Back in the real world, real people have to do interior decoration, cleaning, and shopping themselves. And they also have to do design themselves because they can't charge it to someone else.
The original poster isn't trying to pick up a few design tricks to make his blog page look cute. In his "real world", he is trying to offer design services in addition to application/database services. It's not unreasonable to partner with an already prominent design shop or sub-contract out work to freelance designers.
Now, that's not to say that picking up a few design skills isn't useful. You're right: rudimentary design skills aren't that hard and are pretty quickly applicable.
The WD-40 idea is a great one but seems rather expensive; especially if unemployed!
Hypothetically (I have no ideas what company two which he applied) it would make his application/resume stand out. At the very least it shows that he's got some balls and is willing to go the extra mile.
One of my previous bosses told me about how as a designer, he got a job at some video game gig. I forget the exact title, but it involved boats of some sort. Rather than send in a plain portfolio he packaged examples of all his previous work packed a small wood crate, complete with hay for padding. He made the crate and props inside like it was found on a deserted island.
I got over my ADD by having to wait for the tape to play the game into the C64. DungeonSomething took like 30 minutes. I treated that tape like the chalice in the Vatican. It slowly cranked while I shook like a drugged monkey watching it, screaming.
That's one of the funniest things I've heard all week.
There are only 6 official maps and they get boring, very quickly. Why? Close quarters and open areas along with the ability to call in airstrikes/artillery and panzerfausts (for some reason the Allies use them too) means just two or three field ops or soldiers can bottleneck an entire team. Oh and I wouldn't recommend you stand around in your spawn for too long. Most players have figured out exactly where and at what angle to fire mortars into opposing spawn areas. Hopefully we'll see some more mods and maps which steer players away from this kind of spawn killing.
I recommend you improve your in-game skills and get out of spawn (you DO have invulnerability time), avoid strategic/bottleneck areas, and help coordinate your team to take out areas that the enemy has pinned down. There's a counter-attack to everything providing that there's a bit of teamwork.
Like spawn-killing. No rule against it, but not socially acceptable...
Spawnkilling is socially unacceptable? You have 3 seconds of invulnerability after spawn. If someone's spawncamping you should hunt him down and beat him:)
But yeah admins probably shouldn't be doing !revive commands unless everyone knows they're fooling around. There are also a lot of other server-side admin commands for shrub...don't be surprised if you see admins flying around the map when bored:)
I've been playing a good bit of ET with punkbuster and have only seen a couple of times when I was sure someone was cheating. One was pretty funny because there was an axis character who would not die. Another allies player and I stood over him and shot him and shot him. He would fall down, then in a couple seconds he would come back to life as if a medic had revived him. We must have put him down 6-7 times before we just toasted him with grenades...
It's likely that he was cheating, but not in the way that you think. He could have very well been a server admin with access to commands. ShrubMod for instance has !revive, among other things. Admins can bind this to a key so self-reviving is instantaneous.
Not trolling, but essentially usability is a poor reason to pay more money. I am much more willing to learn how to use something more difficult if it saves me money. Why do you think I started using linux?
You're confusing usability with learnability. Regardless, it's a moot point because both have nothing to do with how stupid people are.
With that being said, one "codes" HTML just as one "codes" C which in and of itself proves that in general, the use of HTML is considered to be a form of programming which makes HTML a (informal?) programming language, albeit and admittedly a lesser one.
You code HTML the way you code C? Can you send me a snippet or 2 for a code read?
Oh and by the way you should probably take a languages/compiler class before arguing what constitutes a programming language.
there are real, physical (derived from natural laws) conflicts between ease and security.
Again, this is incorrect. It's difficult to have both an acceptable level of security and ease of use, but not impossible. Throwing around rules like this doesn't make it any easier for both user interface and security infrastructure developers to do their job.
There is a dichotomy between security and ease-of-use. Hitherto it has been impossible to have the one and the other simultaneously. Choose one.
