Nothing's going to turn a kid off something faster -- especially sexual material -- than finding out his parent is interested in it too.
[Attention clue-impaired hair-trigger paedo-police: this is a mild attempt at HUMOR.]
I teach game design at different schools all over the world, and at different kinds of programs from MIT to DeVry to Full Sail. I've also written a book about getting a job in the game industry, although as it came out in 2003, it's a bit out of date now.
There is a LOT to know about game development and the more you know, the more employable you will be. (To get hired also requires some talent and a portfolio, however.) There's no question that game development is a legitimate BA or BS or MA subject these days. Game programs are a good thing and the industry needs them, or it'll have to teach people on the job, which is costly and wasteful. Bedroom coding isn't enough experience when you're working on a team of 50 with $10 million on the line.
The real question is, what else can you bring to the table? There are zillions of young coders who have been hardcore gamers all their lives, but have nothing else to make an employer sit up and take notice. As an employer I want somebody with interests that go beyond games, because the industry desperately needs new ideas and well-educated people. The reason so many games are derivative trash is that we're all ripping each other off instead of thinking up new ideas.
I strongly recommend that prospective game developers get a full, four-year degree (three-year in Europe), and study history, literature, art, music, film, geography, anthropology, architecture, industrial design, ergonomics, physics, theater, dance, costume design, and probably half a dozen other subjects that I can't think of at the moment, in addition to the core game development curriculum. Will Wright got some of the ideas for The Sims from the book A Pattern Language, about domestic architecture. It's all grist for the mill.
Dedicated game schools that can't offer their students this kind of diversity of education are doing them a disservice.
Forgive me for being old-fashioned and naive, but I was under the impression that law enforcement had to present a judge with probable cause before somebody could be wiretapped in the USA. Or is that, like, SO 20th century? Do we now have one-click warrants? Maybe Amazon should sue.
You realize, of course, the majority of the time this facility will be used to obtain free service from phone sex lines...
As terrorists will now start randomizing their behavior in order to defeat predictive simulation, the next edition of the "Patriot" Act will undoubtedly be to declare dice illegal and anyone in possession of them a potential threat. After all, they can be carried in a pocket and are undetectable by metal detectors. Anybody could walk on a plane with some at any time.
You probably had WOODS's version, not Crowther's. The key is that we now have Crowthers, and can compare them to see exactly what Crowther originally did, and what Woods added.
Yes, I do remember the P-machine. In fact, someone implemented it in hardware as a device called the Pascal microengine. P-code was the microprocessor's native mode, or so the ads claimed.
What the Sun and the New York Post do isn't journalism. It's entertainment. So are most blogs. Actually, I'll go farther; most blogs are that form of self-entertainment known as masturbation.
... any idiot with a calculator is an engineer and any idiot with a screwdriver is a mechanic.
"Any idiot with a computer" is NOT a journalist.
If a blogger is willing to go to jail to protect his sources, he might be a journalist. If a blogger makes sure he has corroboration of a story from more than one independent source before publishing it, he might be a journalist. If a blogger refuses to publish innuendo ("how do we know he's not a child-molester?"), he might be a journalist.
Forgive me for misunderstanding the nature of your complaint, but I disagree with your clarification as well. Different players want different levels of activity. The entertainment world isn't divided into passive (films, TV) and active (games). There's a continuum, and some players want "interactivity-light" games. Demanding large amounts of interactivity is threatening and off-putting to a certain class of players, and developers are starting, finally, to cater for them as well. Others are looking into ambient games, with which the player can interact exactly as much, or as little, as he chooses.
Have a look at www.inanimatealice.com as an example of a game that begins with very little interactivity and gradually requires more from the player with each new chapter.
Bottom line: almost any statement of the form "interactive entertainment should be like THIS" is wrong.
There's nothing wrong with easy games. The market for them is substantially larger than it is for hard games, and that's why the industry is moving in that direction -- and about time, too. It has treated the less-skilled player with contempt and derision for far too long.
You're an old-time hardcore gamer, so you think of easy games as bad ones, but the days when the industry would pander to the hardcore gamer's every whim are over. Don't worry, though, I'm sure a few companies will still make games for your little niche.
Unlike movies, in which taking into account the opinions of test audiences is thought of as compromising artistic vision, video games are made for players to play interactively. It's not just their money that matters, it's their ability to play and have a good time. The best game designer in the world doesn't always get it right. Playtesting is not just done for marketing reasons; it's absolutely imperative if you want to make sure the game is as good as it can be.
