Heh, sorry about that. My comment probably came across as a bit snarky, when I was going more for funny. In truthfulness, I think things like ping-pong/foozeball/pool tables are a fun diversion for employees as long as they can be located out of the way, where they won't be a visual or audio distraction to people trying to work.
I happen to be fairly sensitive to noise distractions - I'm most productive when I have silence to concentrate on my coding. If it gets too bad, I found that listening to movie/tv soundtracks or classical music on my headphones works moderately well, as it is not too distracting to me and can help cover up other noises.
It's easy to avoid understanding a system at a deep level. People are pretty good at memorizing steps to get a job done. That doesn't mean they have any deep understanding of what they're doing. While this is a decent short-term way to get from point a to b, it's worthless if the steps change in any small way, of course. This is why continuously changing interfaces are a big deal to companies and office workers - most software developers don't understand this, because they think about things in an entirely different way than many computer users.
Deeper understanding generally comes from interacting with a system in many ways over time. Many employees have a very narrow window (no pun intended) though which they view the computer. Imagine how little you would learn if your only responsibility was to use some office productivity software to create documents, and occasionally use e-mail. To you, the entire computing experience would be viewed though the use of these applications. In fact, you'd likely be hard-pressed to make any differentiation between the applications, the operating system, and the computer itself.
This used to be a mystery to me as well, until I spent a considerable amount of time working with non-technical users in an office environment. I used to bang my head against the wall trying to encourage a deeper understanding of the computers and operating systems, because it would help people be more efficient and self-sufficient. In the end, I realized that no one *wanted* to do this. So I set up simple methods for people to accomplish the specific tasks they wanted to in a few easy, well-defined steps. If something went wrong, they called me and I fixed the problem. And while their methods were not exactly as optimal as they could be, they were still a hell of a lot more optimal than not using the computers at all.
Bottom line: there are a large percentage of people who are simply not interested in "mastering" the complexities and intricacies of an operating system. They just want to get their work done.
It's because the male birds refused to stop and ask directions, of course. Then, when they arrived at their destinations thousands of kilometers off course, they simply claimed it was where they *wanted* to go in the first place. Now, they have to fly back there every year, or admit they were wrong in the first place. Much easier to fly 11,200 kilometers twice a year.
I mean, who *wouldn't* want to listen to that all day?
If you're going to give each developer a console, then actually give it to them. No strings attached. Let them take it home. I work for a game development company. Last Christmas, my company gave everyone a PS3, Rockband, and a copy of Ratatouille on Blu-Ray. Some people elected to keep it in the office, most took it home.
But even in our work environment, you generally don't see too many people playing games during the day. We work hard, but we go home after eight hours to be with our families, play games, and live our lives however we choose to. It's understood that when we're at work, we have a job to do, and we're very focused on that. In general, I don't care much for playing games at the office. I'd much rather get my job done, get home faster, so I can relax in my *own* home.
If you really want people to be happy, then treat people with respect, and encourage your people to work hard for eight hours, five days a week, then get the hell out of the office.
*sigh*. I knew I'd get someone like you telling me how you were able to beat him without dying, and how apparently I just sucked. As inevitable as the tide.
So, congrats, you're obviously a better player than I am. I had to die a time or two before I understood that he could *outsprint* me even though he's wearing a giant iron suit. I may not be a genius, but no, I didn't try to engage him in melee on the first go around. I eventually learned how to beat him, of course, but one of the annoyances of the game is that it teaches through death. I eventually just figured out how to exploit the crappy AI - another gameplay tactic I loathe.
At a certain point, I just got tired of wasting all my ammunition on the stupid things, and yes, at that point I just turned into a lemming, and just beat the damn thing to death. It had already not become fun, so I figured I'd save my ammo for the parts of the game that were still moderately fun.
But thanks for calling me an idiot and unimaginative. Always appreciate it.
Well, it was the gameplay that killed it for me. I'm certainly not an ace gamer, but I can finish most shooters on "Normal" difficulty without too much of a problem. Every time I tried to take on a Big Daddy (which the game heavily implied you needed to do, shortly after demonstrating what badasses they are and how you should avoid them), I'd just end up wasting most of my ammo, and end up with a drill planted in my intestines.
