My name is John Bergman. From the age of four to fourteen, I was raised on a 35-foot sailboat, as a full-time cruising liveaboard (mostly in the Atlantic). After we moved off of the boat, I became a computer geek and, by the mid-90s, was involved in a successful ISP startup, as a unix-systems/network engineer and security guy. This allowed me, in the late 90s, to found my own software company, which makes an online game (Sci-Fi MMORPG). As of this writing (2009) I've been running the company for a little over a decade, and am in my early 30s.
Normally, I'd be a little reluctant to post this kind of personal information on a public site, but in this case it's already out there in various news articles and interviews.
Like many geeks, I have somewhat varied interests and a tendency towards obsessive research. As a result of this and some of my experience, I seem to get a lot of questions from friends, acquaintances, and total strangers. I like to help people, such as I can, and I also like to be thorough and "rigorous" in my explanations; this has led to quite a number of lengthy emails to various people, often covering the same subjects many different times. For instance, I'm frequently asked how to get a job in the videogame development industry (a question I feel kind of unqualified to answer, since I started my own company and have never been "hired"), and I've answered dozens of emails from random students, sending them very similar advice.
This site is all about answering these questions with general articles that I can update periodically, and direct people to read, instead of writing lengthy, personalized emails. Basically, a big FAQ that touches on some of my interests. Plus, I'm sure I'll also post other random opinions and vague ideas, since that's what the blog-o-tubes are seemingly all about. I make no promise that anything I say is of any great accuracy, it's just what I happen to believe based on my own experience. I will try to relate the nature of my experiences, and cite references when I can. Caveat lector.
Anything gleaned from this site should (like the rest of the internet) be taken with a grain of salt. The great benefit of the 'net is the aggregation of vast amounts of data from many sources. If, as one of those sources, my input can provide some small help to someone, then I'm happy it was of use.
The name "Incarnate" comes from my own handle or nickname, which I've had since the BBS scene, circa 1991. I used to release music under the name in 92-98 or thereabouts (the precursor to my game company was a demo group), and since then the moniker has become well known to the userbase of my game, as it's my administrative handle there as well.
This site currently has no comments or other feedback mechanics, for a couple of reasons. One, Nanoblogger does not include a comments system by default, although it does have a plugin available. Two, comments systems tend to be a pain, as they require lots of captcha and other mechanisms to prevent spam and abuse. Even with these systems, abuse is common. I don't have a lot of free time, and I prefer zero-maintenance when possible. Finally, I selected Nanoblogger because it produces completely static content, without any need for PHP or other languages; this allows higher margins of both security and scalability. I think it's pretty unlikely that my little site will ever be popular enough for the latter to be an issue, but I am a scalability-nut, as I used to do that for a living (and still do, in game-engine land). So, considering the positives and negatives of comments, I don't have any for now. This site is really a place for me to post static articles, rather than a true blog in the common sense of the term.
The frequency of articles on here is also very low. If I even post something once a year, that'd be great. Again, the goal is for the articles themselves to stand on their own in some way, not to create any kind of "website destination".