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AOL still in business

http://www.businessinsider.com...

> My boss was pissed that I don't have one... He asked,
> why in the hell don't you use Facebook?

You're in HR, interviewing a job applicant. Would you hire somebody who once offered his company's personal client information to a friend? And called his customers dumb? What if he said it was "a youthful indiscretion"? Like the following?

http://www.businessinsider.com...

Zuck: Yeah so if you ever need info about anyone at Harvard

Zuck: Just ask.

Zuck: I have over 4,000 emails, pictures, addresses, SNS

[Redacted Friend's Name]: What? How'd you manage that one?

Zuck: People just submitted it.

Zuck: I don't know why.

Zuck: They "trust me"

Zuck: Dumb fucks.

The inflation numbers you see everywhere are a lie, or at least so oversimplified that they might as well be a lie.
http://www.businessinsider.com...

He's a Thiel Fellow, and clearly, that model is working for kids like him who are super gifted for whom the current college education model would be absurd.

This 17-Year-Old Dropped Out Of High School For Peter Thiel And Built A Game-Changing New Kind Of Computer

Pretty awesome, if you ask me!

They also forgot to mention: "... and sends the data back to Ford for whatever purposes they wish..

FTFT.

@coldsalmon: Free Speech

Some time ago, before the Ellen Pao controversy, I took a look at Reddit and, after what I saw, dropped out just as quickly. Hosting a user generated forum and then banning people because they disagreed with some moderator. At the same time allowing such shit as the Fappening and 'humorous' posts such as this. All pilots after the German Wings accident ref. I feel soiled by proxy that I once associated with the human garbage that posted the above.

Stop. stop with the fever-dream of a phone. you lost seven billion dollars on the phone thing. real people lost jobs because of your half-assed insistance on dominating all markets forever.

Not only that but Microsoft held a funeral for the iPhone when they launched the Windows Phone. Hubris?

Why was the parent modded "troll"? One of the first boards that Reddit banned was /r/jailbait. Other boards had to have content deleted because it was child pornography.

As MRAs love to keep pointing out, men can be victims of gender prejudice too. In any case, she is a woman, and guys threatened to rape and sexual assault her, so by any measure she has a right to speak about those issues.

Guys can threaten to rape and sexual assault him/her no matter if she's a man/woman or transwoman. Seems the MRAs may be right on that one.

As MRAs love to keep pointing out, men can be victims of gender prejudice too. In any case, she is a woman, and guys threatened to rape and sexual assault her, so by any measure she has a right to speak about those issues.

Yes, why not. Play by play below, italicizes are my asides. Sorry but no TL;DR of the TL;DR, it was hard enough to summarize the whole thing.

1st paragraph: asks Greece to keep their promise this time.
To be read with German accent as it was most likely added by Germany. It echoes the statement by Merkel this weekend that says "The most important currency has been lost and that is trust".

2nd paragraph: tell Greece it is either both ESF and IMF or nothing.
Meaning Greece will most likely have to agree to another set of measures imposed by IMF.

3rd paragraph, pages 2 and 3, first item on page 4: sets the first measures to be taken and its deadlines.
Some must be voted into law by 15 July (72 hours after the meeting) and some by 22 July, next week. They are more or less the same measures that triggered the referendum last week but with a notable absence: cuts in the military

pages 4 and 5, aditional measures:
- model for privatization.
Instead of going to the public coffers it will go to a fund (managed by Greece, supervised by Europe). The assets (estimated 50B) will be split: 50/25/25. 50% to recapitalize the banks, 25B to repay loans, 25B for investiments.
- model for the supervision: all draft legislation will be subject of their (EU and IMF) consult and agreement. Greece has until 20 July to ask to be helped.
- reversal of anti austerity legislation: all of them, except the humanitarian crisis bill, must be reexamined and either reversed or replaced by an equivalent measure.
SOP for "troika" (as in group of three, EU, ECB and IMF) technicians to become the fourth power in the country during the program duration. Happened in Portugal and Ireland

end of page 5: states that Greece will need between 82 and 86B, unless it can collect more taxes or privatize better. 7 of those billion euros are needed before 20 July and 5 more before mid August. Also states that greece needs to "clear its arrears" to IMF and Bank of Greece
Sibling post has it right, this part is "Greece, pay denbts"