Small space, high pressure. The pressure is caused by gravity -- the weight of all the stone on top of it. (The same thing causes nuclear fusion in the Sun.) It's not going to go away unless we forget to pay the gravity bill.
KENSINGTON ROCKS, ROCKS, ROCKS!!
on
Mouse or Trackball?
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
And yes, I *am* a fanboy, and no, I don't work for them.
Smooth as silk, baby. And with great drivers that let you control the speed and acceleration -- you can even draw your own acceleration curve.
I've used one version or another of the Kensington Expert Mouse (PC version of the Turbo Mouse) for years. I recently switched from the mechano-optical version to the purely optical. The former had the very slight disadvantage that it used to get enough cat hair in it every 9 or 10 months that it would block the sensors. But their own website had a step-by-step diagram of how to take it apart and clean it -- how cool is that? How many hardware companies actually encourage you to open the case?
I love my new four-button mouse with the sliding ring that mimics a mousewheel.
All Kensington's gear is really solid and comes with a great warranty. I only wish they made clothes and computers and cars...
I don't need any little turbines further clogging up the works. My heart has enough work to do as it is.
Burn off fat cells, now, and you're talking. Just as long as I can sit on my ass while it works. Exercise sucks.
Good way to hose somebody else permanently.
On the other hand, a good way to hose this stupid system would be for a large number of students to all make their passwords publicly available, thereby making it impossible to prove exactly which student did the downloading.
Of course something you do as a blogger could be subject to legal action! Did you think blogging was somehow a magic fairyland where you get to say whatever you like about somebody without having to put up with the consequences? Your free speech stops, and always has stopped, when you start defaming other people. Just because it goes on all the time on the Web, and bloggers get away with it, doesn't make it right -- or safe to do. One blogger just learned the hard way that there's a limit to people's tolerance for abuse, and damn right too.
This business of private companies, beholden to no one, labeling people as sex offenders without anything remotely resembling due process of law, needs to stop. It should never have happened in the first place.
If sex offenders aren't allowed to use MySpace, then let it be a condition of their sentence and a job for the police to catch them at it. I barely trust the police to do it right, where there's public oversight; no WAY do I trust a private company to.
Tron included the first inter... inter... inter-I-can't-even-decide-what-to-call it kiss between a man and a computer program. OK, she looked like a woman in a goofy blue suit, and the man was Bruce Boxleitner, I believe, but I was stumped for a reason why HE should want to kiss software, and even more stumped for a reason why IT would want to kiss him back. In all my years programmer, I never once kissed my code, whether on-screen, printout, or punched cards. And if I had, I think Jung would have suggested I be locked up for failing to conform to any known archetype.
As for which is the dumber movie about computers, I'd say it's a toss-up between Tron and The Matrix. At least Tron had attractive special effects and wasn't so goddamned pretentious.
The developers don't have any say in the matter, any more than book authors (with the sole exception of J.K. Rowling) have any say over what happens when their books get turned into movies. It's the publishers and the movie studios who make these decisions, not the developers, and they're concerned with profitability, not quality.
A camera remembers clearly. A camera can't be bribed, tricked, or forced to say something other than what it saw. A camera isn't prejudiced against blacks, gays, Muslims, and women. A camera doesn't get tired or have a bad day or a fight with its spouse or a hangover.
I have no problems with cameras all over the place, but then, I don't do things I'm not supposed to.
So what? It STILL doesn't prevent me, or you, from speaking; and it certainly doesn't do me any harm that I don't have access to mass communication. The reason that mass communication only publishes drivel for fools any more is that only fools listen to it. So far as I'm concerned, the AM radio transmitters have put millions into the government coffers without costing the taxpayer a cent, and nothing is lost because I wouldn't dream of listening to AM radio. The people who pay are those who purchase ads to try to sell trash to morons.
You're trying to turn issues about allocation of scarce public resources into some kind of "right" for everyone to have equal publishing power. That's ludicrous. It's like saying that because there's only one town reservoir, everybody should be allowed to set up and run their own water company. It's better that the water company should be regulated for the public good, and those who use the most water should pay the most for it.
You have freedom of speech if they can't lock you up for saying what you say. But freedom of speech does not include a right to be published. And there's a corresponding freedom not to listen to you, and certainly a corresponding freedom to refuse to publish your garbage.
You want to be published? Buy and run your own printing press or radio station.
