New Photos from INSIDE Google – Soon on Buzz!

I am releasing some new photos that I took while inside the Google HQ recently. I had to get them cleared by corporate communications, and now they are free to be released! You can find me on Google Buzz here. They’ll be released at some random time on the 16th…

Google Buzz – List of Photographers

Are you new to Buzz and looking for Photographers to follow? See this Photographers on Buzz list. Note, this is a BIG LIST, but I suggest you surf around it and see some people! You will likely find a few that you like… so many great photographers and artist out there – I hope this helps you to discover some new ones.

Daily Photo – Building 43 at Google

Wow I had a great time at Google! The guys and gals there I met were very nice and cool… After my Authors@Google talk, I stayed around for a while to take photos while waiting on the workshop to begin. There are sensitive areas of Google, of course, and I didn’t even try to take pictures of any of that stuff… Building 43 is the central building of the whole Googleplex. It houses the offices of Marissa Mayer (who did not show up for my talk *ahem*), Larry Page, and Sergey Brin. I wanted to pop into their offices and make unique photos of their offices for fun, but I did not want to ask on my first visit. Wouldn’t that be one of the most interesting things in the world? To see the offices of all these people? They don’t have to be awesome and all James-Bondy — even something mundane would be interesting, if captured in the right way. But I do picture Sergey stroking a white cat…

Filed under the categories: California, Nikon D3X, San Jose, Travel

A Full SmugMug Review!

I recently wrote an article entitled “How to Make an Online Photo Album” about SmugMug. Follow that link to learn more!

I feel a little late to the SmugMug party! Here is the story… I kept hearing more and more about SmugMug. And I was like… What! Why is everyone always talking about SmugMug! What a strange name. Hey… I’m on Flickr… the last thing I need is another place to host my photos… this is what I was thinking.

And then the very kind Candice Cunningham invited me to speak at the inaugural SmugMug meeting here in Austin. It was an amazing group of people and many people in there already had SmugMug portfolios and businesses! As I learned more and more, I became even more impressed. I even got to visit their HQ near San Francisco and I came away really excited about the present and future of SmugMug.

I have linked the “Visit My Portfolio” up there on the top right of the site to link to StuckInCustoms.SmugMug.com. It is really beautiful and I have decided to make it official.

I am very happy with my SmugMug Portfolio. You guys know I always want the best!

Even more Customization!

I wrote a second article on you can further Customize SmugMug. It already comes with a bunch of themes, but if you want something truly unique, you can just pay a bit extra to get something that is completely different. I reviewed four different third-party companies, all of which can give you a custom SmugMug “skin”.

Daily Photo – The Glorious Church at Stanford

During our amazingly fun Stanford photowalk, our entire unit crashed into into the church like the Allies setting up barracks inside a French cathedral.

Right before we went in, as I climbed the stairs, one of the more nervous-types that was on the photowalk said, “Uhhh, I don’t know if they will let us in because they are about to close.” I said something to the effect of, “Who cares, we’re going in anyway until they come tell us to leave!” And with that, we blew in through the front doors and spread out far and wide. I set up my camera and gave a little talk about my settings for the shot. I mentioned that in dark situations, you don’t want your multiple exposures to all be 30 seconds. You need to widen your aperture and increase the ISO so that your all your exposures get finished, with the final one at 30 seconds. In this situation, I shot 5 exposures at 1 step increments with my 5 respective shutter speeds at 2 seconds, 4 s, 8s, 15s, and 30s.

Oh, btw, now that I am one with sweet sweet SmugMug, click on the photo below to see it big and bold and proper. At the top, you can select whatever size you wish.

Filed under the categories: California, Nikon D3X, San Jose, Stanford, Travel

Recap of the Photowalk

It turned out to be a great Photowalk!

