I second the use of craigslist as a prime example. I've been using slashdock for OS X since it was a dockling (remember those?) and when I was unemployed it was a great way of quickly browsing the currently available job titles without even needing a web browser.
I mean, I don't need to go into the advantages of rss (or competing techs like atom) as they are understood by this crowd better than most, but never the less. The point is that this is an incredibly appropriate use for whichever technology you use to accomplish the same goal.
I worked at a company that had offices in multiple locations in the USA. I interviewed at an office other than my own, and got a job there. I applied for a transfer at my main office, and gave them 5! weeks notice. They declined my transfer, citing too great of a need for me at my current office.
I quit, moved on, and haven't looked back. The best decision I made in 2004, hands down.
Sorry, I forgot one point. The fact that the entire production ordering system operates solely on xml file handling (to me) means that this is really OS independent if you write the front-end for it. The only hurdle really is a) writing your own frontend for linux and b) accepting that you need a windows box to serve the device from. I'm currently experimenting with making a web-based front end for this, but its too early to say whether or not I'll have success.
Recently at work I had to recommend an automated cd printing / burning system, and I went with the Rimage 2000i. We're a mac-only design shop in nyc, and needed the machine not for backup, but more for one-offs with automated labels, in a machine that was networkable.
One of the things on the Rimage website that's kind-of misleading (at least it was to me) was that it NEEDS a windows pc in order to share the rimage machine with other machines, like a mac. But once it's setup, the machine works wonders.
What's interesting about this machine though, is that despite the ridiculous setup hurdles, after it all works they provide a fairly decent way of writing your own scripts to control the machine.
The entire device uses xml files in order to handle job requests, and the client they ship it with is actually just a beast of a java app. But the xml files are used for the imaging orders, the production reports, everything. They also have a fairly extensive sdk that allows you to do pretty much anything.
I had an unfortunately difficult time setting this thing up, but the tech support (while their english was a little lacking) were actually incredibly knowledgeable. One of the things they told me was that almost no-one who buys this device uses the provided client. It is designed to be integrated into custom work solutions, so for you this might actually be appropriate.
If you're looking for a solid dvd archival device / printer that has an autoloading function and is fully scriptable, the Rimage 2000i (or any of their devices higher end than that one) could work.
Games like maniac mansion, day of the tentacle, escape from monkey island. They don't have any quick-reflex types of interaction with the game, but do require a mouse. They are very story oriented though, and the mouse is used in a "point on the word to complete the sentence" type of interface. An example is a classic, clicking on "use", then selecting the "hamster" icon, then selecting the microwave from the picture window.
Anyway, if you're already using a head mouse, that seems to be completely within the means of appropriate uses.
Another type of game that doesn't get a lot of attention these days are moos, or muds. Text-based massive multiplayer games are totally possible to play with a head mouse, especially with a lot of mud clients having lots of point-and-click scripting abilities, to lessen the need for typing even more.
There were some really good text-based games that can usually be found laying around these days. "Bureaucracy" and "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" were incredibly entertaining for their day, and still are if you can suspend needing to see pretty graphics.
But ultimately, I have no experience with headmice at all. I'm just making these suggestions that it's not necessarily the limitation of being able to get to every button, but that its the limitation of getting to those buttons _quickly_ that is the problem here, for games. As such, some role-playing games might work, especially something like Final Fantasy Tactics, or similar games, that could be played through emulation on a non-console game system.
Flash is a great program, and has some incredibly appropriate uses, but more often than not people learn flash and then say they're web designers.
Please, learn the standards first, as you've given a tendency towards already. When it is time to learn flash, using it from a proper structural understanding of how the web actually works, including information structures, user interface experience and page interactivity will all help you construct better pages that take advantage of all the technologies at your disposal.
If it doesn't mention the 3D interface used in the first Jurassic Park, then I'm not interested.
Same thing with TurboGopher VR for classic Mac OS. Come on, you know you love that!
