New Location – New Look
I’m in Brisbane for the next week or so and having a great time so far. Just saw Batman Returns which was highly entertaining.
True to my word, I have redesigned OmegaDelta.net in a timely manner.
The photo is of the sunset above the clounds. The black shape is the wing of a plane (I have a similar photo without the wing, but I decided it looked more interesting with that object in there, so it remains).
Will.
Are Mortar Teams too good?
Mortar Teams in Warcraft III games 0wn. There’s no other way to put it. You can get them after one upgrade of the town hall, they only cost 180, they are awesome at augmenting melee units — they can obliterate a hero, or ranged units and casters and other support units (e.g. stats). And if that’s not all, they are excellent siege weapons. They even have an upgrade which does more damange to medium and light armored units (i.e. other support units).
Tanks in comparison are crap as they are totally ineffective against units.
I find it very hard to beat teams with one guy going morts and it’s not often I lose when going them myself (unless rushed). All you need is a meat wall, a squadron of morts and you’re set.
So how do you counter it? More mortars is one option — good if you are human or have a human ally, but otherwise I do not know.
Will.
Go the Lions!
Alison and I watched the Lions defeat Carlton fairly convincingly at the Telstra Dome last Saturday. They started off down, then were even for a while before pulling away in the third and fourth quarters (the second half in fact).
Our seats were not bad, second row back on third level, so we got a birds eye view of the game.
The Telstra Dome is good, better than Lang Park (oops, I mean Suncorp Stadium, please don’t sue) traffic wise, the bridge to the station is very wide, and since it’s Spencer Street there are I think 12 platforms instead of 2 (at Milton).
The lions are now well and truly off the bottom of the ladder, and will hopefully make the top eight.
Will.
OS X on Intel
It’s official, Apple is moving to Intel. The text of the Stevenote can be found here.
Apparently one of the sticking points is that IBM couldn’t make a G5 processor for a laptop as they ran too hot. Another was the slow delivery times.
The BBC is running an article questioning whether it was a good move or will it deter customers until they come out? Unlike the swich from OS 9 to OS X however, the switch to intel will be pretty much unnoticed by consumers. The same “unified” binaries will run on each, and they will look and feel the same.
The BBC paraphrases a ‘poster’: “there was no point in him buying a Powerbook if it was going to be obsolete in 18 months’ time”. I hate to break it to the poster, but if he is worried about his computer hardware being obsolete in 18 months time, perhaps he should stick with good old pens an paper.
OS X on Intel will still require an apple computer though. The BIOS and motherboard are different. However, this does prove how easy it is to port OS X, and Apple would certainly be able to release OS X for WinTel machines if they wanted.
On the stock front, Apple shares have quadrupled in the last few years and are about to have a 2:1 split. They are the fastest growing technology company on the Nasdaq. Of course, to profit you would have had to pick your timing right, avoiding the bursting of the IT bubble…
Will.
OS X on an i386 by 2006?
In an interesting move by Apple, it appears they will switch to Intel processors next year.
I have found the PowerPC architecture to be pretty good, but that said, if they do make the switch – OS X would most likely be ported to run on i386 chips (i.e. your average PC)! That is the big story here, as Apple may go head to head with Microsoft for the PC market. No doubt Apple hardware will still have several advantages being no (hmm, well less anyway) buggy drivers and excellent engineering, but it will certainly open up the market!
Some developers will no doubt be pissed off at this change, but as a Java developer it does not affect me in the slightest.
If I was willing to invest in American stocks, Apple would be one punt I would make.
Will.