I sent out a few worried tweets while en route because of the rain, and I got tweets back that there was a full complement of photowalkers waiting under the tree in The Oval. I showed up, at the very last possible second, and then said hi to everyone. It was a very upbeat crowd, and I was happy to meet all of them! I think we had around 50 there, even though the rain was rather epic, especially by California standards!

After I explained the way I do my Photowalks (half shooting, half sharing online), we set out to hit a few spots on campus. As we were moving about, Arnav Moudgil took this photo (also on the right) for the newspaper. This was taken when we were walking in one of the covered areas of the campus.

We moved around and hit several locations, including the one below. At the end, we went over to an eating area and talked for a long while about photography and stuff! I signed books, gave away all kinds of goodies from Smugmug, and this sort of thing — it was nice to meet such enthusiastic photographers. One enterprising Type A created a “Stuck In Stanford” Flickr group where people are currently sharing their photos… this is my first contribution to the group!

Daily Photo – The Stanford Church in the Photowalk Storm

The rain situation was betwixt sprinkles and torrent.  There was enough rain to moisten my bulbous 12-24 (that sounds dirty), so I wanted to be quick.  Usually, I let people look through my lens to see the composition, but, it would have gotten too wet… so I just fired away quickly then put on my little trombone-cover-thing.

Now, maybe my smart audience can help me figure this out.  Some people on the walk told me that “HDR” was “invented” here at Stanford.  Others tell me MIT.  A few people told me that the first HDRs ever taken were inside this very church (where I also collected some shots, for publication soon).  Anyway, this all sounds very intriguing… and I am interested to know the real answers!

Filed under the categories: California, Nikon D3X, San Jose, Stanford, Travel

Check Out this Workshop near LA

For you are in the LA Area (or willing to travel for an interesting workshop), join my friends Frederick Van and Joeseph Linashke for their workshop at nearby Joshua Tree.  These guys have worked hard to put together a really excellent program… you can visit the website to see everything that is included!

New Interview Up with Ron Martinsen

I had an interview with the extremely nice Ron Martinsen.  Head on over Ron’s photography blog to have a loosee!  He also has a nice discount code on my textures tutorial, in case you have been waiting for a good deal!’

Daily Photo – A Great Day at the Google HQ!

Wow that was a cool experience.  Those guys and gals over there are super-nice.  You never know…  I guess maybe Google seems somewhat intimidating from the outside, but after I met guys like Cliff, Brian, and Chip — I felt right at home.

I gave an hour-long talk in one of their theaters there.  It was super-packed and people were standing all around because seats were gone.  We were graced with the presence of one Sara Jane Todd from @Peachpit to help out selling books – and we sold out!  Also, my Brazilian friend Fabio, the editor of Abduzeedo was there too, so it was great to see him.

The Authors@Google (video link) program has a neat deal where they subsidize books, so Googlers don’t have to pay full price.  I saw all kinds of cool stuff and took a lot of pics.  I have to get most cleared with Google Corp Comms before I can release… but I nabbed shots of a spaceship, a new pseudo-holodeck, and more mysteries await!  We even got to eat lunch there in the Google cafeteria, which had some of the most excellent food I’ve ever had in such a setting… they even have a small organic farm on the campus… well, I could go on and on…  but I was very impressed and happy to meet so many enthusiastic people!

The video should be done in the next 2-3 weeks or so.  We’ve got good-man Brian at Google slaving away on editing the whole thing together!

Filed under the categories: California, Nikon D3X, San Jose, Travel

There is nothing as soul-scorching as the search for Venture Capital.

This is normally a photography blog, but since my real life is comprised of running the stealthy John Galt Games (not currently seeking VC funding, incidentally), we are intimately involved with the games industry, acquisitions, investment, and the like. We were invited out to the Rutberg Quarterly event, ponderously entitled “Emerging Opportunities at the Convergence of Video Games, Social Networks, and Media”, in San Jose a few weeks ago by Peter Daley, who likes us because he is a closet objectivist and has a penchant for disruptive technologies.

