IF bugs, THEN marketing director eats insects

Anonymous Coward writes "Ambrosia Software, Inc. announced that it would force Marketing Director Jason Whong to eat real insects if any Fall/Winter 1999 or Spring 2000 product shipped with a bug. Check it out at Bug free pledge. " Excellent.

Comments

two things

[jetpack]

[a] spiders aint insects

[b] did these folks snarf this article from segfault or something? not that i've seen it on segfault but it sounds about right for an appearance there ...

Re:Good fuel for User Friendly

[antdude]

You take that back, Forkboy! :) [grin].

Re:Marketing

[Abigail]

Knuth is *still* offering $2.56 to people reporting bugs back to him. Look for instance at the recent MMIX document.

But not even Knuth will claim to write bugfree code.

-- Abigail

Re:Haha, that's awesome!

[joshua_doesnt_know]

If you have a fast enough computer you can run Ambrosia games with executor the Mac emulator from www.ardi.com.
/me goes and plays Apeiron

:D

Re:WTF is a durian?

[senrik]

a durian is a prickly fruit that is said to smell and taste like hell. Some areas in South East Asia like the fruit and call it 'king of fruit'. incidently, in singapore they are banned from indoor places, and are grown in thailand and malaysia.

Re:How do you figure that?

[David A. Madore]

I can see that. Nevertheless, there's a whole profound mathematical theory on summing divergent series. 1+2+4+8+... sums to -1 (and 1+1+1+... sums to -1/2 and 1+2+3+4+... sums to -1/12). Obviously, Knuth knows all that quite well.

Not a troll!!!

[Delphis]

Seems like there's some serious MS arse-lickers out there in moderation land to get a couple of JOKES (this and the previous level post) branded as a 'troll' because it's about Gates-the-hellspawn. Maybe those moderators that love Micro$hit so much would want to chow down on the bugs instead of their 'overlord'?

I LOVE the idea of seeing Gates eat bugs really, although I wouldn't want to be cruel to so many perfectly innocent insects....

Re:Bugs are a delicacy!

[Delphis]

I am one of the teaming masses who reads Slashdot daily. Several other employees here do as well -- we enjoy the news, and we want to be ready in case Linux becomes a supported platform for our games.

Do you feel that reading /. gives a good view of Linux? .. in some ways /. is a spleen venting ground for Windows vs. Linux arguments that get very purile after a while and in other ways it's enlightening.

Do you show /. to your superiors and tell them that's the market you hope to address with Linux products? .. if so and they *feel* Linux users are purile (not saying they are - I'm a happy and proud Linux user too!) .. they might not leap at the idea of investing in Linux game development when Windows is perceived as 'safer'.

Are many of your fellow co-workers there Linux users at home? .. Do you feel you need more information about Linux? .. www.linux.org is a good place to start, as are lots of other places. The only thing I'm concerned about, reading this post, is that /. is (maybe) somehow viewed as the 'voice of the Linux users' .. when it's often 'the voice of the vocal portion of Linux users who have exceedingly bad grammer and interpersonal skills' and could create a bad impression with precisely the people Linux as a community wants to make a GREAT impression with if any games development is to get off the ground.

If you can, be an innovator for Linux games, not just 'if case it happens' :) :)

Thanks,

Flamebait, rude.

[Chief Justice]

I don't have much to say, other than, I can't believe you posted it...

Hoo-ha!

[0xdeadbeef]

Geez, some of you need to lighten up! Not every PR stunt is a manipulative scheme devised by marketting flacks. Ambrosia has actually made some pretty cool games for the Mac, and even allowed one of their most popular to be ported to Linux.

Speaking of marketting flacks, I once heard both music and sound effects from the game Apeiron on a commercial for Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. I only saw it once, and no one believed me. I couldn't have been the only one, will someone confirm this? It may have been made by the local station, channel 46 in Atlanta.

I doubt they got permission. It would be ironic, considering how uptight Paramount has been about copyright infringment by overzelous fans.

Re:Hoo-ha!

[Anarchitect]

Speaking of marketting flacks, I once heard both music and sound effects from the game Apeiron on a commercial for Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. I only saw it once, and no one believed me. I couldn't have been the only one, will someone confirm this? It may have been made by the local station, channel 46 in Atlanta

That's not the only one. I was watching some pop-'net show (PBS?) and they used music from Barrak (one of my fave wastes of time). Anybody else have another Ambrosia audio sighting... err, hearing?
-----

Re:Hoo-ha!

[Captain Nitpick]

Speaking of marketting flacks, I once heard both music and sound effects from the game Apeiron on a commercial for Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. I only saw it once, and no one believed me. I couldn't have been the only one, will someone confirm this? It may have been made by the local station, channel 46 in Atlanta.

