Help me out with the Christmas tie-in, if you could. Are you suggesting that SlashDotters are so young that they are typically waiting for mom and dad to buy them the right game for Christmas? Are you suggesting that SlashDotters' lives are so pitiful that a video game release around Christmas would be the major event in their lives around that time? Or what?
Is there really a market for this crap? A comic book about Warcraft? C'mon - the weakest part of Blizzard has ALWAYS been the story - remember those awful cut scenes in StarCraft?
Rule #34: Don't be the first Java site your users visit during the day. (Unfortunately, this pretty turned into "don't use Java applets" unless you could find a hidden way to load an throwaway applet in another frame, etc.)
Joystiq notes that along with Half-Life 2, Half-Life 2: Episode One, Half-Life 2: Episode 2, Portal, and Team Fortress 2, folks who purchase Valve's Orange Box compilation...
"Folks who purchase?" C'mon, this is 2007. Where's the torrent?
It took you three years to find the essay and still all you can manage is knee jerk testosterone fairy tale rhetoric?
So...your post was a fake? I'm not following you here...
...once a company is actively tracking hours and paying overtime, it has the incentive to plan better and make it such that the overtime situations happen as infrequently as possible.
I agree on the "plan better" part, but regular overtime is an important component of many companies' business models: if you get people to agree to overtime wages you can often save/skimp on benefits by avoiding additional hires (and their family health care, etc.)
...a great number of game companies five years ago didn't even *track* how much time was being spent on a project -- that improves the overall process...of making games, and therefore improves the games themselves, which is what we all want.
Dunno, as a casual games consumer I really don't care how hard the people worked to make the games. I usually play only the best of each genre anyway, and I rarely end up having to pay for that privilege. If more relaxed work conditions help you make better games, that's great, but if 85-hour days are required instead I really don't care either way.
But leaving and then not talking about the issue, or leaving and forgetting about it, is selfish, stupid, bad for the industry, and bad for the games. We're fixing it instead.
"The quality of life of game programmers" still seems like a low priority issue to me, but whatever you want to do in your free time is OK with me as long as it doesn't end up costing me in some way.
But why do I get the feeling you've not actually been in this position?
Oh, but I have. One time it wasn't a game company, but an insurance company. I was working extra hours every day, not working out anymore, eating like crap at my desk, driving in on weekends, etc. However, the pay and benefits looked decent, I was getting great progress reports and on paper, anyway, there was the opportunity for job enhancement. I was in the middle of the second phase of a change control system project when I realized that if I completed it, the company would tie me to the final product for as long as they possibly could. So...one day I gave them two weeks notice and went to work for a software body shop that was looking for new blood. That lasted for a while through the 1990s, but I got worried that the company didn't have a future (it eventually tanked during the dot-com bust), so I quit again, moved to another state (still without a definite job) and ended up someplace where I made an immediate difference.
So...while "go to company Y" may not be the complete answer, the courage to try to find "company Y" and the skills that allowed me to score the next best-looking position have been extremely useful in my multi-company career.
It's harder to actually find another job than to say "find another job". Especially when you're working that many hours a week.
First, drop your hours down to around 35-40 a week. If they fire you, take unemployment.
...you have to find another company that wants to employ you.
If you're willing to give up your life for a crappy 85-hour job, there are plenty of employers who want to talk to you. (I'd be one of them.)
There's an interview you need to find time for.
Here's where having friends in the industry helps out; in many cases an interview is just a formality because someone else good can vouch for you.
Or, start taking honest-to-God, OOO lunch breaks and do some interviews over these.
There's the psychological aspect to split from people you work with and stop mid-project.
Here's where you need to grow a sack and treat your job like a bad boyfriend/girlfriend. There will NEVER be a perfect time to leave your job, so just pick a time and a way and go through with it. Two years from now you won't even remember what you were working on when you left (and neither will your coworkers).
I mean really all you should do is refuse to do overtime, but it's extremely hard to say "no" when everyone else on the team says yes. Human psychology isn't going to let us.
Lemmings. On second thought, maybe I wouldn't want to hire you; I need people with backbones.
...a study released by McAfee...87 percent of the users contacted said they used anti-virus software, while 70 percent use anti-spyware software. Fewer (64 percent) reported having their firewalls turned on, and only 27 percent use software designed to stop phishing attempts.
This Slashvertisement rates a 4.2 out of 5.
It caused many readers to wonder, "if McAfee has an all-in-one package that can handle all my anti-spyware, firewall, anti-virus and phishing needs?". However, McAfee was unable to get the actual product it was trying to pitch in its press release on Slashdot.
Well done (though not perfect) - another high-five to my those PR pros!
But the top colleges do teach even the low level courses in a different way.
