Worldwide Community Of Gamers

The worldwide community of gamers is like a nebula. Unlike the physical world, the gamers world is not well defined. Following are some examples of gamer communities.

From Wikipedia
A multiplayer game is a game which is played by several players. The players might be independent opponents, formed into teams or be just a single team pitted against the game. Games with many independent players are difficult to analyse formally in a game-theoretical way as the players may form coalitions.

World Of Warcraft
World of Warcraft, often referred to as WoW, is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) by Blizzard Entertainment. It is the fourth released game set in the fantasy Warcraft universe, which was first introduced by Warcraft: Orcs & Humans in 1994. World of Warcraft takes place within the Warcraft world of Azeroth, two years after the events at the conclusion of Blizzard’s previous Warcraft release, Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne. Blizzard Entertainment announced World of Warcraft on September 2, 2001. The game was released on November 23, 2004, celebrating the 10th anniversary of the Warcraft franchise.

The first expansion set of the game, The Burning Crusade, was released on January 16, 2007. The second expansion set, Wrath of the Lich King, was released on November 13, 2008.

With more than 11.5 million monthly subscribers, World of Warcraft is currently the world’s largest MMORPG in those terms, and holds the Guinness World Record for the most popular MMORPG. In April 2008, World of Warcraft was estimated to hold 62% of the massively multiplayer online game (MMOG) market.

What Is XBox Live?
Xbox LIVE is the premier online gaming and entertainment service. It’s a worldwide community of gamers connected through Xbox 360 and a high-speed Internet connection. And it’s a way to experience all kinds of new gaming and entertainment content without ever leaving the comfort of your couch.

Xbox LIVE lets you play games against other online players, as well as download free demos, trailers, and more in Xbox LIVE Marketplace. You can use Microsoft Points to download full games from Xbox LIVE Arcade, or extras for your favorite games, such as new levels, vehicles, weapons, and lots more. You’ll also find movies, TV shows, and original content created just for Xbox LIVE members.

Xbox LIVE members can use friends lists to keep in touch with real-life friends or new people you meet online, create online parties and join games with friends, and create an online persona with a unique Avatar.

There are two levels of service for Xbox LIVE. The Silver level is free and lets you download content from Xbox LIVE Marketplace, chat with friends, and share your gamer profile and achievements with other users. The Gold Level is a paid service with all of the Silver level benefits, plus with the ability to play multiplayer games online against other members of the Xbox LIVE community, create parties and join games with friends, and, if you’re a Netflix member, even watch streaming movies right on your Xbox 360. Join Xbox LIVE now!

Sony Playstation Network
* Go multiplayer with free online gaming
* Keep track of what games your friends are playing with Friend’s List
* Show off your Portable ID on your favorite social networks

Wii Online
Wii doesn’t only play games, it also connects wirelessly to the Internet to bring you the latest news, weather reports and game downloads; plus you can send text messages and swap data with other Wii owners online.
*Even when Wii is off, it’s on. Wii can remain connected to the Internet in a low power state, to download new content for your games while you sleep.
*Check the latest headlines and local weather reports, organise your digital photos, and even surf the Web – all from the comfort of your sofa.
*With Nintendo’s free and fun online service, you can directly play games with other Wii owners – even if they are miles away!

President Obama Signs Mississippi Disaster Declaration

The President today declared a major disaster exists in the State of Mississippi and ordered Federal aid to supplement State and local recovery efforts in the area struck by severe storms, flooding, and tornadoes during the period of March 25-28, 2009.

Federal funding is available to State and eligible local governments and certain private nonprofit organizations on a cost-sharing basis for emergency work and the repair or replacement of facilities damaged by the severe storms, flooding, and tornadoes in the counties of Amite, Greene, Jackson, Lawrence, Lincoln, Simpson, Stone, Walthall, Wilkinson, and Wayne.

Federal funding is also available on a cost-sharing basis for hazard mitigation measures statewide.

Donald L. Keldsen has been named as the Federal Coordinating Officer for Federal recovery operations in the affected area.

FEMA said additional designations may be made at a later date if requested by the State and warranted by the results of further damage assessments.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: FEMA (202) 646-4600.

Texas Straight Talk – A weekly column
Rep. Ron Paul (R) – TX 14

While much of the country’s attention is on other issues, a serious situation is developing in Pakistan that threatens to plunge us into another fruitless and bloody war. It is very frustrating to see that many who were so vehemently against the wars of the last administration have suddenly lost interest in foreign policy simply because we were promised change.

Those still paying attention know that nothing could be further from the truth. Very little has changed, except perhaps rhetoric, but what does that matter when the bombing missions are only getting deadlier? Rather than drawing down violent military interventions into the affairs of other countries, the new administration is escalating the foreign policy of the previous administration.