Wow, I was totally clueless to the worldwide spim problem. The large corporations must have been putting so much span on this story that we weren't even aware of the real truth!
Seriously, nothing screams "legitimate contractor" more than professional experience.
This doesn't necessarily mean get a real job though. I've found that if you want to build a really good portfolio or resume, be it devleoping, design or whatnot, go to work for a non-profit that is aligned with something you care about. Usually they have some projects that are just yelling for technology help, which of course is usually some of the most costly help.
What this does for you is a) gives you some real names to put onto your resume. Especially if you go after the well-known non-profits in your city. b) gives you some real work experience, dealing with clients, deadlines and whatnot. These are both invaluable to you to see how the real world interacts with contractors, and to potential future employers, who will see that you can actually function in the real world, and are a contractor by choice and not circumstance.
Your mileage may vary, but this is what I've found to work.
-everyplace
I just envision somewhere some game developers jumping back into the middle of the street, in full street hockey gear a la Wayne and Garth, and saying "Game on!"
This has been done for years
on
Animal Robots
·
· Score: 1
What people don't realize is that there has been foundation research for almost 20 years now on this subject. Who can forget the Pioneering research put into the topic of 1-foot tall talking bears?
Teddy Ruxpin has for years been at the forefront of this field, dealing with human-talking-bear interaction.
This sounds like an update to a game I'm quite fond of. I know it only as "My Own Food." I don't know if that name has anything to do with the original title, but that's what the translation was on the site that a friend of mine ordered it from in... '99 maybe?
My Own Food, from what I could tell since it was entirely in japanese and I didn't read it at all, was about you, a young successful chef who had twice bested your rival, the evil frog cook. At the beginning of the game, in what was a stereotypically poorly compressed intro movie on PSX's, the video shows you receiving an invitation to the Frog Cook's cook-off, as it were. When you arrive on the island of "Cookingdom" somehow by schoolbus, you have to work your way up the chain of restaurants in the city until you can battle the Frog.
Now, each level was layed out in a similar fashion to this Beef Bowl game, to the point where it almost makes me think they were made by the same company.
You started out each day by cooking at the restaurant. Characters (up to 6 at a time) would come into the restaurant, and order something. The first level revolved around ramen and beer. Someone would come in (there was a 2d representation of them along the bottom of the screen) and say "Beeritao" or something like that.
You used the d-pad to move up and down on the left side of the screen with the list of available patrons to wait on. Choose the first one, and a 3D image of the tools or activity needed to perform waiting on them would appear. In the beer case, a frosty mug and a tap would appear. Select the task with circle, and then the analog joysticks control the action. The left stick would control the angle of the mug, while the right stick controlled the flow of beer from the tap.
Each step in waiting on a customer would give you a 1 to 10 rating. In order to get a perfect store on the beer-pouring, you had to angle the glass at full tilt while filling up the glass most of the way, then slowly release the angle until it was almost vertical while easing pressure on the beer tap. The head of the beer had to just overflow the teeniest bit in order for the customer to be happy. And that's just the beer. On the first level.
There was also a combo system for waiting on multiple customers at a time, but you could only do it on certain steps of certain items. For example, the ramen in the first stage. When you selected a customer who wanted ramen, the first thing you would do is to cut up a random vegetable that they want in the ramen. Like a carrot. In this case, the left analog stick controlled where you held the knife, and the right stick was the up down cutting action of the knife.
This simple act really represented the whole point of the game, through mastery of the analog sticks and precision with time. See, you had a few choices as to how to proceed to cut the carrot. If you only moved the left analog stick very slowly and chopped the carrot into fine slices, the customer would be happy with that step and give you a 10. But, this takes a long time, as the customers only stick around for a short time (represented by the icon in the upper left slowly moving off screen). You had to achieve a balance of both the proper pressure on the stick to go fast, coupled with quick precise presses of the right stick to cut it at the right time, giving you smallish slices and speed. You couldn't go too fast though, because you could cut yourself, complete with blood-squirting. Needless to say, customers weren't happy if you cut yourself, and it took more time.
