Big Brother is Watching You

Ever wonder if there’s someone watching you. Well, I’d propose the Raleigh police department change their wifi network name if they wish to remain unseen.

I also agree. Not a Carolina Tarheels fan either. dba

CES 2011

I’m about to hop a plane out to CES 2011. If anyone is out there and wants to meet up, send me a message via the contact form on the right or call my cell, (919)272-3073. I’ll see if we can find a time to get together around the show.

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CNN Piece

CNN has posted a link to the segment that they did with us on Wednesday. Things went really well, and we’re very excited about what we showed off. Go check it out, and let me know what you think.

Real Dan is pretty strong. dba

New Jorb

Last week, I started a new job as VP of Engineering for Activate3D. I’m pretty excited about the change since I’ll get to build a team here in NC, and it’s a great chance to learn new things. First of those has been how to hunt for commercial real estate. It’s not rocket science, but it’s been fun to dip my fingers into new water.

Activate3D is working on some cool new software for the gaming and entertainment spaces. We’re still a bit in stealth mode, so I’ll just say that our software provides unique new experiences in the space of motion synthesis and animation blending. Stay tuned for more information. I’ll certainly share about Activate here as things progress. For now, here’s a picture of me on my third day on the job. I’m “working.”

Me, Working on my third day at the job.

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Recent Restaurants

I just took a trip to Atlanta, and I ran into two really good restaurants that I figured I’d mention on here.

First up, Stats. Stats is a sports bar near the Georgia Aquarium. Theresa and I stopped in for a quick burger. The food was great, and our server, AJ, was equally good. However, Stats gets a mention because it has tables that they call Beer Heaven. Beer flows from taps on the table, and the TVs descend from the sky. (Literally. They have TVs on winches that come down from the ceiling.) I’m not sure it gets better than that. On top of it, AJ said that beer from the table taps is measured by the ounce and sold at the same price as from the bar. i.e., Take the pint price and divide by 16 to get the ounce price. It just sounds outstanding, and I hope that I get a chance to go back and partake.

Second up, Piola. We went to Piola for casual Italian one night. It’s more of a specialty pizza place than Italian/pasta, but I’m not unhappy. For example, we got the Copenhagen which had Parmesan, brie, and smoked salmon on it. It was unique and surprisingly good. Piola also has a number of locations in Brazil and has, as a result, added a mean Caipirinha to the menu. Theresa recommends it. Best of all for my local readers, they just opened a location in Raleigh with another planned in Chapel Hill. It was a very fortuitous find for this trip.

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In Korea

I posted a bit back that I’d be in Korea for GameTech 2010. I’ll try to get a few pictures and post them later. I’m here now enjoying the kimchi and living that surreal feeling that you get when you don’t speak the language. Being that alienated gives you a very deep appreciation for how it feels to be on the other side when folks are in America and don’t speak English, and Korea is actually pretty friendly to English speakers if you know just a few phrases in Korean.

Also, it looks like the middleware meetup will be going down. Location is TBD, but the Thirsty Bear is the current frontrunner. Drop a message if you have an opinion otherwise.

dba

Holiday Hiatus

I should have posted ahead of my holiday break to warn any regular readers about the way I take time off. I pretty much disconnect from the world. I don’t check email; I don’t surf the net; I sit around and read, watch movies, and play single player games. Ergo, there’s been a gap in posts. I’m back and backlogged, so here’s some link spam from my feeds and holidays to get things started back:

• Blood Bowl, a Gamebryo title, is coming to retail in Q1 2010. For folks that are fans of the IP, this is good news.
• Kim Pallister has an interesting discussion of Amazon ratings and reviews based off another article from Seth Godin. One or both are worth the read.
• Our friends over at Epic showed off UE3 running on iPhone. That’s cool tech. I’m still not sure what the market/business plan for big engines is on the iPhone, but that doesn’t detract from cool tech.

Also of note, I got a video camera over the break, the Kodak Zi8. I told my wife that I wanted to do some streaming video experiments and she went out and found me a tool. A very thoughtful Christmas present that should lead to some fun.

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Quick Shot: Intel Parodies and NVIDIA

Edit: Updated the post per Tim Farrar’s comment. He was NVIDIA at the time of his post. That doesn’t change my slant on his opinion. I’ve always thought he was a sharp analytic eye on parallel programming architectures and paradigms.

I was traveling out to California over the weekend, so I didn’t put together that post I promised on next gen architectures. One could argue that I had plenty of time on the plane, but I’ve never been able to work well on planes. My mind is not in the right place, and my laptop is too bulky. The post will come, but it’s likely delayed a week. When I’m in CA, my time is fractured by meetings. For now, a couple of quick things.

After posting previously about Larrabee’s woes, a colleague pointed me to this site. It’s a whole bunch of parody cartoons from NVIDIA about Intel. My first reaction was that NVIDIA wouldn’t be so bold, but the whois looks like NVIDIA from the DNS info, and this article concurs. Some of this cartoons are pretty amusing and accurate including the current, Santa-themed one. I’m sure Intel would love a GPU for Christmas.

Now, lest I be accused of bashing Intel too much, I should point out that NVIDIA can’t brag too much yet. Their GT200 cards are pretty awesome. However, they haven’t released their Fermi cards which will have D3D11 support, so they are behind as well. By all accounts, Fermi is an awesome architecture. It’s got great double precision with good performance, the ability to schedule multiple warps at once for better throughput, and a huge number of cores. The tech white paper is here, and here’s  a quick note from Tim Farrar whose opinion I trust. (Note that Tim now works at NVIDIA, but his opinions and this post on Fermi predate that employment. and this post went up shortly after his hire.) So, it’s nice for NVIDIA to make fun of Intel, but they are lagging behind a bit themselves. They have their own set of HW woes in what appear to be long dev times or delays to Fermi cards. Right now, AMD is sitting out there with the only D3D11 cards on the market.

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Cuse You, Muphy!

I’ve got a big trip next week where I’ll need my laptop to function. What does that mean? The lappy has to break. But does it really break to the point where I’d upgrade? No, just the ‘R’ key stops working. That’s right. I had to cut and paste every ‘R’ you see in this post.

Barg!

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Dojang Grand Opening

Master Amerson breaks a sheet of ice.

I don’t blog about my martial arts too much, but there’s a very exciting event coming up. Ownership has changed at my dojang, and we’re having a grand opening next weekend on September 12. If you’re in the area, come on down to see the new changes.

The dojang is now owned and operated by Master Jason Ladd. Here’s the website. Master Ladd’s background is in Tang Soo Do which is the primary art taught at the school. There are also supplemental programs taught by other instructors in the following areas. From 10AM to 12PM, we’ll have tables set up with all the instructors available to talk to you about their programs.

• Tai Chi
• Isshinryu Karate
• Okinawan Weapons
• Arnis
• Judo
• Brazilian Jiujitsu
• Zumba Fitness

This is a great opportunity to come meet all the instructors at one time and get a feel for what type of martial arts or fitness program is right for you. I guarantee that we have something you’ll love.

If you’re lucky, we may even do some cool demos like the picture above. dba