I just graduated a couple years ago, and now I work for a game development studio. Contrary to most of the stories you hear, it hasn't been particularly stressful, and I'm paid decently. (Your mileage may vary depending on where you work...)
I work as a "game programmer". We also have core tech programmers, infrastructure programmers, QA engineers, etc. so there's a lot of flexibility.
If you decide you're totally sick of programming, you could also go into QA, Design, Production, or even technical writing. There are lots of different types of jobs where a CS degree is considered useful.
I strongly agree with a previous poster who said, "CS is about HOW. The fun stuff is WHAT." Sure, I get bored writing code sometimes, but most of the time I'm focused how I can make the game better and how awesome it would be to just get one more cool feature in... the code is just a means to that end.
I just graduated with a pretty high GPA. In my experience, the high GPA is helpful to get to the top of the resume stack, but by the time you get into interviews they don't really care what your GPA is. If you have other eye-catching things on your resume that will get you to the interview phase (it sounds like you do) you might not need the GPA.
However, grad schools DO care about GPA. If you're ever planning to go back, it might be worth it to retake the classes.
The question is, is that enough? With one square meter of 100% efficient solar cell providing only enough power to run little more than two household lightbulbs? First of all, I think you mean 7.5 household lightbulbs.
We have plenty of space. Are you using your roof for anything important? (Maybe you live in an apartment, so putting them on the roof never occurred to you...?) Even with today's solar panels at ~20% efficiency, people can and do power their entire homes with solar using just their roof space - although, it depends largely on how much power you use, obviously.
Even if you could only power 1/10th of your home, it would be worthwhile if it were cheaper than grid power - and that's not even considering the environmental benefits.
Space efficiency isn't really the issue with solar power. The important factor is cost.
I'm about to finish a BS in Computer Engineering. I just landed a programming job at a fairly prestigious game company.
I think the 4-year degree is the way to go, assuming you are looking at a programming career path. Here's why:
Game programming is hard. You need to be a first-class programmer (seriously), and I think the DeVry's degree would put you at a disadvantage.
The game industry has a bias against online degrees (because of the above).
The game industry often pays less than other software jobs. Having a better/more flexible degree might get you a better salary, since they will be competing against offers from non-game companies.
College is fun. You might learn other things not directly related to game programming, and that's a good thing.
As for the path you suggested... as I understand it, QA is not usually a very good path for a job as a programmer, anyway. QA usually feeds more into producer/designer type jobs. To get a job as a programmer, what matters is to get as much programming skill/experience as possible - get part-time coding jobs and summer internships (even if they aren't in games) and try to do at least one really impressive games-related hobby project.
One more thing I'll throw out there... if your cousin is only interested in programming because he wants to do video games, it's possible that game programming isn't the job for him. He might be better off as a producer or designer.
I apologize if I put words in your mouth, but you missed my point. Spending more time won't necessarily improve the game, either.
Your view is oversimplifying. Some games are not meant to be single player, just as some are not meant to be multiplayer - why force it?
Translation: Doing single player really well was going to cost too much time and money. So you think that just throwing more resources at the project would improve it? That isn't usually true for software engineering in general, and it's CERTAINLY not the case for game development. A larger budget won't turn a typical designer into Miyamoto.
If it wasn't working, it wasn't working. I think it's cool that they have enough pride in their work to not release something if they don't think it's good enough. If more developers took this attitude, I think we'd have a much healthier game industry.
You can criticize the developers for not being able to pull this game off, but at least give them props for recognizing their failure.
The Top 100 lists that are occasionally published tend to be pretty good, in my opinion. You might try some of those for ideas, and pick what seems interesting.
It seems like many of the above posters are suggesting games that they've played for hundreds of hours, but I'm guessing that you're more interested in playing many shorter games. So with that in mind, some of my specific suggestions are:
Devil May Cry (1 or 3)
Prince of Persia (original)
Prince of Persia: Sands of Time
Twisted Metal (1, 2, or Black... find a friend to play with)
Mount & Blade
Sonic (1, 2, 3, Knuckles)
Mario (almost any)
Zelda (almost any)
Grand Theft Auto (any)
But that's just off the top of my head... I would strongly suggest checking the Top 100 lists for more ideas.
I think a lot of you are missing the essential point here: alternative energy is inherently BETTER than oil in ways that can't be measured by the economy. Specifically, it is sustainable and environmentally friendly, whereas oil is neither.
