Does such an item exist? A battery powered male USB adaptor that you could plug your USB device into and a USB dongle on the PC that communicates with it?
I'm right there with you. I went from hard core (guild leader/raider and game mod'er for DAoC) to dormant (I played a few games I already owned once and a while) and now I'm getting back into games. My son is a bit older now, and his schedule is pretty well set (naps in the afternoon, in bed around 8pm) so I have some "quiet time" I need to fill while he's sleeping. I'll never be able to do an 8 hour 40 man raid in WoW, but I enjoy running through some quests and smaller instances in my down time. I would say I'm more of a leasure player now. It's less competetive, and more balanced with the other things in my life I need to or want to do.
"We're not exactly talking about stealing bread to feed starving children! We're talking about movies!"
Too be fair, I have some friends in the business. Not actors or directors, but grips, lighting techs, and other supporting non-cast jobs. These people's livelihood is just as dependant on the movie industry as Tom Cruise's multi-million dollar life style. While I do think leading actors/actresses are significantly over paid, I think writing off the entire industry is a bit blind to the huge number of people who are employed in or by the business.
As you mentioned, there is a large difference between game (engine) development and game design. Most of those "certificate" educations are for design, not development. And when it comes to design, knowledge and experience with C++, assembly and low level code optimization becomes significantly less important.
A mesh editor doesn't care, and isn't expected to care about how many bits he can crame into a signle FP opperation. A Level designer doesn't need to understand how a lighting engine claculates surface colors, he just needs to know what the output will look like and how to acheive the output he desires. A mechanics designer needs to know more about psychology than he does about OpenGL or Direct-X drivers. A content author needs to know more about history and literature than sockets and the OSI model.
There are significantly MORE jobs in the game industry that don't require low level coding knowledge than those that do. That is not to belittle low level coding, it is a critical job that will always need the best and brightest to continue pushing the envelope. But when it comes to producing a game, the engine is only one part of the project, and is often a part that can be easily outsourced for a fraction of the cost in time and money that it would take to develop a new custom engine.
I have CFLs in my bathroom, bedrooms, hallway, washroom and garage. The only reason they aren't in the other rooms is because of light fixture limitations or the existing bulbs haven't burnt out yet. I have two different styles. One is the exposed spiral style, and those ones are warm and bright. All of those ones I have are either in can lights, or behind some type of glass. I had another few that had a spherical bulb over the CFL, those were a bit more warm (just a touch of yellow). The bulb made them a bit large for some fixtures though, so they are now lighting my garage.
Madison is a pretty nice place to live. Downtown and south for liberals, East and West for conservatives. A solid entertainment scene for pretty much any genre. Some of the top public schools in the nation. I live in a small town (~7000 pop) 1/2 an hour out side of Madison. It's nice to be out of the hustle (I used to live just south of DC), but still close enough to a major city to be able to have a solid employer, night life, higher education, and other facilities.
I think there is a dev studio or two in Minneapolis, but I can't recall who off the top of my head. It might be a shorter commute though;) But you are probably right to advise him agaisnt it. If there is one thing I noticed going back to school (I took a few years off after high school) is that there are people who want to be there, and people who are determined to be there. The people who just want to be there wash out. I think my CS Assoc class started with 64, we graduate with 7. My BSTM degree finished with 4, and my BSIT just wrapped up with 2.
Yes, in order to be a graphics engine designer you need to have a substantial amount of knowledge in advanced technical fields of software development. But look at what game development is turning into, scripting and high level coding. Most game studios aren't building their own engines from scratch, they are buying existing systems and building their games on top of them. So yeah, they'll need a small team that can work on expanding the engine, but there are significantly fewer jobs in engine development than say, content creation, interface design, AI scripting, 2d and 3d graphics, game design, testing, etc...
Not every employee at every studio has to have a Ph.D in CS and Physics. Have you played through some of the NWN modules designed by fans? Some of them are top notch. And they were built be "the VB programmers of the industry".
