Daily Blah Blah

I’m sitting here going through my morning news and was thinking about the nature of blogging. Those of you who read this probably fall into one of two camps: either you know me personally and are curious about what I’m up to, or you find my thoughts and slices of the net interesting or amusing.
It occurs to me that what blogs really are most of the time is a bunch of links to other sites. The number of people who actually think and create new content is relatively small, compared to the number who slice the net in various ways and present their perspective to others. What blogs do provide is a view into the mind of the owner – you get to know them better through what they’re interested enough to tell you about. When you find like minds out there in the Net, it makes the world seem like a more intimate place – here in the US, at least, people are increasingly less interested in getting to know their neighbors, and are more likely to find communities of like minds elsewhere.
I’m as guilty of not creating new content as everyone else; it’s so much easier to give you a slice of what I thought was interesting for the day. It is rare that I sit down and take the time to craft a piece to post here, but it’s always a very satisfying thing to do. I relate it to writing the opening editor’s comments when I was editor-in-chief at Game Developer, or writing the preface for one of the Gems books – both are relatively short pieces that must get a point across quickly, tightly, with laser focus. Writing something like that is really a lot of fun, and gives me the opportunity to focus my being completely on a small task for a short period of time and get satisfaction out of completing it.
It’s no surprise to those of you who fall into the “knowing me” camp that I feel like life has been a constant race for me since moving to California. One of the downsides of increased responsibility at the jobs I’ve had, I guess, is that there’s a never-ending supply of tasks. So when I get home and am faced with another long list of tasks (buy furniture, clean kitchen, re-arrange contact database, etc), I tend to punt and plop down on the rug with a copy of Utne and a glass of chardonnay.
So it is with that spirit that I present you some interesting things for today instead of actually sitting down to write something unique and interesting. Hahhahahahahhahaha 🙂 Consider it as if you’re sitting down with me on the rug and having a chat. Pull up a seat – oh wait I don’t have a couch – pull up a pillow, pour yourself a glass of sake or vodka or coffee or green tea or cab and let’s look at some interesting tidbits of today’s news.
Image of the day:

Here’s Halo Zero, a fan created side-scrolling Halo game!
I notice Microsoft has shipped their latest DirectX update, I’m curious to check out the latest version of their audio tool XACT. AudioKinetic in Montreal is creating a similar tool that I think is much better, and cross-platform too. I wish them well…
EA UK is sponsoring a cool old-school AI tank scripting contest. Woooo! That’s so awesome. Reminds me of the old days…
Lastly, Next-Gen has a good examination of what’s going on with ATI.