“Recently someone posted about their experience in determining the file structure of the Doom WAD file. How did you feel when people were discovering how to modify Doom, from building new levels, to changing the executable itself (dhacked) originally without any information from id? In your opinion, is the modding community a valuable place for creating future game developers?”

John Carmack Answers:

“The hacking that went on in Wolfenstein was unexpected, but based on that, DOOM was designed from the beginning to be modified by the user community.

[…]

I still remember the first time I saw the original Star Wars DOOM mod. Seeing how someone had put the death star into our game felt so amazingly cool. I was so proud of what had been made possible, and I was completely sure that making games that could serve as a canvas for other people to work on was a valid direction.”

https://m.slashdot.org/story/7828

Any time I think of Pitfall!, I always remember this pamphlet you could request and receive via mail:

Programming Pitfall Harry

https://archive.org/details/program-pitfall/mode/1up

I have this underlying, background process that is continuously running in my mind that is essentially, “Please don’t let it be my fault.”

And so that thought has guided me while driving, in daily living, and in one particular instance that reminded me of your experience (because I was not in charge of safety).

I was a patron at a wave pool in the heat of the summer. The waves were churning, and the water was packed with people.

I am hyper vigilant by internal design, and I noticed this young girl starting to drown.

If you have not seen this before, it is nothing like you would imagine; there is no wild flailing of the arms, or urgent calls for help. It is an almost surreal, quiet experience.

I made my way to her in what seemed like a slow motion moment blended into a faster-than-life response, and scooped her up in my arms as if she were my own child.

I remember that she was stunned as I raised her from the water, with somniferous, glassy eyes before she inhaled.

I am welling up just thinking about it. It was an intense experience that I will never forget.

It is simply stunning that the seasoned direction and counsel that someone of John Carmack’s caliber is capable of delivering was not being followed.

Most discussed products on r/budgetaudiophile:

https://www.looria.com/reddit/budgetaudiophile/products

Most discussed products on r/audiophile:

https://www.looria.com/reddit/audiophile/products

Reddit's Favorite Products in One Place:

https://www.looria.com/reddit/overview

Previous discussion of Looria:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32764495

So You Want to Study Mathematics https://www.susanrigetti.com/math

She also wrote:

So You Want to Learn Physics https://www.susanrigetti.com/physics

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Susan_Fowler

Alan MacMasters https://archive.ph/IL2ay

In the same tweet, the waveform image on the right is Chad’s edited version of Mick’s track for the Doom Eternal OST, entitled “BFG Division 2020.”

The comparison is valid, because it is Mick’s music, and it also serves to demonstrate the audio engineering expertise on the Doom 2016 OST, which was hailed as a masterwork soundtrack in the genre.

However, Mick did not mix this particular track for the Doom Eternal OST, and this is the critical point of this specific waveform comparison; that is, as Mick expresses in the article (and the waveform comparison demonstrates), the Doom Eternal OST is not entirely representative of his actual work, or the full depth of his audio engineering expertise.

This is due to decisions and modifications that were made without his input (e.g., the aforementioned editing).

”His edits are riddled with these clearly visible mistakes. Anyone comparing my original tracks to his edits can hear (and see, by looking at the waveform [1]) the unmistakable errors introduced during the editing process.”

[1] https://twitter.com/DoominalCross/status/1251690243389927424

As a musician and music-lover, seeing how they brickwalled [1][2] Mick’s tracks in the screenshots only serves to add to the heartbreak of his entire saga.

[1] Loudness War https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudness_war

[2] The Loudness War https://youtu.be/3Gmex_4hreQ

In essence, existence is interwoven in a complex tapestry of interdependence.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pratītyasamutpāda

So You Want to Study Mathematics…

https://www.susanrigetti.com/math

She also wrote:

So You Want to Learn Physics…

https://www.susanrigetti.com/physics

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Susan_Fowler

“On Friday, Reuters reported that J&J secretly launched ‘Project Plato’ last year to shift liability from about 38,000 pending Baby Powder talc lawsuits to a newly created subsidiary, which was then to be put into bankruptcy. By doing so, J&J could limit its financial exposure to the lawsuits.”

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollywood_accounting

Incredibly high performers exist, but are rare.