The goal of this tax is to slow the growth of an undesireable industry (oil) and accelerate the growth of a desireable one (clean energy). This is important for two reasons: it will reduce gas emissions, and it will help ensure that there is something to fall back on when oil starts to run out (which, believe it or not, will probably happen within your lifetime).
I worked briefly with a company who built "telecenters" in various rural parts of the world. A "telecenter" consisted of a few computers, lights, and a satellite internet connection - all powered by solar energy. I think part of the idea was that farmers could check weather conditions and grow crops more effectively - it wasn't just to educate children.
One thing I thought was neat was that the local residents were hired to construct the whole project. This made the architecture/construction fit in with the local style, and it also helped the locals understand what the thing was and why it was useful.
I would post the company's website, but I don't think their server could handle slashdot traffic. The website isn't very informative anyway.
The problem here isn't price gouging by SBC or anybody else. The problem is that broadband is an industry that can't pay for itself!
Laying cables and building infrastructure is expensive, and the money just isn't there. The cost to maintain it is also high. However, there isn't *REALLY* any money there.
Slashdot is looking at this from a consumer point of view, but the other side of the Internet is the webhosts. Look at all your favorite web sites. The Internet USED to be 100% free, once you paid for your internet access. This isn't the case anymore. Now you have to pay to read news articles at Gamespot, pay to download files from Fileplanet... even Slashdot is implementing a subscription plan. Once a web site gets popular, they can't pay for their bandwidth. Advertising alone doesn't work anymore because users have become desensitized to it.
How can we solve this problem? Obviously this can't continue. Eventually, all web sites will require your money to stay afloat, and nobody will want to pay. Then, the Internet will just stop being used.
The bottom line is, bandwidth is expensive, yet worthless. Most people get nothing from it but entertainment, and companies don't get enough money from consumers to pay for their own bandwidth.
The only thing that will fix this problem is cheaper bandwidth. For that, we just have to wait until the infrastructure is in place. It may take a while, we can't expect it to happen overnight. Prices will go up before they go down, because the broadband industry is sick.
Zeetlix: Excuse me Commander Zoltrax... won't the earthlings notice when our probe ships burst out of the astroids? I mean, astroids don't just split apart every day you know. Our whole mission will fail if they know we exist.
Zoltrax: Ah, you worry too much Zeetlix. Even if they ever get the technology to see the astroids splitting apart, earthlings are much too stupid to realize why.
Zeetlix: Even if they're only earthlings, Commander, eventually they'll figure out something's odd about astroids splitting up ONLY when they come close to their planet.
Zoltrax: Nah, don't worry about it! Someone will just make up some bullshit rationalization for why it's happening, and everyone will believe it. I mean, hey, look what happened to Jesus of Planet Christ and his invasion. A couple millenia later, and they've turned the whole thing around!
Zeetlix: Of course, you're right, Commander. Forgive me. Unleash the astroids!
Awesome idea....
on
Time Travel
·
· Score: 5, Funny
Alright guys...
One of us has got to dress up like Ronald Mallett-- all out, with a mask and everything, plus a scorched labcoat and frizzy hair-- and show up at his doorstep.
Slashdotter: Ron! Ron, it's me, your future self! You must listen to me!
Ronald Mallett: Who... who are you? You look like me!
/.er: Listen to me. DO NOT build the time travel device! You'll ruin everything! You must understand-- the fabric of spacetime will tear! The universe will be doomed!!
RM: How do I know you're really me, and not a robot imposter from the future?
etc.
Better yet, we can send him an "aged" letter from himself postmarked April 6th, 1843. *evil grin*
What if you can buy two versions of a specific software: one that you *own*, and one that has an EULA? That way you could buy software the same way you do now with an EULA, or for an extra $10-$25, you can have a version that you can do whatever you want with (except copy, of course). In a software bundle, you would of course get the EULA version-- still illegal to break up bundles, but also illegal to force consumers into an EULA.
My friend works at blockbuster, and he says that periodically they'll be told to destroy videos or games that are no longer being sold.
It's worth mentioning that not one thing is ever *actually* destroyed-- that's one of the few perks of a minimum wage behind-the-counter job.