Geez you sound like Gandalf or something. There's no physical reason why you can't have both. Having a great UI and security is a resource allocation (ie. business) problem , not a rule of the physical universe.
I could also say that easily distributable digital music and artists getting paid are mutually exclusive concepts, but I would be dead wrong, as this rule only exists in the way the music industry conducts business in the US today.
As far as I recall 99% of Javascript has always been crap
As far as I can recall, 95% of C++, C, Java, Perl, Python, and even Pascal applications are pretty much crap. But you're right, Javascript's a bit worse because it's not up there in the 99% category.
Keep in mind that it's rare when an artist gets in such an advantageous position when it comes to royalties. This is akin (and just as likely) to a tech guy guy who gets lucky and cashes in a bunch of undervalued stock options, then re-invest and lets things appreciate while he takes a permanent vacation. Do you know any musicians that only do music? I don't. Most musicians out there are subject to the daily grind as much as we are, and work on their music during off-hours. Music is an extremely un-lucrative career where there's no such thing as job or financial security (unless you're Ozzy Osbourne).
The argument that people are hurting "the artists" by trading music on the internet is extremely weak.
With the current business model in the US, music sharing/trading does potentially hurt artist revenues. It sucks, and needs to change.
Most active musicians make most of their money by playing live shows.
Wrong. In the US Musicians can make a decent living from live show ticket sales, percentage of liquor sales, and merchandise sales, but the real money is in royalty payments from performances, recordings, and of course, music sales. A good album release keeps paying the artist without him doing any work so long as the album is bought or music is used commercially (among other things).
Royalty payments is big money in the music industry, and this is why musicians can get so obsessed with impressing A&R reps to hopefully get signed on to a major label. These labels provide capital and assist with marketing and distribution to wide national and global audiences, something that is difficult for an artist to do on his own. Now there is no rule saying that artists can't make money through performances or other creative means. Unfortunately, and no offense intended, musicians generally aren't savvy businessmen and as much as the "system" is so crappy (odds are less than 1% of getting a record deal even after catching an A&R rep's attention) they tend to see no other way.
The solution to all this has nothing to do with the Internet, mp3s, or any file sharing technology. Even iTunes isn't too much of a revolution -- it's just another channel for music distribution that happens to play nice with both audiences and record labels. A real change would involve providing complete and available alternatives for (talented) musicians to sustain themselves while still exploring and sharing their musical universes.
Nuff said...this is already about to spill into another discussion altogether.
Just wanted to add to the parent post. While cramming hard for theory courses don't forget to take "soft" courses in your English, Drama, Design, Art, and Psychology departments. It all depends on what these departments have to offer, but it doesn't hurt to understand a bit about humans work as well. It's good to get some grounding in different mechanisms of human communication, and to develop a good aesthetic sense, particularly if you want to have any involvement in the design side of things, or help you work with game designers who may seem a little insane.
At the very least taking these other courses is a good way to meet women (which arguably may draw you away from the game industry, but that's a different manner) that you might not otherwise meet in hardcore theory and engineering courses.
One interesting degree (Masters level) is in Carnegie Mellon's Entertainment Technology department. Check out their Curriculum. It doesn't teach specific technologies that apply to the video game industry, and in fact the focus is much broader, but it's not a bad foundation for starting a career in the videogame/tech-entertainment industry. They've got a good track record for placing graduates in top-notch organizations.
...imagine a Desktop UI built around this. Yeah, it could happen.
Maybe not a desktop UI per se, but it definitely has a future in providing deeper user interactions. One problem with current generations of computers is that they're stupid in the sense that they haven't a clue what's going on in the real world. For a start I think it would be nice for computers to know when people are around their computers, or whether the user is paying attention, or even (by sight)who is currently using the computer. This is all basic stuff that a 4-year old does better than a computer.
Then again I'm sure this is the wrong place to discuss this. After all, who needs anything more than a command-line?
