tangentially interesting because when you're a juror you're instructed to do absolutely no research on your own. I'm in favor of well-informed judges though.
I fly regularly and opt out any time I can't steer myself into a metal detector line. Usually I have a brief wait for a 'male assist' and am then escorted to the edge of the screening area for my pat down, all the while my carry-on baggage is sitting on the conveyor belt 50 feet away where anyone could walk off with it. Awesome.
I've had a WP7 since its release and functionally it does everything I want. the Metro UI makes sense to me on the phone, and I love managed code, but the API exposed to developers is schizophrenic. Take for example audio playback:
I want to write a media player. I can easily play music from my phone's music collection, awesome! But only when my app is running. See, you can't create a new playlist programatically (for "security" reasons), and you can't queue up more than one song, so when your app gets tombstoned, the currently playing track will finish out its remaining time and then your media experience ends.
But wait, new in 7.5 is the BackgroundAudioPlayer that persists when your app is terminated. Awesome! Except that it can't actually read from your media collection. WTF? It can only play streaming audio or songs from your app's private local storage. And no, you can't copy songs from your media collection to your app's local storage, because as we all know, that would be theft. From yourself, or something.
I don't understand how features like this get green-lit in such a half-assed way, but it drives me nuts. I haven't done any Android or iOS development though so I can't compare the experience.
on a related note, my current employer requires so much intrusive anti-virus, anti-malware, update & corporate IT policy scanning software that for the first 1-2 hours after boot up, the PC is next to useless (which has always seemed weird to me: if the PC was clean when it was turned off, why does it need a full scan immediately after booting?) Anyway, I honestly do feel bad for all the baby salmon I'm killing by leaving my rig on overnight. Somehow I don't see my boss buying the excuse that I'm not getting anything done in the morning because I'm saving the planet. If only it could boot and be instantly productive I'd have no problem powering down when I go home.
I wonder if more corporate tax incentives for varying tiers of "green" operation would be effective, or if that would be too much meddling.
OP could have provided more detail but was not trolling: I run an email server on a static IP on my 768/128 DSL line. It's for 2 users. My mother, who has been a Hotmail user for so long that she can't relocate or "no one will find her!" refuses to move to gmail despite my pleas. Hotmail silently drops mail from my server about two thirds of the time. Messages such as "Hey, where are we meeting for Grandma's birthday dinner" disappear into the ether despite me being on her whitelist. Repeated hotmail support requests go something like this:
me: why are you accepting my email with code 250 OK, but never delivering it?
them: we can't talk to you until you submit all the forms at postmaster.hotmail.com
me: submits the forms, which are clearly geared toward businesses (my "site" doesn't have a "privacy policy" or an "opt out form" because I don't SELL ANYTHING).
them: we can't talk to you until you sign up for our email tracking service to analyze your traffic
me: signs up. My server doesn't generate enough traffic for them to even log.
them: you need an SPF record
me: installs an SPF record
them: your SPF record is wrong. RFC blah blah states...
me: IT WAS GENERATED BY YOUR ONLINE TOOL!! And if you want to quote RFCs at me how about the one where if your server accepts email, you're guaranteeing not to drop it for frivolous reasons (RFC 2821, sec. 6.1)?
them: our reasons are not frivolous, but we won't tell you anything.
me: like how your servers drop email sent from thunderbird but let the same messages through when sent from outlook express?
them: we don't filter based on header information
... and so it goes. I understand that I'm a small fish in a big pond and that there's a war on terror, uh, I mean spam, but hotmail just sucks.
"A job in the gaming industry requires not only that but soon it'll require one other thing: fluency in Hindu and Chinese. Preferably both, according to a recent Gamasutra article."
