Strategic Commander 1.1 for Palm is in beta.

It's a fab game. It's one of two games which I play a lot (along with Space Trader).

The new stuff in version 1.1 consists of:

• Colour support. I don't have a colour Palm, so this makes no difference to me.


• Speed improvements. I must say, the difference here is radical - the computer turns are very much faster.

There are some other changes which I would very much like to see:

• On the planet screen, 'next planet' and 'prev planet' buttons would be nice. Once you have a large number of planets under your control, the 'your planets' drop-down gets a bit clumsy to use.


• On the battle report screen, I'd like to be able to skip to the end of a single battle to see the result, rather than just being able to skip to the next battle.


• On the map screen, when moving ships from one planet to another, I'd like to be able to specify the number of ships to move using graffiti, rather than just the '+' and '-' buttons. If you want to send 100 out of 200 ships, it takes a while!


• A screen listing all your planets, showing name, class, number of factories, research facilities, free slots, and orbiting ships would be very useful, especially if you could sort by any column, and go straight to any planet from there.

That's it in terms of UI enhancements. As for gameplay enhancements, well...:

• There could be multiple tech levels, for speed, range, and combat. The player could split their research between these as they see fit. Perhaps there could be a 4th tech level for factory effectiveness, also?


• As well as factories and research facilities, the player could be able to build ground defenses also. More powerful than ships (worth 10 ships each, perhaps?), but expensive, and would take up slots.

Not too much to ask for version 1.2, is it? ;-)

Oh, one other thing. I don't have a hi-res palm, so I wouldn't benefit, but Strategic Commander is crying out for a hi-res mode.

Paul Boddie's Python Web Frameworks Overview has moved to the new Python Wiki.

GadflyB5 (so named because Richard Jones prefers Babylon 5 to The Next Generation) version 1.0 is out.

Gadfly is an RDBMS. It isn't ACID, and it doesn't scale well, so it isn't going to replace UDB/400 any time soon. But it is fast, simple, free, and in pure Python.

This Excerpt from The New Rulers of the World, by John Pilger argues that the US is itself the ultimate terrorist.

5000 civilians killed in the name of peace.

Via my 2p.

The United States will continue to decline as a decisive force in world affairs over the next decade.

Via CamWorld.

Mark Pilgrim's PyAmazon allows you to search Amazon by a variety or criteria, and returns standard Python objects. Cool!

An intertesting thread on c.l.py.

Python is difficult to read? Bwahahahahaha!

The resulting Python at a Glance document is a very good summary.

An interesting article explaining prototyping of parameters in RPG IV.

Death to PLISTs! Who Knew You Could Do That with RPG IV? A Sorcerer's Guide to System Access and More is an absolute must-read for RPG IV developers.

Also worth a look: Until such a time as we all start using Eclipse do develop our iSeries software, defining your own SEU commands is still a worthwhile hack.