Remember Remember…
This is usually the day we remember The Gun Powder Treason and Plot, a staple of civil disobedience and unrest. It is good to remember that it is not only our privilege but our duty to take responsibility for our state and how it’s run. And we’re not talking only about elections. It is also the day I remember Yitzhak Rabin, now dead for two decades, who is still, in my opinion, the last decent leader we had in this country. And no one has yet been able to fill his shoes. And this year, because the previous two were recurring topics of conversation between us, I remember Keren Embar. She wasn’t here last November too. I regret we can never have those conversations again. I don’t have time or presence of mind to write any more but check past November 5th post for ramblings of the same nature.
Posted in Humanity, Life Lessons, No Category, Philosophy, Practice, Thinking Out Loud by Eran with comments disabled.
The Less Interesting Telegram
אז טלגרם מנסים להיות טוויטר ואני בודק איך זה יכול לעבוד. אם יש לכם טלגרם, אפשר לעקוב אחרי עדכונים תכופים יותר כאן. עוד לא יודע איך לשלב את העדכונים האלו פה אבל בטוח מישהו יוציא תוסף בקרוב.
Posted in Less Interesting News, Practice, Thinking Out Loud by Eran with comments disabled.
About Cheating
I’m not ashamed of it. I publicise it. Like recreational drugs, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with it as long as you don’t hurt anyone else or destroy your internal organs. Every time I think of cheating, I remember a point when I was still in high school and my big brother’s friend’s mom managed our high school’s computer classes so we could pretty much have free reign there during the weekends. So, we went there and played Diablo from dusk until dawn. And even then I had my hands in it deep and I knew exactly how to break the game’s economy in the player’s favour (the item dupe cheat still worked wonderfully). And one weekend, while we were playing, one of my brother’s friends called me over and asked me to explain to him how I cheated. He explained his philosophy on that. He said, that he finished the game, through and through, the way it was intended and now he was interested in doing it another way. And that’s completely ok. And there are also other reasons. Right now, I cheat in games for two reasons: the main one is that I don’t have a lot of time. I’m a working man (or as one might put it, a workaholic) and I have a wife and so my gaming time is usually limited to maybe an hour before bed, an hour or two in the morning and a bit more during the weekends. I can no Continue Reading →
Posted in Gaming, Philosophy, Practice, Thinking Out Loud by Eran with comments disabled.
How NOT to Give Everyone a Fair Salary
Company Testing Standardized Salaries Is Struggling I think what they did there was just plain wrong. The way to equalize salary considerations is not to give everyone, from the newest hires to the CEO, the same salary. That is a sure fire way of causing discontent. What they need is to give the newest, lowest ranking hires a fair base salary and then, from there, calculate everyone’s salary based on veterancy, responsibility and, most importantly, merit. And I think it’s ok for people to know their co-workers salary. There’s no reason I can think of to hide salaries that is for the employee’s benefit. If there’s a difference between my salary and someone else’s, I want to know that, if I have a higher one, there’s a good reason for it. And if there isn’t, maybe I shouldn’t get one. And, if it’s lower, I want to know what that other person did to ingratiate themselves upon the management so I can do it too and get paid better for it. For example, if someone is getting paid more than me because they have a year of company time on me, I think that’s fair. If they get paid more because they are very reliable and help whenever asked, I want to do that too. If they get paid more because they handle 3 times more responsibilities then me… well, there’s not a lot I can do about it but that’s fair.
Posted in High-Tech, IT, No Category, Practice, Thinking Out Loud by Eran with comments disabled.
From Stretching to Grind
It is a common practice in game design to try to stretch out the length of a game by padding out the content. This could be done by insidiously layering out difficult, repeating levels or by simply varying out the already introduced elements into new configurations. I’ve recently thought about this after seeing a few new puzzle games. I have quite a low tolerance for those unless they introduce something really interesting (i.e. Ronin) and even then, they should probably be short enough to not over stay their welcome. And so, when looking at those puzzle games, I played two or three levels, understood what they’re doing with it, and decided it wasn’t interesting enough to invest time in. The problem is, again, a conflict of expectations, exacerbated by the sheer quantity of quality games out there. Meaning, if I’m playing a game that I’m not enjoying as much as I thought I would and I know I have other games that will be at least as enjoyable if not more, why should I keep playing? I’ll take a look at it using three examples I think, at least in my case, symbolise different levels of padding/grind vs my innate interest in those genres of play: The role of grand strategy game will be played by Civilization: Beyond Earth. The role of the endless runner will be played by Relic Run. And the role of the Action RPG will be played by Path of Exile. Grand Strategy /Â Civilization: Beyond Earth Continue Reading →
Posted in Gaming, Practice, Thinking Out Loud by Eran with 1 comment.
