1/31/2006

WOW

Texas politician proposes 100 percent game tax

However, gamers will be especially alarmed by the third part of Locke's property-tax-relief proposal--a 100 percent tax on "violent video games." According to the candidate's official Web site, the candidate would impose "The Family Security & Protection Act" when elected. Section 4 of the act calls to "levy a 100 percent of price sales cost tax for the sale on ... any video game containing any form of human violence."

"I take the position that the Founding Fathers took: that the power to tax is the power to destroy," Locke told the Amarillo Globe News. "So our concept is that we need to tax things we don't want and you want to not tax things that you want to encourage."

However, in the unlikely event he is sent to the governor's mansion, Locke would create a 10-member board that would label games as violent. According to the Globe, the tax itself would be levied against the publishers of said games--and quickly. "Once it's reviewed, the tax would be levied swiftly," he said.

Locke's other platform promises call for the repeal of all alcoholic beverage laws and a 50 percent "grease tax" on "all food prepared by deep-frying or cooking in any form of oil or grease for human consumption."

1/30/2006

Done.

Alright, so in the last week, I've done some of the most difficult things I have ever had to do. I've told a spectacularly talented group of people that I've worked with that I won't be working with them again. I've accepted a new job. I've committed to doing something I never thought I would do - I'm leaving Austin. I quit my job. I've started to realize the full impact of leaving the Austin game development environment. I've met with my supervisors about quitting and realized how my leaving will effect the team. There's a lot of layers here. And even through all that, I'm still crazy excited, but more curious about the future.

It's time for a new step.

I'll be moving to Dallas within 3 weeks, and will be searching to buy a home in the next 2 months. I'm going to be working with some talented and excited people at Ensemble Studios.

I'm excited and afraid at the same time. I'm looking forward to the future, almost purely from an adventurer's standpoint. What's around the next corner? Truly time will tell.

If you're in Austin, I'd love to hang out with you before I go. Otherwise, you should come visit me in Dallas. I still have yet to say goodbye to Austin, but I've got a little time left.

1/26/2006

Hehehehe

Alright, so some quite questionable code came up in an email thread today, to which I responded: “This seems hack-tack-a-riffic and bad, are we sure we want this pushed?” Well, that spawned off a good bit of entertainment from the people around the office, all which culminated to this: hack-tack-a-riffic I now feel like I've left my legacy on the world =D

Also, it's peanut butter jelly time

^_^

1/25/2006

I learned something today.

Ok. So in gcc 2.95.3, you can't reinterpret_cast a uint32 into a float - because that could cause bad stuff. You can, however, trick the compiler by reinterpret_cast-ing the address of a uint32 to a float pointer and dereference it to get a similar result (and vice versa). This all seems to work fine and dandy until you get up to numbers between 4,286,578,688 and 4,290,772,991. That range of numbers, when reinterpret_cast-ing into a float has an invalid exponent, which means it is a 1.#NAN. Now, if you try and copy that float into another float, YOU AREN'T guaranteed that the two floats are bitwise equivalent! Turns out that 2^22 is added to the uint32 version of the number in the conversion! (4,194,304), which is the first digit of the mantissa. So, when you get someone who tries to pass a uint32 around by reinterpreting the data into a float, transmitting it over a network and reinterpret it back to a uint32, you get all kinds of problems when you get into the high ranges. When counting ticks, getting into those ranges is almost guaranteed.

Talk about a difficult bug to track down.

*The more you know*

1/20/2006

Yearrrrggh!

Think of two of the best things in the world, EVER. Now pick one.

>_<

1/18/2006

As the world turns...

We all get older. The pioneers of the gaming industry and the people that love games age, the target is moving. True?

The most interesting part of the article was this:

The social element of the MMORPG genre could also be a boon. Loneliness and isolation are problems often faced by those over 70. With a massively-multiplayer game, however, it's easy to maintain a strong, varied social circle without leaving the home. Videogames are also a hell of a lot more stimulating than watching TV - dozens of studies have concluded that mentally challenging activities can maintain cognitive abilities and stall the onset of dementia. These will surely be key marketing themes in the coming era of mature gamers.

1/17/2006

Deep in thought

So I've been thinking a whole lot recently and am having a LOT of trouble coming to a decision - this isn't a small decision and warrants a lot of attention, but wow. O_O I spent over 4 hours seriously talking with a good friend of mine about what's the right and best thing to do, only to come to no conclusion - in fact, brought up another option.

*sigh*

I shouldn't be complaining, I'm in a good place - just need to find the right thing to do. I'll be more detailed about everything once I can.

1/16/2006

Hrmm...

Herm - well, I'm in a good and bad place right now, but I have to make a choice. And a big one at that. Expect me to be pondering a lot in the next week or so.

Also, this makes me realize just how insanely meticulous people can be.

1/14/2006

Oh. My. God.

I have news - if you're interested, email me, IM me or call me.

1/11/2006

Gone.

I left that day, and for some reason, I felt like I was never coming back.

1/07/2006

Well, I'm surpried

I am nerdier than 94% of all people. Are you nerdier? Click here to find out!

1/04/2006

National Champions, Baby!

Holy freaking crap - the Rose bowl game was UNBELIEVABLE. I almost entirely lost my voice screaming watching the game at home! It was like 4.5 hrs of CONSTANT craziness! Vince Young will truly go down in UT history for what he did in this game!

Woohoo! Go horns! ^_^