In Pakistan that entails the continuation and even escalation of military interventionism just across the border with Afghanistan. The targets are believed to be enclaves of Taliban militants, however, many innocent civilians have been caught in the deadly crossfire, severely damaging our image in the region. Many ordinary Afghanis and Pakistanis that never had cause to take up arms against us are being provided with motivation as family and friends are killed and maimed by our clumsy and indiscriminate bombs. Is it worth it for us to be involved in this way at such a high cost of blood, treasure and goodwill? Is there anything to be gained by this policy?

We are helping the Taliban and other enemies to actually gain numbers and strength, while driving them down from the mountains in the border regions deeper into Pakistan, where they have been making a menace of themselves. As our bombings follow them, beleaguered villagers have little choice but to leave their homes and join the swelling numbers of refugees or take up arms and join the fight against us.

Nonetheless, instead of recognizing the cascading unintended consequences of trying to deal with Pakistan’s problems, all signs in Washington point to further escalation. Both the House and Senate have newly introduced bills to triple foreign aid to Pakistan, from $500 million to $1.5 billion, with every indication that the leadership in Pakistan is taking advantage of the situation with the Taliban to milk more aid from the US taxpayer. We are broke. This is money we don’t have, and it is an insult to the American people to run up the national credit card for this type of military adventurism after many Americans thought they were voting for peace.

The bottom line is our involvement in Pakistan’s internal problems is not making us safer. In fact, we are adding to the numbers of our enemies and increasing the threats to our security here at home. We are inciting the very terrorism and extremism we are trying to stop. Every dollar we send, even if it is for humanitarian purposes, frees up resources to make war and potentially prop up unpopular leaders. The factions and politics of the Middle East are irrational and dangerous. We play with fire when we meddle in their affairs, and we isolate ourselves diplomatically by making more enemies than friends. We need to bring our troops home, end all foreign aid, and maintain a neutral stance on the world stage. It, in fact, is the only foreign policy we can afford right now, and it would gain us more friends and trading partners than our bombs ever could. Besides, that’s what the Constitution permits and our founders strongly advised.

Probably the most played on-line game is Halo 3. It is an FPS (First Person Shooter) game. As you play the game, it is through the eyes of your player. There are a variety of matches to choose from, but the objective is usually the same — kill your oppenent.

Before entering Matchmaking, you choose from a menu as to whether you want ranked or social matches. Next, you choose the type of match, such as, Lone Wolves (6 playes “every man for himself), Slaye (4 against 4), Big Team, etc. Then, you enter Matchmaking where the computer server matches up the teams.

Microsoft describes the game:

A HERO MUST RISE. BELIEVE.
The epic saga continues with Halo® 3, the third chapter in the highly successful and critically acclaimed Halo franchise. Master Chief returns to finish the fight, bringing the epic conflict between the Covenant, the Flood, and the entire human race to a dramatic, pulse-pounding climax.

Halo 3 represents the third chapter in the Halo trilogy—an international award-winning action series that grew into a global entertainment phenomenon, selling more than 14.5 million units worldwide, logging more than 650 million hours of multiplayer action on Xbox LIVE®, and spawning action figures, books, a graphic novel, apparel, an upcoming film adaptation, and more.

Bungie
Halo was developed by Bungie. A website has been devoted to the Halo series at http://www.bungie.net/. Viewers can read forums, make comments or check out real-time statistics.

by mootmute

Fun? What is fun? Perhaps all people do not view fun the same way. But, most people consider games fun. And, most people consider music fun.

I’ve always found playing the music business game to be fun. For much of my life, the industry was untouchable to most people. The “corporate suits” had a monopoly over the supply chain. You had to get signed to a label in order to get distribution. The process of getting signed amounted to enslavement. Cost was another limiting factor for most people. To rent studio time or buy your own equipment was cost prohibitive.

In the 1990’s, things really started to change. I helped write and distribute some of the first albums made for the world wide web. Shortly thereafter, the MP3 became available to the masses for free. It became possible for a poor fool, such as myself, to make high fidelity recordings and distribute them all over the world… for next to nothing.

Now, it is possible to do it on a much higher level of multimedia that includes photos, moving pictures and interactive gaming. For a while, I invented ways to do this using primitive tools that I created. The rest of the world was also doing their fare share of creating.

Low and behold, along come games like Guitar Hero and Rock Band. Though at first I was a skeptical musician, I quickly became a convert. Just when I thought it couldn’t get any sweeter, Guitar Hero incorporates a multi-track recording studio into the game. So, anyone… anywhere… that already plays video games can get a free hi-fi recording set up included with the game. You can write and record original music then publish it as a game song for the rest of the world to play!