Not sure about that - I picked up my bad attitude at Duke U, and they like to think of themselves as a "top" school. (Maybe I should have accepted MIT's invitation instead.)
Look at MIT's calculus course- far more about the theoretical underpinings of calculus than just endless differentiations. While you do get the credits far cheaper the junior college way, you don't learn as much.
I suppose that might be marginally useful if you're going to get a doctorate in math someday, but I was just a lowly engineering major trying to get on with life without picking up student loan debt. If I was interested in the bells and whistles, I could have gone to the local bookstore and picked up a book on the history of math, mathematicians, etc.
Instead, I was self-funded and debt-free a year out of college: the kind of accomplishment that gets employers' attention when competing with lightweights who coasted through college on their parents' dollar.
Berkeley is now using YouTube as an important teaching tool.
I wonder if this is the last gasp before the masses realize...
If you need to pay your own way though college (like I did), you're much better off buying 100- and 200-level credits at the local junior college and saving your money for the 300+ level stuff universities specialize in. (The teaching quality of 100/200's in the junior colleges is usually better than that at universities too - you get an actual teacher with a masters who came up through the high school ranks instead of some useless grad student who's stuck with you because he/she can't get a job.)
1) I work at "company Y". I don't do 85-hour work weeks. Hell, 45-hour work weeks are a rare grind.
2) Get/talk to some friends at different companies for God's sake. They can describe what's out there if you're scared and can often hook you up with a better job.
The current mandatory hours are 9am to 10pm -- seven days a week -- with the occasional Saturday evening off for good behavior (at 6:30pm). This averages out to an eighty-five hour work week.
One of two things is going on: 1) your spouse is an unemployable moron and this is the only job he/she can keep or 2) your spouse hates you. Given the rest of the whining in the original post, I'd bet it's #2.
You don't like working conditions at company X? Go work for company Y!
...this really isn't open source. One example: If a developer finds a bug in the code, rather than fixing it themselves and submitting a patch to the community they'll be encouraged to submit feedback via the product feedback center."
This doesn't seem that odd to me. Anyone else know of a major open source project where your patch of the day is guaranteed to end up in main line code?
If we include maps, which API do we go with: Google or Microsoft?
Do both. Seriously.
One of the oldest rules a downstream manufacturer (that's you) should follow is "avoid supplier lock-in". If you code with only one of these software titans in mind, you're subject to their terms. If you code for both, you can tell one vendor to zark off and/or play one rep against the other at pricing/ad-rev negotiation time.
Oh wait - you're a small non-profit with free Microsoft software? In that case there's no reason not to go with Microsoft. Development in 100% Microsoft tools is better than anything Google has...
PC's processor bumps up to 20 percent utilization while browsing the Web.
Web sites without Flash, maybe.
The "processor" vs. "coprocessor" arguments has been going on forever. Meanwhile, people like me are still happily running Pentium3 systems at home at probably will for the next 5 years.
Slashdot Mirror
Help me out with the Christmas tie-in, if you could. Are you suggesting that SlashDotters are so young that they are typically waiting for mom and dad to buy them the right game for Christmas? Are you suggesting that SlashDotters' lives are so pitiful that a video game release around Christmas would be the major event in their lives around that time? Or what?
Sorry, never heard of it.
Are we talking about Warcraft II: Beyond the Dark Portal, or something else?
Dell's only selling 2M boxes a year these days? (signs onto eTrade; Sell Sell Sell)
Is there really a market for this crap? A comic book about Warcraft? C'mon - the weakest part of Blizzard has ALWAYS been the story - remember those awful cut scenes in StarCraft?
Didn't this get enough coverage yesterday?
http://games.slashdot.org/games/07/10/11/2053228.shtml
WTF cares?
Smash TV. In the form of a FPS. Big money, big prizes? I LOVE it!
Learned the hard way:
Rule #34: Don't be the first Java site your users visit during the day. (Unfortunately, this pretty turned into "don't use Java applets" unless you could find a hidden way to load an throwaway applet in another frame, etc.)
As soon as I bought my first Linspire, I found that I had the ability to change others via a "Guardian Aspect"
Anyone else find the new comment thing, er, hard to use?
Are you kidding me? Is this some kind of inside joke or is this guy's name really that messed up?
Isn't this an outright dup?
http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/10/03/1916207
"Folks who purchase?" C'mon, this is 2007. Where's the torrent?
So...your post was a fake? I'm not following you here...
I agree on the "plan better" part, but regular overtime is an important component of many companies' business models: if you get people to agree to overtime wages you can often save/skimp on benefits by avoiding additional hires (and their family health care, etc.)
