Ramblings of a Programmer

2008-11-19T09:39:00.000-08:00

I’m EngagedThis entry was originally published at Ken NolandIt’s funny, I always thought I was supposed to be nervous when I popped the big question, but I wasn’t. In fact, it came out so natural, I was wondering why I hadn’t done it before. Needless to say, I am engaged to be married to Isabella Peldszus.For those of you wondering how I did it, it was simple. I was on the porch and I saw her

2008-11-14T16:12:00.000-08:00

Supreme Commander 2 Announced… KindaThis entry was originally published at Ken NolandRead this press release first.When I was a teenager I used to volunteer time over at a local internet/gaming place called NetWars located in Bremerton, Washington. They had these ‘pods’ that they setup with fully enclosed environments and the area in the back was completely dark. It was lit only by the glare of

2008-11-10T12:25:00.000-08:00

Perfect WeekendThis entry was originally published at Ken NolandHey,It’s been a long time since I’ve had a weekend where everything went perfect, err, well, almost perfect. If it wasn’t for the wait time at the restaurant at the space needle, then everything would’ve been perfect!It started out by waking up a little earlier then I usually do for a Saturday, then Isa and I hopped on a boat to

2008-08-14T17:12:00.000-07:00

ArticlesThis entry was originally published at Ken NolandI’ve been neglecting this website for some time. I haven’t really been able to publish any of the articles I’ve written up for the website because most of them are rough drafts. I have some stuff that I would love to share, but I haven’t had the time to share it. Hopefully I will have more time and I will be able to add some more content to

2008-08-14T17:08:00.000-07:00

Moving back to Seattle areaThis entry was originally published at Ken NolandSo these last few weeks have introduced some major changes to my life. I’m moving back to Seattle and I’m also bringing my girlfriend, Isa, back from Germany to join me. It’s been a been crazy around here to say the least, and to say that I have been very stressed is a bit of an understatement.My parents are ill, and most

2008-07-02T12:02:00.000-07:00

Car That Runs On WaterThis entry was originally published at Ken NolandCall me a crazy tin foiled hat conspiracy theorist, but why hasn’t this made headlines anywhere else?It’s not the first one of its kind either. There was a guy who also made a dune buggy run completely on water using a process he called “water fracturing”. His name was Stanley Meyers, who then died suspiciously. All of his

2008-06-19T17:21:00.000-07:00

OptionsThis entry was originally published at Ken NolandLately I’ve been considering some of my options. What do I want to do? Where do I see myself in 2 years? 5 years? 10 years? A lot of these questions rely on what I have going on now. I work for an awesome game company developing racing games for the PS3. It’s amazing work and it keeps me pretty busy, but still, there is still room to

2008-05-06T09:57:00.000-07:00

I Now Work for Blimey! GamesThis entry was originally published at Ken NolandHey,Life changes fast. One day your comfortable at your current job, although it may have its ups and down, its a really kick ass job working as a game programmer for a company no one has ever heard of. The next day, you find out that the company is going through a restructuring due to financial reasons and you find

2008-04-02T19:10:00.000-07:00

More blog tools…This entry was originally published at Ken NolandIn an attempt to consistently update my blog, I’ve been researching various tools I can utilize to streamline the process. After all, I’m a bit impatient with having to go through the same processes over and over again. While blogging itself is not an overly complicated process, it is still a process that can be simplified. This

2008-04-02T19:00:00.000-07:00

Temporary Post Used For Style Detection (dc46a95a-4015-4ac9-9acf-fa2094aaa397 - 3bfe001a-32de-4114-a6b4-4005b770f6d7)This entry was originally published at Ken NolandThis is a temporary post that was not deleted. Please delete this manually. (216c16d0-1d47-4efc-b010-8decd027c811 - 3bfe001a-32de-4114-a6b4-4005b770f6d7)

2008-03-20T09:39:00.000-07:00

Quitting SmokingThis entry was originally published at Ken NolandSome say it’s the hardest thing they have ever done. Perhaps they are right!The truth of the matter is that I have smoked for over 8 or 9 years and I am physically addicted to cigarettes. I have tried to quit multiple times in the past and have been met with failure every time. I wasn’t motivated enough, or I just didn’t have the