Also See: A Mess

The XBox 360 is a game console made by Microsoft. It can connect to the Internet using an ethernet cable or using a wireless wi-fi connection; however, an XBox Live account must first be established at a cost of $100 / year. Once you have an account, you can download game upgrades, movies and other software. Usually there is an additional charge for downloads. Sometimes downloads are free like with certain Halo 3 maps or select Rock Band and Guitar Hero songs.

Benefits
The benefits of purchasing the XBox 360 over other game consoles include the large number of users. When playing games on-line, it helps make team selection faster and more interesting having many players.

Costs
The problems with the XBox 360 include: hidden costs, overheating, disc destruction and problems with the hard drive storage device.

Microsoft does not make it cheap or easy to game on-line. Unlike some game consoles, they charge a yearly fee for Internet play. With some games, such as Halo 3, they force you to buy new maps. Then, when you go to the “Marketplace”, they don’t tell you what package you need (forcing you to make random purchases until you download the correct upgrade.)

The XBox is notorious for having overheating problems. When the console gets hot, the solder melts causing the unit to fail. Xboxers refer to this as “The Red Ring Of Death” due to the red ring displayed on the front of the unit. Another hardware problem has to do with vibration destroying game discs. If there is any movement to the console while there is disc in the unit, a circle get burned onto the disc rendering it useless.

Not only is the hard drive expensive, but it also has problems remembering. For instance, when you move the hard drive to a different console, it won’t recognize certain previous downloads. This is common with Halo 3 maps. An error will be displayed saying “player doesn’t have maps”. You have to log your user out of the game and re-download the necessary maps at the Marketplace.

From the United Nations:

UN agencies concerned over ‘massive displacement’ in Pakistan

The United Nations agencies tasked with protecting refugee and children’s rights today expressed deep concern over the “massive displacement” in north-west Pakistan caused by the widening armed conflict between Government forces and militants.

The provincial government estimates between 150,000 to 200,000 people have already arrived in safer areas of North West Frontier Province (NWFP) over the last few days, with another 300,000 already on the march or about to leave, according to the UN High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR).

UNHCR noted that those fleeing the latest escalation of hostilities in Lower Dir, Buner and Swat join another 555,000 previously displaced Pakistanis who had fled their homes in the tribal areas and NWFP.

The new influx of internally displaced persons (IDPs) will place huge pressure on the resources already shared by around 93,000 people sheltering in 11 UNHCR-supported camps and over 450,000 staying in rental accommodation or host families.

To date, more than 83,000 recent IDPs from Buner, Dir, and Swat have been registered, including almost 5,000 staying in three new camps and more than 78,000 people who are staying outside of camps.

In Islamabad, Rawalpindi, Lahore and other urban centres of the Punjab, UNHCR has registered a further 40,000 displaced people mainly from Bajaur, Mohmand and Swat over the past two weeks.

As part of a joint UN response to the influx of people fleeing the fighting in Lower Dir, Buner and Swat over the past week, UNHCR has helped establish three new camps, including Jalala and Shiekh Shehzad camps in Mardan and Yar Hussain in Swabi district.

In the last two days, an increasing number of families from Swat have gone to the Jalala camp, travelling in rickshaws, cars, small trucks and buses with little more than the clothes on their backs, UNHCR spokesperson Ron Redmond told reporters in Geneva.

New arrivals told UNHCR staff that they had trouble finding transport and had to pay steep prices to hire vehicles. One family of 20 from Buner reported paying the equivalent of $350 to travel to the camp from their home. Another man from Mingora, Swat, drove with his family in his rickshaw a harrowing seven hours to reach the safety of Jalala camp in tears.

Yesterday, a new reception centre – the first of four planned centres – opened on the main Malakand Road at Jalala to give people food, water and information about the camps and registration centres. Plans to provide medical care and transport assistance at the reception centres, as part of the joint UN response, are also underway.

UNHCR is currently responding to the emergency with relief supplies – such as tents, plastic sheets, buckets, jerry cans, and kitchen sets – for 100,000 people, while buying additional supplies for an additional 200,000.

“The majority of those worst affected are children, who have witnessed violence, experienced displacement, and faced interruptions to education and health services,” the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) said in a news release.

UNICEF noted that it was working closely with its aid partners, as well as the Federal and Provincial governments to provide assistance for people staying with relatives and to support the three new camps established in the last week.