page 6: states that Greece either accepts the deal or banks won't reopen. Also, that it is syriza's )and whoever was its predecessor) fault by easing the policies during the last 12 months and that Eurozone can reconsider "longer grace and payment periods" but that will be "no haircuts"
Again, "Greece, stop screwing up, pay denbts, all of it"

page 7: states that if Greece accepts the deal the deal will go forward. Also, that in the next 3-5 years 35B will be mobilized to fund investment and economic activity (including SME) via EU programmes
This must be the concession Tsipras is talking about, 35B for investment including small and medium-sized entrerprises not counting towards the loan but via EU investment.

Seems like a desperation move for a company with under-target earnings, if they're willing to poison long-term relationships with their customers like that. You're going to see businesses deciding that they don't like having a gun held to their head. They'll pay the ransom for now, but some of them will probably start investigating other options in the background.

My understanding was that Google didn't interfere with Firefox development.

Apparently Microsoft is interfering. The Thunderbird and SeaMonkey Composer GUIs have been damaged, apparently deliberately. Every time you do a file save, the newer versions of both Thunderbird and SeaMonkey ask for a new file name, and don't suggest the last one chosen.

The damage was reported several months ago, but has not been fixed. Is that another example of Microsoft's Embrace, Extend, Extinguish? People who feel forced away from Thunderbird may choose Microsoft software to replace it. Is that something Microsoft is trying to accomplish?

Google had been paying Mozilla Foundation $300,000,000 each year!! Where did the money go? Did you see that amount of development in Firefox?

Well, apparently there's money to be made in products that people can use worldwide.
http://www.businessinsider.com...

If 3 mediocre software engineers could match the capabilities of one good one, I'm sure we'd see more application of that principle outside of government contracting (cost-plus) work.

It's the syndication model. There may be a price for everything, but exclusivity is enforced by the hypothetical price being outrageously high (~$2/ep would kill Netflix). The dollar model presumes that the dollar theater could pay the same price as the expensive theater and get the same access and that both of them are negotiating with a third-party rights holder.

Unless the amount of money that Hulu is getting for each ad is shockingly high (It's $25-30 CPM), the cost for Netflix to acquire similar rights would be fairly reasonable and they would have likely already done so. Since the holders of the media distribution rights actually own Hulu, it's likely that Hulu is not paying the same price for new shows that Netflix would have to pay (hypothetically, if such an offer was even realistically on the table).

If breaking exclusivity was just a matter of being a bigger company, then Hulu would show Netflix's exclusive content. The key part of my argument, which you keep skirting around, is that Hulu is owned by the media companies and that their exclusive access to those companies' content comes from that fact and not that their ads are allowing them to pay exorbitant royalties.

No, the difference is probably way more than $40k cost of living. I live in a low cost medium-sized city (Charlotte). I have a 1200sqft condo less than 20 minutes from downtown, less than 20 minutes from work, and the best school district in the city. My condo was $120k at the peak of the housing boom brand spanking new. Most houses of 2000-3000sqft range from $250k to $500k depending on quality. You're lucky to find equivalent housing in an equivalent area in SV/SF 3 times that price, unless you're all the way in Sacramento.

Take a look at this chart to get some perspective:
http://www.businessinsider.com...

One of the more positive things that has happened recently is that they got starved for victims so they started attacking their own political camps. They were basically doing purity tests. Once everyone is a liberal how do they justify their existence? well... they then ask "how liberal are you"... and they just start goal posting moving to make sure they have enough people to be outraged with at any given time.

So anyway, they were doing that and eventually they hit a segment of their own political contingent that fought back. And now they're a little baffled because a lot of the wind has gone out of their sails. They're getting attacked from all sides now and they're losing credibility rapidly.

Its funny because they're such dogmatic robots that they don't really understand what happened.

We'll see... they'll either be suppressed to the general good of society or they'll osterize most of their political base which will lead to a structural schism in the faction which will weaken them collectively.

Hit. Nail. Head. I wish I had mod points today. What's happening with liberalism today is a case study in self destruction. All we need to do is sit back and watch it play out.

