Chris Butcher talks about the difference between synchronous and asynchronous network schemes with regards to Marathon, Halo 1 and Halo 2 at How Stuff Works. Thanks HBO.

Slashdot has a story on getting Windows clone ReactOS to run on the Xbox.

SPOnG today reports that updated Xbox 2 developer kits are shipping to developers. Like the old kits, the new ones are based on Macintosh G5 computer. The new kits feature R500 graphics cards and are planned to replace the older kits over a span of two months.

Industry rag sheet GamesIndustry.biz is reporting that Electronic Arts' CFO is saying that next-generation consoles are going to feature wireless hubs right out of the box. However, when listening to financial muckety-mucks talk tech, be sure to take it with a few tablespoons of salt; he also mentions the phrase "microtransaction environment" which should cast a bit of doubt on anything coming out of the man's mouth.

Slashdot linked to a story at The Wire about Holo-Dek Gaming Inc., a company opening up networked gaming centers featuring PC and Xboxes connected to large projection screens in Hampton, New Hampshire.

Greetings from rainy Langley outside of London, where I'm in town for a few days doing something almost, but not entirely, unrelated to Halo 2; something I hope to rectify in approximately 12 hours or so. In the meantime, of course, I returned to notice that the server logs had filled up the server's disk space, effectively closing the site; hopefully that won't happen again for... oh... at least another 24 hours or so.

Evil Avatar points out an alternative to class action lawsuits for getting satisfaction from Microsoft over out-of-warranty Xbox repairs.

Gaming rumor sheet SPoNG has another of its items about infighting between nVidia, ATI and Microsoft over the possibility of making the Xbox 2 backwards compatible with the first iteration. Please pass the salt.

Just a note: Rampancy.net has a feature called throttle that gradually disables site functions as traffic goes up, in order to prevent the entire thing from catching fire, falling over, and sinking into a swamp.

We tested it with the last Bungie Weekly Update we hosted, and while the site was unavailable for part of the night, generally we were pleased, and had less downtime while also being able to serve more users.

A site called Joystiq is reporting a rumor that both the PlayStation 3 and the Xbox 2 may both be using IBM-made PPC chips. Thanks cooked gamers.

We missed it, but awhile back Bungie.net had an article on the new Theme Builder for the recently-revised 7th Column community site. The theme builder had been absent from the newly-launched site, but now it's back.

A very long thread in the Gearbox forums has some of the usual complaints about Halo CE in it, mostly about lag and "warping", and a response from Randy "DuvalMagic" Pitchford, CEO of Gearbox, providing some of the background on the project to port Halo to the PC and how it affected the game's eventual network performance:

Slashdot recently interviewed author Neal Stephenson, and his response to a question about the merging of novels with games turned up information on ILB:

It has already happened in the form of the I Love Bees alternate reality game, which, as many of you must know, is a promotional campaign for Halo 2. I know the people who did it, but I have lost track of what I promised not to reveal publicly, and so will shut up for now.

Today Rampancy.net was upgraded to version 4.5 of the Drupal Content Management System. Other than a few minor cosmetic changes, most users should not notice too much that is different. Here are some known changes and issues. Some we may be able to work on and fix, some we definitely will, and some we might not.