Rutberg & Co is a research-centric investment bank that focuses in the wireless and digital media space. In my judgment, they are a leader in the games space and I always enjoy listening to Peter’s ruminations and reading his reports. He was nice enough to share the following data with me.

Oh, and since this is supposed to be a photography blog, I put a picture from the tech-booming Bay area below as well as a picture of the “Capitalist” in Ukraine, where our company does a lot of games work with brilliant ex-Soviets that used to launch rockets with slide-rules.

Directly below is a list of VC deals in the games space + Mergers & Acquisitions activity in the games space:

VC Deals (in no particular order):

Company: Red 5 Studios, Aliso Viejo, CA
Investment: $ 8.9 million
Investor: Benchmark Capital
Description: Red 5 Studios is an online game studio which develops original MMO games.

Company: Digital Chocolate, San Mateo, CA
Investment: $ 22.5 million
Investors: Bridgescale Partners; Chengwei Ventures; DN Capital; Glynn Capital Management; Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers; Montagu Newhall; Outlook Ventures; Sequoia Capital; Sutter Hill
Ventures; WHI Capital
Description: Digital Chocolate is a developer of games and applications for mobile phones.

Company: Electric Sheep, New York, NY
Investment: $ 7 million
Investors: CBS; Gladwyne Partners
Description: The Electric Sheep Company designs experiences and delivers add-on software for 3D virtual worlds. The Company delivers strategic, creative, and technical insight and services to organizations, works with multiple virtual world platforms, and has developed many projects on behalf of brands.

Company: Double Fusion, San Francisco, CA
Investment: $ 26 million
Investors: Accel Partners, Hearst Corporation, IDG; Ventures Pacific, Jerusalem; Venture Partners, Norwest; Venture Partners, Sedona; Capital, Time Warner
Description: Double Fusion is a provider of in-game advertising and marketing solutions. The company’s technology delivers a range of advertising possibilities inside and around video game and casual game titles.

Company: Kongregate, San Francisco, CA
Investment: N/A
Investors: Independent investors
Description: Kongregate seeks to create an online hub for players and game developers to meet up, play games, and operate together as a community. By wrapping user-submitted Flash games with various community features, Kongregate’s site allows users to play great web-based games alongside friends.

Company: Cellufun, New York, NY
Investment: $ 3 million
Investors: Longworth; Venture Partners
Description: Cellufun is an ad sponsored mobile gaming portal providing free entertainment content and casual, connected, and multiplayer games for web-enabled mobile phones.

Company: Vollee, Hertzliya, Israel
Investment: $ 4 million
Investors: Benchmark Capital; BlueRun Ventures
Description: Vollee’s interactive video streaming platform delivers a catalog of PC and console titles with 3D graphics, artificial intelligence, and deep game play on mobile devices. Vollee packages the games it licenses from traditional publishers in an interactive mobile portal and partners with mobile operators to distribute and market the service to 3G subscribers.

Company: Exponentia, Vancouver, British Columbia
Investment: N/A
Investors: Emmis Communications
Description: Exponentia is a developer of mobile games and interactive applications for sports and entertainment clients that enable them to engage their fans across broadband and mobile devices.

Company: Atomic Moguls, Seattle, WA
Investment: $ 1 million
Investors: Amazon.com; Second Avenue Partners
Description: Operates a movie-based fantasy games website.

Company: GameGlance, Bangkok, Thailand
Investment: $ 2 million
Investors: Independent investors
Description: GameGlance is an in-game advertising network. GameGlance’s strategic planning, design, advertising, production, and gaming experiences have been applied across a number of gaming formats and categories.

Company: Areae, San Diego, CA
Investment: N/A
Investors: Charles River Ventures; Crescendo Ventures
Description: Develops technologies and content related to MMO video games

Company: Bunchball, Redwood City, CA
Investment: $ 2 million
Investors: Adobe Ventures; Granite Ventures
Description: Bunchball is a provider of social gaming services to personals sites, social networks, and online communities. Its hosted gaming service enables members to start and play games with each other, without leaving the customer’s site.

