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Lots of MMORPGs have guilds - a way for players to coordinate, gather loot, set up bases and work their way into the context of the game world. Some dedicated World of Warcraft players even do up business cards with their characters names on them, what server they play on, what side of the conflict, and what their guild is.

In EVE: The Second Genesis, CCP's massively multiplayer persistent world online game, the concept of the guild gets a facelift, and is called the corporation. Characters form corporations to lay claim to specific parts of the game universe. They control access, can charge tariffs, and otherwise act with nearly the full range of actions and activities that a real world corporation does. EVE Online corporations are far more vibrant than the usual run of "raid, counter raid, camp on the spawn points".

One of the ways that EVE Online corporations significantly differ from a guild is that they can issue contracts, and interact in the market place as entities on their own. Some MMORPGs allow this to a limited extent, but nothing to the scope that these corporations do. Because the entire universe in EVE is persistent and dynamic, changes that corporations make to the basic demand curve for commodities matter. EVE Online Corporations can, in the finest black-hat corporate style, create a spike in demand for a product, and hire out for contractors to get the product - while also paying for pirates to raid the shipments.

EVE Online corporations have a span and a scope that's unique in MMOGs, and can rise, fall, and rise again from the ashes in ways that become part of the ongoing background to the EVE Online game.

What makes this possible is that EVE doesn't run on multiple servers; it runs on one supercluster computer for each instance of the game (Tranquility, for English speakers, Serenity for Chinese, and Singularity for testing new code roll outs). Because of this persistent universe, all 220,000 of the players are interacting with each other; because of the ratio of "player versus player" enforcement inherent in the universe (with 5,000 star systems, to boot), EVE corporations fill a wide range of services and niches beyond just manufacturing. Corporations make loans to one another, provide escorts and anti-piracy groups (and even fund pirates to operate on one another by proxy war).

The downside of EVE Online corporations is the learning curve needed to make one viable. Fortunately, while they add a lot to the game for the hard core audience, these complex corporations can be mostly ignored by players starting out.

Derek Smithson has written articles on EVE Online ships and the EVE Online free trial which is available, as well as a number of EVE Online guides.

E! Online - The actual announcement about Madonna and Guy Ritchie's split may be yesterday's news, but the obsession over the marriage's demise is anything but—with no less than three mags making it their cover stories this week. And given some of the nastier details being reported, we can certainly understand why.

Digital Linear Tape DLT was previously known as CompacTape. DLT is a magnetic tape media data storage technology. The DLT tape was introduced and developed by Digital Equipment Corporation DEC from 1984 onwards. Quantum purchased the DLT technology in 1994. Quantum Corporation currently manufactures the drives and licenses the trademark and technology. The new and higher capacity version of DLT tape is called the SDLT Super DLT.

DLT Technology is thriving as one of the most successful, widely-available technology platforms ever built. Over 3.3 million drives and over 130 million media cartridges have been shipped to date. DLT drives are recognized worldwide as the industry standard. In fact, 98% of FORTUNE 500 businesses trust their mission-critical data to DLT Technology. DLT Technology provides a variety of automation-ready solutions suited to the business continuity needs.

DLT uses linear serpentine recording with multiple tracks on half-inch (12.7 mm) wide tape. The cartridges contain a single reel. The tape is pulled out of the cartridge by means of a leader tape attached to the takeup reel inside the drive.

During the load process the drive leader tape is buckled to the cartridge leader.

The tape speed and tension are controlled electronically via the reel motors and there is no capstan. The tape is guided by 4 to 6 rollers. These rollers only touch the back side of the tape and the tape material is metal particle tape (MP/AMP)

The SDLT backup tape has an optical servo system that reads servo patterns on the back of the tape, in order to keep the data tracks on the front of the tape correctly aligned with the read/write heads. This is important for newer tape media, which have very thin dense data tracks; 256, 384 and 768 data tracks on a half inch wide tapes are now common. DLT7000 and 8000 tilt the head backward and forward to reduce crosstalk between adjacent tracks through azimuth. This process is called Symmetric Phase Recording

All SDLT drives support hardware data compression. The most commonly used compression factor is of 2:1. This compression is generally only achievable for text data. 1.3:1 to 1.5:1 is a more realistic factor across a file system. The drive compression applied to pre-compressed data can actually make the written data larger than having compression turned off in the tape drive. Current manufacturers of cartridges for the DLT SDLT backup tape media cartridges market are Fujifilm, IBM, HP, Quantum, Sony, Maxell and Imation. VStape is made by Sony. The DLT backup tape uses the WORM Write Once Read Many technology. A new naming convention took effect in 2005, calling the performance line DLT-S and the value line DLT-V

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AP - After years of delay, Guns N' Roses is finally releasing "Chinese Democracy."

