Think about some of the issues they run into. Sure, Windows is bloated, the Win32 API is full of badly-formed interfaces, but… there’s also a lot of crap programmers around using it and preventing the Windows development team from cleaning up the system properly. So, what would YOU do?

– Let old & misbehaving programs crash? Many people wouldn’t upgrade to Vista.

– Leave the old stuff there? Well, this works once or twice, but after 10 years of Windows, the shit tends to accumulate in large piles. And we’re talking about an animation here, nothing important, but remember, the same thing happens with code…

– Make a "blank" or "dummy" version of the resource, so misbehaving apps look ugly but don’t crash? I suppose this is the way to go: old software still works, but developers are encouraged to behave better.

It’s interesting that the otherwise wonderful Delphi runtime uses this undocumented resource, and doesn’t even check for error conditions. Borland has done some remarkable stuff, but there’s a reason I don’t miss using their products. This reminds me of the "leap year" bug in Borland’s C libraries, which caused all sorts of trouble circa 1992.

Check this out: http://www.gamasutra.com/features/20051026/gabler_01.shtml

Found this nifty article in Slashdot, it’s a very entertaining read. Don’t take it as the Holy Gospel, it is half information and half provocation, but if you let it make you think about the topic, you may be surprised how many things ring a bell in your head.

It doesn’t work on my desktop machine, nor on two other PCs I have tried. Shortly after plugging the USB cable, the iPod goes back to the regular menu like it was disconnected. Sometimes it stays connected, but the moment I try to transfer anything (even just updating a tag on a song from iTunes, or checking the drive from Explorer), it resets to the menu. However, it does work fine on my machine at work and on my laptop. All computers work fine with any other USB devices: digital cameras, PSP, and the DVD burner.

WTF?

The Madrid chapter of the IGDA is working now, with a little page, and preparations are underway for a first meeting. Thanks to the organisers, and complete encouragement for everyone to drop by the forum and at least say hi. Don’t be shy!

This may be interesting…

I started playing Shadow of the Colossus… it’s simply amazing, a game like no other. The scale of the Colossi and the way you climb up on them makes most other 3rd person games feel as primitive and flat as, say, classic 2D scrollers. It’s quite hardcore, and breaks pretty much every rule of game design.

Serenity is a plain old fun sci-fi adventures movie. Everything in it is fairly simple and predictable, but the result is very entertaining, and deserved much better success at the box office. I never saw the TV series, but after seeing this movie I know I will.

If your eyes are sore with all the bumpmapped glory of the latest FPS shader fest, check this out! Kenta Cho’s site has a collection of impressive (and incredibly simple) games for several platforms. Vector graphics at their finest!

Let’s hope so. Go go Penny-Arcade!!

Edit: And the story goes on!

I hereby proclaim Quake 4’s awesomeness. Call me a fanboy (you would be right), call me unsophisticated (not far from the truth), but if you like to shoot bad guys with big weapons, this game is plain fun. Graphics and atmosphere are excellent, weapons feel good, sound gets the job done. Missions are reasonable classic styles like go to point B, keep A alive and such, but they provide a good excuse to shoot more Stroggs and save the universe. Again.

It’s basically Quake 2 with Raven’s production know-how and Doom 3 technology. I only miss the fantastic soundtrack that Sonic Mayhem did for Quake 2.

Ok, so I have a few blogs linked in my page. Over the past week, the first two of them have left their jobs, and precisely in that order. What does that say about me, or them, or anything? 🙂 Are Joel Spolsky and Raymond Chen next in line? Hm… nah I don’t think so.

Anyway, if you need some game consultancy work done, I’m sure you can’t go wrong with Jamie Fristrom.