My guess on why this happens is that the original distributer (who sold the videos to Blockbuster or CueCat's to Radio Shack) made Blockbuster or Radio Shack sign a contract saying explicitly that they couldn't give extras of these items to their employees. If Radio Shack is in effect giving away CueCats to all their employees, then none of the employees are going to go out and buy new CueCats. The decision isn't in the hands of Radio Shack's management at all, but in the contract with Radio Shack's distributor.
In other words, Radio Shack doesn't care if they're destroyed or not, but they tell the employees to destroy them in order to avoid legal trouble.
Kids play enough computer games without allocating a multi-million dollar budget to making them do so. The idea of a cooperative game is good, but I would prefer a physical activity.
To me, what is inferred from the reference to Diamond Age is a technology that will change the children's lives, but _not_ in a conventional way. If I am correct in this, then suggestions like "send them to college" or "give them food" are entirely against the point.
The idea of the Primer in Diamond Age was simply to make little girls as "badass" as possible. One of the girls with the Primer joined a prominent illegal hacking network, for instance. The idea was to make the girls think for themselves, question authority, and in all ways get off the beaten path and transcend "society."
I don't think this is really the company's goal at all... and if it is, there's no way a PDA can accomplish this. To a child, a PDA's most interesting feature is the Snake game. It comes nowhere near an interactive, intelligent guide-to-life like the Primer.
I think that the better choice would be to give them an experience that they will not forget, that may shape some aspect of their lives. Two days is an incredibly short time for something like that, but here's an idea-- an extremely sophisticated version of laser tag on a gargantuan scale. Try thinking not of Diamond Age but of Ender's Game. See what kind of strategies 50 teams of 60 kids can come up with and make them battle each other. Maybe give them various materials/technological toys to work with, a variety of combat conditions, etc.... maybe one team would have to fight off two others from a superior defensive position. See what they try, and document it.
Each child would be working with 59 other children from various places around the world, so the cultural aspect is there. They would be learning-- not in the conventional way of "education," but in terms of critical thinking, cooperation, and problem solving. The technology is there with the laser tag system, and whatever other toys you can think of for them to use. Also, this would be damn fun.
Not sure if this is the kind of think you're looking for, but you could flesh it out if you wish.
Slashdot Mirror
I just graduated a couple years ago, and now I work for a game development studio. Contrary to most of the stories you hear, it hasn't been particularly stressful, and I'm paid decently. (Your mileage may vary depending on where you work...)
I work as a "game programmer". We also have core tech programmers, infrastructure programmers, QA engineers, etc. so there's a lot of flexibility.
If you decide you're totally sick of programming, you could also go into QA, Design, Production, or even technical writing. There are lots of different types of jobs where a CS degree is considered useful.
I strongly agree with a previous poster who said, "CS is about HOW. The fun stuff is WHAT." Sure, I get bored writing code sometimes, but most of the time I'm focused how I can make the game better and how awesome it would be to just get one more cool feature in... the code is just a means to that end.
(One caveat - you have to be really good.)
Wow, thanks for reminding me of all the reasons why I hate EverQuest :)
I just graduated with a pretty high GPA. In my experience, the high GPA is helpful to get to the top of the resume stack, but by the time you get into interviews they don't really care what your GPA is. If you have other eye-catching things on your resume that will get you to the interview phase (it sounds like you do) you might not need the GPA.
However, grad schools DO care about GPA. If you're ever planning to go back, it might be worth it to retake the classes.
We have plenty of space. Are you using your roof for anything important? (Maybe you live in an apartment, so putting them on the roof never occurred to you...?) Even with today's solar panels at ~20% efficiency, people can and do power their entire homes with solar using just their roof space - although, it depends largely on how much power you use, obviously.
Even if you could only power 1/10th of your home, it would be worthwhile if it were cheaper than grid power - and that's not even considering the environmental benefits.
Space efficiency isn't really the issue with solar power. The important factor is cost.
I think the 4-year degree is the way to go, assuming you are looking at a programming career path. Here's why:
- Game programming is hard. You need to be a first-class programmer (seriously), and I think the DeVry's degree would put you at a disadvantage.
- The game industry has a bias against online degrees (because of the above).
- The game industry often pays less than other software jobs. Having a better/more flexible degree might get you a better salary, since they will be competing against offers from non-game companies.
- College is fun. You might learn other things not directly related to game programming, and that's a good thing.
