Bungie has finally dropped a trailer for their latest reveal – an expansion (presumably) for Halo 3 set during events between Halo 2 and Halo 3. Our new hero is an ODST, alone in Covenant-occupied New Mombasa.
Two things about this trailer video really fascinate me, both with regard to the city-governing AI, the Superintendent. The first is the level of expressiveness in the Super’s reactions. The icon the Super uses to represent itself is simply a circle with two eyes, and yet that is enough to convey a wide array of feelings with respect to events taking place within its city. Most of the expressions are flashed across the screen almost faster than you can catch them without slowing the video down, but it’s well worth taking the time to focus on them for a few moments, since a lot about the Super’s personality can be derived for those glimpses.
The second that’s fascinating is watching the Super’s process for gleaning information about the drop pod. The Super attempts to identify from its civilian database the vehicle on its crash approach, and when it fails to do so, it accesses the UNSC database and makes a positive ID. From there, you can almost see the Super switch gears as it elevates both its awareness and priority level for the drop pod’s passenger as it begins to use the city signs to guide the ODST to some, as-yet unknown destination.
As always with Bungie content, there is a lot hidden in the trailer for attentive viewers to puzzle out. Already I’m looking forward to next fall and seeing this new expansion.
I love how every time I turn around, there’s a new “1,000,000 for/against [some random cause].” The latest I’ve seen is “1,000,000 against the new Facebook layout1.” Why is one million always the magic number for these groups? In just about every case I’ve seen, one million isn’t even a majority number. For instance, in the case of the aforementioned group, one million users is, at best, only seven percent of the Facebook population2. If only 7% of a population dislike the layout, then that group is just going to have to suck it up and deal.
The same is true for just about every other group out there trying to rally for one million members. It’s rare that gathering that many people under one banner is going to be a majority. That being the case, why stop at one million? If you really want to sway the PTB3, go big. Go for 50 million or 1 billion.
I think people go for one million because it’s a familiar number and it’s much easier for us to conceptualize than one billion or even 10 million. Few of us have ever seen one million of anything but we know what a millionaire is. Anything larger than that is usually outside our ability to imagine.
Maybe I just harbor a grudge against most bandwagons, since so many of them seem pointless and unnecessary, but for crying out loud, if you’re going to rally a group out of a population that’s over 75 million souls, one million just isn’t going to cut it. It’s in the numbers, people.
1 Really? I mean, really?! I love the new layout, by and large. I just wish they’d finish the tweaking. Weeks on end of roaming bugs gets old after awhile – but then again, I did opt in to beta-testing the new layout. And for that matter, folks who don’t like the new layout can always choose to switch back.
2 Based on a listing of 14 million people who used applications on Facebook last year. This source suggests that the number may be well over 75 million by now, and so that percentage will be much smaller.
Here’s a nailbiter of a game for ya’. We both fair a couple of tactical errors in this game, but when the dust finally settles, I manage to pull off a checkmate with a Rook and a Pawn, while he has two Queens on the board. Talk about making me sweat!
Back to black for this game. You may notice that I like to open with the King’s Knight/King’s Pawn and then the King’s Bishop, where possible. This opens me up to castle very early in the game and get the King’s Rook into play that much sooner while tucking my King away for safe keeping. I feel like it’s a pretty strong opening that lets me develop and reinforce at the same time and then get to work developing my Queen-side pieces.
This game is a good example of what happens when you forget the four principles I laid out the other day. In this case, I became so focused on cornering his Queen and removing it from the board with minimal loss to myself that I neglected to notice just how much a threat that piece was. I did start to get nervous about the encounter the longer it dragged on, but apparently I wasn’t nervous enough to check the board thoroughly for vulnerabilities, and it cost me the game.
