or Happy Spring Bank Holiday if you are in the UK.

Today is the unofficial start of the Summer vacation season here in the United States, and a big day for having gatherings with friends and family. We do have some good friends coming for a visit, and the whole (immediate) family here, so we have that second part covered (for the day). As far as vacations are concerned, though, it looks like we will be so busy for the next few weeks, at least, that getting away from the office will be unlikely. The time when vacations are most needed are often the same times that one is least able to afford either the time or money (or both) to take them.

The weather is just about perfect today, although thunderstorms are forecast for the afternoon and evening (which is par for the course for Summer in Michigan). Unfortunately, I begin today hobbling about due to a badly bruised left knee suffered in a soccer game last Thursday. The swelling and pain are subsiding a bit, so I do not think that anything actually broke. (I played most of the second half after the injury, only realizing the extent of the problem after the game ended.)

I have a large pile of technical notes, plus some anticipated announcements, ready for this blog. Similar to the vacation paradox, the point when one finds the most useful material is the time when one is being productive, rather than taking the time to actually compose blog posts.

Will work on that…

or, Information Overload on Overdrive.

A couple of weeks ago, I got the first brand new primary development system I have bought in many years. Don’t get me wrong: I have purchased a large number of systems over the years as laptops, servers, secondary (Mac) development systems, and office/test machines. Through the years, though, the trusty dual-processor system that sits on (well, next to) the desk in my office has remained stable. Its last major upgrade was nearly six years ago, when I maxed out the processing capability of the motherboard. (There have certainly been several video card, hard drive, and disc burner upgrades in the interim.)

According to the PassMark CPU Benchmark Charts, the new system (quad core) processor should be approximately 10 times the combined speed of the processors in the older system. I could have assembled a crazy system that would be more than thrice this speed, but instead decided to opt for a pre-built computer from a major supplier, as I could not (right now) justify the extra time it would take to physically put together the hardware. Installing all of my development software would be time-consuming enough.

Speaking of software installation, I had planned to take several days to really get the new development environment tweaked to my satisfaction. The most basic functionality, the operating system, gave me the most difficulty, although it is probably due to one or more driver issues rather than the OS itself. I had to clock the processor below specification to keep any of multiple Windows installations (XP, Vista, and Vista 64) from blue-screening, although I restored the speed after installation and the system has been rock solid ever since. (That is “solid” as in does not crash, though Vista exhibits several reproducible bugs.)

The thing upon which I had not planned was the backlash of extra work and interruptions that come from taking a few days off to configure a new system. Wow! My last week really needed a time defragmenter, as it seems that I could never get more than 15 minutes on any single task before another issue demanded my attention. The fact that my projects build from 3.5 to 5 times as fast never really came into play.

Now that (almost) everything is working as I prefer, and with the trusty system just a double ScrollLock away, I should be able to take full advantage of the promised extra productivity… I hope.

or, Never trust any Spam over 30 years old.

On (or about) May 3, 1978, a representative of Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC), THUERK at DEC-MARLBORO, sent an Unsolicited Commercial E-mail (UCE), a.k.a., Spam message, though neither term had been coined yet. The message was an invitation to view a demonstration of new DEC hardware at a couple of locations in California, and it was sent to nearly every address on the West Coast.

There was, of course, a huge backlash against the message. Interestingly, not only were there objections to the commercial content of the message, but in the days of connection speeds being measured in baud and kilobytes/second, the size of the message header was a significant load on resources.

This event predates my first hands-on personal computer experience by several months, and it also predates the birth of many people now in the game industry. It is a shame that we still do not have a solution to the problem (which has reached levels as high as 4 spams per second for extended periods on our server here). Unfortunately, most attempts to stem the flow, however well-intentioned, tend to simply make delivery of legitimate messages less reliable.

The time is ripe for a sender pays (recipient earns) system. At an average of upwards of 3000 spams per day, that could be a nice bit of residual income for us.

Today is the birthday of the World Wide Web (as we know it).

On April 30, 1993, CERN released their World Wide Web software, including a text client, a simple server, and a library of common code, into the public domain. The original proposal was published two and a half years earlier, on November 12, 1990, but once the protocols and source code for a working system were freely available for use, the foundations of the WWW were in place.

This action, along with the High Performance Computing and Communication Act of 1991, initiated by (then) Senator Al Gore, led directly to the development of Mosaic, the graphical web browser that ignited the web, later in 1993. It is astounding how far this technology has come in just a decade and a half, particularly having made the leap from an obscure network tool into a primary source of information for the masses.

Wow!

Sunshine and warmer temperatures cause me to venture forth.

For the last few months, I have been focusing on development of a new product and game engine, simultaneously, and I have spent most of the past month indoors. That was not really a problem as the bitter cold changed into grey skies and rain, with moderate cold. Now, however, the temperatures are getting into the 60s and 70s and the sky is mostly sunny, so it is high time to get out of the office for a bit.

On Saturday [April 19], IGDA Detroit will be having a “social meeting” at Penguicon in Troy (near Detroit). The party begins at 5:00pm in an unspecified room on the third floor. I have no particular desire to go to the con itself (so I won’t), but I look forward to talking with other game developers from our area and elsewhere. For more information about the IGDA gathering, visit this link.

For anybody in the East Lansing area, there is also a benefit auction for the East Lansing High School Theater Program, which has been selected to participate in the 2008 Festival Fringe in Edinburgh, Scotland. The auction takes place tomorrow, Friday, April 18; click here to find more information, including a list of items up for bid. If anybody would like to donate directly, contact me (seelhoff@sophsoft.com) and I will provide instructions for doing so.

Finally, and very unfortunately, I have to acknowledge that a friend of mine (in an unrelated field) passed away early last week, so…

Here’s to you, Wayne. You will be greatly missed.

