I made a tree demo for my graphics class this semester. Considering this picture only got 5fps on my GeForce 6600, I don’t think the folks at SpeedTree will be knocking down my door anytime soon.

I modelled it after the nVidia grove demo, and built it on top of the Cornball codebase. It was a nice test for the little matrix and vector template library I cobbled together in the wake of Spacewar ARC.

You can download my tree demo or the source code.

We presented our final project for our Game Technology class today, Asteroid Racing Circuit. It was very well received; we placed in the top three in no particular order, and the guys from Sony, NCSoft, and BreakAway all had nice things to say. To top it off, we received three games as prizes, and I took home Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas.

You can find more information about the game here.

I’ve posted some screenshots over the fold Read more

Well, Fog Creek and Google weren’t interested, but I will be back in Seattle this Summer working with my good friends at Amazon.

In the meantime… I made a game! Cornball fullfills the requirements of a homework assignment for my Game Technology class this semester. Our final project is Spacewar ARMADA. Not much to see yet.

I really enjoyed working for Amazon last summer. Things went very well, good people, good work, and I expect they’ll invite me back this Summer. I think I’d very much enjoy picking up where I left off, there were alot of other ideas to explore in my problem domain.

Yet, I’m also keenly interested in seeing what other offerings are available, and just what variety exists in the “real world” of software development. So, I sent an email to Fog Creek Software today in hopes of joining their Summer internship program in 2006. I’m keeping my fingers crossed, it sounds like a really cool place to work.

For those of you who don’t know, Fog Creek is Joel’s humble workplace. I’ve been planning to apply for the intership for some time now, but Joel’s article on The Perils of JavaSchools really got me in gear and I began composing a response to some of his points. Before I knew it, I arrived yet again upon the doorstep of Fog’s internship link, and with no place to post my comments, I set off instead to write a short email and sent my resume their way.

Unfortunately, Joel’s page is not a forum-style blog, so I was somewhat disappointed to find no home for my comments, until I remembered this oft-ignored webpage of my own…

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One thing that seems to happen during a final exam period is that there is a great need for short bits of entertainment. If you’re sitting in front of a computer, that entertainment tends to come in the form of surfing for interesting sites. Well, here are a few newer ones I’ve found plus a couple of old reliables. Check Out:

www.dhmo.org
www.twinsdays.org
www.eugenemirman.com
www.ebaumsworld.com
www.aldaily.com
www.bancomicsans.com

I’m a big fan of Richard Linklater’s films, so I was pleasantly surprised to pick up Before Sunset, having never heard of its prequel, Before Sunrise. However, I’m not going to talk about the film at any length here…
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The good folks at Amazon.com have seen fit to offer me a summer internship. It’s really incredible too. As soon as school is out, they’re going to swoop in to ship all of my humble possessions off to Seattle, and they’re footing the bill for the mileage of my upcoming cross-country road trip adventure.

“So you see, you can build a fusion reactor with parts from an electronics store, auto parts store, welding shop, refrigeration supplier, hardware store, and craft store, perhaps with a bit of dumpster-diving on the side, and creative use of big, sad, pleading eyes. It really doesn’t take tens of billions of dollars!”

The Nuclear Reactor High-School Science Project
Fusion from Television
Mr. Fusion

Last night Shantelle and I went in search of a movie to entertain the lazy evening hours. It didn’t take us long to agree on The Five Obstructions from the new-releases shelf. Being two-for Tuesday, I had the opportunity to throw in an older film for free, and low and behold, the good doctor was in.

So, tonight I watched Dr. Strangelove. I had first seen it some years ago, but I only recalled the basic storyline and vague impressions of the main characters. I’ve been considering renting it for the last few months, but the only copy at Vulcan Video was out every time I visited.

I was throughly entertained by the slippery slope inevitably crumbling beneath the various absurd situations and wonderfully overzealous characters, and I enjoyed the movie much more than I think I had previously. My own strange love was a fascination with the Das Boot-meets-Memphis Belle sequence as our B-52 aircrew evades a Russian air-to-air missle.

I began thinking about the history and progress of ranged combat, and as always, I began to think about space. I found some others who have been thinking about it as well:

Space Navies | War in Space