Another Turkey Day has come and gone, which means it's practically December. A new month brings a new set of plans and resolutions. We have Christmas shopping to do, a holiday visit to plan, holiday cards to write, and all manner of other holiday craziness.
Thanksgiving itself was great. My sister came down from the frigid north (the wilds of Massachusetts) to visit, and brought her little black dog with her. My buddy Steve made an awesome turkey. Eunice went all out with the side dishes. Me? I got to do the dishes :). Believe me, there were a lot of dishes.
My personal goals for the month of December include finishing my review of Peopleware, reading through Mystic Secrets, planning for an Arcana Unearthed / Arcana Evolved campaign, and, budget willing, buy and read through The Book of Iron Might.
Oh yeah, I should also read through The Complete Book of Eldritch Might again. Looking at it, this seems like a lot of reading, especially with the holidays coming up, and a Eunice to entertain. I probably won't get it all done. The important thing to do is finish Mystic Secrets and work on a new AU game.
I'd really like to start running a game again in either January or February. I'm going to either set up a blog or a wiki for the campaign --preferably a wiki, but I have to figure out how to get one installed and working. Of course, there's the minor problem of finding people to game with too. I'm hoping I can get the last group of people I had back together, but the last time I tried, they were all either busy or out of town indefinitely. I may be hunting for players again soon.
Anyway, the list of things to definitely get done:
1. Everything Holiday related.
2. Finish the review of Peopleware
3. Finish reading Mystic Secrets
4. Plan for a new AU game
This month is going to be packed.
Monday, November 29, 2004
Monday, November 22, 2004
Back to news about bad business
The New York Times ran a story (online at least) about how bad working in the game industry is. You can find it here.
EA isn't saying much due to the impending lawsuit. What they do say amounts to "Everybody does it" and, "Hey, writing games is hard!" They also mention that they'd like to increase the percentage of new hires directly out of college from the 10% it is at now to 75%. They also say that overall voluntary turnover is at 10%, which leads me to believe that not all EA studios are so painful.
I will point out that there are multiple books on Software Management and Software Engineering that all point out why Death Marches are bad and how you can avoid them, or just how you can make yourself more productive and write less bugs in the first place. This is one thing that really gets to me. People write books about software development. Good books. It's not like some game development company is facing problems that have not yet been seen by mortal eyes.
This isn't rocket science, it's game development.
EA isn't saying much due to the impending lawsuit. What they do say amounts to "Everybody does it" and, "Hey, writing games is hard!" They also mention that they'd like to increase the percentage of new hires directly out of college from the 10% it is at now to 75%. They also say that overall voluntary turnover is at 10%, which leads me to believe that not all EA studios are so painful.
I will point out that there are multiple books on Software Management and Software Engineering that all point out why Death Marches are bad and how you can avoid them, or just how you can make yourself more productive and write less bugs in the first place. This is one thing that really gets to me. People write books about software development. Good books. It's not like some game development company is facing problems that have not yet been seen by mortal eyes.
This isn't rocket science, it's game development.
Another thing about the play
It had a soundtrack. It's an interesting idea. They have a composer who does original music for some of the plays. He did music for Galileo, and I think it really added to the performance. There were one or two flubs where the music was too loud, but I think that was just someone missing sound cues. Overall I think the soundtrack added a lot to the performance without getting in the way.
I'm really looking forward to seeing the next play they're doing.
I'm really looking forward to seeing the next play they're doing.
Weekend Adventure
Eunice and I went to see my sister this weekend up in Massachusetts (well, the part of Massachusetts that is actually Connecticut).
The drive up was... Exciting. Sort of. Exciting in the way that only a 7 hour drive stretched into 12 hours can be. Where did the extra 5 hours and 100 miles come in you ask? Well, it's like this...
I wanted to avoid the George Washington Bridge. Desperately. I have this healthy fear of driving in New York. I went in by bus once. The sheer amount of traffic was terrifying, just as a passenger. So, I wanted very much to avoid the George Washington Bridge and anything relating to Downtown Manhattan.
In my first attempt to avoid the GWB, I took 287, and was going to follow that around. About 15 miles into it we realized that the branch of 287 we were on was going to take us through the middle of New York State, and we were probably on it far earlier than my sister had recommended. We decided this with about an hour and a half of discussion at a McDonald's. So, we turned around and went back to the Jersey Turnpike.