Ambrosia doesn't produce their music in house. They buy it from some outfit that I can't remember the name of, which produces music for that sort of thing. I've heard the music used as opening themes to Ambrosia games appear in commercials, and I seem to recall one of them popping up in an episode of Mad About You (I was flipping past, honest)

Re:Hoo-ha!

[fprefect]

Several of our earlier games used music licensed from Killer Tracks, which I've heard in several other places.

More recently, Eric Speier was contracted to write several original tracks for Mars Rising, Slithereens, and the upcoming Ferazel's Wand. This guy rocks!

Re:Hoo-ha!

[ODiV]

Speaking of unauthorized use of sfx: I went to see Universal Soldier, The Return (which wasn't even worth matinee price imho), and when the door to some 'healing' chamber opened it made the Doom door sound! I wonder if they got permission. Funny thing is is that the door only did that the first time; the rest of the movie it was silent. Sound tech paying hommage to doom perhaps?

Re:Hoo-ha!

[gr]

Most of the sound effects you hear in video games come from commercial sound effect collections that one can buy (come on CD, usually).

You didn't really think that people played around with sound generators and such at every game development house, did you?

Good grief, that'd be a tremendous waste of time and effort.

So, no Ambrosia (probably) doesn't own the sound effects in most of its games, id doesn't own the shotgun/door/whatever sounds in Doom or Quake, Bungie doesn't own any (to the best of my knowledge) sounds in the Marathon series, etcetera.

Since Ambrosia folks seem to be watching this thread, you guys want to clear this up further?

Bugs are a delicacy!

[Trojan]

At least in some cultures they are. I guess the trick is to bake them well. I'm not kidding! This guy is called Jason Wong... now I'm no antropologist, but it could just be that he wouldn't mind a few crispy bugs.

Re:Bugs are a delicacy!

[crayz]

Do all the Ambrosia people lurk on Slashdot, or did you just come to see this story?

BTW, I live in Rochester, own a Mac, and tons of us Mac users still want internet EV. Go Ambrosia!

What insects to eat?

[antdude]

What bugs would the marketing person eat? Ants (ugh, that's me), bees, wasps, flies, etc?

Re:What insects to eat?

[antdude]

I did. No ants =P.

Re:What insects to eat?

[Lord Kano]

How about FOLLOWING THE LINK AND READING THE PAGE!

They list a possible bug menu, however I did notice one arachnid on there.

LK

Insect consumption..

[technos]

A few years back, while at a seminar in LA, (Los Angeles, California), a local friend of mine dragged me out to dinner. She was hot to show off the ill-gotten gains of corporate America (Read: She wanted to rub her six-figure income in my face) We went downtown to some trendy, tres chic resteraunt. After watching her order a $20 entree and a $45 slab-o-meat, I felt a little revenge was in order. Choosing the third most expensive item on the menu (and I'm sure a value at its $90 price tag!) and a mug of Guinness, I figured I had gotten her back. She looked at me with this huge-eyed, 'you just mke2fs'd an active mount!' stare. Slowly she explained to me that I had ordered pan-fried African earthworms on a bed of exotic vegetables. I contemplated something dirty and underhanded to get out of it, but as I was kind of hoping for some 'female companionship' later in the night this was out of the question When the meal finally came (Thoughts of live worms were killing me) it actually looked pleasant. They were presented on a bed of leeks, sprouts and pine nuts. The looked like fried clams, chewed like Goodyear, and tasted something like chicken. All in all, I'd rather eat fried worms than curried [insert meat here]. Just one word of advice: Don't count on going home with anyone after they've watched you eat worms. (The next night was fortunatly a different story, or my California trip would have been quite dull indeed!)

Re:Insect consumption..

[Gleef]

Since when are "leeks, sprouts and pine nuts" exotic vegetables? Anyway, I've always wanted to try some of the bug delicacies, but I've lacked the opportunity (i.e. being at a place I'd trust to do it well, with enough money to actually get something).

----

Re:Insect consumption..

[technos]

(Laughs) Those were the only vegetables on the plate I could identify!! Since you asked, there were also some queer looking orange pepper-like things, a purplish vegetable that looked like cauliflower but with the consistancy of twine, and the sprouts weren't any type I'd seen. (Brown striations on the stems.) Looked like a 'star-trek' backdrop with all the odd colours.. I've heard that stir-fried crickets are tasty too.. (I will not actually try them, however)

Mmmmmm... locusts.

[Apuleius]

Barbecued locusts, both the real and the noisy American variety. Lots of protein, and they're even kosher. If they let him eat those, he won't be so bad off.

And hey, it's not a cheap marketing stunt. It's an amusing marketing stunt.

Going to play Harry the Handsome Executive right now.

