jselzer

I have not taken the time to verify your claims here, but don't you think it's fair to use "off the scale" when comparing this to any other time period during the modern human era?

As other people have said, life on earth will go on in one form or another. But "off the scale" is a necessary term in this context to drive home the incredible turmoil and human suffering that will result as we are forced to adjust the local pressures of water shortages, mass human migration, and agricultural failures that will be caused by this...

Not sure I agree with the author's assertion that matrix math should be avoided until absolutely necessary when learning graphics programming. I don't even agree with the idea that matrix math is particularly difficult.

When I was in university, we learned graphics programming by taking a linear algebra course or two. This was applied in a graphics course in which all students built their own software renderer, from top to bottom.

I have seen coworkers who never learned matrix math fumble with obfuscated code that could be replaced with one line of matrix operations. Several game companies I have interviewed at make linear algebra a very big part of their technical interview process. IMO if you are even remotely comfortable with math, learning matrix math is a HUGE benefit (maybe even a necessity) if you want a serious job as a game developer... the easiest way to get going with it is to just take a university-level intro to linear algebra course. That is all you need to understand the math underneath the entire rendering pipeline.

As an Albertan, I am very proud of the exciting candidates we are electing in municipal elections. Hopefully someday we will be able to see the same excitement in provincial politics, where we have had the same party in power since 1971!

I thought I was one of those people too... every time I try to nap it seems to end up with me just lying down and trying to fall asleep for 20 minutes. However, after moving in with my girlfriend she has confirmed that I do indeed manage to fall totally asleep during these attempted naps.

I did some looking around and apparently earlier sleep stages can easily be confused for being awake, especially for light sleepers. It may sound weird, but sleep perception is a funny thing. Some people nap quite easily, yet conclude they did not sleep at all because they never perceive themselves falling asleep or waking up.

That is true, but I think many people still use GOG as a backup service simply because it is convenient. In my opinion this is a big selling point for digital distribution, DRM or not.

I personally own a few games on GOG but currently don't have local copies of any. When I saw the notice on their website and assumed they were gone I briefly thought I would never be able to get a legimate copy of the games I bought. One could argue that it's my own fault for not backing them up myself, but still...

For a digital distribution service that depends so much on consumer trust that their purchased content will still be available well into the future, this is even more puzzling...

Why even hint at the idea that you may one day shut down and remove access to purchased content? Surely there are ways to build hype without eroding trust in your brand and angering your audience.

Exactly... I also wonder about calling it "HIS product" in reference to the employee. If he is only an employee, it is not HIS product, it is the company's product (and the OP's, as a founder/owner).

In my opinion, intrinsic motivation for a project isn't something that you either have or don't have by nature. It is something that is built and nurtured by a variety of external forces (team members, education, working conditions, etc) until the act of performing a task is rewarding in and of itself.

Expecting early-stage employees to be intrinsically motivated while ignoring environmental factors that may be eroding that motivation is unrealistic.

"Working with that library will take too long, we can do this faster if we just write it ourselves"

I bought the book with high hopes, but to be honest I found it a little dry. About halfway through I had to give up on the idea of reading it cover-to-cover, and instead just cherry-picked the interviews I wanted to read. It lacks a lot of background info on the interview subjects, so unless you are familiar with them you may find yourself lost as many historical and technical details are referenced without additional explanation.

Personally, I thought "Founders at Work" was a much more interesting read and would recommend checking that one out first.

Might want to change this link from an https:// to an http://, it's throwing up red flags in firefox (and I assume other browsers too)

Maybe, but performing well in controlled press tour and demo environments is very different than performing well in a million different kinds of living room and lighting configurations. I'm not saying the tech is going to utterly fail, but these things typically do present a lot of problems for computer vision technology.

Sorry for the obnoxious link, I had sound off when I posted it! Here is something less headache-inducing: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DeZep21f32o

I worked in computer vision for my MSc three years ago, and based on the state-of-the-art at that time I would be surprised if Natal going to be as robust as the mass market expects. This kind of thing is notoriously hard and error-prone. The information coming in from cameras is often so noisy and incomplete it is very difficult to tell what you are seeing.

When Natal was unveiled at E3, it was having exactly the kind of issues I expected: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NKtpJW9pg84

Also the rumour that they have chopped Natal's onboard CPU and moved most of the processing to the Xbox 360 CPU does not fill me with optimism... Prove me wrong, Microsoft, prove me wrong!

Are you able to share what strategies you have for increasing participation among lodgings businesses? It seems to me that this would be a big challenge and a huge factor in your success, and I am curious how you address it.