As for the path you suggested... as I understand it, QA is not usually a very good path for a job as a programmer, anyway. QA usually feeds more into producer/designer type jobs. To get a job as a programmer, what matters is to get as much programming skill/experience as possible - get part-time coding jobs and summer internships (even if they aren't in games) and try to do at least one really impressive games-related hobby project.One more thing I'll throw out there... if your cousin is only interested in programming because he wants to do video games, it's possible that game programming isn't the job for him. He might be better off as a producer or designer.
I apologize if I put words in your mouth, but you missed my point. Spending more time won't necessarily improve the game, either. Your view is oversimplifying. Some games are not meant to be single player, just as some are not meant to be multiplayer - why force it?
If it wasn't working, it wasn't working. I think it's cool that they have enough pride in their work to not release something if they don't think it's good enough. If more developers took this attitude, I think we'd have a much healthier game industry.
You can criticize the developers for not being able to pull this game off, but at least give them props for recognizing their failure.
No... 2^14 colors using his math yields about 250MB, not 250GB.
Here is the IGN list from 2006: http://top100.ign.com/2006/index.html . In my opinion, the one from 2005 was better as it had more older games: http://top100.ign.com/2005/index.html
It seems like many of the above posters are suggesting games that they've played for hundreds of hours, but I'm guessing that you're more interested in playing many shorter games. So with that in mind, some of my specific suggestions are:
- Devil May Cry (1 or 3)
- Prince of Persia (original)
- Prince of Persia: Sands of Time
- Twisted Metal (1, 2, or Black... find a friend to play with)
- Mount & Blade
- Sonic (1, 2, 3, Knuckles)
- Mario (almost any)
- Zelda (almost any)
- Grand Theft Auto (any)
But that's just off the top of my head... I would strongly suggest checking the Top 100 lists for more ideas.I think a lot of you are missing the essential point here: alternative energy is inherently BETTER than oil in ways that can't be measured by the economy. Specifically, it is sustainable and environmentally friendly, whereas oil is neither. The goal of this tax is to slow the growth of an undesireable industry (oil) and accelerate the growth of a desireable one (clean energy). This is important for two reasons: it will reduce gas emissions, and it will help ensure that there is something to fall back on when oil starts to run out (which, believe it or not, will probably happen within your lifetime).
One thing I thought was neat was that the local residents were hired to construct the whole project. This made the architecture/construction fit in with the local style, and it also helped the locals understand what the thing was and why it was useful.
I would post the company's website, but I don't think their server could handle slashdot traffic. The website isn't very informative anyway.
Actually, somebody said to me a couple weeks ago that the USA was IMPORTING entrepreneurship from poorer countries...
I'm too lazy to actually figure out if that makes any sense, but you probably could if you wanted to.
"which I credit Batt/Cage just for a laugh." Joker: Hahaha, using this Bat Cage, I will make Batman silent for MUCH longer than 4'33"!
Laying cables and building infrastructure is expensive, and the money just isn't there. The cost to maintain it is also high. However, there isn't *REALLY* any money there.
Slashdot is looking at this from a consumer point of view, but the other side of the Internet is the webhosts. Look at all your favorite web sites. The Internet USED to be 100% free, once you paid for your internet access. This isn't the case anymore. Now you have to pay to read news articles at Gamespot, pay to download files from Fileplanet... even Slashdot is implementing a subscription plan. Once a web site gets popular, they can't pay for their bandwidth. Advertising alone doesn't work anymore because users have become desensitized to it.
How can we solve this problem? Obviously this can't continue. Eventually, all web sites will require your money to stay afloat, and nobody will want to pay. Then, the Internet will just stop being used.
The bottom line is, bandwidth is expensive, yet worthless. Most people get nothing from it but entertainment, and companies don't get enough money from consumers to pay for their own bandwidth.
The only thing that will fix this problem is cheaper bandwidth. For that, we just have to wait until the infrastructure is in place. It may take a while, we can't expect it to happen overnight. Prices will go up before they go down, because the broadband industry is sick.
Ally McBeal:
"Oh no!! This dancing mutant cyborg baby will destroy us all!!"
LotR: The Fellowship
"Hobbit..... Transformer..... POWER!!"
Friends:
"Mua hahaha... Chandler will think we're his roommates up until the minute we drink his soul energy!"
Scream:
"What's your FAVORITE tentacle movie?"
I could go on forever....
