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About Scottobear

Scott von Berg (born February 2, 1969), widely known online by his primary handle scottobear (as well as Sasquatch, Rev. Scotto, and Mongo), is an American software engineer, data scientist, writer, and advocate based in the Roanoke and Salem, Virginia area.

Personal Life and Interests

A self described vegetarian who “doesn’t eat animals, and votes regularly,” von Berg is known among his friends and online circles for his eclectic array of interests and his self deprecating humor, often describing himself online simply as a “nice fella that likes pancakes” and a “wannabe tyromancer.”

He previously lived in the Washington, D.C. area, specifically North Beach, Maryland, where he was deeply involved in local Halloween attractions, including a haunted house project dubbed Classic Scares from Dark Hallways.

  • Marriage: He married his wife, Allison, on October 25, 2006.
  • Pets: An avid feline enthusiast, his household has included several beloved cats over the years, including Newton (an orange tabby adopted in 1999), Pyewacket (a long haired black cat adopted in 2006), and Pearl (a brown tabby adopted in April 2022).
  • Identifying Marks: He stands approximately 6’5″ tall with a 5 inch scar at the base of his back from spinal operations in 1994 and 2003.

Career and Advocacy

Von Berg has built a long standing career as a software engineer and data scientist with a footprint in major technological advancements. Notably, he contributed to the early codebase for Keyhole, the pioneering geospatial visualization software that was acquired by Google in 2004 and subsequently transformed into Google Earth. Additionally, he has contributed to the background codebase for Plex, the globally popular client server media player system. His technical expertise also intersects with his commitment to inclusivity; he completed a stint working as a Section 508 accessibility programmer for the Department of Transportation (DOT), ensuring digital resources were fully accessible to users with disabilities.

Beyond his corporate tech achievements, a significant portion of his life has been dedicated to advocacy and community protection. Working as a child advocate, he dedicated considerable time and effort to this vital cause, ultimately assisting in the recovery of over 200 missing children.

His advocacy also extends into the digital and municipal realms. A staunch defender of digital privacy, von Berg uses his personal platform to write about issues impacting the Roanoke community. Notable topics include deep dive articles on municipal surveillance, such as the use of automated license plate reading cameras by local police, and the environmental impact of large data centers on local communities.

Web Presence and Blogs

Von Berg maintains a highly active digital footprint, archiving his thoughts, technical projects, and hobbies across several domains and platforms:

  • LiveJournal: He holds a unique piece of internet history, standing as the most googled user on the platform under his handle, scottobear.livejournal.com.
  • scottobear.com: Serving as his primary personal homepage and blog, this site chronicles his wide reaching personal hobbies. Von Berg uses this alias across GitHub, Twitch, and DeviantArt (where he has been a hobbyist artist for over two decades).
  • svonberg.org: This domain serves as a platform for his more serious writing, tech commentary, and the aforementioned local advocacy.

Hobbies and Maker Community

Beyond writing and coding, von Berg is actively engaged in several enthusiast communities:

  • Maker and 3D Printing: He is an active contributor to the 3D printing community via Printables.com and MakerWorld, where he shares and downloads 3D models.
  • Literature: He is a voracious reader, maintaining a massive digital catalog of over 2,100 books on platforms like Goodreads and LibraryThing. His reading interests range from sci fi authors like Terry Pratchett to classics, forteana, and cryptozoology.
  • Gaming: He is an enthusiastic tabletop and PC gamer (maintaining a long standing presence on Steam), frequently engaging in RPGs, board games, and social gaming.

Media and Voice Acting

While primarily focused on the tech, maker, and advocacy spaces, von Berg has also made minor appearances across film and video games. He has an official entry on IMDb for his 2007 uncredited role as a “Tourist” in the Disney action adventure sequel National Treasure: Book of Secrets, starring Nicolas Cage. Furthermore, he has provided minor voice acting work for major Bethesda video game titles, including the Fallout series and The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim.

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Oracle just laid off around 30,000 employees as it redirects spending toward AI infrastructure and data centers. And most of them got the news via a 6 AM cold email. Employees across the company are sharing stories that follow a nearly identical pattern.

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Vampyre game html

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Based on the old tsr game vampyre (from 1981), for the gang at bronze age monsters podcast (Youtube link)

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/2216/vampyre

Destroy 3 coffins, and get into dracs castle to snuff him out, before your rival gets him, or monsters get you

Vampyre v0.08

Version 0.08 Implements:

Action cards, roads, hex map movement, items, weapons, dice combat arena, a CPU rival, drac castle interior

Still needs multiplayer, better dracs castle

Vampyre game box cover

Need to add – 3 bites rule, safe villages, evasion, host element, vampire turncoat

First edit v 009

https://svonberg.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/vampyrehex9bites.html

Possibly final until multiplayer is ironed out

https://svonberg.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/vampyre010sanct.html

Added safe villages, 3 bites, host as an inventory item, evasion, other hunter a little smarter.

