Waiting is the hardest part

This is an excerpt from a book I'm writing about gaming and video game development. I've only just started writing the past few months. So just a fragment really. 

I have a confession to make. I've never actually finished a project at work. I don't know who coined the phrase but it is so true. Games are never finished, only abandoned. It is an act of sheer will to allow a project come in for a landing, locking down all the various pieces and watching your issue database velocity start to dip until it is so steep that nothing can stop the inevitable slide into gold master candidacy.

Just as we learn how to make the game, we have to ship it. You spend most of development waiting for a tool to become usable, waiting for a game system to be playable, waiting for the build to stop crashing, waiting for the frame rate to get faster, waiting for the exporter to play nice with your art assets, waiting for the ability to just load or save a game...the list is long. And when the wait is over, the game is done and you have to move on to the next project. And the waiting begins again.

Money

I finished Willis' Blackout; gotta say, very unsatisfying since it appears to be the first of a two part series, and literally just ends. It starts out slow and just as it starts to pick up, it stops. There is no ending. Obvious that this is the first part of an unfinished book.

Started reading Michael Lewis' Liar's Poker, and just pre-orderd Simon Johnson's 13 Bankers, while I wait for Lewis' Big Short to come to Kindle. Will be immersed in world of finance for a while.

Inglorious Basterds

Watched Inglorious Basterds last weekend. Really enjoyed it. Christoph Waltz was brilliant. I thought the Mike Myers cameo was hilarious.

PC

I don't play games on PC much. I mostly game on my Xbox 360, occasionally on PS3, and some iPhone, too. Every now and then, you'll see an email thread about how PC games is doomed, dying, dead, obsolete, etc... Predicting the death of PC gaming is like bell bottoms. Every few years, it becomes fashionable to cry that PC gaming is over.

I don't think PC gaming is ever going to go away. Tastes change. Trends come and go. Thanks to services like Steam and Good Old Games, what a great time to be a PC gamer! Imagine the greatest games ever created, all at your fingertips, and cheap, too. Its like being a film buff and having Netflix stream every Oscar winning film - no waiting, just pick the one you want to watch.

My iPad is coming on Saturday and one of the first things I'm going to do is throw Civilization Revolution on there. Civ Rev is hard to play on iPhone because the screen is so small, should be better on the larger iPad screen. Speaking of Civ, when the heck can I start playing Civ for Facebook?!

Saturday

Before it rains next week, I'm out today with the blower, cleaning out our yard of debris and dead leaves. I'm out with the trimmer and cutters, trimming and cutting bushes and trees. Possibly some mulching.

My Final Four

Duke, Syracuse, West Virginia, and Maryland (homer pick). I have Maryland-Duke rematch in the Finals, with Maryland beating them.

In the real world, replace Maryland with Kansas, and Kansas wins the whole thing.

Mass Effect 2

Finished. I milked it pretty dry - explored pretty much every planet - did every companion mission and side mission I could find. I'm not usually a big "lore" guy but I do love me some space opera and Mass Effect's world is pretty interesting space opera. Not sure what game to play next. I've been dabbling between Final Fantasy 13 and Heavy Rain, biding my time until Red Dead Redemption comes out.

60 Minutes segment with Michael Lewis

I'm looking forward to Lewis' new book, though it isn't available on Kindle yet :(

The 60 Minutes segment is good, worth watching.

Save it for the tournament

The Terps loss yesterday to Georgia Tech isn't as heart breaking to me as you'd think. The Terps are definitely going to the NCAA Tournament, whereas Georgia Tech needed to win this game to help prove their case for entry into the tournament. The team that wants it more = Georgia Tech. Plus I feel like having to play the full 3-4 games in your conference tournament can potentially tire out your team, and leave them with no mojo left for later.

Not to insult the ACC Tournament (ok, I'm going to), but I care more about the NCAA's than the conference tournament.

Daylight Savings

There doesn't seem to be any good reason for daylight savings, except that I enjoy having more daylight in the evenings. Especially with warm weather coming.

New Design

Using the new template editor, I gave the ol' blog a new design. I kept most of the layout, but redid the background and colors. I'm rather pleased with it.