Remember Metcalfe?

[Tim Macinta]

This reminds me of Bob Metcalfe's promise to eat his words if the internet didn't collapse by some given date. He ended up losing the bet, but he put his article in a blender with a bunch of liquid, chopped it up, and then just took a sip. I would probably be equally unimpressed if this guy ate chocolate ants or some other common food, although that would be admittedly less lame than taking a sip.

Re:Does anyone else think

[webslacker]

Hell, then Halflife musta been the most feature-rich game I've ever played!

Re:Probably no biggie for Mr. Whong

[mutende]

> Eating insects is very common in some Asian cultures.

You're right, and African too. I have lived in Zambia for some time and although it was repulsive at first I soon learned to enjoy roasted grasshoppers and ants -- the ants being particular delicious.

I wonder why we haven't developed a taste for insects in Europe and the US...

--

Sounds familiar...

[Svartalf]

Some of the stuff we did at Diamond Head Software had that same kind o' feel to it- we did high-end document imaging components so that VB could do insane things like drive a 60ppm document scanner at full speed on a low-end Pentium computer. Some of those controls had...features...

Anyhow, any unofficial word as to when we should be looking for a playable demo from you all? It looks awesome and I'd love to see a Linux demo as soon as it becomes available.

question

[jetpack]

Don't get me wrong, I certainly dont begrudge you for getting your posts moderated up (some of them are bloddy hilarious), but how in hell do you get *every* post moderated up by at least one point? you got a |33+ hack you wanna share with the rest of the class? :)

Re:question

[Uart]

Damn newbies...

His posts are automatically moderated up because rob wrote a little bit o' perl code that adjusts the scores of posters who frequently score high brownie points with the moderators.

Re:question

[jetpack]

quote chapter and verse (gimme a URL) as proof, and I'll be content with the answer, altho a /. hack would have been cooler.

BTW, i've been watching /. for 8 months to a year and dont recall anything said about rob's "little bit 'o perl code that adjusts the scores". what do you consider !newbie ?

Re:question

[gr]

jetpack queried:
what do you consider !newbie ?

Not that I have anything against newbies in most contexts (excepting IRC and when they're on my systems, I guess), but having a user number below, oh, say, 10,000 would be a good start (you are... 22743). I guess that number has to keep increasing, though.

- gr (4059, not that it matters)

Re:question

[dirty]

I can't give you a url, but the setup's been around for a while. Pretty much if you see "(Score: 2)" instead of "(Score: 2, Funny)" it means it was automatic.

Re:question

[jetpack]

I'm not sure that using user id's for reference is necessarily the best idea since you get assigned a new id if for some reason you need to re-register. I should also point out that DonkPunch himself has an id of 30957 by my count and I'm fairly sure he's been around /. for quite some time.

Anyhow, this newbie will shuttup until he enters the magic percentile.

Re:question

[DonkPunch]

It's a default score. Every now and then, something I post gets moderated up. I try to avoid posting stuff that will get moderated down. I don't have any control over it, other than my post content.

When the default score system came out, my first comment about it was:
"I don't know about this. Most of my posts are pretty pointless -- like this one."

IIRC, that post ended up at 4.

The only hack I have is using Anonymous Coward sometimes for those things I just HAVE to say, but which might annoy some moderators. Sometimes I guess wrongly. The AC post actually gets moderated up, and I'm left going, "D'oh!"

Fax machine smashing

[malice]

In addition to bug-eating, we here at Ambrosia also find entertainment in correcting errant computer behavior by the stimulus-response method:

http://www.AmbrosiaSW .com/Ambrosia_Times/May_98/5.3HowTo.html"

Andrew Welch
el Presidente
Ambrosia Software, Inc.

IF .. THEN ..?

[Forkenhoppen]

..sounds like a Microslothized language.

I like this idea. I hope they televise it, if they screw up.

First post..?

The *Marketing* Director?

[DonkPunch]

Does anyone remember the Dilbert cartoon where the Pointy-Haired Boss offered a cash incentive for every bug the programmers found and fixed?

Result: "I'm gonna code me a minivan this afternoon!"

I sure hope this marketing director gets along well with the developers. I can imagine a few marketing types who would inspire exactly the wrong behavior -- "Let's see, here's a mealworm for you, and a couple of grasshoppers, and here -- in line 3327 -- is a nice big roach!"

Re:The *Marketing* Director?

[ucblockhead]

Does anyone remember the Dilbert cartoon where the Pointy-Haired Boss offered a cash incentive for every bug the programmers found and fixed?

I know of a real live company that offered $25 for every bug the programmers found and fixed. They had to cancel the program because it went over budget. (Can't say who, though.)

Re:The *Marketing* Director?