Like those ideological purity tests...if we started measuring conservatives on the basis of how conservative are you, it would surely mark the beginning of the end. Liberal purity tests have pushed their kind so far to the extreme, they're now attacking themselves. And their tactic of keeping one constituency or another outraged at any given time has totally backfired.

I don't really blame liberals for being baffled. They've spent so much time in an echo chamber, they've lost touch. When reality finally slaps them in the face, it is only natural for them to try to figure out what happened. The question is, do they have the capability to make the necessary changes in order to correct their course?

Somehow I doubt it. Liberals are so

I wonder if the monthly costs between Amazon (no commercials), Netflix (unfortunately starting commercials), and Hulu (lots of commercials) compare in this way.

http://www.digitaltrends.com/h...

According to this site, Netflix with no commercials (starting commercials sometimes for their own things, before or after the show, not during) costs almsot exactly the same as Amazon and Hulu:
http://www.businessinsider.com...

Most government agencies would never have let this happen in the first place because they're not stupid enough to "save money" by creating such an unbelievably high value collection of data so easily accessible to the Internet. Another thing, they would never have hired foreign contractors to work on such a critical database. OPM's contract office should be headed to Leavenworth for that decision.

Animals - and apparently some humans - can function completely by taking short naps (10-20 mins) repeatedly throughout a 24 hour period without having an hours long sleep session. This phenomenon is termed polyphasic sleep.

It is also interesting to note that the practice of lucid dreaming (having conscious awareness during a dream while it is happening) happens during REM sleep - which increases in frequency and duration throughout the night (or sleeping time) - with the majority of REM sleep occurring with in the last couple of hours before waking.

Thus, one method for inducing lucidity involves waking up a couple of hours early and staying awake for an hour or so and then returning to sleep, quickly entering into the REM state. Napping is also very conducive to lucid dreaming and REM sleep.

This makes me wonder if people with the DEC2 gene would have a better chance of entering REM sleep (and thus have more opportunity to become lucid) than someone without the gene. Logic would seem to dicate so.

In no way does it avoid anything except making 100% [sure] a driver cannot make a living through this.

That's kind of the point. By the way, you can't make a living wage driving full-time for Uber either. Waze is just making sure no one even tries to.

Whatever your opinion of her otherwise, The Iron Lady saw this coming

Man they rejected the offer on the table

http://www.businessinsider.com...

No to the EU austerity measures.

As to who deserves what, I'd say there is plenty of blame to go around for the politicians and bankers on all sides on of this. They can cry in their champagne.

http://www.theguardian.com/com...

http://www.nature.com/news/why...

http://www.cnn.com/2015/03/18/...

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/a...

http://www.businessinsider.com...

http://www.mysterypollster.com...

http://www.examiner.com/articl...

http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/general...

http://www.outsidethebeltway.c...

http://nautil.us/blog/why-were...

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07...

http://articles.economictimes....

First few links from the search engine typing in "why are election polls often wrong"...

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-pol...

http://time.com/3558932/pollin...

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.u...

http://www.cnn.com/2015/05/08/...

http://www.kansas.com/news/loc...

Shut up. Just close your stupid mouth. Sit down. And don't speak again until addressed. You're an idiot. It has been officially noticed.

"I'm gonna see it! I want it to be as beautiful as possible, even if it's inside the box. A great carpenter isn't going to use lousy wood for the back of a cabinet, even though nobody's going to see it." This is Steve Jobs pushing the Macintosh team to redesign the circuit board because some of the spacing was ugly.

Steve Jobs also pushed them to make it boot as fast as possible, rejected computer fans because of noise, and said a multibutton mouse would be inelegant. He went to great pains to make the Apple Store out of glass. Even his slides were Zen.

He was a complex character. He certainly wasn't your typical businessman:

"My passion has been to build an enduring company where people were motivated to make great products . . . the products, not the profits, were the motivation. Sculley flipped these priorities to where the goal was to make money. It's a subtle difference, but it ends up meaning everything."

http://www.businessinsider.com... (link above in the story you are responding to)

You see the stuff about that they were down blending 20% enriched Uranium (the picture with the description of how a centrifuge works) because of an agreement in 2013. You don't need 20% enriched Uranium for reactor fuel. As they haven't actually gotten rid of the means of producing this material, why do you believe that they aren't working for a bomb?

