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EA Uses ASCII Billboard To Woo Rivals

Posted by simoniker on from the cheeky-so-and-so dept.

Lard writes "According to Canada.com, videogame maker Electronic Arts has posted a billboard using ASCII character codes in order to poach programmers away from rival Radical Entertainment's Vancouver offices - 'the billboard is only about 100 metres from [Radical's] head office' and reads 'now hiring' using ASCII, alongside an EA Canada logo. You can check out a better image of the billboard here ."

14 of 91 comments (clear)

  1. Watch for this... by Bob+Cat+-+NYMPHS · · Score: 4, Funny

    We're going to see a bunch of posts in ascii, hex, and binary now.

    I won't post the dotted binary address of goatse, I'm too nice.

    --
    The latest Slashdot meme.
  2. ASCII: a language? by jpu8086 · · Score: 5, Funny

    "What has raised eyebrows at Radical is the fact that the message is in ASCII code -- a computer language in which numbers are used to represent letters "

    Thanks Joanne Blain. I never knew. One more thing added to my resume. Just the edge I needed in tumultuous times.

    --
    now supporting:
    cmdrTaco for president '04
    michael for oval office intern summer '05
  3. 72 101 32 104 by skinfitz · · Score: 5, Funny

    72 101 32 72 101 33

    1. Re:72 101 32 104 by Doom+Ihl'+Varia · · Score: 5, Funny

      What kind of geeks are you people? These are not valid strings! You forgot a terminating NULL (00)!

    2. Re:72 101 32 104 by Haeleth · · Score: 4, Funny

      Hah, just the sort of C-centric attitude I expect from Slashdot. Null-termination is the root of much evil. They're still invalid in the One True String Storage Method, but that's because they're missing the "length" byte from the beginning. :p

  4. That's not what it reads.. by ottawanker · · Score: 4, Informative

    'the billboard is only about 100 metres from [Radical's] head office' and reads 'now hiring' using ASCII, alongside an EA Canada logo."

    Actually, it doesn't read 'now hiring', it reads 'Now Hiring'.

  5. Re:should be easy enough... by Chelloveck · · Score: 5, Funny

    But what kind of weenie programmer would use decimal for cryin' out loud? Hex, baby, hex!

    Oh well, at least the billboard didn't start with "Dim msg As String".

    --
    Chelloveck
    I give up on debugging. From now on, SIGSEGV is a feature.
  6. I've seen this before by Yuioup · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I once saw an ad (during the dot bomb era) when a company was trying to hire Unix sysadmins, and it had a very very long command with echos and pipes and if you could decipher it then you could read who you could contact for a job interview.
    Pretty clever I thought...

  7. Reminds me of an old Western Union trick by wowbagger · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Back in the days of telegraph, Western Union would get a lot of job applicants.

    In the waiting room for the job interview, there would be a clicking sound - the sound of a sender repeating over and over "If you can understand this, go through the unmarked door" in Morse.

    Folks who just sat there didn't get jobs as telegraph operators.

    --
    www.eFax.com are spammers
  8. Should have made it const. by Stele · · Score: 5, Funny

    There should have been a const in front. Otherwise someone could have come along and changed the 72 to a 74!

  9. Inaccurate by Tom7 · · Score: 4, Funny

    But seriously, who programs in a proportional font?

    1. Re:Inaccurate by daeley · · Score: 4, Funny

      Graphic designers.

      --
      I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate.
  10. It was harder in Yorkshire by nick_davison · · Score: 4, Funny

    But what kind of weenie programmer would use decimal for cryin' out loud? Hex, baby, hex!

    Programmers today! Whatever happened to binary? Why, in my day we were luck t' have ones OR zeros, and we had t' punch them in to little cards, in the snow! And when we got home, our Dad and our mother would kill us and dance about on our graves singing Hallelujah.

    And you try and tell the young people of today that ..... they won't believe you.

  11. Re:should be easy enough... by zulux · · Score: 4, Funny

    Oh well, at least the billboard didn't start with "Dim msg As String".

    Clippy: It looks like you're writeing a program....

    --

    Moneyed corporations, non-working 'poor' and criminal prisoners are turning productive citizens into tax-slaves.