[doomicon]

yes I remember, and you are absolutely right:)
haha...

Re:The *Marketing* Director?

[abischof]

> (who ate fried crickets all the time in SE Asia, and quite nice they were too)

You should send that recipe to the dude, so that he dooesn't have to suffer too much (if there is a bug)..

Alex Bischoff
---

Re:The *Marketing* Director?

[ben.b]

If I wanted to guarantee results, I'd make the QA people eat bugs.

Re:The *Marketing* Director?

[Grand Poobah of PRAM]

Valid point...what should be done is that,
for each bug found, the programmers are gathered into a bunch, and every tenth programmer eats a
bug. Adds the roman legion touch to
things....otherwise, I'd consider it a bonus
for writing bad code.

"You mean, for every bug I write, Joe, the guy who promised the customers that my program would cure syphilis, has to eat a hissing Madagascar
cockroach? Hello, buffer overflow!"

Re:The *Marketing* Director?

[tzanger]

Does anyone remember the Dilbert cartoon where the Pointy-Haired Boss offered a cash incentive for every bug the programmers found and fixed?

Indeed I do. It's hanging on my door right now.

I also have the one with the IS guy in his chair and Dilbert saying he can't get on the network.

"just fill out an online help request"

:-)

Re:The *Marketing* Director?

[Mr Bill]

Bug is such a nasty, negative word. In our PC (not Personal Computer) world we should not be using a term such as "BUG" to refer to anything in the programs we are creating.

Personally I have always prefered "Undocumented Feature", and I propose it as the proper way to refer to these accidental inconsistencies that occur in our works of "Art"....

Haha, that's awesome!

[198348726583297634]

This company, regardless of whether their software is as flawless as they're going for, has a lot of character!

If I bought software, I'd buy theirs, just to support people with such an unusual - in a good way - corporate frame of mind! (no, I don't pirate it.. i only use opensource stuff)

Re:Haha, that's awesome!

[Journeyman]

Their software *is* pretty cool. It's MacOS-only, but for pure shareware the programs and games are top-notch.

Check out Escape Velocity and Avara while you check out their web site. Two of the few pieces of shareware I've registered so far.

Re:Haha, that's awesome!

[MattTC]

I agree...As a former Mac user (and hopefully, a future mac user again...) I have used Many of Ambrosia's games, and I have liked them enough to go and pay the shareware fee...an excellent company and I applaud them once again.

hmmm reminds me of ....

[taniwha]

the guy I worked with who said "if that bug is in my code I'll eat a durian" ....... we made him eat it outside ....

"Can of Worms"

[DonkPunch]

heh heh -- Good one. :)

hehehe......

[Mikesch]

just got a mental picture of Bill Gates' funeral... weighing 800 pounds being buried in a piano case....sorry, next time I'll be more on-topic..


hehehehehehehe......

Re:Oh dear lord

[BJH]

Yeah, it's called Perl :)

What about Rob Malda doing the same?

[funkwater]

CmdrTaco and Hemos should have to eat a Madagascar Hissing Cockroack for each bug found on /.

Hey, grow up!

[198348726583297634]

Lots of cultures around the world eat insects. There's nothing demeaning in it. Sure, it's not something us westerners typically do, but- 1) he's not eating something that's actually bad for him; 2) he chose to be a part of this.. maybe even thought it up! 3) it's software. don't take it so seriously :)

Re:Hey, grow up!

[My_Favorite_Anonymou]

I have ate some (in Guang Zhou), it's kind of *look* like roach but it's not. It's got different name and you have to find them somewhere in the country. It's fixed with some medicine and basically you eat them as medicine.

I tried it as some sort of traditional myth. I only saw it being sold on the street once, so it's very rare. Don't ask me how was it because I only remember some complicated and plain taste. Westerner who eat bug is very strange, they go for the protein and "freak/gross" factor, at least that's what I read. What's the point of that, impress your date or something?

Don't let those people fool you, I never ate a cat and never talk to a young man who did. We eat big Mac now hehe.


CY

Forget bugs, let's see some cash.

[Cptn Proton]

Donald Knuth has a standing offer to pay anyone $2.56 to anyone who is the first finder of bugs in TEX, or any of his other books and programs for that matter. Truly meticulous, truly brilliant, he is the first to champion high-quality software. He is a hero to any who want to produce quality work and quality result. I love the guy and I haven't even met him.

Compare that to marketing director whose willing to have a bug meal??? No comparison torwards the goal of good programming.

Re:Forget bugs, let's see some cash.

[The Babushka]

Actually, he started by offering $.01 for the first bug found in TeX. Then doubling it for every bug found after that... 7 bugs later the pot would be $2.56. Of course, it doesn't get interesting until the 14th bug or so.