I have a love/hate relationship with Herzing college. They have some of the best instructors imaginable that have helped shape my life and the direction of my career, and they have some of the worst instructors imaginable that make you wonder whether the tuition payment was worth it. But they do have a Video Game degree that Is not nearly so limiting.
First off (last I heard) their gamers degree was a bachelor's level degree, and the way their education is set up, it is much easier to complete a technical associates first, then work on the bach. So in order to go this route you would at least have a BS and likely an AS in Comp Sci, Networking, CAD, Digital Graphics, or the like.
Second up, from what I've seen of the course load it contains a lot of management related education (like all of Herzing's bach degrees). Public relations, team building, decision making, IT Resource Management, project management, etc, so even if the gaming market is full, you still have a huge marketable skill in technical management.
Third up, Herzing's tech teaching is practical based. One of the best and worst things about the school. You miss out of a lot of the abstract theory (eg How to write your own compiler, understanding assembly, micro processor functionality), but you make up for it in practical knowledge (understanding advanced tools, standards, and multiple languages/environments). For the gaming degree at Herzing that means there are modeling classes, 2-d art classes, programing classes, networking classes, etc. You really get to know a lot about the practical use of the different functions in the development process. That means that even if you can't get into a game dev studio, you can always fall back on a graphics job in marketing, or network support, of software development in another field.
All round, Herzing is a pretty decent (and expensive!) private school. The administration is god awful, but they usually allow the good teachers to really shine.
I'm sure there are plenty of would be professional editors out there who would love to get some intern time with/. as an editor. Think about it, you can pay them crap, but they get work experience, and/.ers don't have to spam every post with complaints about the lack of editing.
-Rick
PS: Hiring an editor, even an intern editor, WOULD be news.
I'm prepping for a major deployment, the capstone of my BSIT degree, 2 papers, 3 final projects, my grand mothers funeral, and some ass hat walked off with my left over pizza. Pop-tarts for lunch again.
Imagine someone patents a software idea. Some OS group of guys pick up that idea and make an OS project. That OS project is free, but becomes popular. Companies begin using the OS project. The patent troll then comes a long and sues the companies. The companies in turn sue the developers, who being average OS developers do not have an LLC set up and wind up losing their houses, savings, and half their wages for the rest of their lives.
Two important points here: 1) patent trolls are evil leeches on society and 2) set up an LLC to protect your personal assets from lawsuits based on your professional works.
So you pay $15, you get the first half the game. If the game blows, you're only out $15, if the game is good, you cough up $10 to get more content. Seems like a better idea than blowing $25 per game regardless of quality.
Nah, they'll release the statement just before the end of Q4 to drive up interest and ad revenue to make up for lack lust x-mas sales. Gotta look good for the investor;)
There is no guilt, there is liability. Based on a perponderance of the evidence, the court must find it likely that you are liable for the situation. OJ wasn't guilty of killing Nicole, but he was found liable for her death. In this case, the defendant wasn't guilty of CR violations, she was liable for CR violations.
Perhaps "capitalist" was a poorly chosen word. Maybe "Profiteering" would be better. My concern is that if you limit a large corporation's ability to be profitable in one specific situation, they will find a way to be profitable in another situation and avoid the first.
CEO Joe Schmoe isn't going to continue to pump millions apon millions of dollars into a university research lab if he knows that the outcome will not be patentable. He will move his money and research into privately funded facilities. So the whole goal of opening up federally funded research will result in less federally funded research.
I would LOVE to see open research, I think it would be a huge boon to man kind to have that kind of information shared. But I don't think that opening all research will have that outcome. I think patent reform would be a significantly better way to acheive this goal.
And thus the reason as a father now I have a very strict no-PCs, laptops, or TVs in bedrooms rule. That PC is going to continue to sit in the dinning room with the monitor positioned so that it can be seen from the kitchen, dinning room, and living room.
So true. If it weren't for the marketing (which was hardly viral) this movie would have been straight to DVD selling for $5.99 in the big bucket at Wallmart.
Uhhh, $750 is a drop in the bucket. For example, the leasing application we use, if we want the developer to implement a new feature for us, it is a minimum of $10,000 for just the assessment and planning. Most feature implementations have a final cost of over $50,000.