Social democratic management of the means of speech? Your mouth is your own, and pens and paper are really, really cheap. Beyond that, it's not about speech, it's about publishing, and that's a different story.
Slashdot Mirror
Nothing's going to turn a kid off something faster -- especially sexual material -- than finding out his parent is interested in it too. [Attention clue-impaired hair-trigger paedo-police: this is a mild attempt at HUMOR.]
I teach game design at different schools all over the world, and at different kinds of programs from MIT to DeVry to Full Sail. I've also written a book about getting a job in the game industry, although as it came out in 2003, it's a bit out of date now.
There is a LOT to know about game development and the more you know, the more employable you will be. (To get hired also requires some talent and a portfolio, however.) There's no question that game development is a legitimate BA or BS or MA subject these days. Game programs are a good thing and the industry needs them, or it'll have to teach people on the job, which is costly and wasteful. Bedroom coding isn't enough experience when you're working on a team of 50 with $10 million on the line.
The real question is, what else can you bring to the table? There are zillions of young coders who have been hardcore gamers all their lives, but have nothing else to make an employer sit up and take notice. As an employer I want somebody with interests that go beyond games, because the industry desperately needs new ideas and well-educated people. The reason so many games are derivative trash is that we're all ripping each other off instead of thinking up new ideas.
I strongly recommend that prospective game developers get a full, four-year degree (three-year in Europe), and study history, literature, art, music, film, geography, anthropology, architecture, industrial design, ergonomics, physics, theater, dance, costume design, and probably half a dozen other subjects that I can't think of at the moment, in addition to the core game development curriculum. Will Wright got some of the ideas for The Sims from the book A Pattern Language, about domestic architecture. It's all grist for the mill.
Dedicated game schools that can't offer their students this kind of diversity of education are doing them a disservice.
Forgive me for being old-fashioned and naive, but I was under the impression that law enforcement had to present a judge with probable cause before somebody could be wiretapped in the USA. Or is that, like, SO 20th century? Do we now have one-click warrants? Maybe Amazon should sue.
You realize, of course, the majority of the time this facility will be used to obtain free service from phone sex lines...
As terrorists will now start randomizing their behavior in order to defeat predictive simulation, the next edition of the "Patriot" Act will undoubtedly be to declare dice illegal and anyone in possession of them a potential threat. After all, they can be carried in a pocket and are undetectable by metal detectors. Anybody could walk on a plane with some at any time.
It's mostly just self-indulgence; masturbation by another name.
You probably had WOODS's version, not Crowther's. The key is that we now have Crowthers, and can compare them to see exactly what Crowther originally did, and what Woods added.
Yes, I do remember the P-machine. In fact, someone implemented it in hardware as a device called the Pascal microengine. P-code was the microprocessor's native mode, or so the ads claimed.
What the Sun and the New York Post do isn't journalism. It's entertainment. So are most blogs. Actually, I'll go farther; most blogs are that form of self-entertainment known as masturbation.
... any idiot with a calculator is an engineer and any idiot with a screwdriver is a mechanic.
"Any idiot with a computer" is NOT a journalist.
If a blogger is willing to go to jail to protect his sources, he might be a journalist. If a blogger makes sure he has corroboration of a story from more than one independent source before publishing it, he might be a journalist. If a blogger refuses to publish innuendo ("how do we know he's not a child-molester?"), he might be a journalist.
Forgive me for misunderstanding the nature of your complaint, but I disagree with your clarification as well. Different players want different levels of activity. The entertainment world isn't divided into passive (films, TV) and active (games). There's a continuum, and some players want "interactivity-light" games. Demanding large amounts of interactivity is threatening and off-putting to a certain class of players, and developers are starting, finally, to cater for them as well. Others are looking into ambient games, with which the player can interact exactly as much, or as little, as he chooses.
Have a look at www.inanimatealice.com as an example of a game that begins with very little interactivity and gradually requires more from the player with each new chapter.
Bottom line: almost any statement of the form "interactive entertainment should be like THIS" is wrong.
There's nothing wrong with easy games. The market for them is substantially larger than it is for hard games, and that's why the industry is moving in that direction -- and about time, too. It has treated the less-skilled player with contempt and derision for far too long. You're an old-time hardcore gamer, so you think of easy games as bad ones, but the days when the industry would pander to the hardcore gamer's every whim are over. Don't worry, though, I'm sure a few companies will still make games for your little niche.
Neither are most movies and most novels. They're light entertainment.