QinetiQ Group PLC, a British defense technology company, claimed on Sunday, August 24, that its ultra lightweight plane has broken the world record for the longest lasting unmanned flight.

According to QinetiQ, the aircraft, which is called the Zephyr, flew for 83 hours and 37 minutes straight. That is more than twice the official world record set by Northrop Grumman's Global Hawk back in 2001. It is also longer than the Zephyr's accomplishment last year, which was 54 hours of continuous flight.

QinetiQ, however, will not be celebrating anytime soon. The reported flight time of the Zephyr may not get into record books, because it did not meet the criteria laid down by the world's air sports federation, which is the body responsible for measuring and verifying air and space records.

"We were concentrating more on the flight than the record," said QinetiQ spokesman Douglas Millard.

The Zephyr, which has potential in the fields of reconnaissance and communications, is built from carbon fiber and features paper thin solar panels. It weighs 30 kilograms (66 pounds) and was launched by hand on July 28 in the Arizona desert in the United States. The aircraft was flown by autopilot and via satellite to an altitude of over 18,000 meters (60,000 feet), QinetiQ said.

During the day, the ultra lightweight was powered by the sun. At night, it relied on its rechargeable lithium-sulphur batteries.

QinetiQ stated that the Zephyr's more than three-day flight was witnessed by US and British defense officials. Still, it does not change the fact that the record is likely to remain unofficial.

http://community.warplanes.com

AP - New Hampshire launched John McCain's two presidential campaigns, and now he's hoping it doesn't end his bid for the White House.

Micro Grinding is a method I have been using for a while, and some of you have probably dabbled with it, but never correctly. I showcased this on my website, and I have heard some great success stories. Now before you continue reading this method, you have to remember that all servers vary, but I think this strategy will work game-wide.

Microgrinding is mainly for high levels, but in all seriousness it could be done at any level above 30. The higher level you are, the better this will work. It is simply taking down grinding spots that are good for low levels.

Most players think that lower level mobs = lower priced drops. This is not the case anymore. Low level items are highly inflated in the auction house. I spent a long time buying/re-listing items in the auction house in the low level category. Instead of wasting the initial cost of buying out the auction, I decided to farm the items myself. It wasn't that hard since I could one shot all the mobs, and plus I got the bonus of cloth, coin, and the occasional blue.

Since you can clear these mobs quickly you have a greater chance of those greens and blues dropping because you will drop them quicker.

The only problem with Micro grinding is that since you are killing mobs so quickly, you may have to wait for re-spawns. This will quickly kill the amount of gold you can pull in an hour. To fix this you will want to find bugged spots (I list two of them in this guide), where the mobs keep spawning quickly.

An alternative fix to this, are instances. Many players use instances to kill the necessary mobs and then move on to the bosses so they can quickly Disenchant the drops and reset the instance to do this again. I don't believe this is the most effective way since the walking time back and forth would drop your gold/hour rate. To effectively use this strategy you will kill all the mobs in the instance, relying on the drops.

My favorite instances are:

Now to amplify this strategy you want to do it to meet your servers needs. You should recognize your server needs each day when you make your AH scans. You mainly want to check the Cloth and low level armor/weapons. If you see a big level gap missing or one major section of cloth missing, this is exactly what you want to target. By missing I mean they aren't existent in the AH at the time you look for it, or you will see that there's a few auctions but they are crazily inflated (like linen popping in for 2g, or low level items for 5-6g).

This strategy works the best with Paladins and Mages because of the AOE ability - but any class can do this. Instances work great with Paladin and Mage AOE because you can gain aggro just by running through them. When you gain aggro inside an instance (in most cases) the mobs will follow, and they wont de-aggro. This means you don't have to worry about controlling aggro while pulling more mobs.

Sam Rolland has played WoW since its inception in 2004. Visit his site now at Warcraft Riches Review for some of the best strategy guides and gold sellers on the internet. He has also reviewed the #1 sellers at Ige Gold.

AP - A U.S.-led coalition airstrike mistakenly hit an Afghan army checkpoint early Wednesday, killing nine soldiers and wounding three others, Afghan officials said.