Naturally, if I wanted to, I could just keep respawning and beat the damn thing to death with a wrench, but it felt like game was horribly balanced, and the designers reacted by removing any death penalty. One thing I really hated was the notion that you had to kill Big Daddies to get the Adam so you could... what? The game never told me. Kill more big daddies? Because I was doing just fine against all the other peons.
About the point that Ryan poisoned all the trees, and I got sent on some fetch quest, I got bored / irritated with the game and quit. It's too bad, I really wanted to like it. Shooters and RPGs are my two favorite genres, so it seemed like an instant winner to me.
Glad others enjoyed it, though. It certainly had great production values and a unique story, but it was just too annoying to play.
We're talking about Australia here. You know, the country that rides along every time the Americans 'go it alone.'
And in all seriousness, we do appreciate it. You Brits, too. I think, in part, that's also why we're concerned when we hear about some of these Orwellian schemes your governments are scheming up. Er, not that ours is so shining and pure, of course.
It seems not to be specifically for AppleBASIC, but is this possibly the one [e-scribe.com]?
No, but thank you. The book I recall was very specifically written for the Apple II. The robot I mentioned was a bit of a mascot, very cartoon-like.
I was actually pretty lucky. I had two excellent experiences in learning to program from books. One was the AppleBASIC tutorial, and the other was a C++ book for use with Turbo C++ (actually learned C++ before C). It's funny, I recall a very technical Apple BASIC book (I think it was the official reference manual) alongside the friendly one, and a co-worker grimaced as he mentioned "Yeah, that's the one *I* learned from." As it turns out, he also learned how to program C from the K&R book - which also wasn't the easiest way to learn.
That reminds me of a story about my early programming attempts:
My first computer was an Apple II+, and I learned AppleBASIC from a book that appeared to be written to teach kids how to program*. I was writing a graphical maze-crawler fantasy game (a bit like Wizardry, but much more primitive, of course). I knew nothing of data-driven programming, of course. Everything was hard-coded, every room a function, etc. AppleBASIC used line numbers, of course, and in laying out the dungeon, I started incrementing rooms by 1000 to make sure I had enough space.
Sure enough, I ran into a strange issue when I tried to create a room at line number 66000. Through trial and error, I eventually determined that the maximum line number was 65535. I couldn't figure out why they would use such a crazy number as the maximum limit.
Years later, when learning about the binary nature of computers, I saw that number again, and *click*. So, I'm not sure if 640K lines are enough, but 64K lines certainly were not for me!
* If anyone remembers what the name of that book was, I'd be in your debt. I think it had a red cover, and it had great little illustrations of a robot that made it very kid-friendly. That book launched me on my current career path. I now program games for a living, and would love to find an old copy.
I wrote a technical book after I was laid off. Writing doesn't pay much, and I chewed up my savings doing it. I also worked as a contractor during part of that time. I was hired full time a year later (had to get an advance on my paycheck, and now I have a professional book to my name as well. I'd like to think that this has helped future employment prospects as well.
BTW, there's a pretty big difference in the corporate world between "fired" and "laid off". The former implies that an employee was terminated due to some personal or professional issue. The latter implies the employee was let go due to economic circumstances, usually through no fault of the the employee. Firings mostly happen one at a time. People tend to get laid off in groups.
So, please don't ever tell an employer you were "fired" when in fact you were "laid off".
So, while I know that you're referring to a creepy atmosphere in addition to everything else, Wolfenstein got me on the suspense and tension without the pretty graphics.
Doom II was the first FPS I played, actually, and I had the same experience, but in a slightly different way. I remember playing intently, lights turned down low, the graphics, music, and sfx putting me on edge. My brother thought it would be a great time to sneak in and throw a wet towel at the back of my head. I'm pretty lucky my heart didn't explode right there on the spot...
But - that's the thing, though. Back then, those *were* pretty graphics. It's part of what made it such a visceral experience.
Seriously? The only "MMO" I know of that really told much of a story was Guild Wars, and that was because the entire game was instanced gameplay. Honestly, I haven't experienced anything of a real story in MMOs before (although I hear Age of Conan does a fairly decent job for the first twenty levels).