Think of what $750 really is. If you have a small software company, let's say 4 developers, 4 customer support people, 4 sales staff, a trio of managers, an accountant, a CEO, and the mean salary is $50,000/year. That means the cost per employee (with benefits, insurance, taxes, square footage in the office, PC, network connectivity, etc...) is likely over $100,000 per year. For that small organization (and 17 people is significantly smaller than Seapine), you are looking at an operating budget close to two million dollars a year. So if they are selling their software at $250/license, they would need to sell 8,000 licenses in a year to stay in the black (if it were their only product).
And think about the scope of $750 in your own organization. I just specced out a new ISP contract for a not-for-profit organization. Their budget is the tightest constraint I've ever had to work under and I still got them a hell of a deal for a corporate wide ISP/Phone/VPN solution for under $15,000. If a piece of software that costs $750 can save them 2 staff-hours per week through out the organization, they would be saving over $2,500 per year.
Software is expensive because it takes a lot of people a lot of time to make. Seapine offers free trials (with full support!), webinars, and direct contact with their sales and technical staff both for trials and purchases. And if you can't justify a $750 expense, I would recommend either spending more time reviewing your current situation and budget, or leaving budgetary issues to someone who can.
Getting fired likely means he loses his severence package. Not to mention the black mark on his resume over this. How is it going to look when he goes up for his next interview when he was used as a scape goat for the issue at AT&T. He has to fight, if for no other reason then to maintain his appearance.
Slashdot Mirror
Even more than that, intent is the difference between a traffic accident, vehiclular manslaughter, and murder.
-Rick
Does such an item exist? A battery powered male USB adaptor that you could plug your USB device into and a USB dongle on the PC that communicates with it?
-Rick
Ahhhhhhh, I see. I agree, that is a much more valid point.
-Rick
I'm right there with you. I went from hard core (guild leader/raider and game mod'er for DAoC) to dormant (I played a few games I already owned once and a while) and now I'm getting back into games. My son is a bit older now, and his schedule is pretty well set (naps in the afternoon, in bed around 8pm) so I have some "quiet time" I need to fill while he's sleeping. I'll never be able to do an 8 hour 40 man raid in WoW, but I enjoy running through some quests and smaller instances in my down time. I would say I'm more of a leasure player now. It's less competetive, and more balanced with the other things in my life I need to or want to do.
-Rick
What?
/.
... Well, does it say anything else?
First Po...(bang!)
What is that?
It must have exploded while he typed it.
Oh, come on.
Well that's what it says.
Look, if it was exploding, he wouldn't bother to write "(bang!)". It'd just say it!
Well that's what's written on the
Perhaps he was dictating.
Oh, shut up.
No, just, "Bang".
-Rick
"We're not exactly talking about stealing bread to feed starving children! We're talking about movies!"
Too be fair, I have some friends in the business. Not actors or directors, but grips, lighting techs, and other supporting non-cast jobs. These people's livelihood is just as dependant on the movie industry as Tom Cruise's multi-million dollar life style. While I do think leading actors/actresses are significantly over paid, I think writing off the entire industry is a bit blind to the huge number of people who are employed in or by the business.
-Rick
As you mentioned, there is a large difference between game (engine) development and game design. Most of those "certificate" educations are for design, not development. And when it comes to design, knowledge and experience with C++, assembly and low level code optimization becomes significantly less important.
A mesh editor doesn't care, and isn't expected to care about how many bits he can crame into a signle FP opperation. A Level designer doesn't need to understand how a lighting engine claculates surface colors, he just needs to know what the output will look like and how to acheive the output he desires. A mechanics designer needs to know more about psychology than he does about OpenGL or Direct-X drivers. A content author needs to know more about history and literature than sockets and the OSI model.
There are significantly MORE jobs in the game industry that don't require low level coding knowledge than those that do. That is not to belittle low level coding, it is a critical job that will always need the best and brightest to continue pushing the envelope. But when it comes to producing a game, the engine is only one part of the project, and is often a part that can be easily outsourced for a fraction of the cost in time and money that it would take to develop a new custom engine.
