds and are off on the campaign trail to face a host of challenges including fundraising, talk show appearances, hiring spin doctors and winning endorsements. The game is won on Election Day by the player who gets the necessary electoral votes to become President.

“…all candidates are presented as ‘bobble heads’…The 2004 edition of the game…accurately predicted the 2004 election months in advance….
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Real-world scenarios are mirrored in the game. Players can choose what TV shows to be a guest on and will face tough questions from the hosts of shows like Colvert Report and the O’Malley Factor. In addition, players can choose to play out different historical scenarios as well as fantasy scenarios taking place in the future.

“Political junkies will appreciate many of the political consultants and strategies employed in the game such as the use of smear merchants, spin doctors, intimidators, cheer leaders, movie stars, etc. Strategy gamers will appreciate the balanced game mechanics that allow players to research new campaign tactics that even novice political observers can see from the current election.

“The Political Machine is both a single and a multiplayer game – players can either compete against the computer or against others online on www.politicalmachine.com. The website also provides an ideologically neutral location for users to discuss the current election.

The game will be released at retail…$19.95. It requires Windows XP or Windows Vista to run…

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sending (error) information to Microsoft

We’ve had some discussion about the Microsoft Online Crash Analysis (MOCA): feeling uncomfortable about submitting information, some do not want to send the report. I ask all to reconsider, and DO send it…

“Microsoft actively analyzes all error reports and prioritizes them based on the number of customers affected by the Stop error covered in the error report. We will try to determine the cause of the Stop error you submit, categorize it according to the type of issue encountered, and send you relevant information when such information is identified…we might need to collect a number of similar error reports from other customers before a pattern is discovered…

“…No personal information is written to your hard drive or shared outside of our service.”

Some of the information I have seen informed me: what was causing a conflict or problem, who the manufacturer is, which device is involved, etcetera.

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Shadow Copy

Andy interviewed Darren Hook, Global Escalation Manager for Microsoft, and Darren mentioned…

“Shadow Copy helps you recover a file if you accidentally delete it.

“…Available in the Ultimate, Business, and Enterprise editions of Windows Vista, this feature automatically creates point-in-time copies of files as you work, so you can quickly and easily retrieve versions of a document you may have accidentally deleted. Shadow copy is automatically turned on in Windows Vista and creates copies on a scheduled basis of files that have changed…

“It works on single files as well as whole folders…

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US drops in worldwide broadband subscriptions rankings

According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development website, broadband statistics highlights for June 2007:

* Denmark, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Korea, Norway and Iceland lead the OECD in broadband penetration, each with over 29 subscribers per 100 inhabitants.

* The strongest per-capita subscriber growth over the year was in Ireland, Germany, Sweden, Australia, Norway, Denmark and Luxembourg. Each country added more than 5 subscribers per 100 inhabitants during the past year.

* Operators in several countries continue upgrading subscriber lines to fibre. Fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) and Fibre-to-the-building (FTTB) subscriptions/connections account for 36% of all broadband subscriptions in Japan, and 31% in Korea.

* The United States is the largest broadband market in the OECD with 66.2 million subscribers. US broadband subscribers now represent 30% of all broadband connections in the OECD.

In the past seven years, the U.S. has dropped from fourth to 15th among 30 developed nations in the percentage of households that subscribe to broadband Internet…

(Maybe it shouldn’t, but dropping to 15th bothers me. It seems to me that those with some insight have been stating that we are about to be, and/or have been, passed by other countries in regards to science/math/innovation/etcetera.)

(After posting the above, I read…)

China has caught up with the U.S. with both countries counting 221 million Internet users…the US market penetration has leveled off…the online population in China will dwarf that in the US by three- or four-fold. India should eventually leaprog China to become the biggest online market on the planet…India has 18 all-news channels of its own, and boasts of the biggest English-language newspaper in the world…as literacy increases in India, newspaper circulation is growing at double-digit rates…

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