In general, it seems MMOs are more about creating a themed sandbox environment for people to play in than creating a story. Nothing wrong with that - they're obviously fairly popular. But it seems sort of odd to hear people talking about stories in MMOs when it really hasn't been done.
As I have no real desire to play another pay-per-month grind-fest, so I guess I'll be missing this one. I'm sure plenty of people that haven't yet been burned out by this style of gameplay will enjoy it, though. I'd love to see a new Kotor, myself.
Or it could be that, as an adult, your expectations have changes? I've been gaming since the 2600 days as well. You seriously need to go back and play some old games on emulators. Games that had me mesmerized for dozens or hundreds of hours have a hard time holding my attention for 15 minutes nowadays. You also forget that the ratio of brilliant-to-crap was about the same (ET was just the most exceptional crap).
The astoundingly powerful hardware we have simply opens up possibilities. Yes, you have the AAA titles that are expected to push graphical boundaries, but there are lots of titles that are all about the gameplay. I'll use myself as an example - in the past week, I've played three games on my Xbox that I can recall: Oblivion (playing through the expansions), N+, and Puzzle Quest. But the great thing is, now we have a *choice* of games. I occasionally enjoy a purely visceral experience. Do you think Dead Space would be as scary without the amazing graphics and audio? Other times, I hook up with friends for multiplayer N+. Other times, I just feel like relaxing with a slow-paced game of Puzzle Quest.
I think you can find plenty of examples of fantastic gameplay that matches or exceeds anything the past can dole out. You need to take off the rose-colored glasses.
I'd call the current blog/MySpace craze a different fetish: A desire to share the most intimate details of your life with the entire world. Pretty much the opposite of a privacy fetish, if you ask me.
Is a DNA sequence/medical record in the same realm as this? Maybe, maybe not. I don't think I would have volunteered.
How long can you keep your Windows 98 running the version of MS Works that you like before you are forced to upgrade to a version of the OS that doesn't support it? Software is never under your control simply because it's not made around YOU, but rather the entire client base.
I can keep it running as long as I have compatible hardware. Software doesn't expire. It's not like I can only install it five times and then it goes bad. Oh, wait...
Yes, I'll be more than pissed off if someone in a black suit comes knocking on my door with a piece of CCTV footage or taped phone call but I'll worry about it when it happens.
It'll be a bit late then to do anything about it.
You're absolutely right that a) you probably have nothing to hide, and b) it's likely nothing bad will happen to you directly as a result of this, but... doesn't that still seem like a bad reason to hand over another tiny bit of personal freedom to the government? Do you really think this will make your lives any safer?
And you're right - we Americans have our own issues to deal with as well. I think a lot of us get nervous about the current happenings in the UK, because of the similarities in our cultures and values. As such, it's easy to think "if it could happen there..."
Actually, stealing a car is a felony -- except, evidently, in Seattle, where it is a "gross misdemeanor". One's life is much more likely to be ruined by such a conviction, than by "financial destruction of a future" -- which is a waaaay too pessimistic a term for $10-20K.
I'm glad you mentioned that, or I would have had to counter that this a) isn't legislation, b) has nothing to do with free speech, and c) I don't think they're even making any pretense that this is to "protect the children"(tm), but to protect themselves.
Lawyers keep puking up these kinds of stupid agreements because, well damn, they get paid to do so.
Well, yeah, that was sort of my point. I guess for me, I never expect anything good from Sony anyhow, and as it turns out, I'm never disappointed (or surprised).
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Heh, sorry about that. My comment probably came across as a bit snarky, when I was going more for funny. In truthfulness, I think things like ping-pong/foozeball/pool tables are a fun diversion for employees as long as they can be located out of the way, where they won't be a visual or audio distraction to people trying to work.
I happen to be fairly sensitive to noise distractions - I'm most productive when I have silence to concentrate on my coding. If it gets too bad, I found that listening to movie/tv soundtracks or classical music on my headphones works moderately well, as it is not too distracting to me and can help cover up other noises.
If I wanted political commentary, I would have signed up for the "politics" section. Just give me the science and technology, please.