I think games jobs are safe for a while. The need for rapid turn-a-round between design, art, dev, and test is crucial and gets more important the closer you get to shipping. Waiting a day or two for assets/code because of the time difference would kill productivity, and no game studio I know of is organized enough to keep the schedule moving with that kind of built-in delay. Even if your outsourced workers are keeping your local hours, there are people bouncing in and out of each others' offices all the time, cross-pollinating, and that sort of thing is good for a variety of reasons.
contracting out an entire game would be one thing, but other than small, modular, well-defined tasks, I don't see outsourcing affecting many game devs.
2) Bend over and take it, and whine a lot. Whining includes going to the BBB and other toothless organizations. (No large corporation gives a shit about the BBB.)
offtopic, but some companies do care about good standing with the BBB. A couple of years ago a string of shopping carts got loose from their corral in Costco's parking lot and put some nice dents in the door of my car, to the tune of $950.
Costco reps were very apathetic about the whole thing even though we had a manager agreeing with us that the cart corral was badly positioned at the top of a slight incline. Once we contacted the BBB, Costco apologized, said they'd been trying to reach us for days (sure, whatever) and cut us a check for the whole repair.
And of course I learned to be much more careful where I park:-)
ok, I'm confused. The linked article shows the Go 7800GTX beating the Mobility Radeon x1800.
This article shows the mobile x1800 with a slight lead. What gives? What's different between 3dMark05 and 3dMark06, and what does it mean in for real games? They're all pretty nice cards and would be great for a gaming laptop... now if only I could find one with a core duo and a 15" screen instead of all those 17" monsters.
Anyone have any more benchmarks or knowledge to contribute?
The Independent Game Developer's Association (IGDA) and Gamasutra take an annual salary survey for the game industry, including developers, artists, designers and producers. I think you have to be registered to see them, but here are links to the results from
And yes, I said annual, and the most recent result I could find was 2003. I think the 2005 results are still being tallied? And 2004? Must have been a bad year...
One thing to think about is how often you'll be schlepping this drive around. Back in the day I had a USB 1.1 enclosure that was made for an external CD-ROM so it was pretty large. It was a beast, and at some point I traded it in for a 3.5" Bytecc USB2/firewire enclosure that's about the size of a paperback book. This has been better, but it still requires an external power brick. If I were looking today, I'd get a large laptop drive (like the 100 GB, 7200 RPM Seagate Momentus) and a 2.5" enclosure that is powered by the data cable.
Though at ~$300 for the setup I describe, you might just want to get an iPod.
for an interesting fictional look at the result of always having the digital world instantly available, check out "Feed" by M.T. Anderson (ISBN: 0763622591)
The flippant response would be, "dude! move closer to your job!" But I'd rather be serious and ask what you do for a living and what makes it worth commuting 3000 miles a month? I'm really fortunate to have a 26 mile round trip each day but I also work more than 8 hours a day. My wife, on the other hand, works exactly an 8 hour shift (state job) but commutes 70 miles a day (70 x 5 x 4 = 1,400 miles a month). Either your job includes a lot of travel that you don't get reimbursed for or you must be driving close to 2 hours each way. What makes it worth it?
I'm a game dev. On my last project, our "official" crunch consisted of mandatory 60-hour weeks for 3 months to meet our ship date (unofficially it went on much longer than that). The ship date then slipped after everyone was already exhausted, sick, and really pissed of. So my reaction to these voice actors and their prima donna attitude is they can go fsck themselves. If the dev team is treated so shamefully, why on earth should someone providing the voice of Officer Payday get $695/hr. and residuals?
That said, I firmly believe unions are the only thing that will fix the inhumane working conditions in the game industry. My mother and my father-in-law are both union shop stewards and despite the common Slashdot grumbling about corruption and administrative morass, I've seen first hand how unions can force unethical (or just uninformed) employers to treat people with fairness and decency, and just plain obey the law.
I'm in the games industry because I love working on games. Some people may say that I should put up with the crap to do what I love, but they'd be wrong. Companies exist to make a profit, which often means a callous disregard for the human element of the workforce. I would gladly join a software engineering union if it got me reasonable working hours, compensation for overtime, and a formal procedure for resolving grievances--even if it resulted in a pay cut.