I don't like New Jersey. Really, who does? Driving through it on the turnpike in mid November is not a good way to see it. The weather was grey. The trees were hibernating and looked dead. New Jersey itself as some unpleasant smells that waft into the car as you zoom through it. My opinion of New Jersey has not changed.
So we were off to the Jersey Turnpike, looking for the New York Throughway. We stopped at the last rest stop on the pike to once again try and figure out how we were going to avoid the GWB. Eunice and I must have looked pathetic staring at the map in the rest stop, because 3 different people stopped to try and help us out. One recommended we turn around and go back to the New Jersey Parkway (which I'm sure is the wrong name) and go up to the Tappan Zee bridge. Another told us we didn't have to turn around, but if we were going to the Tappan Zee we'd be better off just going to the GWB, because at that hour both were exceptionally busy.
The second kind helper offered us a different route. We could go north, up 87/287, to 84 and go east from there. He assured us that though it was a longer route it would be faster, as I-95 (and the Tappan Zee) were going to have crazy amounts of traffic, all the way up through Hartford. The third kind helper was a trucker, and he confirmed the second person's story. So, off to 87/287 we went.
Did I mention that it was 6 p.m.? Dead center, rush hour, New York City.
Actually, the trip went remarkably well after we got off the New Jersey Turnpike. We later figured out that the trip north and east added about 60 miles and about an hour and a half of drive time to our journey, because there was some construction.
The extra time and mileage came from trying to figure out where we were going, and making some wrong turns. We arrived about 11:30, safe, sound, and tired.
The trip back wasn't nearly as painful. It only took us 8 hours to get home, using our newly-learned "shortcut" to bypass New York. We stopped once for lunch in the Hated New Jersey. New Jersey Turnpike food sucks more than food you get from rest areas anywhere else I've been. Yet another strike against Jersey. We stopped a couple more times to stretch, but never for very long. So we managed to keep the return trip to about 8 hours.
Traffic wasn't too bad until we hit Baltimore, at which point it turned insane and stayed that way until we got home. We think there was a Ravens game, and we hit the return traffic.
All the driving pain was worth it, though.
We got to see my sister and the play she worked on. She is a professor, teaching at a college in southern Massachusetts. She runs the costume and prop shop, with the help of some students. They put on one big play per semester. The students involved in the play enroll in a few different courses in order to get academic credit for working on it. Some enroll in the acting class, while others enroll in the prop/scene class. It's a pretty nice deal, though it is a lot of work.
They did Bertolt Brecht's Life of Galileo (though I don't remember which translation they used). It was excellent. I thought all the actors did a great job. The costumes and set were, of course, wonderful. I know I'm biased, but I think that my sister does excellent work.
I think the play has an interesting application to our time as well. In it, Galileo uses a telescope for observing the stars. He finds that the Earth revolves around the sun, and that the sun is at the center of the universe. Further, the planets and other stars are not set into big crystal spheres, which was the accepted view at the time. In announcing his discovery he is condemned as a heretic by the church, and ultimately recants late in life. After that he is placed under house arrest and not allowed to do any more research.
My favorite scene is one where Galileo is trying to convince other scholars that there are 4 stars that orbit Jupiter. They refuse to believe it. He asks them to simply look through the telescope. They quote Aristotle. It goes back and forth like this until they leave. They never do look.
I found myself watching the play and thinking about the presidential election and recent events. It seems to me we have the old guard who wants us to believe what they say, but not what we see. And by the popular vote, there seem to be a lot of people who refuse to look with their own eyes and see what's out there.
Anyway, I'll stop before I go ranting.
Sadly, I never did get to see the goats my sister told me about. Apparently someone near her has goats in their back yard. I was naturally terrified by this news.
Visiting with my sister was great. The play was very good. The drive was not so good. Overall this weekend get 5 stars for visiting and 2.5 stars for adventurous travel.
The drive up was... Exciting. Sort of. Exciting in the way that only a 7 hour drive stretched into 12 hours can be. Where did the extra 5 hours and 100 miles come in you ask? Well, it's like this...
I wanted to avoid the George Washington Bridge. Desperately. I have this healthy fear of driving in New York. I went in by bus once. The sheer amount of traffic was terrifying, just as a passenger. So, I wanted very much to avoid the George Washington Bridge and anything relating to Downtown Manhattan.
