Global Nerdy

Mark April 29, 2008 on your calendar: that’s the day when Grand Theft Auto IV hits the shelves.

Here are some facts about the game that I’ve gleaned from the MTV.com articles ‘Grand Theft Auto IV’ Details Unloaded In Lengthy Private Demo At Developer’s Headquarters and ‘Grand Theft Auto IV’ Developer Talks Delay, Violence And Whether There Will Be Another ‘Hot Coffee’:

• “You can’t get fat anymore.” You can, however, get drunk, which makes the controls less reliable and the camera wobbly.
• The game’s look is pretty close to that of the trailers.
• “You can take a taxi anywhere on the map.”
• You have a cell phone and you can hit an internet cafe to surf the web.
• “There may be bums lying in front of a car on the street.” Some enemies may be playing dead (a la BioShock.)
• “Someone other than you might be getting chased by the police.” (I don’t think this is new; you see things like in the previous edition, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas.)
• Load times are short.
• There’s a new physics model that makes character motion more natural.
• Line-of-sight is such that you can see buildings ten blocks away.
• Taxis and car services are now things you can hail, just like real taxis and car services. As with real life, cab rides cost money, and you can look out the window and see scenery pass by. You can pay more money to have the cabbie drive recklessly or to skip the ride sequence and auto-magically appear at your destination.
• Cars have GPS; the expensive ones have GPSs that talk.
• Police cars have police computers which you can use to find suspects.
• When police witness you committing a crime, a circle appears on your mini-map. That’s the area for which you are in trouble. Leave that area, and you’re home free. Having a shootout with the cops makes that circle bigger.
• The game has a new targeting system: using the left trigger activates a zoomed-in “free-aim” mode a la Gears of War.
• New dynamic car chases feature special events that are triggered under specific conditions. “These events won’t happen in completely predictable ways, and players won’t see them every time.”
• If you have to repeat a mission, the game may vary the dialogue to keep you from being bored by repetition. You can also “warp right back to the start of a mission” rather than have to drive back to the start point.
• There isn’t going to be a “Hot Coffee”, they say. There will be dates, however.

Over at FoundRead, Larry Chiang has some advice that you might find useful if you’re following Scoble’s advice for people who’ve just been laid off (particularly the parts about networking and attending business events). His piece is titled How to Work the Room.

Here’s a condensed version:

1. Be more of a host and less of a guest. Make introductions and make people more comfortable.
2. Avoid permanently joining a “rock pile” (a pack of people in a tight circle). Huddling feels safe, but it’s also antisocial.
3. Dress for the party. The basic rule: the more junior you are, the better you should dress.
4. Don’t “hotbox” (square shoulders front and centre to one person). In a one-on-one conversation, it’s okay, but it excludes others from joining.
5. Put your coat and bag down. It signals that you’re about to leave.
6. Mentor someone about your (or your company’s) core competence. “It transitions nicely from the what-do-you-do-for-work question. It also adds some substance to party conversations and clearly brands you as a person.”
7. Don’t forget to get mentored as well. The author suggests this trick: try to learn three new things at each event.
8. Be a good host while you’re someone else’s guest. Say “Hi” to wallflowers.
9. Manage the party host. “When you’re interacting with the host, ask simple questions requiring a ‘Yes/No’ response. I’ve heard disastrous questions in a vain attempt to out alpha-male the host. The best questions to ask of a host are upbeat, light and fluffy. If you want to be Mike Wallace/Chris Matthews with a hardball question, tread lightly. Also, help your host wiggle by wrangling them away from guests who are monopolizing or “hotboxing” them. They will thank you later.”
10. Always, always, always: Thank the host before you leave. If you only do one thing on this list, let this be the one (and work on the others!)

A still from the original “Odd Todd” cartoon, Laid Off: A Day in the Life.
Click the image to watch the cartoon.

Inspired by news of the impending layoffs at Yahoo!, Robert Scoble — quite possibly the internet’s best-known tech evangelist has compiled a list in his article What to Do if You’re Laid Off in the 2008 Recession. I’ve got a condensed version of his list items below; I suggest you read the article to see the list in full. It’s good advice whether you’ve just been laid off, looking for a job or even if you’re currently employed and looking for your next job.

(Note: while a few of these points are tech industry-specific, they should be easily adaptable to whatever field you’re in — or would like to be in.)