I suggest you google "Jan Hendrik Schon" and reflect on your naivete.
Fantastic. One electronics scientist gets smacked down for falsifying research results and now the entire scientific community loses credibility.
you counter with blind faith - in scientists. Yeah, don't think about it, they're smarter than you, they must be right.
I don't think he's out of line. Knowing nothing else who would you trust, established researchers or a gaggle of/. posters? And yes I do realize that excellence in understanding one field of knowledge (computer science/information systems/engineering/hard-drive partitioning/case-modding) predisposes the capacity to understand another field.
Neither, in my mind, should a CEO be considered great that achieves $50B in the bank by repeatedly breaking the law.
Am I missing something? Breaking the law? I don't see Windows XP selling me crack or anything. Do you really think the only reason why MSFT is successful is because they cheat? Are you the same guy who accused me of using an aimbot(tm) and wallhack(tm) last night?
Slashdot Mirror
The original poster isn't trying to pick up a few design tricks to make his blog page look cute. In his "real world", he is trying to offer design services in addition to application/database services. It's not unreasonable to partner with an already prominent design shop or sub-contract out work to freelance designers.
Now, that's not to say that picking up a few design skills isn't useful. You're right: rudimentary design skills aren't that hard and are pretty quickly applicable.
Hypothetically (I have no ideas what company two which he applied) it would make his application/resume stand out. At the very least it shows that he's got some balls and is willing to go the extra mile.
One of my previous bosses told me about how as a designer, he got a job at some video game gig. I forget the exact title, but it involved boats of some sort. Rather than send in a plain portfolio he packaged examples of all his previous work packed a small wood crate, complete with hay for padding. He made the crate and props inside like it was found on a deserted island.
ahh...nevermind. I see. Ignore this trollish post and my apologies to anyone insulted. It appears that did not lock my screen earlier.
paid???
No...really.
Fag.
don't feed the trolls.
That's one of the funniest things I've heard all week.
I recommend you improve your in-game skills and get out of spawn (you DO have invulnerability time), avoid strategic/bottleneck areas, and help coordinate your team to take out areas that the enemy has pinned down. There's a counter-attack to everything providing that there's a bit of teamwork.
Like spawn-killing. No rule against it, but not socially acceptable... Spawnkilling is socially unacceptable? You have 3 seconds of invulnerability after spawn. If someone's spawncamping you should hunt him down and beat him :)
But yeah admins probably shouldn't be doing !revive commands unless everyone knows they're fooling around. There are also a lot of other server-side admin commands for shrub...don't be surprised if you see admins flying around the map when bored :)
It's likely that he was cheating, but not in the way that you think. He could have very well been a server admin with access to commands. ShrubMod for instance has !revive, among other things. Admins can bind this to a key so self-reviving is instantaneous.
You're confusing usability with learnability. Regardless, it's a moot point because both have nothing to do with how stupid people are.
You code HTML the way you code C? Can you send me a snippet or 2 for a code read?
Oh and by the way you should probably take a languages/compiler class before arguing what constitutes a programming language.
Again, this is incorrect. It's difficult to have both an acceptable level of security and ease of use, but not impossible. Throwing around rules like this doesn't make it any easier for both user interface and security infrastructure developers to do their job.
I could also say that easily distributable digital music and artists getting paid are mutually exclusive concepts, but I would be dead wrong, as this rule only exists in the way the music industry conducts business in the US today.
As far as I recall 99% of Javascript has always been crap As far as I can recall, 95% of C++, C, Java, Perl, Python, and even Pascal applications are pretty much crap. But you're right, Javascript's a bit worse because it's not up there in the 99% category.