Someone may have already posted this...

From this map you can see how widespread the $$$ is, and that there are so many congressional districts in the US benefitting from this program, to cancel or make changes to it now would be political suicide for the scumbag congressmen who initiated it.

60 Minutes did a decent job on the F-35 a while back, where the vibe from the Marine general, after being asked if he was going to get the F-35 operational in time was like that of one of Hitlers generals saying he would stop the Soviets after the disaster at Kursk...

Also, take a look at how many countries are already "in the pipe" on ordering for these. A lot.

The US and its allies better hope that when China finally decides to make their own high end fighter jets(which are currently based on Russian-made Sukhoi jets), based on all they have learned after waltzing into the US DOD databases, that it is as much of a CF as the F-35 is.

...Most recently, there have been concerns over its computer systems' vulnerability, and Chinese hackers have possibly stolen classified data related to the project....

Errr...

If by 'these days' you mean "always", then yes. Or does the iconic the I'm a mac/I'm a PC campaign, the fruity iMac design ads (no specs or mention of the whammy that is the first major OEM to remove floppy drives --but "whoa, the colors!" sold tons) and even the iconic Apple 1984 ad two decades ago.
I barely skimmed this find, but here are some yewels about this 30-year old piece of evidence for what you call 'these days':
* A quote that "It was the first time that anybody did something so outrageous on the Super Bowl"
* and: [quote]The commercial was also pivotal to Apple as it positioned itself as an innovator in the field. The Macintosh computer itself was revolutionary in that it was the first affordable, personal computer to include a graphical-user interface and allow even novice computer users to easily operate the machine with its mouse. The ad helped cement Apple's reputation as an innovator, and presented a contrast between itself and the staid marketing of industry giant IBM. [quote]
If helping cement someone's reputation as *anything* with a single 30 second ad spot on the most expensive airtime slot ISN'T marketing, and isn't proof that 30 years ago they were just as brand conscious, then something's seriously missing from time perceptions. And that was with a near-failed ad project, too.
I loved my college powermacG3 chugging along in a mac-ruled campus, but there are tons of little heavy-handed design regressions that I cannot forgive any company. I reluctanctly pass on many new products because no advertisement can *accurately* give you half the information in a single 10-line spec list... nobody wants to alienate their users with gigabytes, hard numbers or even detailed product mugshots until you're already on their website making product comparisons with their javascript eyes letting them breathe down your neck

There are some very nasty pieces of work on that list, rapists and murderers who presumably managed to get a removal order from within prison, ...

Why we should just kill those people. Even if they could be rehabilitated, they are doomed. Killing them would be a mercy killing.

If I were caught pissing in public or something, I would want to die because my life is OVER.

Healthy food is tasty as hell once your palette has had a chance to get used to it again

No, when your palette gets used to it again, it becomes bearable ("as hell" is quite an apt a metaphor, actually) — but not especially tasty. Ice-cream or chocolate will still trump "healthy" and an ongoing effort of will is required to stick to broccoli.

I'd say, the results of the study show, that we increase cognitive abilities, when experiencing shortages, rather than decline, when eating, what we want. Which makes sense from evolutionary stand-point — if you are starving, you better think harder about finding sustenance...

But, however one spins the same facts, we better adapt to the 21st century of plenty. All of our evolution to day was spent with starvation constantly looming and occasionally hitting whereas today — and only for the last few decades — "starving" became a synonym for "dieting". And that we view the thinness as beautiful today is not a result of some evil conspiracy, but simply a reflection of what is healthy today — for a never-starving Westerner. Our super-thin ideals of today would not have survived even in the 19th century... The still-hungry Africans, for a counter-example, still think "fat is beautiful" and Mauritania even has a concept of "wife-fattening".

It is not "cultural" — they just still remember famine, whereas the "golden billion" has blissfully forgotten it.

More likely tuning algorithms. [And Uber just stole my business idea.]

"Test Cell" time is very expensive. I think some of ours run $20k an hour and that's not even close to as expensive as they get. Additionally each prototype in a test cell can only ever accumulate 168 of test data per week. (It's a hard limit.)