1. Don’t get lazy. It might seem dire, but if you work it you WILL find a job.
2. Make sure you spend at least 30% of every day trying to find a job.
3. Start a blog on the field you want to work in.
4. Do things that will get you to be recognized as a world leader in the field you want to be in. Are you a programmer? Build something and put it up!
5. Network! Learn from Loic Le Meur. How did he get thousands of videos uploaded on Seesmic everyday? He networked.
6. Do a video everyday on YouTube that demonstrates something you know. Loic does a video everyday. If you’re laid off you have absolutely no excuses.
7. Show your friends your resume and cover letter. Don’t have any friends? Now is the time to make some. Call up some interesting people and ask for an informational interview.
8. Do the basics. Yes, my blog helped me AFTER I got the interview, but I got the interview just by having a great cover letter and an interesting resume.
9. Don’t feel bad about taking government assistance. You’ll need it to pay your bills.
10. Go to any job networking session you learn about.
11. Go where the money is. If you are laid off and you haven’t sent your resume to Matt Mullenweg this morning, why not? People with new funding (Matt just got almost $30 million) are the ones who are hiring.
12. Take a little bit of time to work on family and health.
13. Volunteer. Let’s say you are going to be out of work for six months. What could you do with six months of your time? Make sure you come away with it with a great project under your belt. Why not volunteer your time with a charity that could use your skills? Building an IT system for the Red Cross looks damn impressive — saying you were “on the beach” for six months does not,
14. Make sure you take advantage of any help your former employer is offering. Sometimes they have retraining or other programs that might help you land an even better job.
15. See if you can keep coming into the office. This isn’t open to everyone, but at Userland I kept coming into work everyday after the paychecks stopped. That made me feel better, plus it gave me the ability to use phones, stay away from negative situations (do you really want to be around family all day, everyday, who might remind you that you need to find a job?) as well as give you a place to work hard on finding your new job.
16. Go to every business event you can attend. Can’t afford to get in? Me neither and I have a job! Hang out in the hallways. You never know who you might meet.
17. Always have your suit ready. Some interviews happen quickly. You want to be able to answer “yes” to “Can you be here this afternoon?”

You may also want to check out the Deep Jive Interests article that asks Are You Applying SEO Strategies To Your Resume?

Some of the advice in the SEOMoz article Advice for Startup CEOs includes: have a voracious appetite for knowledge, be ready to multi-task, be able to communicate in multiple mediums, have a background in usability, cultivate a strong culture of analytics, admit and understand that a company is NOT a democracy, delegation is your friend and don’t get too far removed from your company’s day-to-day operations.

Reading the ComputerWorld article Rock Star Coders reminded me of a classified ad announcing auditions for a band member that went something like this:

Lead guitarist/vocalist wanted for glam rock/metal band. Must have serious chops, a good voice, looks and stage presence.

No assholes.

You might as well put up an ad that goes “Vegan life coach wanted. Must like steak.”

The article looks at rock star programmers from the manager’s point of view, describing some of the desirable qualities of the rock star programmer (a not-so-stereotypical geek who is well-rounded, organizes events like BarCamps, writes an influential blog, has a passion for coding and tech but also has some interesting hobbies) to the downsides (Khan Noonien Singh syndrome — where superior skills come hand in hand with superior attitude).

A couple of things in the article that I found funny:

• The obligatory mention of Zed Shaw’s rant. The name “Zed Shaw” may end up becoming a figure of speech the way the phrase “Pulling a Peyton Manning” jokingly got used on the SNL episode with guest host Peyton Manning (or to cite a not-so-safe-work example, the way some people on the political left now use Rick Santorum’s name).
• They mistakenly refer to the enigmatic programmer known only as why the lucky stiff as “why the lucky” (which sort of sounds like a Chinese movie title)
• They refer to a company looking for a very skilled Rails programmer that placed an ad for a “Rails Pirate”. Every time I hear something of the form “[insert noun here] Pirate”, my brain automatically turns it into “Butt Pirate”. That’s just me.

As for my own personal ambitions, while I’d love to be an accordion rock star, I’m with Ron Evans — I’m aiming to be a jazz programmer.

Update

Brian Wynne Williams, CEO of Viget Labs (whose recruiter was interviewed in the article) wrote about his thoughts about the article in his blog.

Here’s a fine t-shirt that you can get made at any shopping mall that has one of those stores where they’ll stick the slogan of your choice in Cooper Black letters onto a t-shirt or sweatshirt with one of those big press irons. You’ll be a big hit at your next geek gathering!

Photo by Kris Krug.
Click the photo to see it on its Flickr page.

[Found via The War on Folly via ffffound.]