Company: OGPlanet, Torrance, CA
Investment: $ 1.5 million
Investors: Independent investors
Description: OGPlanet is a publisher of free online multiplayer games that generate revenue through the sale of virtual items.

Company: Mind Candy, London, United Kingdom
Investment: $ 7 million
Investors: Accel Partners; Index Ventures; NewMedia
Spark
Description: Mind Candy is an interactive entertainment company focused on puzzles and alternate reality games.

Company: Greystripe, San Francisco, CA
Investment: $ 1.2 million
Investors: Incubic Venture Fund; Monitor Ventures; WS
Investment Company
Description: Greystripe’s solution provides mobile content free to consumers in an ad-supported model. Greystripe operates an in-game mobile ad network and ad-supported mobile game distribution platform. Its advertising network takes full screen images, videos, and scrolling banners and dynamically delivers them into mobile games and applications.

Company: Trion World Network, Redwood City, CA
Investment: N/A
Investors: Doll Capital Management; Trinity Ventures
Description: Trion World Network is a publisher and developer of games and original entertainment.

Company: WildTangent, Redmond, WA
Investment: $ 13 million
Investors: Granite Global Ventures; WPP Group
Description: WildTangent is an online game network in North America offering online and downloadable games from publishers; WildCoins, an arcade style, per session payment system; a virtual game console, which facilitates the discovery of and access to games; and in-game and around-game advertising solution.

Company: Sulake, Helsinki, Finland
Investment: $ 7.6 million
Investors: Movida Group
Description: Sulake is an online community, entertainment, and media company focusing on virtual worlds, casual multiplayer games, and social networking. Sulake operates the Habbo community.

Company: IGA Worldwide, New York, NY
Investment: $ 5 million
Investors: Intel Capital
Description: IGA Worldwide provides in-game advertising solutions. Its ad serving network enables advertisers to target consumers across a range of platforms and genres. They also provide strategic consulting services
including integrated product placement and co-promotion through its wholly-owned communications consultancy, Hive.

Company: Stardoll, Stockholm, Sweden
Investment: $ 6 million
Investors: Index Ventures; Sequoia Capital
Description: Stardoll is a paper doll dress-up community site. Stardoll allows users to create their own doll or choose from a collection of celebrity dolls and dress them in virtual fashions.

Company: TVHead, Mountain View, CA
Investment: $ 11.5 million
Investors: Apax Partners; Bay Partners; Mitsui Incubase
Description: Operates an on demand television gaming service

Company: Winster, San Mateo, CA
Investment: $ 1.5 million
Investors: U.S. Venture Partners
Description: Winster.com is a social community where players cooperate to help each other solve puzzles to win prizes.

Company: Double Fusion, San Francisco, CA
Investment: $ 5 million
Investors: Accel Partners; Jerusalem Venture Partners
Description: Double Fusion is a provider of in-game advertising and marketing solutions. The company’s technology delivers a range of advertising possibilities inside and around video game and casual game titles.

Company: Super Computer International, Atlanta, GA
Investment: N/A
Investors: Verizon
Description: Provides free online communication, collaboration, and community, which provide gamers with additional features for their multiplayer gaming interactions, a set of social networking tools and a range of gaming experiences.

Company: Three Rings Design, San Francisco, CA
Investment: N/A
Investors: Mercury Capital Partners
Description: Three Rings is a startup developer of persistent world online games.

Company: Terraplay Systems, Solna, Sweden
Investment: $ 3.2 million
Investors: Cisco Systems; IT-Provider; Nordic Venture
Partners; VPSA
Description: Terraplay operates the Global Gaming Network, a hosted service enabling game publishers, network operators, and service providers to link their games offerings to a global gaming community and deliver revenue-generating connected gaming services across all channels. The Global Gaming Network supports mobile connected gaming on all platforms, including storefronts, content download, community, in-game payments and multiplayer.