The 'hardware' part of driverless cars has been pretty much nailed down. We've come a long way in the 11 years since the 2004 DARPA Grand Challenge (The original event didn't go so well) Google and Uber have been poaching the grad students and professors from a lot of the first teams.

Now what those engineers need is more data. They have dSPACE machines hooked up to all of their Matlab models and are running a few thousands 'vehicles' in parallel. The problem is they need a very smart and adaptive better controller to test scenarios with. Uber is tuning it's algorithms against human drivers. The payout is two fold. In the short term they get to vet drivers. In the long term they don't have to deal with drivers again.

If this pans out Uber will be releasing driving game for the XBox One, PS4 & Desktop. "Earn up to $1/hour driving a car!". It'll be a gamified Mechanical Turk. For $20k Google could have 20,000 hours of data in an hour. "Promote" the best driving drivers to $2/hour, $4... $10. You'd still be generating 2,000 hours of data per hour and you'd have the "best" drivers you can find.

The entire "personal vehicles" and "are they licensed" is moot when it's fleets of driverless cars all dispatched from a few locations around the city (as driverless cars become legal). They're already collecting all the data as to where the vehicles are needed. I wouldn't be shocked if Uber isn't already buying up property in places that their data shows a lot of vehicles are needed.

Uber is playing long game. "Drivers" right now are just a cheap way to collect all that data since Taxi companies probably won't release it (or even keep it).

I expect Google is doing all of the same things in parallel.

One effect of "upgrading" to Windows 10: Windows Media Center will be deleted.

Another loss in Windows 10: Windows Updates will be forced, in some versions. What other sneaky methods will Microsoft use? Will there be other lost features? Will Microsoft extend its control over Windows in other hidden or complicated ways? At present, the best way to update Windows 7 is to use Autopatcher, because Microsoft's anti-customer "updates" are avoided.

Firefox: Embraced, "Extended", soon to be Extinguished? Mozilla Foundation now gets most of its money from Microsoft. How? Microsoft pays Yahoo. Yahoo pays Mozilla Foundation to make "Yahoo search" (actually Microsoft Bing search) the default search engine in Firefox. Most people don't have the technical knowledge to know how they've been manipulated, or how to restore the default search engine to Google search.

Thunderbird and SeaMonkey Composer GUIs: Damaged, apparently deliberately. Every time you do a file save, the newer versions of both ask for a new file name, and don't suggest the last one chosen. The damage was reported several months ago, but has not been fixed. Is that another example of Embrace, Extend, Extinguish? People who feel forced away from Thunderbird may choose Microsoft software to replace it. Is that what Microsoft is trying to accomplish?

Microsoft is amazingly badly managed. The company apparently survives only because of having an unregulated virtual monopoly that allows it to charge full price for each new version, and to alternate good and bad versions, so customers pay twice for new versions. (Windows XP, good. Windows Vista, bad. Windows 7, good. Windows 8, so bad the next version, Windows 10 is "free".)

"Monkey Boy" The cover of the January 16, 2013 issue of BusinessWeek magazine has a large photo of Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer (now replaced) with the headline calling him "Monkey Boy". See the BusinessWeek cover in this article: Steve Ballmer Is No Longer A Monkey Boy, Says Bloomberg BusinessWeek. The BusinessWeek cover says "No More" and "Mr.", but that doesn't take much away from the fact that the magazine called Ballmer Monkey Boy -- on its cover.

Worst CEO: Quote from an article in Forbes Magazine about Steve Ballmer: "Without a doubt, Mr. Ballmer is the worst CEO of a large publicly traded American company today."

Another quote: "The reach of his bad leadership has extended far beyond Microsoft when it comes to destroying shareholder value -- and jobs." (May 12, 2012)

http://www.businessinsider.com...

According to the above link the development team does both so no qa team. The real question is how they are evaluated? Right now there is no incentive and it shows. No,code freeze and ship first and ask questions later is how it appears

"... actual incompetence plays a large factor..."

You are not the only one who thinks that.

The cover of the January 16, 2013 issue of BusinessWeek magazine has a large photo of Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer with the headline calling him "Monkey Boy". See the BusinessWeek cover in this article: Steve Ballmer Is No Longer A Monkey Boy, Says Bloomberg BusinessWeek. The BusinessWeek cover says "No More" and "Mr.", but that doesn't take much away from the fact that the magazine called him Monkey Boy -- on its cover.