-Rick
I have CFLs in my bathroom, bedrooms, hallway, washroom and garage. The only reason they aren't in the other rooms is because of light fixture limitations or the existing bulbs haven't burnt out yet. I have two different styles. One is the exposed spiral style, and those ones are warm and bright. All of those ones I have are either in can lights, or behind some type of glass. I had another few that had a spherical bulb over the CFL, those were a bit more warm (just a touch of yellow). The bulb made them a bit large for some fixtures though, so they are now lighting my garage.
-Rick
Madison is a pretty nice place to live. Downtown and south for liberals, East and West for conservatives. A solid entertainment scene for pretty much any genre. Some of the top public schools in the nation. I live in a small town (~7000 pop) 1/2 an hour out side of Madison. It's nice to be out of the hustle (I used to live just south of DC), but still close enough to a major city to be able to have a solid employer, night life, higher education, and other facilities.
;) But you are probably right to advise him agaisnt it. If there is one thing I noticed going back to school (I took a few years off after high school) is that there are people who want to be there, and people who are determined to be there. The people who just want to be there wash out. I think my CS Assoc class started with 64, we graduate with 7. My BSTM degree finished with 4, and my BSIT just wrapped up with 2.
I think there is a dev studio or two in Minneapolis, but I can't recall who off the top of my head. It might be a shorter commute though
-Rick
Yes, in order to be a graphics engine designer you need to have a substantial amount of knowledge in advanced technical fields of software development. But look at what game development is turning into, scripting and high level coding. Most game studios aren't building their own engines from scratch, they are buying existing systems and building their games on top of them. So yeah, they'll need a small team that can work on expanding the engine, but there are significantly fewer jobs in engine development than say, content creation, interface design, AI scripting, 2d and 3d graphics, game design, testing, etc...
Not every employee at every studio has to have a Ph.D in CS and Physics. Have you played through some of the NWN modules designed by fans? Some of them are top notch. And they were built be "the VB programmers of the industry".
-Rick
You realise that Human Head and Raven software are both located in Madison, WI right?
-Rick
I have a love/hate relationship with Herzing college. They have some of the best instructors imaginable that have helped shape my life and the direction of my career, and they have some of the worst instructors imaginable that make you wonder whether the tuition payment was worth it. But they do have a Video Game degree that Is not nearly so limiting.
First off (last I heard) their gamers degree was a bachelor's level degree, and the way their education is set up, it is much easier to complete a technical associates first, then work on the bach. So in order to go this route you would at least have a BS and likely an AS in Comp Sci, Networking, CAD, Digital Graphics, or the like.
Second up, from what I've seen of the course load it contains a lot of management related education (like all of Herzing's bach degrees). Public relations, team building, decision making, IT Resource Management, project management, etc, so even if the gaming market is full, you still have a huge marketable skill in technical management.
Third up, Herzing's tech teaching is practical based. One of the best and worst things about the school. You miss out of a lot of the abstract theory (eg How to write your own compiler, understanding assembly, micro processor functionality), but you make up for it in practical knowledge (understanding advanced tools, standards, and multiple languages/environments). For the gaming degree at Herzing that means there are modeling classes, 2-d art classes, programing classes, networking classes, etc. You really get to know a lot about the practical use of the different functions in the development process. That means that even if you can't get into a game dev studio, you can always fall back on a graphics job in marketing, or network support, of software development in another field.
All round, Herzing is a pretty decent (and expensive!) private school. The administration is god awful, but they usually allow the good teachers to really shine.
-Rick
I'm sure there are plenty of would be professional editors out there who would love to get some intern time with /. as an editor. Think about it, you can pay them crap, but they get work experience, and /.ers don't have to spam every post with complaints about the lack of editing.
-Rick
PS: Hiring an editor, even an intern editor, WOULD be news.
I'm prepping for a major deployment, the capstone of my BSIT degree, 2 papers, 3 final projects, my grand mothers funeral, and some ass hat walked off with my left over pizza. Pop-tarts for lunch again.