As a standing offer, he pay $2.56 for each error in any of the books he's written. Why?... because it's a "hexadecimal dollar".

Hmmm. I guess there *is* a way to drain the M$ multi-billion dollar war chest...

Yeah, that's funny and all, but...

[Zico]

When the Linux 2.0.0 kernel came out in January, it didn't even take them four months before 2.0.9 came out. At least 8 of those kernel updates included bugfixes; most likely all 9 of them did.

Keep in mind that we're not even going into bugs throughout an entire average Linux system -- we're talking about all the bugfixes just for the kernel.

Hmmm, what was that old saying about people in glass houses...? :)

Cheers,
ZicoKnows@hotmail.com

Re:Yeah, that's funny and all, but...

[dirty]

Yes but atleast fixes were released in a timely fasion. Microsoft's method seems to be deny deny deny for 3 or 4 months then release a service pack that creates just as many bugs as it fixes, then deny deny deny for the next 3 or 4 months, and so on. Sure linux has bugs, but they also get stomped on quickly.

Re:Not quite?

[Q*bert]

Which book is that? I might wanna read it.

Beer recipe: free! #Source
Cold pints: $2 #Product

Been There, Done That

[Riktov]

I work as a software tester, and a few months ago we got a memo from one of the project bigwigs that our goal as testers should be to find "five bugs a day". Well, knowing that I was nowhere near able to maintain that quota, I instead offered the challenge to my co-workers that if anyone could find five bugs a day for five straight days, I would eat five bugs a day (for one day).

I wasn't too surprised when one of the guys actually did find five bugs a day for five straight days. Nor was I scared of holding up my end of the deal. I've eaten giant waterbugs and grasshoppers in Southeast Asia, and was looking forward to it.

Of course, finding insects to eat can be a challenge, but I managed to get a bunch of fat, juicy crickets at the local pet shop, in time for a party with all my co-workers in attendance. I had a few beers beforehand, but by the end of the evening I had downed five live-and-wriggling crickets. Kinda crunchy, gooey inside, and a bit sour. Mmmmmmmmmm.

Re:the next billion

[Q*bert]

You silly that's what open source is all about! The next billion to be made in the software industry will be in GNU-Linux!

Beer recipe: free! #Source
Cold pints: $2 #Product

Re:Probably no biggie for Mr. Whong

[PurpleBob]

Hmm. I do remember how, upon dissecting a grasshopper in Biology class, I noticed that the inside looked like chicken...
--

The RAD book

[Midnight Coder]

Rapid Development : Taming Wild Software Schedules
by Steve C McConnell

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ts/book-custom er-reviews/1556159005/002-5839722-2382817

Even though it's published by Microsoft Press it isn't MS focused or specific. It is easy to read, enjoyable(!) and informative.

Re:The RAD book

[Vic Metcalfe]

I'd just like to add to this that it isn't even really RAD specific but an excellent manual for anyone managing software projects of all kinds. I call this book "The Bible of Software Development".

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

define "bug"

[amonymous]

a lot of things can be considered "bugs"
even though they do not result in a segmentation
fault. I don't think it's obvious where to draw
the line.

The behavior of the X selection is buggy in
my opinion, but if you ask the guys who
implemented it they'll tell you it's a feature.

Re:Ha ha!

[Rone]

Actually, he's been working on a digital photography utility called Cameraid.

So although he's been quiet on the gaming front, he's still maintaining a presence with his other projects.

It's not a bug, it's a feature!

[jabber]

So what constitutes a bug for these guys?
Is it:
a fatal system crash that hangs the PC?
a fatal program crash that kills the process?
an unexpected or unintuitive behavior on part of the software?
corrupted graphics in some tight action situation?
a divergence between specs and implementation?
a poor choice of colors or fonts on part of a developer?
the failure to support, or support completely, some obscure piece of hardware?
weird interaction with some other software?
unreasonable system requirements?
etc...

Sounds like Hakuna Matata time for Mr. Whong.

How 'bout some shrimps?

[BogoNick]

Shrimps (crustacian), crabs and other seafood (oyster, lobster) basically belong to insect order. Don't tell me you haven't eaten them before? Seriously though, a study found that we eat about 15 pounds of insects a year w/o knowing it.

A scale is needed

[Osvaldo Doederlein]

I have eaten roasted ants many years ago (before I even knew what a computer was) and that was not bad. I think a scale is needed:

A minor bug, like bad painting of GUI -- you can choose the bug, cook it, use salt etc.

A medium severity bug, that doesn't cause data loss -- you should eat ugly and nasty bugs like roaches.

A severe bug, that destroys data, compromises security or makes your CPU melt -- you should eat live roaches, in a single gulp (think about those little legs and wings moving inside your mouth).