2008-03-07T18:39:00.000-08:00

Take-Two Owns X-Com?This entry was originally published at Ken NolandI was digging around some of my old favorite games today and I stumbled across X-Com, perhaps one of my absolute favorite games of all time, and so I opened it up and played a quick round. I got my ass handed to me within the first five minutes because I was playing on the ‘Super Human’ difficulty level, which means the computer

2008-03-04T11:35:00.000-08:00

A Note About DRMThis entry was originally published at Ken NolandDigital Rights Management is an evil word that typically spawns images of some giant publisher enforcing their copyright protection method on the consumers. To date, no popular DRM has stopped piracy and only serves to protect the data for a while until someone out there finds a way around it. It’s sad, but true.Piracy in the games

2008-03-04T08:56:00.000-08:00

Iron Lore Is No MoreThis entry was originally published at Ken NolandIron Lore closed its doors this last week. Another victim to the PC game market. The Creative Director, Michael Fitch, had some things to say about the untimely demise on the quartertothree forums.The PC game market has seen some interesting twists and turns in the last few years. The rise of digital distribution, the rise of

2008-03-03T07:34:00.000-08:00

Game Development GameThis entry was originally published at Ken NolandI was browsing through a series of articles(such is my morning routine) when I saw a friend’s name pop up on the list. Sure enough, it led me to a page about game design. I followed a couple links in and I found this awesomely hilarious game…You have to download it and try out your managerial skills!-Ken Noland

2008-02-26T11:22:00.000-08:00

R.I.P. HD-DVDThis entry was originally published at Ken NolandSo the format wars appear to be nearing an end, with Microsoft following Toshiba in dropping the HD-DVD spec. BluRay wins! This means that yet again, Sony has won another format war…This has got to come as a blow to the XBox which has a solid and steady following now, but nothing compared to the PS2. Is it possible that the next gen

2008-02-26T11:00:00.000-08:00

Death to EA!This entry was originally published at Ken NolandThere, I said it…I am one of those people that truly believe that competition forms innovation, and right now EA doesn’t really have any competition. In fact, how could they? They own the rights to most of the popular sports titles and they crank new ones out every year and charge the same high prices just so you can get that slight bit

2008-02-14T12:09:00.000-08:00

DirectSound NotifyThis entry was originally published at Ken NolandThere are many times during the course of audio development that you want to do something when a particular sound has reached a point in playback. You could time things so that it appears that the sound is progressing with the events in the game, but then you could run into synchronization problems, especially with dynamic

2008-02-14T10:53:00.000-08:00

XACT and All It’s GloryThis entry was originally published at Ken NolandMicrosoft has put out some bad stuff in the past, but this one I noticed the most since it directly affected me and was in the area that I work the most. XACT was promised to be a cross platform audio system with built in authoring tools. It promised all sorts of bells and whistles that, as an audio programmer, I rejoiced at

2008-02-08T14:09:00.000-08:00

The BookThis entry was originally published at Ken NolandThere’s something strange about opening a book and seeing your name in the credits. Much like a video game credit, it has a similar effect. My first instinct was to grab the book and show it to all my friends, just like a video game credit. I did so, to a couple select friends and lent my other two copies out so that they could see it in

2008-02-04T13:43:00.000-08:00

It has BegunThis entry was originally published at Ken NolandSo this is the first post on my new website. Welcome!So I installed Wordpress, got the Gallery2 component running, downloaded and installed several templates and this is the template I’m going to run with for now. I already tweaked it a bit, but I’m going to leave the authors name and of course leave the “Powered by Wordpress” at the

2008-02-04T13:42:00.000-08:00

A Vector ClassThis entry was originally published at Ken NolandI just wrapped up the first article I’ve written for this website. It’s about how to create a vector/point class utilizing templates and operator overloads, as well as a slight trick at the end to allow for some sort of polymorphism on the templatized vector class. It also goes into detail as to how a compiler treats a compound

2008-02-04T13:36:00.000-08:00

Content Management SystemsThis entry was originally published at Ken NolandI’m not a website developer, but in the course of writing this website, as well as the website for Whatif Productions, I’ve found an area of website development that is seriously lacking in any formal open source tools. Content Management Systems!When I think of a website, I see pages, pictures, text, and everything all

2008-02-01T15:25:00.000-08:00

Chester!This entry was originally published at Ken NolandChester, the mascot of Whatif Productions, made an appearance at the office today Chester: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download