It's easy to avoid understanding a system at a deep level. People are pretty good at memorizing steps to get a job done. That doesn't mean they have any deep understanding of what they're doing. While this is a decent short-term way to get from point a to b, it's worthless if the steps change in any small way, of course. This is why continuously changing interfaces are a big deal to companies and office workers - most software developers don't understand this, because they think about things in an entirely different way than many computer users.
Deeper understanding generally comes from interacting with a system in many ways over time. Many employees have a very narrow window (no pun intended) though which they view the computer. Imagine how little you would learn if your only responsibility was to use some office productivity software to create documents, and occasionally use e-mail. To you, the entire computing experience would be viewed though the use of these applications. In fact, you'd likely be hard-pressed to make any differentiation between the applications, the operating system, and the computer itself.
This used to be a mystery to me as well, until I spent a considerable amount of time working with non-technical users in an office environment. I used to bang my head against the wall trying to encourage a deeper understanding of the computers and operating systems, because it would help people be more efficient and self-sufficient. In the end, I realized that no one *wanted* to do this. So I set up simple methods for people to accomplish the specific tasks they wanted to in a few easy, well-defined steps. If something went wrong, they called me and I fixed the problem. And while their methods were not exactly as optimal as they could be, they were still a hell of a lot more optimal than not using the computers at all.
Bottom line: there are a large percentage of people who are simply not interested in "mastering" the complexities and intricacies of an operating system. They just want to get their work done.
It's because the male birds refused to stop and ask directions, of course. Then, when they arrived at their destinations thousands of kilometers off course, they simply claimed it was where they *wanted* to go in the first place. Now, they have to fly back there every year, or admit they were wrong in the first place. Much easier to fly 11,200 kilometers twice a year.
I suggest a ping-pong table
You're kidding, right?
pik-pok!
pik-pok!
pik-pok!
pik-pok!
pik-pok!
pik-pok!
pik-pok!
pik-pok!
pik-pok!
pik-pok!
I mean, who *wouldn't* want to listen to that all day?
If you're going to give each developer a console, then actually give it to them. No strings attached. Let them take it home. I work for a game development company. Last Christmas, my company gave everyone a PS3, Rockband, and a copy of Ratatouille on Blu-Ray. Some people elected to keep it in the office, most took it home.
But even in our work environment, you generally don't see too many people playing games during the day. We work hard, but we go home after eight hours to be with our families, play games, and live our lives however we choose to. It's understood that when we're at work, we have a job to do, and we're very focused on that. In general, I don't care much for playing games at the office. I'd much rather get my job done, get home faster, so I can relax in my *own* home.
If you really want people to be happy, then treat people with respect, and encourage your people to work hard for eight hours, five days a week, then get the hell out of the office.
Wow, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have presumed to speak for the raging psychotic fringe of our population.
*sigh*. I knew I'd get someone like you telling me how you were able to beat him without dying, and how apparently I just sucked. As inevitable as the tide.
So, congrats, you're obviously a better player than I am. I had to die a time or two before I understood that he could *outsprint* me even though he's wearing a giant iron suit. I may not be a genius, but no, I didn't try to engage him in melee on the first go around. I eventually learned how to beat him, of course, but one of the annoyances of the game is that it teaches through death. I eventually just figured out how to exploit the crappy AI - another gameplay tactic I loathe.
At a certain point, I just got tired of wasting all my ammunition on the stupid things, and yes, at that point I just turned into a lemming, and just beat the damn thing to death. It had already not become fun, so I figured I'd save my ammo for the parts of the game that were still moderately fun.
But thanks for calling me an idiot and unimaginative. Always appreciate it.
Well, it was the gameplay that killed it for me. I'm certainly not an ace gamer, but I can finish most shooters on "Normal" difficulty without too much of a problem. Every time I tried to take on a Big Daddy (which the game heavily implied you needed to do, shortly after demonstrating what badasses they are and how you should avoid them), I'd just end up wasting most of my ammo, and end up with a drill planted in my intestines.
Naturally, if I wanted to, I could just keep respawning and beat the damn thing to death with a wrench, but it felt like game was horribly balanced, and the designers reacted by removing any death penalty. One thing I really hated was the notion that you had to kill Big Daddies to get the Adam so you could... what? The game never told me. Kill more big daddies? Because I was doing just fine against all the other peons.