Anyway, step two for ramen involved letting the ingredients simmer on the stove. After you completed step one for the customer, you were given the option to move on to another customer before proceeding with step two. If you chopped the ingredients in step one for more than one customer and then selected step two, you could put both of their ingredients in the pot at the same time, thereby a) increasing your chances of having a ha
First of all, there are people who do respectable things with flash code (joshua davis comes to mind). Secondly, I was developing a php/mysql social networking site, which may or may not have value depending on your opinion on such projects. The point is though, I am a) a mac developer, and b) in the second paragraph of my parent I expressed exactly what you're putting me down with.
I worked at a convenience store that was your classic "mom and pop" neighborhood convenience store. I knew 95% of the people that walked in that door, and had their cigarettes or what have you on the counter before they got to it. The fact is, my boss at the time could care less about what I was doing. He had owned the store since the 50's, and as long as it still stood he didn't care what happened.
Living in cities with anything like a decent crime rate, I view mugging and / or damage to equipment that I carry regularly as inevitible, and plan accordingly. The data that my equipment carries far exceeds the cost of the equipment itself, so I try to keep backups of data on another machine at my house or in another location entirely.
I will say though, I was working at a convenience store a few years ago, and got held up at gun point while developing on my powerbook. All I could think about while handing them the money from the register was to position myself in exactly the right place so that the gunman couldn't see my laptop directly behind me. Ever since that close call, I've stuck to my "guns" when it comes to regular backups.
Slashdot Mirror
I second the use of craigslist as a prime example. I've been using slashdock for OS X since it was a dockling (remember those?) and when I was unemployed it was a great way of quickly browsing the currently available job titles without even needing a web browser.
I mean, I don't need to go into the advantages of rss (or competing techs like atom) as they are understood by this crowd better than most, but never the less. The point is that this is an incredibly appropriate use for whichever technology you use to accomplish the same goal.
I worked at a company that had offices in multiple locations in the USA. I interviewed at an office other than my own, and got a job there. I applied for a transfer at my main office, and gave them 5! weeks notice. They declined my transfer, citing too great of a need for me at my current office.
I quit, moved on, and haven't looked back. The best decision I made in 2004, hands down.
Sorry, I forgot one point. The fact that the entire production ordering system operates solely on xml file handling (to me) means that this is really OS independent if you write the front-end for it. The only hurdle really is a) writing your own frontend for linux and b) accepting that you need a windows box to serve the device from. I'm currently experimenting with making a web-based front end for this, but its too early to say whether or not I'll have success.
Recently at work I had to recommend an automated cd printing / burning system, and I went with the Rimage 2000i. We're a mac-only design shop in nyc, and needed the machine not for backup, but more for one-offs with automated labels, in a machine that was networkable.
One of the things on the Rimage website that's kind-of misleading (at least it was to me) was that it NEEDS a windows pc in order to share the rimage machine with other machines, like a mac. But once it's setup, the machine works wonders.
What's interesting about this machine though, is that despite the ridiculous setup hurdles, after it all works they provide a fairly decent way of writing your own scripts to control the machine.
The entire device uses xml files in order to handle job requests, and the client they ship it with is actually just a beast of a java app. But the xml files are used for the imaging orders, the production reports, everything. They also have a fairly extensive sdk that allows you to do pretty much anything.
I had an unfortunately difficult time setting this thing up, but the tech support (while their english was a little lacking) were actually incredibly knowledgeable. One of the things they told me was that almost no-one who buys this device uses the provided client. It is designed to be integrated into custom work solutions, so for you this might actually be appropriate.
If you're looking for a solid dvd archival device / printer that has an autoloading function and is fully scriptable, the Rimage 2000i (or any of their devices higher end than that one) could work.