Video games are an art FORM, just as painting is an art FORM, but not every painting is a work of art, nor is every game.
Unlike movies, in which taking into account the opinions of test audiences is thought of as compromising artistic vision, video games are made for players to play interactively. It's not just their money that matters, it's their ability to play and have a good time. The best game designer in the world doesn't always get it right. Playtesting is not just done for marketing reasons; it's absolutely imperative if you want to make sure the game is as good as it can be.
Small space, high pressure. The pressure is caused by gravity -- the weight of all the stone on top of it. (The same thing causes nuclear fusion in the Sun.) It's not going to go away unless we forget to pay the gravity bill.
And yes, I *am* a fanboy, and no, I don't work for them.
Smooth as silk, baby. And with great drivers that let you control the speed and acceleration -- you can even draw your own acceleration curve.
I've used one version or another of the Kensington Expert Mouse (PC version of the Turbo Mouse) for years. I recently switched from the mechano-optical version to the purely optical. The former had the very slight disadvantage that it used to get enough cat hair in it every 9 or 10 months that it would block the sensors. But their own website had a step-by-step diagram of how to take it apart and clean it -- how cool is that? How many hardware companies actually encourage you to open the case?
I love my new four-button mouse with the sliding ring that mimics a mousewheel.
All Kensington's gear is really solid and comes with a great warranty. I only wish they made clothes and computers and cars...
I don't need any little turbines further clogging up the works. My heart has enough work to do as it is. Burn off fat cells, now, and you're talking. Just as long as I can sit on my ass while it works. Exercise sucks.
Good way to hose somebody else permanently. On the other hand, a good way to hose this stupid system would be for a large number of students to all make their passwords publicly available, thereby making it impossible to prove exactly which student did the downloading.
... you really don't have anything to complain about when you're caught out in a shit storm.
Of course something you do as a blogger could be subject to legal action! Did you think blogging was somehow a magic fairyland where you get to say whatever you like about somebody without having to put up with the consequences? Your free speech stops, and always has stopped, when you start defaming other people. Just because it goes on all the time on the Web, and bloggers get away with it, doesn't make it right -- or safe to do. One blogger just learned the hard way that there's a limit to people's tolerance for abuse, and damn right too.
This business of private companies, beholden to no one, labeling people as sex offenders without anything remotely resembling due process of law, needs to stop. It should never have happened in the first place. If sex offenders aren't allowed to use MySpace, then let it be a condition of their sentence and a job for the police to catch them at it. I barely trust the police to do it right, where there's public oversight; no WAY do I trust a private company to.
As for which is the dumber movie about computers, I'd say it's a toss-up between Tron and The Matrix. At least Tron had attractive special effects and wasn't so goddamned pretentious.
The developers don't have any say in the matter, any more than book authors (with the sole exception of J.K. Rowling) have any say over what happens when their books get turned into movies. It's the publishers and the movie studios who make these decisions, not the developers, and they're concerned with profitability, not quality.
A camera remembers clearly. A camera can't be bribed, tricked, or forced to say something other than what it saw. A camera isn't prejudiced against blacks, gays, Muslims, and women. A camera doesn't get tired or have a bad day or a fight with its spouse or a hangover.
I have no problems with cameras all over the place, but then, I don't do things I'm not supposed to.
So what? It STILL doesn't prevent me, or you, from speaking; and it certainly doesn't do me any harm that I don't have access to mass communication. The reason that mass communication only publishes drivel for fools any more is that only fools listen to it. So far as I'm concerned, the AM radio transmitters have put millions into the government coffers without costing the taxpayer a cent, and nothing is lost because I wouldn't dream of listening to AM radio. The people who pay are those who purchase ads to try to sell trash to morons.
You're trying to turn issues about allocation of scarce public resources into some kind of "right" for everyone to have equal publishing power. That's ludicrous. It's like saying that because there's only one town reservoir, everybody should be allowed to set up and run their own water company. It's better that the water company should be regulated for the public good, and those who use the most water should pay the most for it.
You have freedom of speech if they can't lock you up for saying what you say. But freedom of speech does not include a right to be published. And there's a corresponding freedom not to listen to you, and certainly a corresponding freedom to refuse to publish your garbage.
You want to be published? Buy and run your own printing press or radio station.
Social democratic management of the means of speech? Your mouth is your own, and pens and paper are really, really cheap. Beyond that, it's not about speech, it's about publishing, and that's a different story.