About the point that Ryan poisoned all the trees, and I got sent on some fetch quest, I got bored / irritated with the game and quit. It's too bad, I really wanted to like it. Shooters and RPGs are my two favorite genres, so it seemed like an instant winner to me.
Glad others enjoyed it, though. It certainly had great production values and a unique story, but it was just too annoying to play.
I would, but I don't trust that link you've provided.
We're talking about Australia here. You know, the country that rides along every time the Americans 'go it alone.'
And in all seriousness, we do appreciate it. You Brits, too. I think, in part, that's also why we're concerned when we hear about some of these Orwellian schemes your governments are scheming up. Er, not that ours is so shining and pure, of course.
Sounds like an attempt to milk the cash cow to me.
"Sins of a Solar Empire", while moderately successful, is hardly a "cash cow". I believe you've mistaken this article for the one in which EA is selling an expansion to Spore almost immediately after its launch, with another shortly to follow.
I suspect the only way these micro expansions will work out is if they also come with a micro price.
$9.95 micro enough for you?
It seems not to be specifically for AppleBASIC, but is this possibly the one [e-scribe.com]?
No, but thank you. The book I recall was very specifically written for the Apple II. The robot I mentioned was a bit of a mascot, very cartoon-like.
I was actually pretty lucky. I had two excellent experiences in learning to program from books. One was the AppleBASIC tutorial, and the other was a C++ book for use with Turbo C++ (actually learned C++ before C). It's funny, I recall a very technical Apple BASIC book (I think it was the official reference manual) alongside the friendly one, and a co-worker grimaced as he mentioned "Yeah, that's the one *I* learned from." As it turns out, he also learned how to program C from the K&R book - which also wasn't the easiest way to learn.
That reminds me of a story about my early programming attempts:
My first computer was an Apple II+, and I learned AppleBASIC from a book that appeared to be written to teach kids how to program*. I was writing a graphical maze-crawler fantasy game (a bit like Wizardry, but much more primitive, of course). I knew nothing of data-driven programming, of course. Everything was hard-coded, every room a function, etc. AppleBASIC used line numbers, of course, and in laying out the dungeon, I started incrementing rooms by 1000 to make sure I had enough space.
Sure enough, I ran into a strange issue when I tried to create a room at line number 66000. Through trial and error, I eventually determined that the maximum line number was 65535. I couldn't figure out why they would use such a crazy number as the maximum limit.
Years later, when learning about the binary nature of computers, I saw that number again, and *click*. So, I'm not sure if 640K lines are enough, but 64K lines certainly were not for me!
* If anyone remembers what the name of that book was, I'd be in your debt. I think it had a red cover, and it had great little illustrations of a robot that made it very kid-friendly. That book launched me on my current career path. I now program games for a living, and would love to find an old copy.
I wrote a technical book after I was laid off. Writing doesn't pay much, and I chewed up my savings doing it. I also worked as a contractor during part of that time. I was hired full time a year later (had to get an advance on my paycheck, and now I have a professional book to my name as well. I'd like to think that this has helped future employment prospects as well.
BTW, there's a pretty big difference in the corporate world between "fired" and "laid off". The former implies that an employee was terminated due to some personal or professional issue. The latter implies the employee was let go due to economic circumstances, usually through no fault of the the employee. Firings mostly happen one at a time. People tend to get laid off in groups.
So, please don't ever tell an employer you were "fired" when in fact you were "laid off".
So, while I know that you're referring to a creepy atmosphere in addition to everything else, Wolfenstein got me on the suspense and tension without the pretty graphics.
Doom II was the first FPS I played, actually, and I had the same experience, but in a slightly different way. I remember playing intently, lights turned down low, the graphics, music, and sfx putting me on edge. My brother thought it would be a great time to sneak in and throw a wet towel at the back of my head. I'm pretty lucky my heart didn't explode right there on the spot...
But - that's the thing, though. Back then, those *were* pretty graphics. It's part of what made it such a visceral experience.
Seriously? The only "MMO" I know of that really told much of a story was Guild Wars, and that was because the entire game was instanced gameplay. Honestly, I haven't experienced anything of a real story in MMOs before (although I hear Age of Conan does a fairly decent job for the first twenty levels).