Company: Linden Lab, San Francisco, CA
Investment: $ 11 million
Investors: Benchmark Capital; Catamount Ventures; Globespan Capital
Partners; Omidyar Network; Independent Investors
Description: Develops massive multiplayer online role-playing games, including Second Life.

Company: Exent Technologies, Bethesda, MD
Investment: N/A
Investors: Cisco; Intel Capital
Description: A solutions provider for broadband-based monetization of new and existing PC and video games. Exent’s product line supports multiple solutions, including digital distribution of video games, platform enablement, in-game advertising and community building solutions.

Company: Telltale Games, San Rafael, CA
Investment: $ 0.8 million
Investors: Keiretsu Forum
Description: Telltale develops and deploys cinematic quality animation and storytelling technologies, to create interactive content. Telltale offers content development and custom publishing services to assist license-holders in adapting their properties for interactive delivery.

Company: Stardoll.com, Stockholm, Sweden
Investment: $ 4 million
Investors: Index Ventures; Independent investors
Description: Stardoll is a paper doll dress-up community site. Stardoll allows users to create their own doll or choose from a collection of celebrity dolls and dress them in virtual fashions.

Company: Nephin Games, Galway, Ireland
Investment: $ 1 million
Investors: Independent Investors
Description: Nephin Games develops a marketing communications channel, accessible to mobile phone users, which enables brand to promote films, television programming, and consumer goods, while capturing consumer data and forming customer relationships.

Company: IGA Worldwide, New York, NY
Investment: $ 12 million
Investors: DN Capital; Easton Capital Group; Morgenthaler Ventures
Description: IGA Worldwide provides in-game advertising solutions its
ad serving network enables advertisers to target consumers across a range of platforms and genres. They also provide strategic consulting services
including integrated product placement and co-promotion through its wholly-owned communications consultancy, Hive.

Company: LiveHive Systems, Waterloo, Ontario
Investment: $ 1.8 million
Investors: Tech Capital Partners
Description: Provides two-screen, interactive solutions for the entertainment industry. LiveHive offers solutions for TV broadcasters, fantasy sports sites, and web portals.

Company: PlayFirst, San Francisco, CA
Investment: $ 5 million
Investors: Mayfield Venture Partners; Rustic Canyon Partners; Trinity Ventures
Description: Publisher of original casual games, available across multiple platforms, including PC, Mac, and mobile devices.

Company: Mind Candy, London, United Kingdom
Investment: $ 3 million
Investors: Index Ventures
Description: Mind Candy is an interactive entertainment company focused on puzzles and alternate reality games.

Company: Double Fusion, Jerusalem, Israel
Investment: $ 10 million
Investors: Accel Partners; Jerusalem Venture Partners
Description: Double Fusion is a provider of in-game advertising and marketing solutions. The company’s technology delivers a range of advertising possibilities inside and around video game and casual game titles.

Company: watAgame, Copenhagen, Denmark
Investment: N/A
Investors: Private Investors; SEED Capital; Vaekstfonden
Description: Develops and operates made-for-girls mobile and web entertainment concepts. The company partners with mobile networks and portals, media companies, brand managers, and agencies.

Company: Jagex, Cambridge, United Kingdom
Investment: N/A
Investors: Insight Venture Partners
Description: Develops and operates java-based online games. Jagex focuses on persistent character games with immersive environments, which are 3D and can be played in-browser.

Company: Quazal, Montreal, Quebec
Investment: N/A
Investors: Collar Capital; FondAction CSN; La Caisse de Dépôt et de Placement du Québec; Viavar Capital
Description: Delivers multiplayer technologies to the videogames market. Quazal provides game developers with an SDK that includes features such as real-time data propagation and synchronized game inputs. Quazal also provides a lobby server that host game communities on all gaming platforms.