Dunno, as a casual games consumer I really don't care how hard the people worked to make the games. I usually play only the best of each genre anyway, and I rarely end up having to pay for that privilege. If more relaxed work conditions help you make better games, that's great, but if 85-hour days are required instead I really don't care either way.
"The quality of life of game programmers" still seems like a low priority issue to me, but whatever you want to do in your free time is OK with me as long as it doesn't end up costing me in some way.
Oh, but I have. One time it wasn't a game company, but an insurance company. I was working extra hours every day, not working out anymore, eating like crap at my desk, driving in on weekends, etc. However, the pay and benefits looked decent, I was getting great progress reports and on paper, anyway, there was the opportunity for job enhancement. I was in the middle of the second phase of a change control system project when I realized that if I completed it, the company would tie me to the final product for as long as they possibly could. So...one day I gave them two weeks notice and went to work for a software body shop that was looking for new blood. That lasted for a while through the 1990s, but I got worried that the company didn't have a future (it eventually tanked during the dot-com bust), so I quit again, moved to another state (still without a definite job) and ended up someplace where I made an immediate difference.
So...while "go to company Y" may not be the complete answer, the courage to try to find "company Y" and the skills that allowed me to score the next best-looking position have been extremely useful in my multi-company career.
First, drop your hours down to around 35-40 a week. If they fire you, take unemployment.
If you're willing to give up your life for a crappy 85-hour job, there are plenty of employers who want to talk to you. (I'd be one of them.)
Here's where having friends in the industry helps out; in many cases an interview is just a formality because someone else good can vouch for you.
Or, start taking honest-to-God, OOO lunch breaks and do some interviews over these.
Here's where you need to grow a sack and treat your job like a bad boyfriend/girlfriend. There will NEVER be a perfect time to leave your job, so just pick a time and a way and go through with it. Two years from now you won't even remember what you were working on when you left (and neither will your coworkers).
Lemmings. On second thought, maybe I wouldn't want to hire you; I need people with backbones.
This Slashvertisement rates a 4.2 out of 5.
It caused many readers to wonder, "if McAfee has an all-in-one package that can handle all my anti-spyware, firewall, anti-virus and phishing needs?". However, McAfee was unable to get the actual product it was trying to pitch in its press release on Slashdot.
Well done (though not perfect) - another high-five to my those PR pros!
Not sure about that - I picked up my bad attitude at Duke U, and they like to think of themselves as a "top" school. (Maybe I should have accepted MIT's invitation instead.)
I suppose that might be marginally useful if you're going to get a doctorate in math someday, but I was just a lowly engineering major trying to get on with life without picking up student loan debt. If I was interested in the bells and whistles, I could have gone to the local bookstore and picked up a book on the history of math, mathematicians, etc.
Instead, I was self-funded and debt-free a year out of college: the kind of accomplishment that gets employers' attention when competing with lightweights who coasted through college on their parents' dollar.
I wonder if this is the last gasp before the masses realize...
If you need to pay your own way though college (like I did), you're much better off buying 100- and 200-level credits at the local junior college and saving your money for the 300+ level stuff universities specialize in. (The teaching quality of 100/200's in the junior colleges is usually better than that at universities too - you get an actual teacher with a masters who came up through the high school ranks instead of some useless grad student who's stuck with you because he/she can't get a job.)
1) I work at "company Y". I don't do 85-hour work weeks. Hell, 45-hour work weeks are a rare grind.
2) Get/talk to some friends at different companies for God's sake. They can describe what's out there if you're scared and can often hook you up with a better job.
3) I read the ads on Slashdot. (Sorry, too easy!)
One of two things is going on: 1) your spouse is an unemployable moron and this is the only job he/she can keep or 2) your spouse hates you. Given the rest of the whining in the original post, I'd bet it's #2.
You don't like working conditions at company X? Go work for company Y!
This doesn't seem that odd to me. Anyone else know of a major open source project where your patch of the day is guaranteed to end up in main line code?
Do both. Seriously.
One of the oldest rules a downstream manufacturer (that's you) should follow is "avoid supplier lock-in". If you code with only one of these software titans in mind, you're subject to their terms. If you code for both, you can tell one vendor to zark off and/or play one rep against the other at pricing/ad-rev negotiation time.
Oh wait - you're a small non-profit with free Microsoft software? In that case there's no reason not to go with Microsoft. Development in 100% Microsoft tools is better than anything Google has...
I know. It's enough to make anyone consider using IE...
Web sites without Flash, maybe.
The "processor" vs. "coprocessor" arguments has been going on forever. Meanwhile, people like me are still happily running Pentium3 systems at home at probably will for the next 5 years.
Holy crap, a four-digiter! You must remember the lost time when the articles here were more than just corporate press releases.