->Insert satirical title here<- [DormantLemon]

[dormantlemon]

Name: Josh
Age: 19
Location: Lincolnshire & Leicester
Hobbies: Mapper for the Source Engine (CS:S ZE specifically). Also amateur modeller and animator. Programmer too. Y'know, pretty much all the stuff that falls under that broad canvas that is labelled as 'game developer.'
Interests: osu!, everything involed in game development from concept art creation through to engine code to level design to testing.
Occupation: Student @ DMU
Favourite Things: Benny's Chicken & Munch:Munch.


Fair warning, I suspect this will probably turn into a hate thread on stuff i dislike, as I post more and more about the stuff i produce in my spare time, although I'll make sure to keep it vaguely respectable and rule abiding.
Feel free to post anything vaguely relevant to anything I post. Also I guess most of the stuff will be related to video games, although I'll do my best to rage about factory labour as well whenever I get the opportunity

[Orange_]

welcome to the journals dormantlemon

[dormantlemon]

Rage post #1 - featuring such regulars Valves Source Engine, Factory Labour, also guest starring disappointment in release dates.

Queue theme music.. AND... ACTION!

Valves Source Engine
Today our story begins with our hero doing what he enjoys in his spare time; mapping. His weapon the Hammer (i hope someone sees what I did there). Sadly this Hammer also drains the life of the wielder with every swing, mainly due to outdated and buggy code. Ohh Valve, I love the bug that prevent you playing looping sounds outside of the first round in cs:s. And yet the the fix would be simple, and has been a known issue for years. To work around, one has to use a timer to play a sound each time the sound has finished playing. Problem? Yes. You double the entity count, increase the IO in a level, and you have to do this for every looping sound you want. Also from a programmers perspective, you are using 'magic numbers', i.e. a number (in this case for the timer) that anyone else looking at code (or entity IO) will have real trouble determining why the value is what it is.

Brief lesson: dont use magic numbers an example
Window width:height is 800:800
Position object in center -> set Position 400,400 <====== Those are magic numbers. They are fixed values that dont necessarily have any clear meaning.
Position object in center -> set Position GetWidth/2:GetHeight/2 <====== Those are not magic numbers. Its poisiton is relative and automated positioned to the window size. Its also very obvious what these positions are and aim to be.

Labour
12 hour shifts 4 days a week making sausage rolls for a tad over minimum wage. 6 hours sleep in exchange for 12 hours work. Seems FUCKING LEGIT. The real problems with this awful hellhole is that:
1. 95% of jobs in this factory could and SHOULD be done by machines. They'd be faster, more efficient and in the long run, save a whole lotta money.
2. The ratio of management:labourers is 1:1. Pay ratio 1.5:1. Actual work ratio 1:4. No wonder our pay is so crap and out work so arduous.

FYI you eaten a tesco, morrison's, or CO-OP sausage roll, mini-trad, cheesy roll in the last 2 months? You can bet your ass I was involved in its production.

On the bright side, seeing this other side of life where those at the bottom of society with NO qualifications to do anything bar manual labour, has given me the confidence to say, I WILL GET A 1ST IN MY DEGREE. Because if that's what awaits me if I were to fail. Id glady file my own face of now to save the pain of dying on an assembly line.


Release Schedules
No so much rage as general acceptance that reality cant be what you hoped for. This I suppose is generally more relevant to the forums. Angel Beats! Heavens door takes an awful long time to have a volume released. While each volume has been worth the wait, each wait always feels like the next volume will be a letdown. Same applies to sword Art Online. While I already largely know the plot, even a weekly release feels too slow, although I guess this is because I DO know the plot already that advancing it weekly seems very sluggish.

On the upside, next Evangelion film release date was announced

[dormantlemon]

RAGE POST #2 - QUITTING WORK

So, after having worked 4 12hour shifts in the last 5 days (with 2 days remaining in this week), ive been forced into working another 12 hour shift tomorrow. Not only is this illegal (54hours is the legal maximum you can work without agreeing to more), I was threatened with being sacked if I didnt turn up tomorrow. Suffice to say tomorrow is now my last shift at that shit hole. Handing in my notice tomorrow, and if i get called in afterwards before I'm removed from their employee registers, Im not gonna turn up.

To put it bluntly, if that factory was unionised, it would be shut down in a flash. Your rights are minimum, you get ~12 hours notice for when you're working (get home @6pm to find out i need to start work @6am next day) during your ~3 month training period. That labour should not be done by people, it is machine work. They employ people for this because in Lincolnshire there are so many foreign nationals that have no choice but to work, they can afford to make employees shoulder as much work as possible for as low a pay as they want. The word exploitation is written all over this place.

They hire >20 staff a week, every week because the place is so bad that most do 1 shift and never turn up. I personally know more than 1 person who walked out after 3 hours. I dont blame them.

I would name and shame, but I still have a shred of decency that factory life hasnt yet erased from my personality. Also this company's other factories might be far better to work in.

RAGE #2 COMPLETED

On a lighter note:
1. Ill finally find out about whether i can offer some free Alcon accomodation
2. The thought of fairy tail, kuroko no basuke, and SAO over the weekend will fuel me through tomorrow.

[Kagura]

Wow, I honestly can't blame you for handing your notice in, that's rough to say the least.

Ooh, Fairy Tail fan!
What do you think so far?

[dormantlemon]

Ooh, Fairy Tail fan!
What do you think so far?

Great series. I already know whats gonna happen, I follow the manga. In general its a very unique series. Childish to say the least most of the time, but it does have some more serious undertones, such as slavery in Erza's history. Does have a multitude of plot holes though.

[dormantlemon]

RAGE POST #3

More rage today, after spending 48 hours with about 4 hours sleep attempting data recovery to get my pc running again. About a month ago purchased a 2tb HDD. Gave it to weeks of running before migrating data to it permanently as a basic test as to whether is was gonna be faulty. All was well.

2 days ago it died on me, leaving me pissed that I might lose about 1.3tb of data. Anyway I rushed out of the house to buy a new set of drives (a pair of 2tbs and a new PSU i required) to replace the old drive. Cost me £260 I didnt really want to spend. Got the thing set up in a couple of hours with a fresh windows install, and a RAID1 disc setup on the 2tb's (pc has a total of 5tb in now [although 3 acessible, the 2tb drives are mirrored]).

Spend the last 34ish hours recovering stuff of the drive. Lost about 60gb of stuff forever, fortunately it wasnt anything serious, just random episodes of a number of series (i use the disc purely for media storage). it was all anime I lost from the ~1.1tb I have saved on it. Still 60gb is a lot, but I was pleased I got back as much as I did.

Anyway, hard drive failures a bitch. I sympathise with anyone who suffers it. Although raid is expensive, Ill pay the price now than pay the price later, if you know what I mean.



Unrelated, got a job at a school for the next few weeks. More money for university next year.

Also sadly, contacted my landlady, cant let anyone stay at my place in Leicester for Alcon. Bit of a shame, as I was more than willing to help out those who couldnt afford the accomodation, but thats life