Games like maniac mansion, day of the tentacle, escape from monkey island. They don't have any quick-reflex types of interaction with the game, but do require a mouse. They are very story oriented though, and the mouse is used in a "point on the word to complete the sentence" type of interface. An example is a classic, clicking on "use", then selecting the "hamster" icon, then selecting the microwave from the picture window.
Anyway, if you're already using a head mouse, that seems to be completely within the means of appropriate uses.
Another type of game that doesn't get a lot of attention these days are moos, or muds. Text-based massive multiplayer games are totally possible to play with a head mouse, especially with a lot of mud clients having lots of point-and-click scripting abilities, to lessen the need for typing even more.
There were some really good text-based games that can usually be found laying around these days. "Bureaucracy" and "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" were incredibly entertaining for their day, and still are if you can suspend needing to see pretty graphics.
But ultimately, I have no experience with headmice at all. I'm just making these suggestions that it's not necessarily the limitation of being able to get to every button, but that its the limitation of getting to those buttons _quickly_ that is the problem here, for games. As such, some role-playing games might work, especially something like Final Fantasy Tactics, or similar games, that could be played through emulation on a non-console game system.
Flash is a great program, and has some incredibly appropriate uses, but more often than not people learn flash and then say they're web designers.
Please, learn the standards first, as you've given a tendency towards already. When it is time to learn flash, using it from a proper structural understanding of how the web actually works, including information structures, user interface experience and page interactivity will all help you construct better pages that take advantage of all the technologies at your disposal.
Thank you so much for that answer. I've read this a long time ago (or something covering the same ground) but couldn't recall where.
If it doesn't mention the 3D interface used in the first Jurassic Park, then I'm not interested. Same thing with TurboGopher VR for classic Mac OS. Come on, you know you love that!
My favorite solution to this problem : Don't get your site posted on slashdot!
Which, of course, I realize is a ridiculous statement, since it's usually both desirable, and out of your control. But still, its funny.
Wow, I was totally clueless to the worldwide spim problem. The large corporations must have been putting so much span on this story that we weren't even aware of the real truth!
Seriously, nothing screams "legitimate contractor" more than professional experience.
This doesn't necessarily mean get a real job though. I've found that if you want to build a really good portfolio or resume, be it devleoping, design or whatnot, go to work for a non-profit that is aligned with something you care about. Usually they have some projects that are just yelling for technology help, which of course is usually some of the most costly help.
What this does for you is a) gives you some real names to put onto your resume. Especially if you go after the well-known non-profits in your city. b) gives you some real work experience, dealing with clients, deadlines and whatnot. These are both invaluable to you to see how the real world interacts with contractors, and to potential future employers, who will see that you can actually function in the real world, and are a contractor by choice and not circumstance.
Your mileage may vary, but this is what I've found to work.
-everyplace
But how are they going to train people to use this? Oh wait...
I just envision somewhere some game developers jumping back into the middle of the street, in full street hockey gear a la Wayne and Garth, and saying "Game on!"
It's about time... oh wait.
What people don't realize is that there has been foundation research for almost 20 years now on this subject. Who can forget the Pioneering research put into the topic of 1-foot tall talking bears?
Teddy Ruxpin has for years been at the forefront of this field, dealing with human-talking-bear interaction.
Man, and I thought this accident was going to turn the project to dust. Oh wait.
Those LD-Rom drives, and standard laserdisc players in general, are so big, you'd throw a disc out trying to move one of those.
If only Pauly Shore had this technology for his climactic party in Bio-Dome. It would have saved the movie.
If ever there was a company to lend an arm to the repairs...
See my comment below here. Sorry, didn't see your original post.
This sounds like an update to a game I'm quite fond of. I know it only as "My Own Food." I don't know if that name has anything to do with the original title, but that's what the translation was on the site that a friend of mine ordered it from in... '99 maybe?