Age of Kings and Age of Mythology are pretty innocuous, much more detached from the killing than a FPS, and don't have to contend with the D&D stigma that Warcraft 3 is likely to encounter. Practically a history lesson, if you want to spin it that way;-)
America's Army is sponsored by Uncle Sam, and is therefore patriotic and American and all that (apologies if the poster is not in the US).
Against my recommendations, my boss just added a slew of new feature requirements to my project, so now I'm spending even more late nights at work trying to make magic happen. He stops by my office a couple times a day all chipper and excited, and it's all I can do not to strangle the dillweed. How does one professionally convey the message, "I don't like you, I don't respect you, you're not qualified for the job you're doing, get the hell out of my office and let me work." ?
This would have an immediate tidal wave effect, probably of near-biblical proportions. Sure it would flush Apple's hardware business in the toilet, who but the trendiest of CEOs and graphic designers would pay 3x the price for fancy form factors? But the number of people clamoring for something other than Windows is pretty large, given the MS-bashing that goes on even in mainstream media. Apple would clean up in software sales--and their license sure has MS beat. I salivate over the idea of a $199 family pack that allows one copy of OS X to be installed on 5 PCs.
Talk about introducing some fresh competition into the OS market! I can't think of a reason other than Steve Jobs' stubbornness that keeps this from happening. I would jump ship in a split second. And it might even prod game developers to get those Mac ports out the door.
Isn't it illegal for Ford to require the use of Ford parts on their vehicles? Once you pay for it, you can use whatever replacement brands you want. Why is it ok for Apple? I can't see this section of the EULA holding up in court if it ever got that far.
midway through my CS major I was doing a lot of coding for class as well as for my internship, and my wrists were really bothering me. Here's what I tried:
I switched from standard keyboards to MS Natural (the original or the new multimedia version, the middle version was crap and the oddly oriented arrow keys sucked for games)
I learned to mouse ambidextrously (is that a word?). At school I moused left-handed, at home with the right.
I exercised my wrists, avoiding movements that caused discomfort. I was already working on a second degree (art), so I added some ceramics classes to my schedule. Wedging clay (squishing out the air bubbles so it doesn't explode during firing) and working the pottery wheel strengthened my wrists to the point where the pain went away
I'm still pain-free after 10 years. For me, variety in my movements was the key. YMMV.
Was your "loyalty filter" an automatic thumbs down, or did you give folks a chance to exlplain themselves?
I worked for 7 different companies in 6 years, and I only left one of them voluntarily--The rest were companies that went out of business (I work in the games industry which can be pretty volatile that way). Maybe it was bad luck, maybe I just picked poor companies to work for, but it would be unfortunate if a spotty job history automatically sent someone's resume to your circular file.
I seem to recall not so long ago Microsoft claiming it was impossible to remove components or offer any sort of modular form of Windows? Wasn't this one of the prime arguments that MS used in the antitrust trial? "No, your honor, we can't remove Internet Explorer. It just doesn't work that way." I really wish the defense witness had been allowed to demonstrate just how modular XP embedded is...
What I'll be curious to see is if Lego is dropping their robotics department all together or just the mindstorms brand. A company or division called Psitco Dacta has been making all the motors, temperature sensors, etc., for some time now for use in education. My father-in-law is a middle school technology teacher, and he knew all about this stuff just as I was getting excited about the release of Mindstorms.
I don't know about a website, but you can get a catalog from Amazon.
Slashdot Mirror
...and real arrow keys. I know. It's a dream.
tangentially interesting because when you're a juror you're instructed to do absolutely no research on your own. I'm in favor of well-informed judges though.
Because Cheap Labor.
There, I fixed that for you.
I fly regularly and opt out any time I can't steer myself into a metal detector line. Usually I have a brief wait for a 'male assist' and am then escorted to the edge of the screening area for my pat down, all the while my carry-on baggage is sitting on the conveyor belt 50 feet away where anyone could walk off with it. Awesome.