This practice would do more for software quality than all CASE tools, methodologies, objects, formal proofs, design-by-contract, lint programs etc. combined. :-)) OTOH, even less women would be excited to apply for CS courses. :)

Dare to match Knuth's proposal

[David A. Madore]

Knuth went far beyond this. He offered to pay $0.01 for the first bug found in TeX and double each time. It seems up to now he paid only $327.67. Imagine Gates doing the same thing... Well, mathematicians tell us that the sum of $0.01, $0.02, $0.04 up to infinity is actually -$0.01. Let's hope they're right.

How do you figure that?

[Calaf]

The sum of the series

1/100 + 2/100 + 4/100 + ... + (2^n)/100

does not converge.

Re:Its only fun if he throws up...

[weloytty]

But only if the miner washes the coal dust out of her hair first.

Well if you like the things...

[SvnLyrBrto]

fine.

If you think the things taste good, eat all the bugs you want. That leaves more pizza for the rest of us.

Me, I'M forced to remember Samuel L. Jackson's line from Pulp Fiction:

"Sewer Rat might taste like pumpkin pie. But I'll never know, 'cause I ain't gonna eat the filthy motherfu*ka"

Re:Well if you like the things...

[alumshubby]

That leaves more pizza for the rest of us.

Interesting. Back in my bachelor days, my Taiwanese roommate turned me on to fried grasshoppers (mmmm, crunchy & chewy, damn good with beer) and Korean kim chi (great on hot dogs, btw), but he wouldn't touch pizza with a ten-foot pole -- melted cheese was the grossest stuff he'd ever encountered. And the smell of melted butter was revolting to him. Needless to say, I only ate Western when he was away.

Re:WTF is a durian?

[troc]

Having eaten durian fruit in Indonesia, I can honestly say it's aweful. It stinks so much it's banned in most hotels there and all internal aeroplane flights etc..... The durian also kills a few tourists each year by falling of it's tree and landing on their heads :)

And the taste - Onion-flavoured ice cream :(

Ambrosia SW

[bskin]

Ambrosia is the #1 thing I miss from my mac days...They're not open source, but they're a cool company still.

--
'I love it when somebody's own sig describes how much they suck so much
more concisely and elegantly than I possibly ever could.'

hmm

[Rasp]

You know... just for a laugh one of the programmers there should slip a few bugs into the code. You know, so programmers everywhere can have one up on those marketting types :>

Re:Ha ha!

[gr]

Scott Francis[Mecham (sic) wrote:
Avara 1.0.0 came out while I was in high school--and hasn't EVER been patched, cheated on, or broken in a major way.

Er, not sure what crack you're smoking, but I want some.

There is a wealth of bugs in Avara (player movement in close situations and polygon clipping through other polygons are to that jump right to mind), and it most certainly was cheated on - not within the game, but within the registration system.

In fact, that's the reason Juri ditched the whole project (too many people pirating, too few actually paying for the software), according to some things he and Andrew Welch said on (EFNet) IRC.

There was talk of a community-spawned Avara 2 which was mentioned for a while on avara.com, but the links have disappeared and I don't remember the url straight to the files (which could well not be there any more either), but I really doubt that'll ever happen. EFNet #avara still exists, but it relates to that game about as much as #marathon does to Bungie's Marathon these days, I imagine.

It's a pity, Avara is a really good game that lends itself well to network play by focusing on gameplay and dispensing with silly things like true-to-life graphics. Worked speedily on my 28.8 as Quake X does on a T1. (Yes, I registered, thank you very much.)

... and you weren't the only one to ask for an X11 port. It should be very feasible if Ambrosia and Juri were willing to let hold of the source code so someone could do it. Last I checked, though, Juri had a pretty bitter taste in his mouth about the whole affair, so one might be better off reverse-engineering the network code and writing one's own rendering engine (and one would almost have to do that anyway since one would be porting from MacOS QuickDraw to XLibs).

Oh like this really matters....

[_J_]

Hey, it's a marketing guy. He's not a real person to begin with. Now if they made the programmers eat the bugs, that would be impressive.

J:)

Marketing

[hedley]

Brave man. If I was in marketing I wouldn't want to depend on the coders to dictate my diet. On the flip side, the coders have to deal with a pushy "hey no bugs, guy" marketing suit hovering behind them until after this charade is over. Nice gimmick, makes you look but it is not an earth shattering statement as presented in the release. Nothing will change. Besides I like the old days better where you could get a check for a power of 2 for a bug rather than watch some hypemasta eat a staple foodsource of some nations.

Does anyone else think

[aheitner]

this is a cheap ploy to get attention by being posted to /.?

Seriously, they make games. Games never have bugs, take it from an old hand. Only features.

