I associate the Grand Canyon with the beauty on a huge scale, but also with the milling crowds up top and donkeys on the the Bright Angel trail, but that all changes quickly if you go down the trail to Hermit's Rest. When I got semi-lost there a few years back I thought it would be awesome to make Grand Canyon Online, the massively multiplayer game where you could wander for 3 days and never see another soul.

Pride, stubbornness, and the costs of inquiring

When stumped on a programming issue that someone else can probably answer, I always had to decide if it was worth the cost of distracting another programmer from his tasks to answer my question. If I'm probably going to spend an hour figuring out something that someone can answer in 5 minutes, then it's right to ask. But if it will only take 20 minutes, then probably not, since the blind alleys I travel will help me learn.

I will admit that pride and stubbornness in wanting to find the answer myself does affect my decision making here too.

If I lay out in the sun for a while, one of my eyes sees colors differently than the other. The colors in one eye become much more washed out.

Not the best start

I went on a date once with a girl whose name was Veronica, except that I called her Victoria on the date. Let's agree to say she wasn't exactly taken with me. :)

Anyone who tells you what they make per year should be required to tell you what they make after taxes, they'll feel much less powerful.

Get the attitude right

I read the book on picking up women "The Game" last summer, or at least I read half of it because I found the writing grandiose and unbearable after a while. It describes all these tricks and techniques for picking up women, but it strikes me that if you get the underlying attitude right, (like allowing any woman to walk away from you, that she doesn't owe you a single thing, that if she doesn't respect you then you'll walk away), all the "techniques" will just flow naturally.

two movies

Gattaca and Solaris are both moving films. Solaris is haunting, with scenes about loss and betrayal that I'll never forget. Gattaca is more emotional, a story about love and sacrifice and obsessiveness. The music in both are gorgeous.

Game development as experimental trials

When we were crunching on Horizons, I was in the strange position of being pretty damn sure the game would fail because it was not fun and had major issues, both design and technical. But I had also never shipped a commercial game before, and management was saying that everything would be ok, and I had to be open to the idea that I was wrong. So I ran it like a science experiment, expecting the worst but trying to work as though it would be a success.

In the end my instinct turned out to be right, but I also know that this was only one data point. Still, there are some warning signs that I know to fear now.

a real college textbook

If the title of Chapter 1 in your calculus book is named, "To Deliver You From The Preliminary Terrors" and the author calls himself a "remarkably stupid fellow" in the preface, this is a sign that you've found treasure. (Calculus Made Easy)