I've had a WP7 since its release and functionally it does everything I want. the Metro UI makes sense to me on the phone, and I love managed code, but the API exposed to developers is schizophrenic. Take for example audio playback:
I want to write a media player. I can easily play music from my phone's music collection, awesome! But only when my app is running. See, you can't create a new playlist programatically (for "security" reasons), and you can't queue up more than one song, so when your app gets tombstoned, the currently playing track will finish out its remaining time and then your media experience ends.
But wait, new in 7.5 is the BackgroundAudioPlayer that persists when your app is terminated. Awesome! Except that it can't actually read from your media collection. WTF? It can only play streaming audio or songs from your app's private local storage. And no, you can't copy songs from your media collection to your app's local storage, because as we all know, that would be theft. From yourself, or something.
I don't understand how features like this get green-lit in such a half-assed way, but it drives me nuts. I haven't done any Android or iOS development though so I can't compare the experience.
Sure, or I thought of something similar as I was submitting: perhaps get the IT folks to send Wake-on-LAN packets every morning at 6?
on a related note, my current employer requires so much intrusive anti-virus, anti-malware, update & corporate IT policy scanning software that for the first 1-2 hours after boot up, the PC is next to useless (which has always seemed weird to me: if the PC was clean when it was turned off, why does it need a full scan immediately after booting?) Anyway, I honestly do feel bad for all the baby salmon I'm killing by leaving my rig on overnight. Somehow I don't see my boss buying the excuse that I'm not getting anything done in the morning because I'm saving the planet. If only it could boot and be instantly productive I'd have no problem powering down when I go home.
I wonder if more corporate tax incentives for varying tiers of "green" operation would be effective, or if that would be too much meddling.
me: why are you accepting my email with code 250 OK, but never delivering it?
them: we can't talk to you until you submit all the forms at postmaster.hotmail.com
me: submits the forms, which are clearly geared toward businesses (my "site" doesn't have a "privacy policy" or an "opt out form" because I don't SELL ANYTHING).
them: we can't talk to you until you sign up for our email tracking service to analyze your traffic
me: signs up. My server doesn't generate enough traffic for them to even log.
them: you need an SPF record
me: installs an SPF record
them: your SPF record is wrong. RFC blah blah states...
me: IT WAS GENERATED BY YOUR ONLINE TOOL!! And if you want to quote RFCs at me how about the one where if your server accepts email, you're guaranteeing not to drop it for frivolous reasons (RFC 2821, sec. 6.1)?
them: our reasons are not frivolous, but we won't tell you anything.
me: like how your servers drop email sent from thunderbird but let the same messages through when sent from outlook express?
them: we don't filter based on header information
I think games jobs are safe for a while. The need for rapid turn-a-round between design, art, dev, and test is crucial and gets more important the closer you get to shipping. Waiting a day or two for assets/code because of the time difference would kill productivity, and no game studio I know of is organized enough to keep the schedule moving with that kind of built-in delay. Even if your outsourced workers are keeping your local hours, there are people bouncing in and out of each others' offices all the time, cross-pollinating, and that sort of thing is good for a variety of reasons.
contracting out an entire game would be one thing, but other than small, modular, well-defined tasks, I don't see outsourcing affecting many game devs.
offtopic, but some companies do care about good standing with the BBB. A couple of years ago a string of shopping carts got loose from their corral in Costco's parking lot and put some nice dents in the door of my car, to the tune of $950.
Costco reps were very apathetic about the whole thing even though we had a manager agreeing with us that the cart corral was badly positioned at the top of a slight incline. Once we contacted the BBB, Costco apologized, said they'd been trying to reach us for days (sure, whatever) and cut us a check for the whole repair.
And of course I learned to be much more careful where I park :-)
ok, I'm confused. The linked article shows the Go 7800GTX beating the Mobility Radeon x1800.