For example, the following quote is from a talk given by Gabe Newell.

(Unfortunately, I do not have the URL to the source video for this quote.)

“At IBM in the 1980s, typical productivity would be 1,000 debugged, shipped lines of code per year. That was the metric that they used for their median employee. Where as, when we were shipping Half Life 1, one employee, Yahn Bernier, was shipping 4,000 lines of code per day.”

[1] https://youtu.be/0VfGnvHRXu0

[2] https://www.amazon.com/dp/0812870972

Focus on combining your software engineering skills with delivering value in a specific, core competency.

That is to say:

Good software engineers tend to focus on being good at programming, and all of the details that venture entails (e.g., mastery of specific languages, knowledge of specific ways of operating in a given framework, IDE, or tool, etc.).

Better software engineers are capable of all of the preceding, plus the ability to apply a deeper level of problem-solving ability that has been laser-focused by their experience in the art.

Finally, superlative software engineers are capable of all of the preceding, plus the ability to leverage those skills to deliver value as a Subject Matter Expert (SME) in a specific domain.

I believe that you have to be more than just a programmer if you want to maximize your career's longevity, and its associated compensation package.

By A. M. Turing

October 1950

This paper introduces the concept of the Imitation Game, which would eventually be referred to as the Turing test. [2]

[1] https://academic.oup.com/mind/article-pdf/LIX/236/433/986611...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turing_test

Cast in this unlikely role • Ill-equipped to act • With insufficient tact • One must put up barriers • To keep oneself intact

[...]

Living in a fish eye lens • Caught in the camera eye • I have no heart to lie • I can’t pretend a stranger • Is a long-awaited friend

I have a slight fascination with sweeteners. About five years ago I imported a kilo of "Neotame" sweetener from a chem factory in Shanghai. It was claimed to be 10,000-12,000 times sweeter than sugar. It's a white powder and came in a metal can with a crimped lid and typically plain chemical labeling. Supposedly it is FDA-approved and a distant derivative of aspartame.

US customs held it for two weeks before sending it on to Colorado with no explanation. When received, the box was covered in "inspected" tape and they had put the canister in a clear plastic bag. The crimped lid looked like a rottweiler chewed it open and white powder was all over the inside of the bag. I unwisely opened this in my kitchen with no respirator as advised by the MSDS which I read after the fact (I am not a smart man).

Despite careful handling of the bag, it is so fine in composition that a small cloud of powder erupted in front of me and a hazy layer of the stuff settled over the kitchen. Eyes burning and some mild choking from inhaling the cloud, I instantly marveled at how unbelievably sweet the air tasted, and it was delicious. For several hours I could still taste it on my lips. The poor customs inspector will have had a lasting memory of that container I'm pretty sure.

Even after a thorough wipe-down, to this day I encounter items in my kitchen with visually imperceptible amounts of residue. After touching it and getting even microscopic quantities of the stuff on a utensil or cup, bowl, plate, whatever, it adds an intense element of sweetness to the food being prepared, sometimes to our delight. I still have more than 900g even after giving away multiple baggies to friends and family (with proper safety precautions).

We have been hooked on it since that first encounter. I keep a 100mL bottle of solution in the fridge which is used to fill smaller dropper bottles. I've prepared that 100mL bottle three times over five years, and that works out to about 12g of personal (somewhat heavy) usage for two people in that time. Probably nowhere near the LD50.

I carry a tiny 30mL dropper bottle of the solution for sweetening the nasty office coffee and anything else as appropriate. Four drops to a normal cup of coffee. We sweeten home-carbonated beverages, oatmeal, baked goods (it is heat stable), use it in marinades, and countless other applications.

I don't know if it's safe. The actual quantity used is so incredibly tiny that it seems irrelevant. I'd sweeten my coffee with polonium-210 if it could be done in Neotame-like quantities. Between this, a salt shaker loaded with MSG and a Darwin fish on my car, I'm doomed anyway.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9440566

"And when Jobs (in the movie, but really a board does this) denied stock to the early garage team (some not even shown) I'm surprised that they chose not to show me giving about $10M of my own stock to them because it was the right thing. And $10M was a lot in that time."