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127
Joined
2 yr. ago

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

  • 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.

  • I recall the gumball machine at my childhood barber being a penny in the mid 1980s. I don't recall when it went up exactly, but it was around then. I was born in 80 so I was pretty young when it happened. But yeah, even then the convenience store in the middle of town had a candy aisle with lots of 5 cent candy that made picking up pennies worthwhile.

    I also remember in the later 80s when I began reading them, comics were $0.75 each. Over the next 15 years they went to $3, until I was in college and my comic habit was just too expensive, so I stopped the monthlies completely.

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  • The Google Maps app already shows what it wants instead of what's nearby. Now the Gmail app shows you what they want you to see instead of ordering by date. I imagine the goal is just to replace everything with a "Google" button. You just type in words and hug "Google", and it serves up its own info instead of anyone else's pages. Sigh.

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  • All I can say is be the change you want to see. Submit posts, maybe mod a community. I'm doing !gamedev, and it gets political sometimes, like any career field, but it is what it is.

    Maybe you want a Marvel community, or whatever. Find your interest and dive in!

  • Sorry, it was a joke from the old machinima Red vs Blue. There's a truck called the Warthog and someone suggests it looks like a Puma. Another person says "you're making that up".

    It's at 1:46 https://youtu.be/Rju4RWdEyZk

    That was far too old a reference to drop casually. My bad.

  • "You're making that up."

  • 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.

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  • Just throwing this out there because it should be said often: ProPublica is great.

  • When I first looked all the gamedev communities seemed kinda dead, and none really stuck out, so I went with the server I was a part of. Later someone pointed out that PD was still alive and kicking to me after I already started posting to LW. I just kept posting to LW because I could ban any spam or jerks if the community ever decides that becomes a problem. But after I realized it wasn't dead I followed it too, and have cross-posted once or twice from it. I'd encourage people to follow both. That just means more options and seems even healthier to me.

  • 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.

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  • That's a pretty great quote, thanks.

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  • I think there's a difference between trying to actively quash public opinion and trying to preemptive self-censorship so others don't think YOU support something, just because you let the opinion exist on your site. I think this is mostly the latter.

    I'm not saying this is good or better, mind you. Preemptive self-censorship just means the people/structure aren't healthy enough to withstand the pressure they fear, or just fear it unreasonably. People in those positions are often chosen/supported exactly because they'll toe a line.

    It's a problem. I'm just saying it's a slightly different problem. Maybe less malicious, more insidious and wide ranging. Maybe.

  • No worry, I didn't either until it was pointed out to me.

  • That's Robert Redford in the film Jeremiah Johnson.

  • Yeah really. It's been years since I saw a 90m movie.

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  • Imagine investing in another company being led by Elon Musk these days.

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  • When I get another job lined up that's my goal. A job and these bills. And that car loan. And maybe a house... Man. Maybe two jobs.

  • As a person also named Jeff Bridges (no relation,) I say that yes, you can paint Jeff Bridges. (Other) Jeff Bridges approved!