Company: Cellufun, New York, NY
Investment: N/A
Investors: Vaux Les Ventures
Description: Cellufun is an ad sponsored mobile gaming portal providing free entertainment content and casual, connected, and multiplayer games for web-enabled mobile phones.

Company: Massive, New York, NY
Investment: $ 10 million
Investors: DFJ Gotham; DFJ New England; NeoCarta Ventures; Newlight
Associates; RRE Ventures; Tobat Capital
Description: Massive operates a network for dynamic video game advertising that allows for all forms of downloadable media and advertising content to be contextually integrated into the game environment, including image, audio, video, and game object formats.

Company: Xfire, Menlo Park, CA
Investment: $ 5 million
Investors: Draper Fisher Jurvetson; Granite Global Ventures; New Enterprise Associates
Description: Xfire is a free tool that tracks when and where gamers are playing PC games online. It works across game type, server browser, or gaming service that a player is using.

Company: Sulake, Helsinki, Finland
Investment: $ 23 million
Investors: 3i Group; Benchmark Capital; Elisa Group
Description: Sulake is an online community, entertainment, and media company focusing on virtual worlds, casual multiplayer games, and social networking. Sulake operates the Habbo community.

Mergers & Acquisitions:

Target: 19% stake in Neowiz
Acquirer: Electronic Arts
Transaction: $105 million (Announced 3/19/2007)

Target Description: Develops and publishes online games in Korea, marketing its products under its online game portal www.pmang.com.

Acquirer Intent: To expand the existing co-development and publishing relationship and bring new titles to new markets in Asia.

Target: AdScape Media
Acquirer: Google
Transaction: $23 million (Announced 2/15/2007)

Target Description: Adscape Media offers dynamic delivery of in-game advertising with plot and storyline integration.

Acquirer Intent: To add value to users, advertisers, and publishers through the addition of Adscape Media’s technology and team to Google’s current advertising solutions for advertisers and publishers.

Target: Skyworks
Acquirer: Gottaplay Interactive
Transaction: N/A (Announced 8/14/2006)

Target Description: Skyworks Technologies develops video game content to engage mass audiences across multiple platforms including online, web downloadable, hand held video game consoles, and mobile phones.

Acquirer Intent: To achieve core business strategy of being a cross-platform gaming leader, and to leverage Skyworks’ library of over 100 casual games for both online and mobile delivery through in-game advertising, subscription fees, and downloadable game revenues.

Target: Atom Entertainment
Acquirer: Viacom’s MTV Networks
Transaction: $200 million (Announced 8/9/2006)

Target Description: Provides marketing and distribution solutions of broadband entertainment, including online games, on-demand viewing of film, and animation titles.

Acquirer Intent: To advance its multiplatform strategy of building a universe of music, gaming, entertainment, news, and interactivity for targeted audiences.

Target: Eiko
Acquirer: Double Fusion
Transaction: N/A (Announced 5/10/2006)

Target Description: Eiko Media is a marketing agency that specializes in the promotion and utilization of emerging technologies to build marketing and branding campaigns.

Acquirer Intent: To offer the fullest range of marketing solutions, from dynamic in-game spot buys to fully-realized in-depth product placements with measurement and dynamic features.

Target: RedOctane
Acquirer: Activision
Transaction: N/A (Announced 5/9/2006)

Target Description: RedOctane is a publisher, developer, and distributor of interactive entertainment software, hardware, and accessories.

Acquirer Intent: To achieve an early leadership position in the fast-growing music-based gaming genre.

Target: Massive
Acquirer: Microsoft
Transaction: N/A (Announced 5/4/2006)

Target Description: Massive operates a network for dynamic video game advertising that allows for all forms of downloadable media and advertising content to be contextually integrated into the game environment, including image, audio, video, and game object formats.

