No Rest for the Wicked
I don't post anywhere NEAR often enough to be putting plugs for anything in, but I have some good friends who have started up a small pen-and-paper game biz, and I couldn't resist putting in a word or...
View ArticleI Hate Memes
Sara at We Can Fix That with Data has tagged me for the ubiquitous 5-things-you-don't-know-about-me meme, probably as some sort of sinister plot to try to get me to stop ignoring this blog. (As some of...
View ArticleScreenplay Workshop
This may be of interest to designers and other writers in the Austin area:An film-maker acquaintance of mine runs a free screenplay workshop. Game developers are welcome. I'll be at the one on January...
View ArticleGeek Love
For those of you who still use vi/vim on the Windows platform, hang on to your hats. I know you're used to nothing ever changing, but there is, in fact, news. There's a new, less ugly user interface...
View ArticleSignal to Noise
It would be fair to say that I've been to a lot of conferences. My first game industry related conference was CGDC 1998 (back before GDC took the "Computer" off the front of their name). So, I guess...
View ArticleEULAs are Broken
We need better end user license agreements.We, the users of software, understand the consequences of not reading EULAs. We all know we could be agreeing to some damn thing we find unpalatable, at best....
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Bad Capchas
Okay, I understand why we have capchas. I have come to accept that they're a reality of a web that has been destroyed by the unethical. But, I would really appreciate it if in our effort to keep up...
View ArticleOld Comments
Now that Blogger has improved their comment system somewhat, I've gone back to using their comment system. Rather than lose all the comments on my old posts, I've added an "Old Comments" link at the...
View ArticleDigging in the Dirt
Earlier today, I listened to an interview between NBC's Chris Matthews and Karan Grewal, one of Cho Seung-Hui's apartment-mates. I was genuinely interested in what light Grewal could shed on the...
View ArticleHave two, they're small.
Well, I must admit, I wasn't quite fair to Mr. Matthews, in this case. He not only got a clue, but he promptly turned around and tried to share it with Jack Thompson.
View ArticleThe Care and Feeding of Game Designers
We programmers like to think of most game design information as just data. Game design tools are just glorified data entry tools, when it comes down to it. Most of this stuff could be done in a good...
View ArticleDear Open Source Projects...
If you run the main webpage for a piece of open source software, there should be a very clear, concsise explanation of what that software is on the front page, prominently displayed, where anyone can...
View ArticleMerriam-Webster 2007 Word of the Year: w00t
In a nod to the power of gaming in modern culture, Merriam-Webster has chosen "w00t" as their 2007 Word of the Year. While I'm not especially fond of l33t (and, in fact, tend to use the number-free...
View ArticleCrime and Punishment
The hypothesis: When we make it more convenient to be a pirate than it is to be a legitimate customer, otherwise legitimate customers will turn to piracy.We should not be punishing our customers for...
View ArticleNerd Nation
Every time I hear "Handlebars" on the radio, when I hear the line...I can make computers survive aquatic conditions....I just feel like saying, "Oh yeah? Well so can I. BRING IT!"
View ArticleIndependence Day
I know, I haven't been posting here much. It's hard to post about things when you're, well, busy doing them. But, it's time I spilled the beans in a more public way: I am, at long last, going indie.I...
View ArticleSave Frequently
I always find reformatting drives to be terrifying.It's not that it's difficult. I know how to burn an iso, set up my BIOS to boot off of CD, and run the manufacturer's drive re-initialization utility....
View ArticleThe Tech Book Revisited
I used to spend a lot of money on tech books.As a programmer who is always expanding my horizons and trying out various technologies (and generally trying to keep my skills fresh), I spent exorbitant...
View ArticleWhy I Don't GPL
What I am about to write may be controversial with some of my friends in the open source community, but it needs to be said.For the most part, I won't make substantial contributions to any GPL projects...
View ArticleEbert and Games, Again?
Roger Ebert has once again attempted to tackle the whole question of videogames-as-art. I have a huge amount of respect for Ebert as a human being, and as a film critic. He is a giant of a man....
View ArticleData or Code?
There has been much ado about Apple's decision to yank Scratch from the app store. The timing has led many to believe that this was precipitated by the much-maligned iPhone OS 4.0 SDK developer...
View ArticleTools I Love
Today, I'm going to talk a little about some of the secondary software tools that I use, that might be useful to other people. These are mostly Windows tools, since that's where I do most of my...
View ArticleThe Importance of Being Santa
I don't remember when I found out that there was no Santa Claus. It's one of those horrible truths that creeps up on you in the playground, or on the doorstep of a neighbor's house. One child...
View ArticleCreate Repository Here
I love Mercurial.Well, really, it's Mercurial + TortoiseHg, on Windows. As a career-programmer and tinkerer, these things give me great delight. Oh yes, certainly there are many different source code...
View ArticleWeb Revisited
It's been a while since I've done any serious web programming. There are many career programmers in other industries who view web programmers with a jaundiced eye. It is as though the reputation of...
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