Zoltrax: Ah, you worry too much Zeetlix. Even if they ever get the technology to see the astroids splitting apart, earthlings are much too stupid to realize why.
Zeetlix: Even if they're only earthlings, Commander, eventually they'll figure out something's odd about astroids splitting up ONLY when they come close to their planet.
Zoltrax: Nah, don't worry about it! Someone will just make up some bullshit rationalization for why it's happening, and everyone will believe it. I mean, hey, look what happened to Jesus of Planet Christ and his invasion. A couple millenia later, and they've turned the whole thing around!
Zeetlix: Of course, you're right, Commander. Forgive me. Unleash the astroids!
One of us has got to dress up like Ronald Mallett-- all out, with a mask and everything, plus a scorched labcoat and frizzy hair-- and show up at his doorstep.
Slashdotter: Ron! Ron, it's me, your future self! You must listen to me!
Ronald Mallett: Who... who are you? You look like me!
RM: How do I know you're really me, and not a robot imposter from the future?
etc.
Better yet, we can send him an "aged" letter from himself postmarked April 6th, 1843. *evil grin*
"...actions will soon be taken against a chosen few..."
"...not to mention the hits that you have generated for our site, much appreciated there..."
Does this guy remind anybody else of Bernard Shifman? =)
I'm not really suprised, in my experience anything free is a scam. Except those little food samples at grocery stores.
Other than that I think what's going on is perfectly fair, just that it's a little odd to be going after this at the customs level.
What if you can buy two versions of a specific software: one that you *own*, and one that has an EULA? That way you could buy software the same way you do now with an EULA, or for an extra $10-$25, you can have a version that you can do whatever you want with (except copy, of course). In a software bundle, you would of course get the EULA version-- still illegal to break up bundles, but also illegal to force consumers into an EULA.
My friend works at blockbuster, and he says that periodically they'll be told to destroy videos or games that are no longer being sold.
It's worth mentioning that not one thing is ever *actually* destroyed-- that's one of the few perks of a minimum wage behind-the-counter job.
My guess on why this happens is that the original distributer (who sold the videos to Blockbuster or CueCat's to Radio Shack) made Blockbuster or Radio Shack sign a contract saying explicitly that they couldn't give extras of these items to their employees. If Radio Shack is in effect giving away CueCats to all their employees, then none of the employees are going to go out and buy new CueCats. The decision isn't in the hands of Radio Shack's management at all, but in the contract with Radio Shack's distributor.
In other words, Radio Shack doesn't care if they're destroyed or not, but they tell the employees to destroy them in order to avoid legal trouble.
Hope that helps
For $4.99 you get not only a DVD, but a tasty snack!
THAT'S what they should have done with all those AOL CD's....
By the way, people are stupid. That'll never work.
Kids play enough computer games without allocating a multi-million dollar budget to making them do so. The idea of a cooperative game is good, but I would prefer a physical activity.
To me, what is inferred from the reference to Diamond Age is a technology that will change the children's lives, but _not_ in a conventional way. If I am correct in this, then suggestions like "send them to college" or "give them food" are entirely against the point.
The idea of the Primer in Diamond Age was simply to make little girls as "badass" as possible. One of the girls with the Primer joined a prominent illegal hacking network, for instance. The idea was to make the girls think for themselves, question authority, and in all ways get off the beaten path and transcend "society."
I don't think this is really the company's goal at all... and if it is, there's no way a PDA can accomplish this. To a child, a PDA's most interesting feature is the Snake game. It comes nowhere near an interactive, intelligent guide-to-life like the Primer.
I think that the better choice would be to give them an experience that they will not forget, that may shape some aspect of their lives. Two days is an incredibly short time for something like that, but here's an idea-- an extremely sophisticated version of laser tag on a gargantuan scale. Try thinking not of Diamond Age but of Ender's Game. See what kind of strategies 50 teams of 60 kids can come up with and make them battle each other. Maybe give them various materials/technological toys to work with, a variety of combat conditions, etc.... maybe one team would have to fight off two others from a superior defensive position. See what they try, and document it.
Each child would be working with 59 other children from various places around the world, so the cultural aspect is there. They would be learning-- not in the conventional way of "education," but in terms of critical thinking, cooperation, and problem solving. The technology is there with the laser tag system, and whatever other toys you can think of for them to use. Also, this would be damn fun.
Not sure if this is the kind of think you're looking for, but you could flesh it out if you wish.