Hitting the tracks your way

Sims today, although pretty, are sometimes overly complicated in terms of game interface or gameplay. So, let’s hit a classic I pulled out of the bin: Railroad Tycoon 2.


Many should remember the good old Windows 98 days spending endless hours in front of their PCs constructing and maintaining their railroads in hopes of becoming virtual millionaires. There are 12 maps covering Africa, North America, Germany, the Swiss Alps and the jungles of South America in the 18-scenario campaign of Railroad Tycoon 2.


There are plenty of trains to play with. Every engine and car that you can imagine is available with your current sets changing as time goes by.

There are also several gaming modes ranging from basic train sets where players just play with trains, to a higher level of financial difficulty that would affect how you would run your company. So, you can be playing with sets of trains without a worry in the world, or you can engage in fierce competition with the artificial intelligence as you try to outplay them both in running your business and ruining their companies through stock market manipulation.

If that is not enough, you have to ensure the right cargo delivery and plan, for example, steel mills need both coal and iron to be delivered, otherwise they cannot produce steel.

Also, watch out for wars and economic crashes as these will affect your business.

Although a bit dated, Railroad Tycoon 2 has an easy interface and highly customisable game settings that allow you to adjust the game to the style of play of your choice. From a simple train set to stock market manipulation and cut-throat competition, there is something for every kind of player.

Happy Mole Day!

That’s right, dear readers, Oct. 23 is Mole Day. And no, it’s not an accident that it coincides with National Chemistry Week. Around the C&EN offices, we like to celebrate special days with food. Former Deputy Editor-in-Chief Pam Zurer used to bestow us with her yummy mole cookies (recipe after the jump). Perhaps you might like to whip up some variation of mole sauce. If you’re not of the do-it-yourself type, pick up some Avocado’s Number Guacamole from Trader Joe’s.

As for tchotchkes, you can buy all sorts of goodies from the National Mole Day Foundation or the ACS store (like the fuzzy nanomole above).

So how do you celebrate Mole Day?

You could always celebrate with a debate of the impact (however big or small) the kilogram’s redefinition has on the mole as we know it.

Pam’s Famous Mole Cookies

Dress up old-fashioned peanut butter cookies with Hershey’s kisses for snouts and dots of chocolate for eyes, and you have mole cookies to celebrate with on Oct. 23. To make three dozen cookies, you’ll need the dough recipe below, 3 dozen Hershey’s kisses, and a small tube of imitation chocolate glossy decorating gel.

Peanut butter cookies:

½ cup shortening
½ cup smooth peanut butter
½ cup white sugar
½ cup light brown sugar, packed
1 egg
1 ¼ cups white flour
¾ teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon baking powder
¼ teaspoon salt

Thoroughly mix shortening, peanut butter, granulated sugar, brown sugar, and egg. Blend in dry ingredients. Cover bowl and chill for one hour. Meanwhile, unwrap the kisses. Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Using hands, shape dough into 1-inch diameter balls. Place three inches apart on lightly greased baking sheets. Bake 10 to 12 minutes until set but not hard. While cookies are still warm, press the flat end of a kiss into each one, slightly off-center so the pointed ends of the kisses stick out to the side, forming the moles’ snouts. Once the cookies are cool, add eyes by squeezing two dabs of chocolate gel onto each cookie, one on either side of the kiss.

karthik

Football: Beckham joins AC Milan on loan

England international David Beckham will join AC Milan on loan in January, the Italian club said yesterday.
The former England captain will join the team from January 7 when the Serie A season restarts following its winter break.

Milan vice-president Adriano Galliano had revealed earlier in the day that he was due for talks with Beckham’s lawyers, who were in Milan, and now a deal has been agreed.

The seven-time European champions first revealed the possibility of the loan move last week after rumours circulated that Beckham would train with the Italians during America’s Major League Soccer off-season.

The former Manchester United and Real Madrid midfielder currently plays for Los Angeles Galaxy, whom he joined 18 months ago, but needs to keep playing over winter to avoid losing match fitness and his place in the England squad.
England’s Italian boss Fabio Capello has previously made it clear to Beckham that if he is not playing he won’t be part of the England set-up.

Beckham has 107 caps for England and is the third most capped player in the country’s history.

This moves means the golden boy of British football will have played for arguably the biggest club in the three biggest leagues in the world: England, Spain and Italy. - AFP
karthik

University of London to set up campus in Malaysia

Another foreign university will set up campus in Malaysia. What a great news, this means we don’t have pay so much to get a qualification from reputable university like UOL.

Royal Holloway, University of London, signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with KLEC Ventures Sdn Bhd to set up its first offshore campus in Asia at Bandar Enstek, Negeri Sembilan under the KL Education City project (KLEC).

KLEC is planned as an integrated and self-contained education city that will feature a mix of international, local and regional education institutions. Royal Holloway is one of the constituent colleges of the University of London and is a leading research-based university.

The signing ceremony was witnessed by Higher Education Minister Datuk Mustapa Mohamed. He said the collaborations will help Malaysian institutions move up the value chain and improve the quality of our higher education.

