Hobbyist gamedev, moderator of /c/GameDev, TV news producer/journalist by trade

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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: July 2nd, 2023

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  • C̴̖͕̟̦̣̝̟̠̺̋̋͐̈̀́̚o̴̯͈̠͉̮̾͛̅̔͘n̶̡͎͙̻̹̮͔͓̩̟͆̏ͅg̷̝̰̹̝̙̻̺̭̲͍̜̾̾r̷̢̢̭̟̤̥̭̹̊̏̀̽̒̚͠͝a̴̧͇͕͍͇͐t̷̤̫̙̦̩̘̚͠u̵̞͚̝͗͂̉̓̆́͑̈́̇̚l̸̢͕͕̘͕̮̼̔͝a̷͉̯̥͉̦̱̋̌͘t̵̢̛̙̯̬̮̘̖̗̳̲̗̺̳̙̣̰͖͋̔͑̀͛͘͝i̴̡̤͓̹̞̗̪̗̜̜̝̟͔̰͇̺͇͛͛̋̒̋̍͑̽͂͠o̷̢̨̧͈̰̪͙̊ņ̵͎͈̉͑͊̂ͅs̷̨̝̣̭̭̫̜̳̝͍̪̔̆̄͂̃̽̚͝͝!̵̢̛̰͚̃̿̈́̈́̃̿͗̽͌̓̈́̀͊̿̚͘


  • I’m glad you’re involved enough to know this and care about it. I’m 44 and have no kids, so take this with a huge grain of salt… But I’d probably let my kid keep it. At 16 you can just sit them down and have a talk with them about it. (And it sounds like you have.) Let them know this means his friend’s family has money that he does not, and you do not.

    Let him know that he shouldn’t take advantage of his friend’s cavalier attitude and kindness, nor should he let his friend’s familial wealth pressure him. He should appreciate this, but not expect it, or feel guilty about it. And let him know this is a complex thing, and if they need to talk about it, it’s better they approach you to talk about it early rather than late.

    Underscore that this is squarely his friend’s parents money, not his friend’s. It can come and go at any time, and that’s okay. Value the friendship more than the money, and if that changes, don’t accept such gifts.

    My folks would invite a cousin my age over for the night before Christmas when we were all in our mid teens. The next morning he would things like clothes, shoes, and an electric razor; things a young guy needs. My folks were not rich, just lower middle class and able to help out. It’s a different situation than you’re in. But if this family of your child’s friend has money and wants to spread the love and is capable of doing so in an adult and healthy way, I personally think 16 is an age at which someone can begin to deal with the complex dynamics of monetary differences.

    You know your kid better than us strangers online. And remember, they also have you on their side. Growing up is going to be difficult anyway. Just be there for them when they need it, and they’ll probably be fine.

    Edit: And also maybe get to know the other set of parents better. Explain to them you’re appreciative of their kindness, and so does your son, but that your concern is just that you don’t want it to create an awkward dynamic between your children in the future. Again 16 is young adult, but still a kid, so I understand your concern. They probably will to.


  • Most of our banks have Zelle, which lets us send money from one bank account directly to another. You can to use the associated email address, phone number, or name. I think it shows you the name on the account? I’m honestly not positive as I so rarely use it. But even then you could create a business account. But not many people use it. Most people prefer Paypal, CashApp, or Venmo.


  • Sadly this isn’t new, and hospitals are an example that comes to mind for me. At least one in particular. In 2007 there was a huge scandal about the treatment of US soldiers at Walter Reed, which was thought of as one of the top military hospitals. The initial reporting was from the Washington Post and largely focused on how the privatization of care and the contracting process itself had failed the patients so horribly.

    I vaguely recall that building upkeep was delayed years because of contracting issues, and that the staff was slashed from hundreds (plural) to less than a hundred, claiming they couldn’t find qualified candidates. There were complaints about rats, roaches, and black mold. I’m also fairly certain there was a story of one guy saying he was handed a shitty photocopy of the grounds and it took him hours walking around in a hospital gown to find his room. Two weeks later he found the person who was supposed to be running his case, and the case manager said they had no idea where the patient had been those two weeks.

