I tied the computer on Veteran by choosing as randomly as I could each time. Here's a way to actually choose a more or less random number between 0 and 2 in a RoShamBo setting. Say three numbers between 0 and 9 in your head. Now take each number mod 3 and add those up. You get something between 0 and 6; take that mod 3 again and that's your number. The two-step process is a somewhat chaotic system, in that it's hard to predict the outcome while you're making up the original numbers, and you're just as likely to get 0, 1, or 2. And it's easy to do mod-3 arithmetic in your head, so with a little practice you can actually apply it while playing against real people.

That's my foolproof system for at least breaking even no matter what your opponent's strategy is.

Mathematically speaking, to say that a space has n dimensions roughly means that you need n coordinates to refer to a position on that space. In two dimensions (like your computer screen) a pixel is uniquely determined by its x and y coordinates; in three dimensions, a point also has a depth, and so you need x, y, and z coordinates to determine its position (hence a z-buffer). So to say that this game takes place in four-dimensional space just means that the world is a space that requires four coordinates to describe, say x,y,z, and w. Since the "visible" part of the world appears three-dimensional (albeit projected on a 2-D screen), what is presumably happening is that at any given time you're seeing a "slice" of the 4-D world -- probably you start off seeing all the objects contained in the slice where w=0, and you can "shift" objects into other slices, say where w=1 or w=-1. In the example of connecting rings, the player is moving the one ring from the w=0 slice into the w=1 slice, which looks to be pretty empty; then he can move it around as he likes before taking it back into the w=0 slice, where it's now locked into the other ring.

I would simply think of the game world as a bunch of parallel 3-D worlds. Exactly like a Linux (or Mac) desktop with 4 workspaces is really four parallel 2-D worlds, which have little to do with each other, except you can move windows from one to the other.

Non-mathematicians generally get hung up on the need to assign a physical interpretation to the fourth coordinate. But if you think of a four-dimensional space simply as the set of all four-tuples of numbers, then you've divorced the space from its interpretation as spacetime or whatever, and it becomes much easier to think about.

I take offense to that -- I water-cooled my system so it wouldn't sound like a hair dryer in a box.

Okay, and because it looks cool.

I guess bragging rights too. (Hence this post.)

EA actually spent a lot of time and money making Command and Conquer 3 into a viable spectator sport with their Battlecast viewer. You can stream current matches or watch archived ones. They even have an online TV show, Battlecast Primetime, where they show some of the best matches with commentary. It's fun to watch if you've ever played the game, and I have no trouble believing a gamer could make money with that kind of forum.

Metal Gear Solid 4 had a fantastic ending! And is likely to have a sequel apparently.

I have my keyboard layout in Dvorak, but the keys still in QWERTY. I used to pop out the keys and rearrange them, but then I noticed that other people would still use my computer (and plus, it gives the keyboard a "rocky terrain" topology -- the keys are all at different heights and angles). Now people only use my computer when they're willing to type every key and press "backspace" until they want the letter they want, for each and every one. Oh, and it defeats the purpose to make it easy to changed the language settings (hello XF86Config-4!).

It works pretty well.