In my first attempt to avoid the GWB, I took 287, and was going to follow that around. About 15 miles into it we realized that the branch of 287 we were on was going to take us through the middle of New York State, and we were probably on it far earlier than my sister had recommended. We decided this with about an hour and a half of discussion at a McDonald's. So, we turned around and went back to the Jersey Turnpike.
I don't like New Jersey. Really, who does? Driving through it on the turnpike in mid November is not a good way to see it. The weather was grey. The trees were hibernating and looked dead. New Jersey itself as some unpleasant smells that waft into the car as you zoom through it. My opinion of New Jersey has not changed.
So we were off to the Jersey Turnpike, looking for the New York Throughway. We stopped at the last rest stop on the pike to once again try and figure out how we were going to avoid the GWB. Eunice and I must have looked pathetic staring at the map in the rest stop, because 3 different people stopped to try and help us out. One recommended we turn around and go back to the New Jersey Parkway (which I'm sure is the wrong name) and go up to the Tappan Zee bridge. Another told us we didn't have to turn around, but if we were going to the Tappan Zee we'd be better off just going to the GWB, because at that hour both were exceptionally busy.
The second kind helper offered us a different route. We could go north, up 87/287, to 84 and go east from there. He assured us that though it was a longer route it would be faster, as I-95 (and the Tappan Zee) were going to have crazy amounts of traffic, all the way up through Hartford. The third kind helper was a trucker, and he confirmed the second person's story. So, off to 87/287 we went.
Did I mention that it was 6 p.m.? Dead center, rush hour, New York City.
Actually, the trip went remarkably well after we got off the New Jersey Turnpike. We later figured out that the trip north and east added about 60 miles and about an hour and a half of drive time to our journey, because there was some construction.
The extra time and mileage came from trying to figure out where we were going, and making some wrong turns. We arrived about 11:30, safe, sound, and tired.
The trip back wasn't nearly as painful. It only took us 8 hours to get home, using our newly-learned "shortcut" to bypass New York. We stopped once for lunch in the Hated New Jersey. New Jersey Turnpike food sucks more than food you get from rest areas anywhere else I've been. Yet another strike against Jersey. We stopped a couple more times to stretch, but never for very long. So we managed to keep the return trip to about 8 hours.
Traffic wasn't too bad until we hit Baltimore, at which point it turned insane and stayed that way until we got home. We think there was a Ravens game, and we hit the return traffic.
All the driving pain was worth it, though.
We got to see my sister and the play she worked on. She is a professor, teaching at a college in southern Massachusetts. She runs the costume and prop shop, with the help of some students. They put on one big play per semester. The students involved in the play enroll in a few different courses in order to get academic credit for working on it. Some enroll in the acting class, while others enroll in the prop/scene class. It's a pretty nice deal, though it is a lot of work.
They did Bertolt Brecht's Life of Galileo (though I don't remember which translation they used). It was excellent. I thought all the actors did a great job. The costumes and set were, of course, wonderful. I know I'm biased, but I think that my sister does excellent work.
I think the play has an interesting application to our time as well. In it, Galileo uses a telescope for observing the stars. He finds that the Earth revolves around the sun, and that the sun is at the center of the universe. Further, the planets and other stars are not set into big crystal spheres, which was the accepted view at the time. In announcing his discovery he is condemned as a heretic by the church, and ultimately recants late in life. After that he is placed under house arrest and not allowed to do any more research.
My favorite scene is one where Galileo is trying to convince other scholars that there are 4 stars that orbit Jupiter. They refuse to believe it. He asks them to simply look through the telescope. They quote Aristotle. It goes back and forth like this until they leave. They never do look.
I found myself watching the play and thinking about the presidential election and recent events. It seems to me we have the old guard who wants us to believe what they say, but not what we see. And by the popular vote, there seem to be a lot of people who refuse to look with their own eyes and see what's out there.
Anyway, I'll stop before I go ranting.
Sadly, I never did get to see the goats my sister told me about. Apparently someone near her has goats in their back yard. I was naturally terrified by this news.
Visiting with my sister was great. The play was very good. The drive was not so good. Overall this weekend get 5 stars for visiting and 2.5 stars for adventurous travel.
Wednesday, November 17, 2004
Monday, November 15, 2004
ea_spouse
I found this article on the web today. It's important enough that I want to link to it here now. I'll comment on it later.
It's all about how working for that particular EA studio pretty much sucks. You put in insane hours. You sign your life over to them. And if you don't like it, there are 10000 people standing in line to take your place.
Anyway, it's a good article and you should read it.