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No Kings – Roanoke VA

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Roanoke Today Felt Like People Showing Up for Each Other

I walked into downtown Roanoke today not really knowing what to expect.

You hear the word protest and your mind fills in the blanks. Noise. Anger. Division. That kind of thing.

But this was different.

The “No Kings” gathering felt calm in a way that is hard to explain unless you were standing there. People were present. Not just physically, but emotionally. A kind of quiet steadiness ran through the crowd.

There were signs and chants, sure. But what stayed with me were the small human moments.

Someone handing out water without being asked.

A couple making room on the sidewalk for an older man to sit.

People laughing while painting signs like it was a shared project instead of a task.

It didn’t feel like strangers gathered in opposition. It felt like neighbors recognizing each other.

You could tell this was part of something bigger happening across the country. That energy was there, but it never felt like a copy of something national. It felt grounded. Personal.

People were talking to each other, not past each other. There were conversations happening on the edges of the crowd that mattered just as much as the chants in the center.

Tables were set up. People were sharing information, inviting others in, offering ways to stay connected after today. No pressure. Just open space.

That stood out to me.

What surprised me most was the tone.

It was not heavy. It was not hostile. It was purposeful without being overwhelming.

There was a sense that people came because they cared, but also because they wanted to be around others who cared too.

That feeling matters more than any slogan.

It is easy to forget how isolating things can feel when you are sitting at home scrolling through headlines. Being in a space where people are showing up in real life shifts something inside you.

Even if you do not talk to anyone directly, you feel it.

You are not alone in paying attention.

Roanoke is not the biggest city, and that’s exactly why today mattered.

When people show up here, it says something simple and important. It says this is not just something happening somewhere else. It’s happening where we live.

It’s easy to assume that civic engagement belongs to larger places. Today pushed back against that idea.

People here care. Enough to come out. Enough to stand together. Enough to be visible.

That counts.

I did not leave feeling drained.

I left feeling grounded.

Not everything was solved today. That was never the point. The point was showing up. Being present. Letting others see you and seeing them in return.

That kind of moment stays with you longer than the signs or the chants.

Today felt like something steady.

It felt like people remembering they are part of something bigger than themselves, and choosing to stand in that together.

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Fruit merge v11

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https://svonberg.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/fruit011.html

Spent some time tonight building out a fruit merge game, which started as a very small idea and then kept quietly expanding in every direction.

The core of it is simple enough. You drop fruit into a container, they bounce and collide using Matter.js, and when two of the same type meet they merge into the next one up. It is the kind of loop that explains itself within a few seconds, especially with the little evolution guide sitting across the top showing the path from cherries up to a full watermelon. No instructions needed, just a gentle nudge in the right direction.

What makes it feel good is the physics. Everything has weight and presence, so even small interactions feel intentional. A piece rolls a little too far, bumps something else, and suddenly you have a chain reaction you did not plan for. It never feels scripted, which makes even the messy moments feel earned.

I built the interface to sit comfortably on a phone screen, keeping everything vertical and easy to reach. The layout behaves nicely, even with mobile browser quirks, and the theme toggle lets it slip into a darker mode that feels a little calmer at night. It is the kind of thing you can pick up for a minute or two without thinking about it too much.

Of course, it did not stay that simple. There is a hidden tools panel that opens up into something closer to a sandbox. You can slice fruit apart, drop a bomb when things get too crowded, shake the entire playfield, or turn on a brief zero gravity effect and watch everything drift. There is even an autoplay mode that takes over and makes its own decisions, sometimes better than you would, sometimes much worse.

The audio ended up being one of my favorite parts to work on. Instead of using sound files, everything is generated on the fly with the Web Audio API. Small tones for drops, brighter notes for merges, and a kind of layered progression when combos start stacking. It gives the whole thing a subtle rhythm that matches what is happening on screen.

There is also a quiet bit of persistence in the background. High scores are saved through Firebase with anonymous login, so it remembers your best run without asking you for anything. It just sits there, keeping track.

One small feature that ended up changing the feel of everything is the size toggle. With a single button press, the entire game scales up or down, including fruit that are already in play. It shifts the balance immediately. Suddenly the space feels too tight or oddly empty, and you have to adjust how you think about each drop.

Somewhere along the way, it stopped feeling like a simple merge game and started feeling more like a small interactive space. Something you poke at for a bit, watch it react, and then try again when it inevitably collapses in on itself.

It is a nice kind of loop. Quiet, a little unpredictable, and easy to come back to.

Welcome to my wall scrawls.