-Rick
Imagine someone patents a software idea. Some OS group of guys pick up that idea and make an OS project. That OS project is free, but becomes popular. Companies begin using the OS project. The patent troll then comes a long and sues the companies. The companies in turn sue the developers, who being average OS developers do not have an LLC set up and wind up losing their houses, savings, and half their wages for the rest of their lives.
Two important points here: 1) patent trolls are evil leeches on society and 2) set up an LLC to protect your personal assets from lawsuits based on your professional works.
-Rick
So you pay $15, you get the first half the game. If the game blows, you're only out $15, if the game is good, you cough up $10 to get more content. Seems like a better idea than blowing $25 per game regardless of quality.
-Rick
Than to sort through yestarday's stories: http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/08/24/15 13218
-Rick
Nah, they'll release the statement just before the end of Q4 to drive up interest and ad revenue to make up for lack lust x-mas sales. Gotta look good for the investor ;)
-Rick
There is no guilt, there is liability. Based on a perponderance of the evidence, the court must find it likely that you are liable for the situation. OJ wasn't guilty of killing Nicole, but he was found liable for her death. In this case, the defendant wasn't guilty of CR violations, she was liable for CR violations.
-Rick
Perhaps "capitalist" was a poorly chosen word. Maybe "Profiteering" would be better. My concern is that if you limit a large corporation's ability to be profitable in one specific situation, they will find a way to be profitable in another situation and avoid the first.
CEO Joe Schmoe isn't going to continue to pump millions apon millions of dollars into a university research lab if he knows that the outcome will not be patentable. He will move his money and research into privately funded facilities. So the whole goal of opening up federally funded research will result in less federally funded research.
I would LOVE to see open research, I think it would be a huge boon to man kind to have that kind of information shared. But I don't think that opening all research will have that outcome. I think patent reform would be a significantly better way to acheive this goal.
-Rick
"trade-secreted"?? Is that some kind of new word like "Truthiness" or "Decider?"
-Rick
And thus the reason as a father now I have a very strict no-PCs, laptops, or TVs in bedrooms rule. That PC is going to continue to sit in the dinning room with the monitor positioned so that it can be seen from the kitchen, dinning room, and living room.
-Rick
So true. If it weren't for the marketing (which was hardly viral) this movie would have been straight to DVD selling for $5.99 in the big bucket at Wallmart.
-Rick
Uhhh, $750 is a drop in the bucket. For example, the leasing application we use, if we want the developer to implement a new feature for us, it is a minimum of $10,000 for just the assessment and planning. Most feature implementations have a final cost of over $50,000.
Think of what $750 really is. If you have a small software company, let's say 4 developers, 4 customer support people, 4 sales staff, a trio of managers, an accountant, a CEO, and the mean salary is $50,000/year. That means the cost per employee (with benefits, insurance, taxes, square footage in the office, PC, network connectivity, etc...) is likely over $100,000 per year. For that small organization (and 17 people is significantly smaller than Seapine), you are looking at an operating budget close to two million dollars a year. So if they are selling their software at $250/license, they would need to sell 8,000 licenses in a year to stay in the black (if it were their only product).
And think about the scope of $750 in your own organization. I just specced out a new ISP contract for a not-for-profit organization. Their budget is the tightest constraint I've ever had to work under and I still got them a hell of a deal for a corporate wide ISP/Phone/VPN solution for under $15,000. If a piece of software that costs $750 can save them 2 staff-hours per week through out the organization, they would be saving over $2,500 per year.
Software is expensive because it takes a lot of people a lot of time to make. Seapine offers free trials (with full support!), webinars, and direct contact with their sales and technical staff both for trials and purchases. And if you can't justify a $750 expense, I would recommend either spending more time reviewing your current situation and budget, or leaving budgetary issues to someone who can.
-Rick
Getting fired likely means he loses his severence package. Not to mention the black mark on his resume over this. How is it going to look when he goes up for his next interview when he was used as a scape goat for the issue at AT&T. He has to fight, if for no other reason then to maintain his appearance.
-Rick