Ask our graphics programmer, Dave Rosenthal. Not a day goes by when his code isn't full of ... features...

Oh dear lord

[nathanroberts]

May I just be the first to say what an appalingly stupid concept I think this is. I'm just glad I don't work there and won't be around to see it happen. And I'm glad I don't use any of their products. I couldn't in good conscience support a company forcing any of their employees to eat insects, no matter how noble (I use that word loosely...) their intentions are...

Oh, and if I may be allowed to be pedantic for a moment. They're also apparently unfamiliar with Lubarsky's Law of Cybernetic Entomology: "There's always one more bug."

Re:Oh dear lord

[Evan Vetere]

This is not a punishment for Mr. Whong. He thought up the challenge himself. A transcript of the email conversation that spawned this PR exists. Summary:

President: Are you sure you want to do this? There definitely WILL be bugs in those products...
Marketdroid: Heh, they're high in protein, and good for you.
President: Yes, but you really will have to eat them -- that's gross.
Marketdroid: I bet with the right kind of seasoning, they'd be scrumptious. I'm thinking of chocolate covered crickets to start...

Re:Oh dear lord

[Yebyen]

What about the law that says Every program has at least one bug and can be shortened by one line.
By this logic, every program should be one line that doesn't work :-)
Patrick Barrett
Yebyen@adelphia.net
"It's X Window damnit, not X Windows!"
Patrick Barrett
Yebyen@adelphia.net

His response.

[Coretti]

(This was posted to comp.sys.mac.games.action; this particular snippet from Mac Gamer's Ledge)

"I think that someone should be responsible for bugs. The thing is, we can't make the programmers eat bugs, because programmers are pretty high up on the totem pole, and we don't want to alienate them. And I can't ask my boss, Andrew, to eat the bugs, because he is my boss."

"That's why I am making the wager."

"Shipping a product without bugs is a goal that I think we can achieve. We have done that before with some of our games. Shipping every product between now and next July without bugs is going to be the challenge."

"I wonder what Apple was thinking when it said "Yum."?"

Probably no biggie for Mr. Whong

[Bizzaro]

Eating insects is very common in some Asian cultures. I don't mean this to sound derogatory. They consider it to be as normal as eating chicken. The U.S. and U.K. are actually among the very few cultures that consider insects to be unedible.

This sort of thing has cropped up before. And it has always been due to human error.

More Bug Recipes

[Sethb]

Bug Recipes at the site I used to work on. For a minute, I thought Orkin had stolen some of our recipes, god knows other sites have.....

Its only fun if he throws up...

[gad_zuki!]

For all we know he has a taste for bugs and this may well be a way for him to get a decent meal in during working hours.

Soon we'll be seeing plenty of these, "I'll have sex with a minor if this doesn't get 100% of the market!"

yum

[Zugok]

...ambrosia :P~~~ There better not be any bugs in my ambrosia

Re:WTF is a durian?

[Profound]

They don't taste that bad. But you have to smell them first, and every smell-bud (or whatever they're called) in your nose is saying NO! NO!

You can buy durian flavoured icecream over there, it's not that bad.

Hmmm!

[poptix_work]

Wow, I just moved to Rochester and didn't know we had anything worthwhile up here =P

I kind of miss living in Texas with id software basicly down the road from where I worked, Dallas is a really nice place =)

Bug Fair

[cyberwench]

The entomology department here has a two-day Bug Fair every year... there's a petting zoo with some really neat insects, kids draw bugs and make things, roach races, all kinds of stuff. The culinary tent is usually one of the more popular areas. They have cake made with mealworm flour, stirfried crickets, etc. Goes over really well - it's getting bigger every year!

Leilah

Re:WTF is a durian?

[taniwha]

it's an asian fruit - it has a fibrous outside and several internal pockets containing the bits that are good to eat - they're kind of creamy white

this is one of those things which you either like or hate - I've heard them described as smelling like "rotten kerosene" - they have a decidedly pungent smell - the day someone actually did bring one into work it stunk up the whole building.

On the other hand a friend of mine from Singapore loves them, she claims they have a sensuous taste (after you get past the smell) - and it's kinda like garlic (but more so) - once you start eating it you tend to smell of it and people who aren't eating it tend to stay away from you.

I've see 'no durian' signs in Asian airports (picture of fruit in red circle/slash) - you can get them here in the US - but it's not easy (I have no idea how they transport them here)

Not quite?

[Midnight Coder]

At one point the article states the Marketing director will be required to eats bugs if any bugs are found in a product, later the article contradicts itself by saying he may be required to eat bugs if a release "requires bug fixes".

I suspect the Marketing director believed he agreed to the later. Developing software with a zero tolerance for bugs is damn expensive. If you disagree you need to read the RAD book.

Ha ha!