Side note - I started playing Final Fantasy 13. Just started, too early for any impressions except it sure is purty.

Software is hard

The Wash Post's article -- Why it's so hard for Toyota to find out what's wrong with its vehicles gives interesting insight into Toyota's problems.

Who are these Redskins?

Free agency is on and the Redskins have only signed Artis Hicks, a utility offensive lineman who can play four spots. Wow. The long nightmare may actually be over. Maybe.

Microsoft's Courier

I think the iPad is cool but Microsoft's Courier project is what my hopes and reams are really wishing for. Engadget has a great post about it.

Daily Show: Chat Room Roulette

This is one of the funniest segments I've ever watched on the Daily Show.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Tech-Talch - Chatroulette
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Health Care Reform

Back in the day

I saw OKGO open for They Might Be Giants way back in the day. Those guys rule.

Blackout

Connie Willis is one of my favorite authors. Doomsday Book, Lincoln's Dreams and To Say Nothing of the Dog are among my favorite science fiction books. Her last book, Passage, was a great read, too. Her latest, Blackout, just came out and has been deployed to my Kindle asap.I started reading it last night.

Wookie and the dogs

Wookie comes down from her high perch to check out Max and Blondie. From last xmas.

How I Inhale Information

I read the Washington Post online every morning. Mostly skimming. I read the actual Wash Post on Sundays. My wife and I enjoy lounging on Sunday mornings, reading the paper.

I have lots of news feeds hooked up via iGoogle. I use Firefox and I have 5 pages it defaults to whenever I fire it up. Gmail, iGoogle, Washington Post, and two internal work intranet/wiki sites.

Besides the Wash Post, I get my news via newsfeeds on iGoogle. I read Calculated Risk, Pro Publica, Consumer Reports health and car blogs, io9 (scifi nerdy blog) and a couple gaming related blog - kotaku, joystiq - and gamasutra news. I also load up and read Techmeme, Huffington Post, the Atlantic Wire, Politico, GigaOM, and ESPN.

I read Entertainment Weekly religiously, the only magazine I subscribe to. I also pick up The Economist every month or so, if the cover interests me. I really should subscribe to it one of these days. My wife subscribes to Washingtonian so I'll read that occasionally, mostly for restaurant reviews.

In the evenings, I spend an hour or so, watching shows on Tivo. I record and watch The Daily show every night or in the morning before work. I don't watch evening news or cable news networks, its just a bunch of noise to me.

Most of my book reading is done on Kindle these days. I'm in the middle of a couple novels and non fiction books. I typically read in bed before going to sleep, or if I have a free couple hours on a weekend. My free time in evenings and weekends often gets taken up by my graduate school classes that I'm taking. (I'm working on a dual degree MBA/MS in E-Business/Technology Management).

A few favorite sites I like to read (mostly blogs) - Dubious Quality, Whatever, By Ken Levine, Rock Paper Shotgun, Flickr Blog (for beautiful photos), and Penny Arcade.

On iPhone, I like USA Today and Scifi Wire, both short reads.

America's Most Wanted

If you're looking to break into the video game industry, there are certain specialties that are in high demand. How's your 3d math? How are your communication skills? Here are two possible specialties that most development teams are constantly looking for.

Graphics programmers are highly valuable to every development team. Being a graphics programmer requires strong math and programming skills, and it helps to be a good team player since graphics programmers and artists work closely together to create the beauty we all see in games.

Generalists. Yeah, this is an odd one and you often won't see the position listed like this. Generalists are the utility infielders. They are comfortable poking around any codebase, any third party API, they can decipher cryptic crash dumps, they have no fear manipulating code they didn't write themselves. When it comes to most software development, legacy code is a fact of life. Rewriting anything from scratch is one of the riskiest things you can do and should never be approached lightly. In general, working in game development means working with code you didn't originally write. Generalists just love games, they love writing code, and they don't care if its adding a new menu object, a gameplay feature, improving a content tool, fixing null pointers and crashes, or the hundreds of other tweaks, bugs and changes that occur on a daily basis. These guys carry your team; these guys get you to the finish line; these guys are the lifeblood of every programming team.