My Own Food, from what I could tell since it was entirely in japanese and I didn't read it at all, was about you, a young successful chef who had twice bested your rival, the evil frog cook. At the beginning of the game, in what was a stereotypically poorly compressed intro movie on PSX's, the video shows you receiving an invitation to the Frog Cook's cook-off, as it were. When you arrive on the island of "Cookingdom" somehow by schoolbus, you have to work your way up the chain of restaurants in the city until you can battle the Frog.
Now, each level was layed out in a similar fashion to this Beef Bowl game, to the point where it almost makes me think they were made by the same company.
You started out each day by cooking at the restaurant. Characters (up to 6 at a time) would come into the restaurant, and order something. The first level revolved around ramen and beer. Someone would come in (there was a 2d representation of them along the bottom of the screen) and say "Beeritao" or something like that.
You used the d-pad to move up and down on the left side of the screen with the list of available patrons to wait on. Choose the first one, and a 3D image of the tools or activity needed to perform waiting on them would appear. In the beer case, a frosty mug and a tap would appear. Select the task with circle, and then the analog joysticks control the action. The left stick would control the angle of the mug, while the right stick controlled the flow of beer from the tap.
Each step in waiting on a customer would give you a 1 to 10 rating. In order to get a perfect store on the beer-pouring, you had to angle the glass at full tilt while filling up the glass most of the way, then slowly release the angle until it was almost vertical while easing pressure on the beer tap. The head of the beer had to just overflow the teeniest bit in order for the customer to be happy. And that's just the beer. On the first level.
There was also a combo system for waiting on multiple customers at a time, but you could only do it on certain steps of certain items. For example, the ramen in the first stage. When you selected a customer who wanted ramen, the first thing you would do is to cut up a random vegetable that they want in the ramen. Like a carrot. In this case, the left analog stick controlled where you held the knife, and the right stick was the up down cutting action of the knife.
This simple act really represented the whole point of the game, through mastery of the analog sticks and precision with time. See, you had a few choices as to how to proceed to cut the carrot. If you only moved the left analog stick very slowly and chopped the carrot into fine slices, the customer would be happy with that step and give you a 10. But, this takes a long time, as the customers only stick around for a short time (represented by the icon in the upper left slowly moving off screen). You had to achieve a balance of both the proper pressure on the stick to go fast, coupled with quick precise presses of the right stick to cut it at the right time, giving you smallish slices and speed. You couldn't go too fast though, because you could cut yourself, complete with blood-squirting. Needless to say, customers weren't happy if you cut yourself, and it took more time.
Anyway, step two for ramen involved letting the ingredients simmer on the stove. After you completed step one for the customer, you were given the option to move on to another customer before proceeding with step two. If you chopped the ingredients in step one for more than one customer and then selected step two, you could put both of their ingredients in the pot at the same time, thereby a) increasing your chances of having a ha
Not enough clientele, I suppose?
First of all, there are people who do respectable things with flash code (joshua davis comes to mind). Secondly, I was developing a php/mysql social networking site, which may or may not have value depending on your opinion on such projects. The point is though, I am a) a mac developer, and b) in the second paragraph of my parent I expressed exactly what you're putting me down with.
I worked at a convenience store that was your classic "mom and pop" neighborhood convenience store. I knew 95% of the people that walked in that door, and had their cigarettes or what have you on the counter before they got to it. The fact is, my boss at the time could care less about what I was doing. He had owned the store since the 50's, and as long as it still stood he didn't care what happened.
Living in cities with anything like a decent crime rate, I view mugging and / or damage to equipment that I carry regularly as inevitible, and plan accordingly. The data that my equipment carries far exceeds the cost of the equipment itself, so I try to keep backups of data on another machine at my house or in another location entirely.
I will say though, I was working at a convenience store a few years ago, and got held up at gun point while developing on my powerbook. All I could think about while handing them the money from the register was to position myself in exactly the right place so that the gunman couldn't see my laptop directly behind me. Ever since that close call, I've stuck to my "guns" when it comes to regular backups.