Complexity Theory: 8 Things a Game Programmer Needs to Know

For the most part, forget about space complexity. Time complexity is the important one. You can often trade off time for space, though, so be aware of how much you’re using. O(1), or constant time, is the best option: if you know the array index, great! Unfortunately, hash tables usually incur a space penalty. Beware… Continue reading Complexity Theory: 8 Things a Game Programmer Needs to Know

For what it’s worth

Mrs Elbeno and I have been wondering increasingly about how to deal with Mini-Elbeno best regarding preschools etc. This evening we gave him the Burt Reading Test. He is currently 2 years and 7 months old. The results showed a reading age of 8½.

Personality profiling

I recently took a DISC assessment at work. It’s similar to MBTI which I took a while back at my old company. When I last did MBTI, I came out as ESTP – but almost central on the E/I, S/N, and P/J scales. The only strong preference was T rather than F. When I did… Continue reading Personality profiling

Blizzcon 08

I kept this on the down low for a while because of my job situation, but better late than never. I went to Blizzcon with my brother-in-law, and we got the VIP treatment: front-of-line skips to play the games, free swag (and how!) from the store without waiting in the literally 4-5 hour lines, chatting… Continue reading Blizzcon 08

America comes to its senses

Sarah Palin can go back to obscurity. The rest of the world is cautiously optimistic. Shame on California though. I think we need a new constitutional amendment: that the state not recognise marriage at all. If the religious right are so attached to the word, let them have it. Let’s have a proper separation of… Continue reading America comes to its senses

Bad times for EALA

So, the cancellation of Tiberium almost a month ago was just a foreshadowing of more bad news. I hear that LMNO was a casualty today, along with many people on the RTS team(s). Once again, it sucks to see talented developers get scattered to the winds, especially in the current economic climate. EA has been… Continue reading Bad times for EALA

The annual Windows re-install

For some reason my Windows install was misbehaving worse than usual lately. It was having problems booting for the last two weeks – hanging at the loading screen and such. I run a dual boot system, but overwhelmingly favour Ubuntu for almost all tasks. I only keep Windows around to run games and to use… Continue reading The annual Windows re-install

Goodbye EA, Hello Blizzard

Everything is now sorted, and everyone who should already know knows, so I can break the blog silence on this, as I know my blog friends will be interested. Although I don’t talk much about work on this blog, it’s something of an open secret that I worked at EA Los Angeles for the past… Continue reading Goodbye EA, Hello Blizzard