In general, it seems MMOs are more about creating a themed sandbox environment for people to play in than creating a story. Nothing wrong with that - they're obviously fairly popular. But it seems sort of odd to hear people talking about stories in MMOs when it really hasn't been done.
As I have no real desire to play another pay-per-month grind-fest, so I guess I'll be missing this one. I'm sure plenty of people that haven't yet been burned out by this style of gameplay will enjoy it, though. I'd love to see a new Kotor, myself.
Or it could be that, as an adult, your expectations have changes? I've been gaming since the 2600 days as well. You seriously need to go back and play some old games on emulators. Games that had me mesmerized for dozens or hundreds of hours have a hard time holding my attention for 15 minutes nowadays. You also forget that the ratio of brilliant-to-crap was about the same (ET was just the most exceptional crap).
The astoundingly powerful hardware we have simply opens up possibilities. Yes, you have the AAA titles that are expected to push graphical boundaries, but there are lots of titles that are all about the gameplay. I'll use myself as an example - in the past week, I've played three games on my Xbox that I can recall: Oblivion (playing through the expansions), N+, and Puzzle Quest. But the great thing is, now we have a *choice* of games. I occasionally enjoy a purely visceral experience. Do you think Dead Space would be as scary without the amazing graphics and audio? Other times, I hook up with friends for multiplayer N+. Other times, I just feel like relaxing with a slow-paced game of Puzzle Quest.
I think you can find plenty of examples of fantastic gameplay that matches or exceeds anything the past can dole out. You need to take off the rose-colored glasses.
I'll get off your lawn now.
Isn't that what was said about MySpace and Facebook before people started getting fired?
For blogging about what an asshole their boss is, typically. Or for posting pics of yourself involved in questionable activities. Yes, that will get you fired. One has a harder time claiming "privacy violation" when you willing post incriminating information about yourself to a public forum. Honestly, I'd call that a lack of judgment rather than a lack of privacy.
I'd call the current blog/MySpace craze a different fetish: A desire to share the most intimate details of your life with the entire world. Pretty much the opposite of a privacy fetish, if you ask me.
Is a DNA sequence/medical record in the same realm as this? Maybe, maybe not. I don't think I would have volunteered.
Also known as the Big Sky Theory.
And I think I've found the perfect guy for them.
How long can you keep your Windows 98 running the version of MS Works that you like before you are forced to upgrade to a version of the OS that doesn't support it? Software is never under your control simply because it's not made around YOU, but rather the entire client base.
I can keep it running as long as I have compatible hardware. Software doesn't expire. It's not like I can only install it five times and then it goes bad. Oh, wait...
...news at 11.
Welcome to the future of cloud computing. This is what it means to give up control of your software for the convenience of a net-based service.
Yes, I'll be more than pissed off if someone in a black suit comes knocking on my door with a piece of CCTV footage or taped phone call but I'll worry about it when it happens.
It'll be a bit late then to do anything about it.
You're absolutely right that a) you probably have nothing to hide, and b) it's likely nothing bad will happen to you directly as a result of this, but... doesn't that still seem like a bad reason to hand over another tiny bit of personal freedom to the government? Do you really think this will make your lives any safer?
And you're right - we Americans have our own issues to deal with as well. I think a lot of us get nervous about the current happenings in the UK, because of the similarities in our cultures and values. As such, it's easy to think "if it could happen there..."
Actually, stealing a car is a felony -- except, evidently, in Seattle, where it is a "gross misdemeanor". One's life is much more likely to be ruined by such a conviction, than by "financial destruction of a future" -- which is a waaaay too pessimistic a term for $10-20K.
This is what I mean when I talk about "financial destruction".
The above is hyperbolic
I'm glad you mentioned that, or I would have had to counter that this a) isn't legislation, b) has nothing to do with free speech, and c) I don't think they're even making any pretense that this is to "protect the children"(tm), but to protect themselves.
Lawyers keep puking up these kinds of stupid agreements because, well damn, they get paid to do so.
Well, yeah, that was sort of my point. I guess for me, I never expect anything good from Sony anyhow, and as it turns out, I'm never disappointed (or surprised).