[Moment of Silence]

It is time for “squares” to honor IP rights proudly.

During my life, I have heard many people referred to as “squares” because they chose not to participate in some activity, whether it be drinking, smoking, or promiscuous sex. I have been on both sides of that intended epithet, and it is much harder to stick to ones choices than to go along with the crowd. In my youthful experience, “everyone is doing it” was the key argument in such situations.

Fast forward several years into the future. Drinking can lead to alcoholism and drunk driving, and “Drink responsibly” is the new mantra and mandate. Smoking causes addiction and early death, not to mention an offensive smell, and people are now generally encouraged to quit (and congratulated for doing so). Sex, practiced irresponsibly, can lead to unwanted pregnancy and/or STDs, and now many people take pride in their choice of either abstinence or a monogamous relationship.

Now it seems that copyright violations, in the form of pirated software and illegal music and video files, are another foolish act that “everyone“, especially the young, are being encouraged by peers to do.

It is high time that we “squares” stand up and start turning the tide against these unethical, immoral, and illegal practices. I am confident that nearly everybody who reads this blog understands the importance of creative people such as game developers, artists, and musicians getting properly paid for their work. Nevertheless, I will still make the point that if creators are not compensated fairly because their work is being stolen, then there will soon be a decrease in software, video games, music, movies, and other art, to the detriment of society.

I realize that people are not often willing or able to think about abstract concepts such as the “detriment of society”, so perhaps the fear of the logical extent of what it happening already will sway them. Groups such as the RIAA (according to Google, “Trade group that claims to represent the US recording industry.” [emphasis mine]) are becoming more radical and aggressive with lawsuits and technological means of locking content and spying (yes, spying) on their own customers. We are rapidly moving to a point where, in order to watch a movie at home, play a computer game, or listen to a song, we have to completely give up our privacy (not to mention our credit card numbers) and still endure painful DRM procedures. Yet the problem grows worse.

Instead of encouraging such antagonistic means, it is imperative on all of us (thoughtful, intelligent people) to be vocal about how uncool it is to steal others’ creative work by making digital copies without paying. If one makes a living, or has any intent to ever make money, in a creative field, then one cannot condone copyright violations in any area. With some reverse peer pressure from the millions of people in creative fields, it is possible to give digital theft the social stigma it deserves.

Are you all with me?

[Note: This posting was delayed for days due to a technological failure.]

A voice interview I did last summer has now been published.

During SIC 2007, Mike Dulin interviewed me for his SharewareRadio.com program. Last week, my interview was the one included in the weekly broadcast [Thursday Feburary 21, 2008]. The full program [MP3 – 16.6M] can be downloaded (or opened directly) from the front page for the next few days. In case you miss the current window, the interview should be available in the archives.

The general topics of conversation were my background (briefly), game development, and the ASP (Association of Shareware Professionals).

Enjoy!

This is the last part (for now) of How Not To inspire struggling employees.

[The past two posts provide context for this.]

The situation: Unlike the previous situations, at this point I was making enough money to pay my bills on time, albeit without really getting ahead. I had worked my way up from Software Engineer to Vice President of Programming and, again, was the highest positioned employee, #2 to the owner/President. The company was not particularly strong, financially, but I had finished a multimedia presentation product that had the possibility, if managed and marketed correctly, to make a large splash in a fledgling industry (in 1992). I had high hopes of actually earning a comfortable living for once. Until…

The incident: My boss, for reasons still unknown to me, confided that he would be “perfectly happy to earn $40K per year.” In fact, he went on to proclaim that if a benefactor would grant him that much each year, he will close down the company and just live on that.

That was his goal. Of course, this is one of those guys who grew up with a silver spoon in his mouth, so I suppose it was admirably modest, but the fact that he barely wanted to earn more than I expected on my next raise was disconcerting. More so was the fact that he was only committed to the company from which I was earning my living until something easier came along (like inheriting family money, perhaps).

The lessons: If the owner of the company has aspirations for the long term that are lower than your own for the next year or so, it is time to look elsewhere. Should you find that your boss has no particular commitment to the work that you (collectively) do, get ready to leave. When your boss has an extramarital affair with one of your coworkers and it starts affecting your job, depart as soon as possible. (No, wait… That last one is a different story.)

[link to part 1]
[link to part 2]

This is the second (middle) part of How Not To inspire struggling employees.

[Please see my previous post for background.]

The situation: I had a programming position at an independent game development company. Scratch that. I had the programming position (remaining), and in an attempt to get our game finished, I had (very foolishly) taken a pay cut down to minimum wage, albeit with the possibility of overtime up to 80 hours. In order to make ends meet, I then had to work 80 hours every week. Since I (and my pregnant wife) lived 30 miles away, I often had to sleep in the office to save both time and gas money. This took a toll on my health, my finances, and my marriage (and needless to say, I would never do that again).

The incident: One of the (two) bosses told me one day that his personal bank account had dipped below $10,000 and continued, “I get nervous when it gets that low.“

There I was, working the equivalent of two full time jobs, yet still only able to afford gas to see my wife (who was unable to work due to a difficult pregnancy) some nights, and of course stressed beyond belief. So my boss thinks that he will get better productivity by commiserating about having “money problems” while demonstrating a complete lack of understanding of my situation. Hmm…

The lessons: Never accept a pay cut to finish a project, especially if you are a critical developer (unless, of course, you can afford it and stand to profit handsomely when the product is completed). Working 80 hours per week on a sustained basis is counterproductive. If you are an employer, make sure that your developers can at least afford basic necessities, and certainly do not detail how you are at a whole different economic level (if applicable).

[link to part 1]
[link to part 3]