Keep in mind that it's rare when an artist gets in such an advantageous position when it comes to royalties. This is akin (and just as likely) to a tech guy guy who gets lucky and cashes in a bunch of undervalued stock options, then re-invest and lets things appreciate while he takes a permanent vacation. Do you know any musicians that only do music? I don't. Most musicians out there are subject to the daily grind as much as we are, and work on their music during off-hours. Music is an extremely un-lucrative career where there's no such thing as job or financial security (unless you're Ozzy Osbourne).
With the current business model in the US, music sharing/trading does potentially hurt artist revenues. It sucks, and needs to change.
Most active musicians make most of their money by playing live shows. Wrong. In the US Musicians can make a decent living from live show ticket sales, percentage of liquor sales, and merchandise sales, but the real money is in royalty payments from performances, recordings, and of course, music sales. A good album release keeps paying the artist without him doing any work so long as the album is bought or music is used commercially (among other things).
Royalty payments is big money in the music industry, and this is why musicians can get so obsessed with impressing A&R reps to hopefully get signed on to a major label. These labels provide capital and assist with marketing and distribution to wide national and global audiences, something that is difficult for an artist to do on his own. Now there is no rule saying that artists can't make money through performances or other creative means. Unfortunately, and no offense intended, musicians generally aren't savvy businessmen and as much as the "system" is so crappy (odds are less than 1% of getting a record deal even after catching an A&R rep's attention) they tend to see no other way.
The solution to all this has nothing to do with the Internet, mp3s, or any file sharing technology. Even iTunes isn't too much of a revolution -- it's just another channel for music distribution that happens to play nice with both audiences and record labels. A real change would involve providing complete and available alternatives for (talented) musicians to sustain themselves while still exploring and sharing their musical universes.
Nuff said...this is already about to spill into another discussion altogether.
Yes only Austin, Texas is reputable. :)
Fry's is also in other reputable locations:
Oh and I'm not trying to nitpick. Just a public service announcement aimed at geeks with cash to burn.
Just wanted to add to the parent post. While cramming hard for theory courses don't forget to take "soft" courses in your English, Drama, Design, Art, and Psychology departments. It all depends on what these departments have to offer, but it doesn't hurt to understand a bit about humans work as well. It's good to get some grounding in different mechanisms of human communication, and to develop a good aesthetic sense, particularly if you want to have any involvement in the design side of things, or help you work with game designers who may seem a little insane.
At the very least taking these other courses is a good way to meet women (which arguably may draw you away from the game industry, but that's a different manner) that you might not otherwise meet in hardcore theory and engineering courses.
One interesting degree (Masters level) is in Carnegie Mellon's Entertainment Technology department. Check out their Curriculum. It doesn't teach specific technologies that apply to the video game industry, and in fact the focus is much broader, but it's not a bad foundation for starting a career in the videogame/tech-entertainment industry. They've got a good track record for placing graduates in top-notch organizations.
Maybe not a desktop UI per se, but it definitely has a future in providing deeper user interactions. One problem with current generations of computers is that they're stupid in the sense that they haven't a clue what's going on in the real world. For a start I think it would be nice for computers to know when people are around their computers, or whether the user is paying attention, or even (by sight)who is currently using the computer. This is all basic stuff that a 4-year old does better than a computer.
Then again I'm sure this is the wrong place to discuss this. After all, who needs anything more than a command-line?
Fantastic. One electronics scientist gets smacked down for falsifying research results and now the entire scientific community loses credibility.
you counter with blind faith - in scientists. Yeah, don't think about it, they're smarter than you, they must be right.
I don't think he's out of line. Knowing nothing else who would you trust, established researchers or a gaggle of /. posters? And yes I do realize that excellence in understanding one field of knowledge (computer science/information systems/engineering/hard-drive partitioning/case-modding) predisposes the capacity to understand another field.
It ought to count. It also ought to be tax-deductible.
Am I missing something? Breaking the law? I don't see Windows XP selling me crack or anything. Do you really think the only reason why MSFT is successful is because they cheat? Are you the same guy who accused me of using an aimbot(tm) and wallhack(tm) last night?