Worst CEO: Quote from an article in Forbes Magazine about Steve Ballmer: "Without a doubt, Mr. Ballmer is the worst CEO of a large publicly traded American company today."

Another quote: "The reach of his bad leadership has extended far beyond Microsoft when it comes to destroying shareholder value -- and jobs." (May 12, 2012)

I don't have easy access to the raw stats, so here's some relevant news stories that do quote some stats. I doubt that the stats are cherry-picked as there's such a clear difference between the US and the rest of the world:

http://thefreethoughtproject.com/police-kill-citizens-70-times-rate-first-world-nations/
http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2014/08/armed-police/
http://www.businessinsider.com/why-do-us-police-kill-so-many-people-2014-8/
http://mic.com/articles/105036/here-s-the-shocking-tally-of-how-many-americans-die-from-police-shootings/

Even Mark Zuckerberg likes privacy, who would have thought ?:

http://www.businessinsider.com...

Most developers?

No, just the ones that want to make money.

You might have missed a few news stories. Among other things Snowden stole passwords from other employees ("social engineering") and forged digital certificates.

FORMER US OFFICIAL: The NSA Thinks Edward Snowden Copied 'Almost Everything That Place Does'

Last week NSA Director Keith Alexander told the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence that Snowden fabricated digital keys that gave him access to areas way above his clearance as a low-level contractor and systems administrator.

And of course if you missed that you have probably missed how badly Snowden screwed Australia as well.

China and EVERYBODY are chummy - they don't care who you are and what you do so long as you have cash, a UN vote, fishing rights, or something to dig up.

... dig up .... or take. China's neighbors aren't very happy about China's attitudes about territory: What's mine is mine, and what's yours is mine.

They wont say because if they do they will all have mysterious 'accidents'....just like happened to Putin's enemies in the past.

http://www.cnn.com/2015/03/03/...

http://www.theglobeandmail.com...

http://www.businessinsider.com...

He graduated from a KGB school, if anything he probably still works for them. Also, Russia isn't the only country that has these "accidents".

They wont say because if they do they will all have mysterious 'accidents'....just like happened to Putin's enemies in the past. http://www.cnn.com/2015/03/03/... http://www.theglobeandmail.com... http://www.businessinsider.com...

The link didn't work in above for some reason. Apple pushing music labels to kill free Spotify streaming ahead of Beats relaunch Why Apple wants to end the era of free music streaming

Oddly enough, there's not a single music publisher who says they have even been contacted by Apple concerning that issue -so either Apple has every single publisher in their pocket already - or the clowns at BusinessInsider are again blowing their coke the wrong way.

Apple wants all the big music publishers to cease allowing any free streaming of music. Apple pushing music labels to kill free Spotify streaming ahead of Beats relaunch Why Apple wants to end the era of free music streaming

And again, like I asked (and was not answered) in the other thread in which you posted this screed yesterday:

Citation, please; or STFU, hater.

And no, a single blog quoting "multiple [unnamed] sources" doesn't count as a "citation". Nor does another article that quotes the blog that quotes "multiple sources". Someone has to actually stand up and say "Yes, I saw this, I heard this." Unnamed sources don't cut it. Especially when the Business Insider article you proffered seems to say that multiple entities from mulitple related angles (labels, artists, etc) are on the "No Free Streaming" bandwagon; but it is clear that "The Verge" is the one-and-only-source that is saying that Apple is actively pushing that agenda.

Apple wants all the big music publishers to cease allowing any free streaming of music. Apple pushing music labels to kill free Spotify streaming ahead of Beats relaunch

Why Apple wants to end the era of free music streaming

The link didn't work in above for some reason.

Apple pushing music labels to kill free Spotify streaming ahead of Beats relaunch

Why Apple wants to end the era of free music streaming

I'm another who has been both in and out of the industry several times.

