I just stumbled upon a hot new weblog by the Gawker folks: Gizmodo, dubbed "the gadgets weblog." I could spend hours there (and probably will)....

Wired is running an article about the turnaround in music sales occurring in the U.S. recording industry, with sales rising 9.1 percent in just the first three months of the year over the same period in 2003: “In 2001, sales were down 3 percent. The next year, sales dropped 11 percent. Last year, until September, sales were down 8.5 percent,...

Yesterday afternoon, while out enjoying the sunshine, I went down to Borders to shop around for some cool books and found more than a couple. One in particular is a book titled "Flash Math Creativity" which looks very promising for getting up to speed with some very cool Flash math projects. The book is the culmination of contributions from about...

One of the downsides to living in Rochester is the fact we live without sun for a great portion of our lives. From the cold rains of October through the lingering snowfalls of March (and sometimes April), are 6 full months of dreary, cold, dank and dark days. It's enough to get anyone depressed. And yet again, my usual bout with seasonal affective...

It's just the 2nd week of the quarter here at RIT and already I'm feeling the heat. However, just because it's Spring quarter doesn't mean the heat has anything to do with the weather, as this nice picture taken this afternoon from the front yard proves. 3D Games programming using DirectX is soaking up much of my time through trial and error. In f...

“The law cannot dictate matters of the heart. When two people form a deep bond, there is usually a soul connection, and the soul has no gender. Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness are fundamental rights in this country. Happiness can be many things – a good meal, a good friend, a warm puppy, and certainly…love. How can anyo...

This week kicked off the Spring quarter at RIT and I've been enjoying getting my new classes started. For the Games Programming curriculum I am taking Foundations of 3D Graphics Programming and we formed into groups and are already well on our way. To help with documenting our group's progress along the way, I have set up a new blog which all our g...

The Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences (AIAS) handed out their 7th annual awards last night at the D.I.C.E Summit in Las Vegas. Not surprisingly, Ubisoft's Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time was almost as big a winner as Return of the King was on Sunday, taking home 8 of the coveted awards. With voting performed only by members of the video ...

I have been enjoying a very relaxing time visiting my Dad (Jay) and Loraine Bibby here in Naples, Florida. Yesterday we took a drive to the Corkscrew Bird and Wildlife Sanctuary where we saw several indigenous species of birds and a couple of alligators, including the one pictured here. The other gator we saw was at least twice the size of the one ...

Last night we finished our 2D side-scroller game for Andy Phelps' class, and tonight I finished up the last remaining project outstanding from the Winter quarter. That means I can have a good night's rest before leaving for Florida tomorrow afternoon. One thing is for certain, there will be lots of video games, lots of sun, and very little thinking...

I passed my musicianship exam today in Music Theory, one of the classes which posed a real challenge to me this quarter. And I am happy to report that not only did I pass the exam, but I worked hard enough to land an A in the course. Wonders never cease... and I am truly blessed. whew. big stress reliever....

Slowly making my way to the finish, feeling like the proverbial tortoise in the race to the end of the Winter quarter. But knowing ahead of time how the race is won, I'm beginning to feel that I'm on the right track. Late last night I finished up my final web site for Web Site Design — basically the same site as our midterm project, with the...

Although still not out of the woods yet, I took a little time for myself this morning to see what's been going on in the world of video games and consequently stumbled upon a slew of new screenshots that Blizzard had just posted on their up-coming MMORPG World of Warcraft. The game looks amazing and will likely become a suck-hole for large amounts ...

This is week 10 of the RIT quarter system, and the feeling is very familiar: something between panic, frustration and disbelief... how could any one person possibly accomplish what lies ahead and due in just a few short days? Someone is out of their friggin gourd to think I'll be able to do all this. So, I take a deep breath and start applying my ...

Instead of writing anything new, I spent the last 2 days deleting the literally hundreds of spam comment messages someone sent to each of my weblogs early Tuesday morning. Spending my precious time cleaning up after someone's inconsiderate and selfish barrage towards my personal web space is upsetting, especially when I've been struggling to finish...

I just booked tickets on JetBlue for the quarter break to visit my Florida parents for several days. February 28th Depart - Roch 5:15pm Arrive - JFK 6:25pm Depart - JFK 6:50pm Arrive - Ft Myers 9:50pmMarch 4th Depart - Ft Myers 2:05pm Arrive - JFK 4:40pm Depart - JFK 5:15pm Arrive - Roch 6:35pmIt will be a much welcome vacation that I've needed for...

Multi-user Hex is complete and online, click. You begin by logging in with any user name which puts you into the game's chat room. From there you can invite anyone else in the chat room to play a game with you. This of course requires that someone else besides you is in the chat room. Orpheus' Revenge is coming along nicely. That's the project my ...

Today, Google has a very cool theme in celebration of the birthday of Gaston Maurice Julia, father of the fractal and the Julia set named after him. If you don't know what fractals are or have never seen the gorgeous images that computers can produce with them: click on the Google link above; do a search for "Julia set"; and embark on a beautiful...

Gamespy today ran an interview with Metroid creator Yoshio Sakamoto in which he talks not only about the upcoming Metroid: Zero Mission (just 7 more days!), but also talks about the series' origin. Not simply a port of the original NES Metroid, Zero Mission is a brand-new adventure: Samus has new powers, there are new puzzles, there are three diff...

Professor Andy Phelps became a father today when Emma was brought into the world with the help of his wife, Ashley. Cheers and joy all around....

Just in time for the SuperBowl launch of Pepsi's latest marketing campaign, in which they plan to give away up to 100 million Apple iTunes Music Store downloads, indie music advocacy group Downhill Battle is launching a campaign of their own: Tune Recycler. By sending Downhill Battle your winning iTunes bottlecap codes, they promise to spend that m...

I just started to create my del.icio.us page, a free web-based social bookmarks manager. In case you have ever been at a different computer than the one you're used to surfing on and wished you had access to your bookmarks, del.icio.us is for you. Since half of the time I'm at home and the other half of the time I'm at RIT, this service is exactly...

An absolutely marvelous rant today by Cory Doctorow on Boing-Boing about digital rights management (DRM). Specifically, he begins by commenting on a recent blog entry of a Microsoft employee extolling the virtues of MS's own DRM over Apple's, but ends up saying a whole lot about why no DRM is the best DRM choice for the consumer. Also from Boing-B...

Being the quintessential "hello world" message, this entry marks my first foray into the wide world of weblogging. Having been recently accepted into the Information Technology program at RIT with third year standing, I am finding that a second chance can be the opportunity of a lifetime. Like a sponge, I'm learning that 16 credit hours are just ...