Acquirer Intent: To broaden it’s commitment to providing advertisers with a highly effective means of reaching specific demographic groups of consumers in the rapidly growing and interactive medium of online gaming, incorporate dynamic advertising into other online environments, such as Windows Live and MSN, and to make it available on the adCenter advertising platform.

Target: Xfire
Acquirer: Viacom’s MTV Networks
Transaction: $102 million (Announced 4/25/2006)

Target Description: Xfire is a free tool that tracks when and where gamers are playing PC games online. It works across game type, server browser, or gaming service that a player is using.

Acquirer Intent: To build a universe of music, gaming, entertainment, news, networking, and interactivity for focused audiences as part of its multiplatform strategy.

Target: IGN
Acquirer: News Corporation
Transaction: $650 million (Announced 9/8/2005)

Target Description: IGN Entertainment is a leading Internet media and services company focused on the video game and entertainment enthusiast markets. The company’s network of videogame-related properties provides a video game information destination that attracts a concentrated audience of young males.

Acquirer Intent: To become a leading and profitable Internet presence by enhancing its online reach and furthering its strategy to leverage the unique competencies the company enjoys with its news, sports, and entertainment assets to create a leading Internet destination.

Target: Neopets
Acquirer: Viacom’s subsidiary MTV
Transaction: $160 million (Announced 6/21/2005)

Target Description: Neopets owns and operates a virtual pet site on the Internet offering games, trading, auctions, greetings, and messaging.

Acquirer Intent: To move forward in its multiplatform strategy in addition to aligning its audience with MTV Network brands.

Target: MiXTV
Acquirer: Zone4Play
Transaction: Stock (Announced 3/11/2005)

Target Description: Provides an end-to-end solution to deliver multi-player interactive TV applications to all analog, digital, terrestrial and DBS-based networks.

Target Description: Provides an end-to-end solution to deliver multi-player interactive TV applications to all analog, digital, terrestrial and DBS-based networks.

Target: Stadeon
Acquirer: Yahoo!
Transaction: N/A (Announced 3/4/2005)

Target Description: Stadeon enables players to use mobile devices while competing with players on PCs.

Acquirer Intent: To strengthen its online games business by expanding into mobile phone games.

Filed under the categories: California, Musings, San Francisco, San Jose

Here are a few pictures from GDC. Most of the things I did there were fairly boring and not picture-worthy, unless you consider talking to industry magnates in the Fairmont hotel bathroom to be exciting.

Below is a picture of a windswept Will, who is generally more hairy than me in almost every conceivable manner. The second picture is from inside the Fairmont as we are waiting for some sort of meeting that seemed rather important at the time, but I can’t remember what the heck it could have been about now. The third picture is my dad and Will trying out some of the force-feedback steering wheels. In that outfit my dad looks like George Steinbrenner.

Filed under the categories: California, San Jose, Travel

We had a pretty good time hanging out at GDC in San Jose. Last year it was in San Francisco, and I like it a bit better there for some reason. Here are a few pictures from the Hayes Mansion, where we stayed. It was built back in 1904 and its unique construction enabled it to be one of the only surviving buildings since the big quake.

Below that are pictures from around downtown San Jose, including a very expensive tax-supported statue that looks like a pile of dog poop.

Filed under the categories: California, San Jose, Travel

We arrived in San Jose for the Game Developer’s Conference that is going on this week. There are interesting things that happen there, and I always get to meet some cool people with fresh perspectives. I tend to really like and appreciate the creative types, but I have little tolerance for the “tragic artist with false sense of entitlement” attitude that is fairly pervasive. The thing I hate most about the conference is all the incredibly bitter game developers that moan and groan about how horrible the industry is, yet they a) choose to stay in it b) continue to feed the system they hate. I don’t get it…

Will booked us at a place called the Dolce Hayes Mansion – here is a picture below. If you look close, you can see Will scaling a palm tree to get a coconut for our breakfast.

Filed under the categories: California, Musings, San Jose