I used to read Carmack's .plan file updates as obsessively as I now read Hacker News, so I was happy to discover that someone "blogified" them. I came across this work log entry from November 1997, which is relevant to the current HN thread about the discrepancy in productivity among different developers. Although he is regarded by many as a genius possessing mythical powers, I suspect that Carmack, a self-taught programmer, achieved his legendary status not through any special genius but rather through an amazing capacity for hard work.