To prevent the spread of disease among children, UNICEF Pakistan is supplying the camps with safe water, sanitation facilities and hygiene kits. The agency has also vaccinated more than 10,000 children under five years of age at transit points, as well as provided ongoing support for orphans and unaccompanied children who are fleeing, including a primary school in one new camp with an enrolment of around 200 children.

The agency also expressed concern for the civilians, especially children, still living in combat zones and “strongly urged all parties to take immediate measures to ensure that children are protected from the effects of armed conflict, and that aid workers and supplies for IDPs and civilians in conflict areas have safe passage.”

The U.N. Reports:

Urgent international scrutiny needed in Sri Lanka, say UN rights experts

A group of independent United Nations experts today called on the Human Rights Council to urgently set up an international inquiry to address the “critical” situation in Sri Lanka amid fighting between the army and Tamil rebels.

“There is an urgent need to establish an international commission of inquiry to document the events of recent months and to monitor ongoing developments,” the experts dealing with summary executions, right to health, right to food and water and sanitation said in a joint statement issued in Geneva.

Philip Alston, Anand Grover, Olivier De Schutter and Catarina de Albuquerque said the current humanitarian crisis in Sri Lanka gives cause for deep concern, not only in terms of the number of civilians who have been and continue to be killed, but because of a dramatic lack of transparency and accountability.

“There is good reason to believe that thousands of civilians have been killed in the past three months alone, and yet the Sri Lankan Government has yet to account for the casualties, or to provide access to the war zone for journalists and humanitarian monitors of any type,” said Mr. Alston, the UN expert on summary executions.

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) says over 196,000 people have fled the conflict zone, a shrinking pocket of land on the north-east coastline, where clashes continue between Government troops and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), while at least 50,000 people are still trapped there.

The experts stressed that “continuing catastrophic situation of civilians” in Sri Lanka trapped in the midst of the fighting, in an area measuring less than 10 square kilometres, must be immediately addressed.

“These civilians do not have sufficient access to food, essential medical supplies or services and safe water and sanitation. Even if they do escape death or injury at the hands of the hostile parties, their continued presence in this area without access to these basic rights is an effective death sentence,” declared the experts.

They said shipments of food and medicine to the so-called ‘no-fire zone’ have been “grossly insufficient” over the past month and the Government has reportedly delayed or denied timely shipment of life saving medicines as well as chlorine tablets.

The experts noted that as a result of the “blackout on independent information sources,” it is impossible to verify any of the Government’s claims as to the number of casualties to date or as to the steps that it says it is taking in order to minimize the further killing of innocent civilians, and ensure aid delivery.

“When people manage to escape, they reportedly continue to face scant supplies, entirely insufficient access to adequate medical treatment and severely overcrowded hospitals, providing no relief to the horrors they had been living,” said Mr. Grover, the UN expert on the right to health.

Mr. De Schutter, the UN expert on the right to food, added that access to food has also been hampered by arduous and lengthy registration procedures for the internally displaced persons (IDPs).

Meanwhile, Ms. de Albuquerque, the UN expert on water and sanitation, voiced concern about “water shortages reported at Omanthai and at most of the transit sites as well as inadequate sanitation facilities, which put the health and lives of the population at further risk.”

The group called on the Sri Lankan Government to provide “convincing evidence” to the international community that it is respecting its obligations under human rights and international humanitarian law.

They added that it is clear that the LTTE, for its part, has acted in “flagrant violation” of the applicable norms by preventing civilians from leaving the conflict area and having reportedly shot and killed those trying to flee.

It would be naive to imagine that the planners in Beijing are unaware that Mongolia will have a coastline. They can read, and they have contributed to the IPCC reports. Of course the movers and shakers in the cabinet there are mostly engineers whereas in the USA, their counterparts are mostly lawyers.

I fear that the Chinese appetite for windmills may absorb all production capacity worldwide. Just as the German and Japanese initiatives absorbed most solar panel production for a while. The Chinese were, after all, using more than half of all the cement produced in the world not so long ago.

One hundred Gigawatts of wind by 2020. And a carbon tax. Read all about it:

http://www.macaudailytimesnews.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=26826&Itemid=31

http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSTRE5401CN20090501?feedType=RSS&feedName=environmentNews

Read The Whole Article and Watch A Video

Over 1,500 farmers in the agricultural Indian state of Chattisgarh have committed suicide after being driven to debt by crop failure. The state was hit hard by falling water levels.

Bharatendu Prakash, of the Organic Farming Association of India, said that, “Farmers’ suicides are increasing due to a vicious circle created by money lenders. They lure farmers to take money but when the crops fail, they are left with no option other than death.”

Mr. Prakash added that the government needs to take up the cause of the poor farmers just as they fight for a strong economy.