Wednesday 13 August 2008

Old Acquaintances

Feeling a tad misty-eyed today.  It would have been the 40th birthday of an ex-colleague and friend, Michael Roser.  Mike was unfortunately in a fatal road accident earlier this year.

Just wanted to mark the event by writing a few short things about him and my memory of him, hope you don't mind reading them.

He was a slightly quiet, slightly grumpy bugger, but certainly a smart one. Very warm natured and close friend to those who stuck around long enough to see past his occasional scowl.

Always pushing himself, always challenging things, always learning, always sharing, always amazing. This shone through in his physical training he took part in, his technical work, his conversation about software and other things, his diverse interests (making wrist watches being one!), in fact nearly everywhere.

I always left with the impression that Mike's life was a huge training exercise to prepare him for something immense. And when it came, boy would he be prepared!

Sorry you left so soon mate. Far too soon for my liking.

Friday 8 August 2008

Like A Hole In The Head

When I was a kid, I had a lot of time on my hands, most kids do. I chose to spend a fair whack of it playing games on the Commodore 64, the Spectrum, Amstrad, Amiga, Megadrive, Saturn, etc...

i.e. I played a hell of a lot of games.

One of my friends who I played games with in those days recently said he didn't think he'd be alive when a game as good as GT4 came out (yes, GT5 looks better).

However, I've just finished looking at footage for GRID for the PC.

Take a look at this video if you can
http://uk.gamespot.com/video/939158/6191707/grid-crash-damage-engine-demonstration

For me, I was always aware the graphics side would reach these levels, and clearly will continue to improve. But the physics engine that demo shows just looks utterly stunning.

So, do I need another game on my list of things to play? No more than a hole in the head.

But it's still utterly stunning what developers can achieve these days.

(yes, probably will end up getting this, looks far too nice to miss out on).

Thursday 7 August 2008

Delicious shared items

For anyone who follows my del.icio.us links via the RSS feed from this blog, I've decided to move these off of the RSS feed here onto a separate feed.

Subscribe to my shared items (including del.icio.us shares) on http://feeds.feedburner.com/MarkAitkensSharedItems

Will splice in more shared items in there when I get time.