The Kill With Skill Debate
Or “Why Wolfenstein – The New Order is better than Bulletstorm in making players do things a bit differently (Except, maybe, driving a dinosaur into combat)”. What’s the deal with that headline? One of the tag lines for the 2011 Bulletstorm was “Kill with Skill”. It was a core mechanic of the game. It’s something that garnered a lot of praise for the game. And it was one of the things that annoyed me the most about it. No, I meant, what the hell does it mean? Oh. In Bulletstorm, you get points for killing fashionably. When you shoot a guy in the face, that’s a couple of points. If you pull him towards you, kick him back, blast him in half with the shotgun and then shoot the pieces with the rocket launcher. That’s a heck of a lot of points. And these points are your currency in the game. Ok… What’s the problem with that? It sounds cool. It sounds cool. And that’s about where it ends. In Bulletstorm, ammo and health drops are scarce. You get most of your boosts from some sort of recharge station you find all around and they only accept those points. Otherwise, you can’t get ammo. And that’s annoying. So, what’s the big problem? Just kill the stuff the way the game says. It gets tedious. Extremely tedious, extremely fast. You know how when everything is special, nothing is? Well, when every kill needs to be fancy, then no kill is. And some Continue Reading →
Posted in Gaming, Practice, Thinking Out Loud by Eran with 4 comments.
Chinese Scientists Plan Solar Power Station In Space
That is, a solar station in space that converts the energy to microwave or laser and beams it to Earth. There are ways to mitigate the danger but let me remind you… “Microwave Receiver Dish is very efficient, clean and reliable. Launch a satellite to collect solar power, then beam it down to Earth. Unfortunately, the effects of a mis-targeted beam are, as yet, unknown.” — SimCity 2000 Manual (pg. 35)
Posted in Gaming, High-Tech, Less Interesting News, Practice, Thinking Out Loud by Eran with 2 comments.
Fix All the Crash Reports!
אתמול היה יום משמח כי, אחרי יומיים שאני וירון חורשים על כל דו”ח קריסה של המשחק, טיפלנו וענינו על כל בעיה ותקלה שהייתה שם. מ-50 ומשהו דו”חות ירדנו לאפס. זה אולי לא היה היום הכי יעיל שלנו אבל הוא בהחלט היה אחד המספקים. כזה שהיה ראוי ל-Epic High Five ול-Money Dance. ואז חזרתי הביתה ומעין קישרה אותי למציאות של הפיגוע בירושלים. אז לא יום כל כך שמח. אני לא כל כך מתרגש מדברים כאלו יותר, במיוחד כשלא מדובר באנשים או במקום שאני מכיר. אבל הסיקור החדשותי בעולם היה מה שהרתיח אותי. CNN אמורים להיות ארגון חדשות מנוסה ומקצועי. אין להם בודקי עובדות במשכורת? כי מה שקרה אתמול גורם להם להיראות כמו ילדה בת 12 בטוויטר. וגם ה-BBC לא ממש חיכו לפני שפרסמו כתבה שגורמת לאירוע להישמע כאילו שוטרים ישראלים התנקשו בשני פלסטינים… שבמקרה נכנסו לבית כנסת עם אקדח וסכין. ובסוף אנחנו לא בסדר והתקשורת העולמית היא טלית שכולה תכלת (וקצת ספוגה בדם).
Posted in Less Interesting News, No Category, Practice, Thinking Out Loud, Work by Eran with comments disabled.
Remember, Remember the Fifth of November
I’m not going to reiterate past posts, they’re available under each November in the right menu. There are only two “new” things I have to say. One, as Israel “officially” marks this event on the Hebrew calendar and this is the 19th anniversary, it finally falls on the correct, Gregorian, date. I will reserve further comment on this because I’m in a bad mood. Second, besides her birthday, which is in my calendar for years now, this will be another date that will remind me of Keren. The Fifth of November was something we talked about every year. Because of Yitzhak Rabin. Because of V for Vendetta. Because of Guy Fawkes especially. So I’ll also remember the Fifth of November because of that
Posted in Humanity, No Category, Practice, Thinking Out Loud by Eran with comments disabled.