Solar Mystery Solved

Japanese spacecraft finds conclusive evidence of waves that make sun's corona much hotter than its surface

The sun's corona—a hazy plasma that makes up the outermost portion of the sun's atmosphere and is filled with exotic ions such as iron(XIV)—should, by rights, be cooler than the fiery surface. Yet the corona's temperatures reach more than 1 million oC, whereas the sun's surface is only about 6,000 oC.

Researchers analyzing data from the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency's spacecraft Hinode (Sunrise), which has been orbiting the sun since last year, have found conclusive evidence for one explanation for this temperature mystery: "Alfvén waves," which are energy-transporting oscillations that can heat the corona to fantastic temperatures as they ripple along the lines of magnetic fields spreading out from the sun.

These subtle waves were predicted more than 50 years ago by Swedish Nobelist Hannes Alfvén and have been difficult to detect, although some evidence for their existence has been reported (Science 2007, 317, 1192).

In 10 articles on the Hinode mission results, international research teams report the observation of these oscillations in thin streams of matter that jet out from the sun (Science 2007, 318, 1572, 1574, 1577, 1580, 1582, 1585, 1588, 1591, 1594, and 1597). The researchers also report that these waves are strong enough to accelerate the blast of high-energy plasma, known as the solar wind, that bathes the solar system.

University of Sheffield solar physicists Robertus Erdélyi and Viktor Fedun note in an accompanying commentary that "these pioneering results have serious consequences for solar and stellar coronal heating theories."

India’s Blair university to be set up in Perak

The government has recently announced on the establishment of new University in Perak. Eventhough the news look promising however since this release is only made during the election , we hope that this is not part of the Barisan Nasional campaign.

Anyway, read the news here.

Full Press Statement (Friday March 7, 2008)

IPOH: Perak will get its first foreign university when construction of the RM450mil Premier International University of Perak in Gua Tempurung is completed in 2010.

Perak Mentri Besar Datuk Seri Mohamad Tajol Rosli Ghazali said that the university would be set up by India’s Blair Education Services consortium, which has five universities in the subcontinent.

“Our children will not have to travel all the way to India to take up courses – the ones offered here would be cheaper and just as credible.

“The university can accommodate as many as 8,000 students,” he said after handing over land offer letters to Blair Education Services Sdn Bhd chief executive officer Dr R. Subramaniam here on Wednesday.

Tajol Rosli said the university would be built on a 101ha site in Gua Tempurung, some 20km from here.

Dr Subramaniam assured the state government that the construction of the campus would not affect the environment in the surrounding areas and Gua Tempurung.

The university will have five faculties – medical, dentistry, pharmaceuticals and allied health sciences, business and management, and integrative sciences and technology.

Oil falls below $65 on US contraction

BANGKOK, Thailand – Oil prices slipped below $65 a barrel in Asia Friday, extending declines after data showed the U.S. economy contracted in the latest quarter, reinforcing expectations of a prolonged slump in demand.

Light, sweet crude for December delivery was down $1.78 to $64.18 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange by midmorning in Singapore. The contract overnight fell $1.54 to settle at $65.96. Oil prices have fallen about 55 percent since peaking above $147 a barrel in mid-July.

U.S. gross domestic product, the broadest barometer of a nation's economic health, shrank at a 0.3 percent annual rate in the July-September quarter, the Commerce Department said overnight. It marked the worst showing for the world's largest economy since it contracted at a 1.4 percent pace in the third quarter of 2001.

The negative cue provided by the U.S. data continued into Asian trade, compounding the pressure from a generally strong dollar, said David Moore, commodity strategist with Commonwealth Bank of Australia in Sydney.

Investors often buy commodities such as crude oil as an inflation hedge when the dollar weakens and sell those investments when the greenback rises. Oil investors have also been tracking equity indexes as a barometer of global economic health.

The euro eased to $1.2697 from $1.3181 in late Asian trade Thursday and the dollar fell to 96.88 yen from 98.68. The region's stock markets were mixed after a rally the previous day with Japan's Nikkei index falling 5 percent while South Korea's market rose 2.6 percent and India's market jumped 6 percent.

"The dollar has been relatively firm and that has taken some of the edge off the market. There's also the other issues that have been in the market for a while such as worries about demand and consumption patterns," Moore said.

"A further fall in the oil price cannot be ruled out. It is difficult to predict where the bottom could be," he added. "An important factor over the next few months will be whether OPEC can achieve its output cuts. If it can that will certainly tighten market conditions."

Last week, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries announced plans to cut 1.5 million barrels of production per day at an extraordinary meeting in Vienna called to address plummeting prices.

Venezuela's Oil Minister Rafael Ramirez says that OPEC, which controls about 40 percent of world crude oil production, will need to cut production at least another 1 million barrels per day to boost falling prices.

In other Nymex trading, gasoline futures fell 2.7 cents to $1.4395 a gallon. Heating oil fell 3.91 cents to $1.9450 a gallon and natural gas for December delivery was down 4.6 cents at $6.385 per 1,000 cubic feet.

In London, December Brent crude fell $1.89 to $61.82 a barrel on the ICE Futures exchange.