I only agree with one of your problems:

I do absolutely agree that a crunch is entirely the failure of management. Of the published games I've been on, only one suffered from a moderate crunch. Everyone, including the management people involved, were able to identify the management problem of having more features than we could meet within the date. Unfortunately for the studio it was with a well-established global brand and few features could be cut without major financial penalties, and budget constraints meant the date was difficult to move. That particular studio was in a downward spiral. For the studio management it was a choice between the bad contract or laying off the entire team, about half of the company. They were responsible enough to make it clear to the team that those were the options, even going so far as to putting it to a private vote, either voting for half the studio to be laid off or to work on the tough project and keep their jobs. Most of the team decided to keep their jobs (while sending out resumes). Ultimately about half the team quit upon finding a different employer.

Your other issues are not industry wide. The FPS map design issue is just that, FPS maps, and FPS makes up a tiny portion of the industry by numbers; take it up with the level designers if it bothers you, or talk to the designers about changing the mechanics required. Of the 14 titles I've finished and the roughly 30 other ideas I've helped scope and prototype, only one was an FPS, and ultimately we didn't go that route. For the payment complaint, the freemium model doesn't have much to do with the developers directly, more to the design and business ends. If you can help identify a better model for your game that integrates well, go for it. Freemium can work well especially in mobile where people are expecting free-to-play for almost everything, but it isn't the only model. And the comment about cost of content depends entirely on the product, many types of games can be built without relying on expansive (and expensive) 3D worlds with realm after realm of costly hand-made content.

I'd say pay and respect are the two biggest issues. Too many studios fail to treat their developers with respect, they disrespect them by failing to do their job of properly managing the products, they disrespect their time and wage by not scoping projects and requiring overtime, they disrespect by not communicating what they know. Many studios are good, some are terrible. I've found both tend to be good at the small companies of 10-30 people; it obviously varies by company and requires identifying the bad places, but the ones I've worked at tend to be great places to work that can pay quite well and generally avoid overtime. The trick is finding them while they're small, sifting the good ones from the bad ones, and then realizing when it is time to move on before they transition from well respected craftspeople that are nicely compensated into corporate drones with seasonal layoffs. In my region I do take about a 10% pay cut by working in games and enjoy the extra money when I work in business software, but even at the lower wage it is still a solid six-digit wage that puts my family well above the middle class.

And as for your list, most of those games stopped being Indie years ago. There are many indie games festivals with great new products if you are looking for innovation.

http://www.businessinsider.com...

Oh come on. The USA ranks very low or bottom amongst developed nations for health, education, child poverty, and homelessness. The figures speak for themselves. But don't let the facts get in the way of your blind patriotism.

Radiologists are already on their way to being obsolete. There's a simple chain of events that leads up to automation:

1. First it's hard and nobody can do it but a few PhDs
2. Then it's difficult and it requires a BS or MS.
3. Then it's a trade.
4. Then it's unskilled labor
5. Then it's automated

Wait until all these 12 year olds that started learning Python hit college and industry. There are a lot of stupid for loops that will eventually turn into big code.

I was a lazy 8th grader years ago that learned to program my TI-83. Then my TI-89. My 'studying' for my engineering tests was writing TI-Basic in the basement library. Technically I probably cheated on most tests I took in undergraduate but my "Studying" was trying to figure out how to get [Routh-Hurwitz Theorem](http://mathworld.wolfram.com/Routh-HurwitzTheorem.html) into for loops on a 160×100 display. It sucked but during the tests I had debugged so many different scenarios I knew the equations by heart and just used the programs to double check my math. (And saved me when I missed carrying a 1 early on). Now I'm automating away engineers. People that sat at a keyboard and put it into the computer. They're the modern day equivalent of punch card operators. It doesn't mean they're going to get fired, they're just going to work on a task worthy of a human brain.

Arduino is going into small farms. People are programming their chicken coops. We're about to automate away 'big farming' for a lot of niche markets. A small CSA and farm will be able to automate a lot of boring repetitive 'farm tasks'.

Radiologists will be replaced by Chicken Sexers on Amazon Mechanical Turk if an algorithm doesn't get there first.

Swipe left for compound fracture, swipe right for non-compound fracture. Get a good set of training data and pay everyone $0.01 to guess. Pay the top 20% of them $.10 to guess on harder questions. Repeat the cycle until you're paying $100.00 to get an X-ray read by a few thousand people. The Government has taken to crowd sourcing people to guess events Turns out if you ask a lot of people a question the average ends up being correct.

It's worked for counting jelly beans in a jar for years