    Looking now, Wikipedia doesn’t even mention privatization or contracting issues. The one (2010) complaint of this on the Talk page gets a reply saying “well the military was ultimately responsible for holding those contractors accountable,” and it ends there. Not wrong, but still feels like it’s not giving a full account of the story.

    Obviously this is just conjecture now, but honestly the staffing part reminds me just like how, as I’m job hunting now, I notice companies keep posting the same ads, saying they can’t find anyone who wants to work, while offering peanuts for very high requirements, and getting hundreds of applications. I’m sure lots of them aren’t qualified, but I’m confident some of them are. I’ve even been offered significantly less than my last job paid, for a position (at a different employer) that would’ve been a manager for my previous level. I can only imagine how crazy it gets in the medical field.


  • Like a lot of others, my biggest gripe is the accepted copyright violation for the wealthy. They should have to license data (text, images, video, audio,) for their models, or use material in the public domain. With that in mind, in return I’d love to see pushes to drastically reduce the duration of copyright. My goal is less about destroying generative AI, as annoying as it is, and more about leveraging the money being it to change copyright law.

    I don’t love the environmental effects but I think the carbon output of OpenAI is probably less than TikTok, and no one cares about that because they enjoy TikTok more. The energy issue is honestly a bigger problem than AI. And while I understand and appreciate people worried about throwing more weight on the scales, I’m not sure it’s enough to really matter. I think we need bigger “what if” scenarios to handle that.






  • They didn’t fire the whole team, just the six people (from what I can find,) that worked in the US. Some suspect NetEase’s move was to consolidating their workers in China. The six who were fired did, to some extent, level design and game design. I’m not sure anyone has a good answer on how much of each. And the creative lead and lead producer are still on the team, in China.

    That’s not to suggest how you should feel about the developer who fired people after a massive success, regardless of how many they fired. Just saying “the whole dev team” is a vast overstatement, considering how many people worked on the game. We can be pissed at people and be accurate. That’s all.


  • Here’s my office work:

    Since 2005 I worked as a TV news producer. We started the day with a morning meeting where reporters pitched stories and it was decided what they covered that day. Then as a producer I organized the stories in the newscast and found other stories which I was responsible for. That ranges from finding a worthwhile press release to interviewing people myself (usually by phone, and someone’s video chat,) or just finding info by going through data. I would write those, then decide what visuals, audio elements, camera shots, graphics, and anchor reads went with it.

    Then during the live newscast I timed it, and made adjustments on the fly when necessary. (Killing stories, finding ones to insert, and adding breaking news.)

    I let my contract end almost two months ago, choosing not to stay in news. I’ve been applying to mostly other non-TV news office jobs. That’s including producing other video projects, but also technical writing and marketing positions.




  • I joined Google Plus with a group of a couple dozen friends from a long-time online community, and many of us loved it! As i recall the biggest issue at launch was that you couldn’t push a pay to a circle and still leave it discoverable on your timeline, without pushing it to everyone. That kinda made it more insular than it should’ve been. Slowly we all stopped because no one else (family, friends,) was joining.


  • [email protected] - I took it over several months ago and have tried to regularly share news that is relevant to developers and hobbyists. I think I’ve done an okay job, but it’s still pretty low in search results when you search “gamedev Lemmy”. While posts get a few upvotes, and some comments, almost no one else posts there.

    The thing is, I like the Reddit r/gamedev community just fine and still visit it. I just don’t trust Reddit as a company. So this is my way of trying to facilitate a healthy option, and follow the adage of “the grass is greener where you water it”.

    So if you’re into video game development and the industry around it, feel free to join!






  • If I’m not mistaken it was in 2020-2021, when Tesla stock prices when going gangbusters, Musk was saying it was overvalued. Given constant Cybertruck updates/recalls, general Tesla safety concerns, Ford and Rivian apparently doing well in trucks, and Mercedes apparently having the best self driving, all happening since then, I’m not sure why it should be valued exceptionally high. They had a good name in EV cars, now they have scary stories.

    And that’s not even getting into politics and dropping sales, so, I’m not surprised the stock is trending down