It's all about how working for that particular EA studio pretty much sucks. You put in insane hours. You sign your life over to them. And if you don't like it, there are 10000 people standing in line to take your place.
Anyway, it's a good article and you should read it.
City of Heroes sued?
Eunice and I play the online game City of Heroes quite a bit. It's a lot of fun to play together. For one thing, you always know you'll be in a good group.
Anyway, City of Heroes lets players design their own superheroes from the ground up using Archetypes. As with any MMOG, some segment of the population will think it's kewl to play some known character. You end up with a lot of creative spellings of known names. Of course now that I've written that I can't remember any, other than the T1ck.
CoH has a fantastic costume creator. It allows players to build a character with a very unique look. In my opinion this is one of the things that CoH did right.
So what do you get with a bunch of gamers and an amazing costume creator? There are some very creative people out there, and not all of them use their talents for good. As I said above, there is also a segment of the population that just wants to play as their favorite superhero. Marvel has a sued over an online game, it's the first time I know of that another major company is involved.
It will be interesting to see how this plays out, or even if it will go to court.
Anyway, City of Heroes lets players design their own superheroes from the ground up using Archetypes. As with any MMOG, some segment of the population will think it's kewl to play some known character. You end up with a lot of creative spellings of known names. Of course now that I've written that I can't remember any, other than the T1ck.
CoH has a fantastic costume creator. It allows players to build a character with a very unique look. In my opinion this is one of the things that CoH did right.
So what do you get with a bunch of gamers and an amazing costume creator? There are some very creative people out there, and not all of them use their talents for good. As I said above, there is also a segment of the population that just wants to play as their favorite superhero. Marvel has a sued over an online game, it's the first time I know of that another major company is involved.
It will be interesting to see how this plays out, or even if it will go to court.
Tuesday, November 09, 2004
The Incredibles!
I just got back from seeing The Incredibles. I'm not going to post any spoilers, but I will say the movie is awesome. I think it's even worth seeing at full price. So what are you waiting for? Go see it!
Monday, November 08, 2004
Ah, the bad old days
This strip reminds me of when I played Magic The Gathering. It pretty well sums up what tournaments are like.
Friday, November 05, 2004
Interesting voting tidbits
It's no big surprise that technology isn't as foolproof as we want to believe it is. I mean, I write software for a living --I know how hard this stuff is to do.
Also, it's good to know that we're not the only ones who are saddened by the election results.
Also, it's good to know that we're not the only ones who are saddened by the election results.
Wednesday, November 03, 2004
Sadness
I'm sure everyone knows by now Kerry ceded the election to Bush.
I swear, Canada just keeps looking better and better.
I swear, Canada just keeps looking better and better.
Tuesday, November 02, 2004
My Civic Duty
Well, I voted.
I had to stand in line for 2.5 hours, but I voted. That's the longest time I've ever had to wait. I have to wonder if it's the area, or if the presidential election just brings out everybody. I shudder to think what the wait is going to be like this evening. I imagine a lot of people will wait until they get off work to go.
I also started reading Peopleware. It looks like it'll be a pretty fast read. I'm only on the 4th chapter, but once I'm finished I'll post a review, as well as the reasons why I shouldn't be reading books on software project management.
EDIT: The new look didn't generate too much fuss at the polling place. Maybe it was because all the poll workers were so overwhelmed. It did almost get me a closer spot in line.
I had to stand in line for 2.5 hours, but I voted. That's the longest time I've ever had to wait. I have to wonder if it's the area, or if the presidential election just brings out everybody. I shudder to think what the wait is going to be like this evening. I imagine a lot of people will wait until they get off work to go.
I also started reading Peopleware. It looks like it'll be a pretty fast read. I'm only on the 4th chapter, but once I'm finished I'll post a review, as well as the reasons why I shouldn't be reading books on software project management.
EDIT: The new look didn't generate too much fuss at the polling place. Maybe it was because all the poll workers were so overwhelmed. It did almost get me a closer spot in line.
Time to vote
My new look did generate some comments at work and elsewhere. Most were surprised. Some didn't notice. I got a little bit of teasing, but I expected that. Eunice and I took pictures, and we'll get those posted soon.
I have to wonder how the new look will go down at the voting booth. Will I be asked for my voters registration card (for the first time --ever)? We'll see soon.
I have to wonder how the new look will go down at the voting booth. Will I be asked for my voters registration card (for the first time --ever)? We'll see soon.
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