HmxGeoff’s Profile

I just finished watching the documentary "Metal: A Headbanger's
Journey," and I totally recommend it.  I'm not a huge
metalhead;  I often find myself wearing flannel and praising the
90s.  Yet, some part of me has a serious love/hate thing going on
with metal, and the first album i ever bought was "...And Justice For
All" (at the tender age of 10!)

Anyway, this
documentary is worth it alone for the interview with the incredibly
well-spoken Rob Zombie, and the reasonable well-spoken Slipknot
(they're still wearing their masks).  He also isn't afraid to dive
into the many subgenres, like Norwegian Black Metal.  The
following exchange occurs with a member of Gorgoroth:

"What would you say is your primary influence"

15 seconds pass...

(entirely straighfaced) "...Satan." 

Wednesday, May 30, 2007

My dog's dying :(

12 years old, grey-white German Shorthair
Pointer.  Always was in good health, very strong.  But turns
out she's got a heart tumor, and she can't lie down without
suffocating, and she hasn't eaten for 6 days.  I wish i could see
her, but she's with my parents in VA, and they'll probably put her
sleep by noon.

Apparently, she's not whimpering or anything, so
it's hard to tell how much pain she's in.  She's been a very
strong outdoors dog, so she has enough stamina to keep herself up for a
long time, but it's only a matter of time.  She was one of those
dogs that loved everyone unconditionally.

 

Damn, what a great dog. 

Thursday, May 17, 2007

I was recently asked how much math I use as a game programmer.
The short answer is that depends on what type of work you're
doing. Our "graphics dog" bennji uses a ton. I don't really
use any.

Sometimes this makes me sad, as I do have a math
degree floating around here somewhere, but then I remember that I
didn't really focus on the type of mathematics that applies readily to
computer science. Linear algebra, multivariable calculus,
differential equations, these are the tools we use to model our
"real world." (Pshhh!)

Personally, I liked set theory, which convinced me that
irrational numbers actually do exist. Number theory taught me how
to completely describe all primes that can be represented in the from
x^2 + 257(y^2). Believe it or not, these skills go completely
unappreciated!

My thesis focused on Homology, the method
of reducing topological spaces to algebraic groups to find
invariants. You may have heard that the famous Poincare
Conjecture was recently solved by "some Russian guy." These are
exciting times in algebraic topology, yes, yes [/sarcasm]

No,
I'd say that the majority of my programming work relies on having good
organizational skills. I'm still learning, but maybe being into
math helps. Hey, in the end, we're just compiling a finite
sequence of 1's and 0's over here. And that means that Rock Band
as a finished product could be described as a single very large
positive integer N in binary form. I wonder if it's prime...

Thursday, April 19, 2007

Maybe i'm losing my touch, but Ninja Gaiden for the Xbox is way too
hard for me.  I'm presented with two difficulty levels: "Normal"
and "Hard," so I go with Normal.  I proceed to get wasted in the
first level a dozen times before beating the boss.

I love hard
action games, really.  But I also expect a learning
curve of some sort.  The only in-game hints are for maneuvering
around the environment.  Yeah, I can figure that part out. 
That rock ledge isn't eliminating half my health bar in one shot. 

Sunday, April 8, 2007

Hey all, and welcome to Rock Band!  As I'm sure you've already
ascertained, this game will rock your organs.  You'll see a lot
more of it in the coming months.

I'm one of the game's
programmers; I love rocking out and I love technology, so this is the
right place to be. This is by far the largest project I've ever worked
on.  Keeping organized and sane is a huge task in of itself, it's
easy for things to fall apart if the team doesn't have the development
kinks worked out.  Harmonix is amazing though, they have this
process down like you wouldn't believe.

I'm looking forward to
sharing with you my observations and experiences of being immersed in
the fast-moving game development world. 

 Oh, and here's my band: [link="http://www.fatheroctopus.com"] Father Octopus [/link]

 Cheers!

Wednesday, April 4, 2007