[Scott Francis[Mecham]

Exactly the thing I'd expect from Ambrosia. For those cynics out there, they have an excellent track record. Avara 1.0.0 came out while I was in high school--and hasn't EVER been patched, cheated on, or broken in a major way. Of course, Andrew politely ignored me on IRC when I asked for an X11 port. ;)

Re:Ha ha!

[Perrin-GoldenEyes]

Rumor has it that's because Juri was disappointed with the number of registrations, and dropped off the face of the earth. That said, Avara was a great product and really killed my GPA my freshman year in college. I'd love to see a sequel with good graphics.

Cheers,
Perrin.

China Airlines policy for Y2K

[Yumpee]

On a related note, China has informed the top brass of the national airlines that they WILL be in a plane on the night of Dec 31, 1999. Now that should get squash some Y2K bugs

Good fuel for User Friendly

[Forkenhoppen]

Wonder how long it'll be before they have Stef eating ant colonies.. :)

Ants aren't too bad

[Straker Skunk]

Well, speaking as someone who has eaten bugs (giant roasted ants*, specifically), I can say they're not nearly as bad as many people think they are. They just have to be prepared the right way. (Biting into a live/raw locust is *not* something I would want to do in this lifetime :-)

* - They taste...weird. But not bad. There's just nothing to compare the taste to. Heck, some of you would probably find Twizzlers less palatable...

For the cynics...

[Barnes]

It wasn't a ploy for some /. attention - Ambrosia released this to their PR list long before it was posted to /.

For a little background info, this page has details on how it got started.

Jason Wong Renfield?

[davie]

It's a conspiracy, I tell ya. This guy's either a closet bug-muncher, or his cousin is fixin' to open a bug cafe in San Francisco. He prolly can't wait to munch down on some juicy nightcrawlers.

the next billion

[richnut]

I was having a discussion with some geek friends yesterday and IMHO the next billion to be made in the software industry will be guaranteeable software. Personally I think it's POSSIBLE, but I dont quite think it will ever happen. We can only hope.

-Rich

Rock solid

[SirSlud]

I'll just throw in my experience with Ambrosia software: well, there isn't much of which to speak. I'm a huge fan of their games, and I can't remember any of them ever crashing on me.

no cheating!

[arielb]

only live cockroaches will do

The seriousness of quality software.

[kiniry]

Some firms actually do care about quality, even at the cost of shipping later, having fewer features, etc. Tradeoffs are a part of the game, unless you have something up your sleeve (e.g. process, technology, theory, etc.).

My new firm, KindSoftware, is planning on offering a similar, but more serious guarantee of quality. I had heard in the past of a firm offering a free VW bug for every bug found, but for a startup, that's probably a price too steep. Of course, the less than adventurous path is to offer extended licenses, extra support, etc. for customers who find bugs. I'm of the opinion that something in between is more appropriate.

Any suggestions? Trips to the Bahamas? $1000 cash? A dual processor over-clocked Celeron?

Note to non-Americans

[nstrug]

Some Americans (generally ones wearing overalls and missing several fingers from farming accidents) refer to the insect generally known as cidadas as 'locusts' to the exteme irritation of entomologists. These are the same people who insist on calling bison 'buffalo'.

Unfortunately, we can't ship them all off to the Serengeti to find out the difference at close quarters...

And before anyone flames I spent 3 months fieldwork in Uganda and all last month on Konza Prairie in Kansas and you'd have to be an idiot not to be able to tell the difference - still - not as bad as the Brits who insists on calling a species of maple (Acer pseudoplatanus) 'sycamore'.

You can tell I'm bored can't you?

Nick

Bug Suckers

[Col. Klink (retired)]

Just saw this on rec.humor.funny:

From: rick@hugin.imat.com (Rick Moen)
Subject: Debugging...
Date: Mon, 23 Aug 1999 19:30:01 PDT

At the recent MacWorld Expo in New York City, Microsoft's presentation featured a bit of unscheduled excitement:

Many in the audience had picked up "bug suckers" from the Linuxcare, Inc. booth -- transparent lollipops with real dead crickets inside. Unfortunately, one attendee hadn't looked too closely, and was working on it absent-mindedly during the demo, when she suddenly "hit bug". She
let out a bloodcurdling yell, and _literally_ brought the Microsoft presentation to a screaming halt.

Great games, Ambrosia makes...

[tlhIngan]

IMHO, they make great games - they make *the* Mac games of originality, great graphics & sound, and playability.

Unfortunately, my Mac is extremely dated ("blackbird" or PowerBook 540c [LC040, 20 megs RAM]), but all the software I've gotten from Ambrosia (even recently), is extremely good.

From these people, I'd be surprised if the guy actually eats a bug from this deal.