Folks,

I tried but was unable to get to the forum or HWH last night. Perhaps the servers were extra busy?

The misery is finally on the run and I felt like some BoB action today so I flew a few missions. Got two was shot down by one. Crash landed in a lovely filed filled with sheep.

I just read a post all about the new BoB coming from Oleg in 2005. It seems to be predicated on the fact that we will all be using mini-Cray computers running light speed or faster (is that possible in 2005?). A lot can happen in just a year or two. We used to say CPU speed doubled every 18 months. Now that seems to have sped up a good bit.

Someone noted that he had just upgraded to a 3.plus Gig CPU and a new GForce card with 1 gig fast RAM and still he had trouble running some monster game or other with all features enabled.

Clinging to older technology as I do that is simply stunning to me. It's like chasing your tail friends. No matter how robust your system grows to be over time you can bet someone can develop a program or a game to stretch it to it's limits and far beyond. Oh well, that's what keeps the registers ringing in December, right?

Still if you have a 3 gig CPU and 1 gig of fast RAM now and it won't do the job this makes me wonder what we'll all be pressing our runny noses onto the cold store windows to drool over in 2005?

All,

JR2, As one who has at times fallen into the speed trap I agree with you. Seems no matter how much you spend on trying to reach the holy grail of pc performance you soon find a game that brings it to it's knees. It reminds me of what I think is the best commercial for pc's I've seen.

The ad pictured a fellow driving home in his covertible with a new "top of the line T-5" Gateway pc. As he drives along the road he passes a billboard advertising the "new T-6. His face drops as he realizes his new pc has already been surpassed and he hasnt even made it home with it yet.

It will be very interesting to see what Oleg comes up with in his new BoB game. His games so far have been top flight in many ways but they are also system hogs and unless he finds some way to put the number of planes in the air that our BoB does on a mid range machine his new game will likely be less than a match in my eyes.

I saw one good idea from the posts suggesting Oleg open a London office and round up some of the Rowan boys. Now that might be something with Oleg's passion for the best, Rowan's skills and Ubisofts money. In any case it is a long way off and who knows what will happen in that amount of time.

Besides, we have our BoB and it is improving with age thanks to the devotion and talents of the BDG.

TALLY HO!

Folks,

SNAFU:

Well spoken as usual.

I wasn't really thinking of you and that spiffy new vidcard when I wrote that. I was really thinking about how we (all of us) feel uncomfortable unless we are certain that we have the best and the fastest running the newest.... it is purely human nature and this is the powerful engine that drives so much of our economy today because so many have learned to exploit it. I could deal with planned obsolescence once upon a time. That was when it took a few years before everything you owned became seriously outdated technologically, out of style esthetically or both.

Now products on the 'cutting edge' drive sales so it happens to us almost over night. Or as you wisely mention, on the way home from the store. My last CPU upgrade was obsolete by the time the ink on the check dried.

Weren't upgradeable mobos supposed to be the cure for all this?

As for our BoB, well clearly the BDG and grass-roots support continue to breathe life into her battered old carcass every new day. No matter how state-o'-the-art Oleg's next masterpiece is and no matter how accommodating he may be, he cannot hope to compete with a sim that continuously changes to meet the needs of its devotes at no additional charge to them. It has been said that no serious request for changes would ever be ignored by the BDG. Everything is added to a "wish list" and taken on in turn. No one can over state the broad benefits of such a policy to all who love this game.

There is the possibility that the BDG may run into a stone wall somewhere along the way because of some unforeseen quirk in several miles of inscrutable code. Perhaps that might hinder continued progress beyond a certain point. We will have to wait and see. OSRAM and his merry band of men have already slain more "giants" than anyone had any reasonable right to expect of them. IMHO we should salute them and Rowan every time we launch our own copies of BoB. I do.

Actually, it appears that the closer the coders get into things the more they can do. Familiarity, I think..

Greetings all,
JRT, glad you are on the mend. perhaps the Paddy's cure is doing the trick. Staggering down to the Scalded cat? Right. Then you walked straight home i suppose?

I am trying not to get into the habit of chasing my tail trying to keep on the leading edge of technology. i get what i need to do the job and leave it at that. i'd say that in five years i'll still be playing BoB, which will probably still be improving at an exponential rate.
The Rowan 'foundation' appears to be a solid one on which to build as we have seen by the quality of the sim, and the game we are now playing is light years ahead of what it was when i bought it.
As they say, the sky is not the limit, the ground is.

Folks,

Bader:

No one should know better than you. That is very, very good news indeed for us all. It is only a matter of time and much hard work then before all challenges are finally met and at that triumphant moment there will be no more pending items on the 'wish list'. Wow! Way to go OSRAM and the BDG!

With that happy thought firmly in mind and as the year 2005 slowly rolls around, Oleg will certainly have his work cut out for him if he wishes to surpass, at least in our minds, our completely metamorphosed BoB.

C51:

I hope that you liked the illustration of that old pub sign. 'The scalded cat' pub was featured in several recent HWH stories.

As for my illness, Lady "M" suggested I turn to Sharon Stone to chase away what ailed me. She indicated that this was a practice of yours when you were feeling ill. What an amazingly open minded wife you seem to have Old Man.

Actually I haven't seen the lovely Sharon in some time now. She is not making a film in NC at the moment. Ben Affleck is working here but I seriously doubt he would be of any benefit to me whatsoever. I wonder if JayLo knows what he's been up to lately? Trust me, if he is pledged to JayLo he has been a very naughty boy.

Toronto is a well-known film location, this is possibly how you first met gorgeous Sharon? We have the largest film studio (Screen Gems) in the USA east of Calif. That studio and film colony is located not too far from here in Wilmington, NC and is run by none other than the son of the great film director Frank Capra.

JRT,
i loved the Scalded Cat artwork, not to mention the medicine swilling sicko illustration. Classic material!
Toronto is indeed Hollywood north. The whole city is a studio. Just try driving to work in the morning
Perhaps our dear Sharon is making a film in Toronto this very day. (wink wink nudge nudge).
Perhaps she is staying with someone on this forum who happens to live in Toronto while that person's spouse is toodling around town in a new car. Perhaps miss S.S. is enjoying the use of that individual's joystick as you read this post :p
...Or maybe not.

Folks,

C51:

Sharon! Say it ain't so..... 'tis enough me thinks to make one have a complete relapse. Pour me another tall glass of my special medicine beerkeeper.

Check out brother Borton's post regarding the Birmingham show. Finally we can put some faces with those highly regarded names we have known for years. Hopefully Bader and OSRAM will also post some pics.

Folks,

It is really odd experiencing the traditional HWH "summer doldrums" in the fall month of October. Looks like everyone but me is just too busy with other things to do much posting right now. Thank goodness for C51 and SNAFU popping in with a sentence or two now and again otherwise I might catch a terminal case of the lonlies around here. The sounds of thousands of infernal crickets chirping and those hordes of gregarious frogs croaking echo up and down these vacant halls and that sound is driving me nuts.

Perhaps any day now someone will take pity and finally post a story featuring all the exciting new bells and whistles of the new BoB version? That I cannot do myself or I would.

C51:

Toronto is indeed a very busy place, especially at rush hour. Now thanks to you, there is one more happy driver behind the wheel for all to contend with.

JRT,
indeed, i think i will go back and re-read the summer stories, since they came so thick and fast i don't think i had time to digest them properly. And in the apparent vacuum of my own brain, i will hope that someone soon will pen a new HWH account.
Regarding the new driver, i think i have created a monster. The person in question is making herself quite scarce these days. i'm existing on marmite sandwiches and beer.