This article shows the mobile x1800 with a slight lead. What gives? What's different between 3dMark05 and 3dMark06, and what does it mean in for real games? They're all pretty nice cards and would be great for a gaming laptop... now if only I could find one with a core duo and a 15" screen instead of all those 17" monsters.
Anyone have any more benchmarks or knowledge to contribute?
2003
2002
2001
And yes, I said annual, and the most recent result I could find was 2003. I think the 2005 results are still being tallied? And 2004? Must have been a bad year...
Though at ~$300 for the setup I describe, you might just want to get an iPod.
happy hunting!
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/076
The flippant response would be, "dude! move closer to your job!" But I'd rather be serious and ask what you do for a living and what makes it worth commuting 3000 miles a month? I'm really fortunate to have a 26 mile round trip each day but I also work more than 8 hours a day. My wife, on the other hand, works exactly an 8 hour shift (state job) but commutes 70 miles a day (70 x 5 x 4 = 1,400 miles a month). Either your job includes a lot of travel that you don't get reimbursed for or you must be driving close to 2 hours each way. What makes it worth it?
That said, I firmly believe unions are the only thing that will fix the inhumane working conditions in the game industry. My mother and my father-in-law are both union shop stewards and despite the common Slashdot grumbling about corruption and administrative morass, I've seen first hand how unions can force unethical (or just uninformed) employers to treat people with fairness and decency, and just plain obey the law.
I'm in the games industry because I love working on games. Some people may say that I should put up with the crap to do what I love, but they'd be wrong. Companies exist to make a profit, which often means a callous disregard for the human element of the workforce. I would gladly join a software engineering union if it got me reasonable working hours, compensation for overtime, and a formal procedure for resolving grievances--even if it resulted in a pay cut.
You should give No One Lives Forever and NOLF 2: A Spy in H.A.R.M.'s Way a try. These are fun, award-winning games featuring a female lead in a James Bond/Austin Powers series of super-spy adventures.
America's Army is sponsored by Uncle Sam, and is therefore patriotic and American and all that (apologies if the poster is not in the US).
Failing that, there's always Lords of Conquest or Master of Orion 2 if you want to kick it old school.
I'd love to know.
...by releasing OS X for PC hardware.
This would have an immediate tidal wave effect, probably of near-biblical proportions. Sure it would flush Apple's hardware business in the toilet, who but the trendiest of CEOs and graphic designers would pay 3x the price for fancy form factors? But the number of people clamoring for something other than Windows is pretty large, given the MS-bashing that goes on even in mainstream media. Apple would clean up in software sales--and their license sure has MS beat. I salivate over the idea of a $199 family pack that allows one copy of OS X to be installed on 5 PCs.
Talk about introducing some fresh competition into the OS market! I can't think of a reason other than Steve Jobs' stubbornness that keeps this from happening. I would jump ship in a split second. And it might even prod game developers to get those Mac ports out the door.
Isn't it illegal for Ford to require the use of Ford parts on their vehicles? Once you pay for it, you can use whatever replacement brands you want. Why is it ok for Apple? I can't see this section of the EULA holding up in court if it ever got that far.
I'm still pain-free after 10 years. For me, variety in my movements was the key. YMMV.
I worked for 7 different companies in 6 years, and I only left one of them voluntarily--The rest were companies that went out of business (I work in the games industry which can be pretty volatile that way). Maybe it was bad luck, maybe I just picked poor companies to work for, but it would be unfortunate if a spotty job history automatically sent someone's resume to your circular file.
I seem to recall not so long ago Microsoft claiming it was impossible to remove components or offer any sort of modular form of Windows? Wasn't this one of the prime arguments that MS used in the antitrust trial? "No, your honor, we can't remove Internet Explorer. It just doesn't work that way." I really wish the defense witness had been allowed to demonstrate just how modular XP embedded is...
I don't know about a website, but you can get a catalog from Amazon.