Before you start reading, I would like to stress that I am not an expert in this field. These are my ramblings based on what I have read, patterns I have noticed, and my own personal theories. There may or may not be truth to this, and while I have done a decent amount of research, I do not work in this field directly, and cannot specifically comment on all aspects of it. With that said, let's begin:
With all of the "hype" in regards to big data, I've slowly begun looking into what the growth for big data is going to be like as far as the job market is concerned. What's interesting is that this entirely depends on which part of the market you plan to go in to. For example, if you plan to learn about processing this data, your market value is very high from what I have read, probably for the next five to ten years, until we have the process mostly automated. But if you plan to go into the gathering sector, there really isn't a way to determine how long you'll be able to rely on your skill set. The reason for this is that gathering data is becoming more and more like a gold rush, instead of something long term. This is what interests me, as I believe it is a very valuable skill set to have right now, partially because I believe more "gold deposits" will be found in the future still. Thus I have been analyzing these "gold deposits" in order to gain a better understanding of what they are, where they come from, what their value is, and how to find them.
Showing posts with label companies. Show all posts
Showing posts with label companies. Show all posts
Monday, May 25, 2015
Friday, August 1, 2014
Photos of the Month - July 2014
The month of July was a rather crazy month. For those who don't know, I got the chance to go to Mountain View California and interview with Google at their headquarters. It was an insane experience, and while I still don't know if I got the job, I had a great time and got a ton of pictures! So for this month's photos, here are a ton of neat pictures from California (With one or two from Virginia too)!
Wednesday, June 11, 2014
Game Systems - 8th Generation Current Status
Game systems are a very tricky business to read into. While your favorite system may have all the games that you like, that doesn't mean that it is selling well. At the same time, high sales for one console at the start might not mean that it will be the best selling in the end. There are quite a few ups and downs specifically to the current 8th generation of game systems, each complete with coming challenges as well.
Please note that this was written prior to E3 2014, and so this is just my personal opinions and thoughts on the current generation of consoles before then. I will be writing up a post E3 version soon.
Please note that this was written prior to E3 2014, and so this is just my personal opinions and thoughts on the current generation of consoles before then. I will be writing up a post E3 version soon.
Sunday, June 8, 2014
Class, Jobs, and Glass!
Phew, it's been a busy month, and unfortunately I've slacked quite a bit on posting to this blog. But no more, for I have returned! For the next few days I plan to post quite a bit on a variety of topics, as I've had some really interesting experiences these past few weeks, with even more coming up!
Thursday, April 17, 2014
Hack it! - A TV Show Idea
This was an idea for a TV show I had right before falling asleep one night. Unfortunately I don't have the ability to execute such a show, so I figured I'd share the idea online for those who do since I think it has a lot of potential. If you are interested in picking it up, feel free to, though I'd love to help out where I can if possible, as well as some credit!
Friday, March 14, 2014
Replay for Life 2014
Recently it was announced that the Relay for Life organization would be coming to our campus here, and was doing their yearly round-up of student organizations. Being as interested in charity as I am, I went ahead and started trying to gather interest in raising money for the event through the the Association for Computer Machinery chapter that I lead at Christopher Newport University. The decision by a group of us was to create an event called Replay for Life. If you have ever seen the speed-run charities online, then you know exactly what Replay for Life is, but if you haven't, it's a live-stream of classic video games being played as fast as the person can. Some amazing things have appeared in these videos, and we are incredibly excited because we have someone doing a Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time speed-run using some incredible glitches. We hope that everyone will join us and donate to our cause, and that you of course enjoy the stream! It will be Saturday, March 15th, starting at 2:00pm EST. You can find our Facebook event here and our website is currently www.replayforlife.org.
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| Our flyer, hand-drawn by a student! |
Saturday, January 25, 2014
Why to Start Programming with Homebrew
When I was in High School, I decided to learn to program for the Nintendo DS. I absolutely loved the games on the system, and thought it would be awesome to be able to create my own games on it. A little bit of research at the time however showed that professional development on it was out of the question. Thousands of dollars for a development kit? I needed to buy an office building? There was no way I could afford that, but I wanted to learn to program.
What about developing for the PC? At the time, finding a good, cheap, and well documented PC game engine to learn was incredibly tough. The tools tended to be very obscure, or super expensive, or limiting with what I could do. I picked up Game Maker for a little while (which I still believe is a great starting tool), but eventually reached a point where I couldn't do much more with it.
I went back to looking at video game consoles and came across this "new" thing called homebrew. Researching more into it, I realized that this would allow me to make games for the Nintendo DS, Gamecube, the Sony PSP, and more later on. This seemed incredible, but there was one big thing: I had to "hack" my systems to do so. Now as someone brand new to the homebrew scene, that worried me a bit at the time. Hacking? Wasn't that illegal? Couldn't I get into trouble with that? Is this a good way to go about learning to code?
To start tackling all of this, I began looking into what exactly I could do with it and whether it was worth even starting. The tools I was using (PAlib at the time) were fairly well documented and included tons of examples. Within a few days I had a simple demo up and running and had begun programming a game. This prompted me to go through and actually read about what I was using and the legalities with it.
Within a few months, I had discovered that homebrew really doesn't require anything illegal (usually, I'll explain more on that later though). While yes, you do have to "hack" the system, there isn't actually wrong with doing so to your own hardware. It's similar to if you got locked out of your car and had to break back in, it's your car, you own it. If that's the case though, why do people get so up and arms about it sometimes? It's because of what you can do with it.
To elaborate, let's image that you get locked out of your car and then break back in. Now imagine that you drive the car through a red light and get pulled over. Is the problem that you broke into your car? No, it's what you did with it. Homebrew is very similar. If you "hack" your device to play music you own on it, then that's perfectly fine. But if you create an application that plays music you don't own, then that's obviously not okay. These days, homebrew seems to have a very bad rap for what it is: A way for anyone to learn to program.
If you don't trust this, just read up on the history of companies such as Electronic Arts. EA was founded by two guys who did nothing more than tinker with homebrew tools of their own. Homebrew has been around since computers were first invented. It provides a cheap way to program on things you already own. It's nothing more than making something of your own at home, rather than as a business. If that's the case though, why does homebrew have such a bad rap?
I think a huge part of why homebrew has become viewed in this way is due to what people have begun to use it for, especially in recent years. A big offender of this is software piracy, as most of these tools easily lead to it, mainly due to the sheer nature of these tools. It's not the fault of the tools' developers, it's just how these things work, and there's only so much one person (or even a group) can do to prevent piracy.
Another huge issue however is only showing up more recently, and that's the creation of tools using code by the companies make these systems. The PS3 saw this for a while, where homebrew developers would use tools owned by Sony, which was obviously not allowed. In some cases, making the tools is difficult, which can lead to an impassible barrier for making homebrew.
With all of that being said, is homebrew something worth learning? Absolutely! It's a cheap entry point for coding and allows you to learn a lot more than you normally would when coding for a PC. A good starting point for this actually is the Nintendo Wii. The system, while old hardware wise, is easy to get started with, and is a great entry point for learning how to work with systems that have these huge limitations. When you develop on a PC, you usually have a near-unlimited amount of resources for basic games. But when you work with something like the Nintendo Wii, or especially the Nintendo DS, you have to be very careful about what resources you use. A computer may have on average two gigabytes of ram, but the Nintendo DS? You're going to be using at most four megabytes of ram, a fraction of a PC.
These limitations, while tough to overcome, will ultimately help make you a better coder. You learn how to use faster sorting methods, so as not to slow down the CPU. You learn about memory management, and why it's important to release resources when you no longer need them. You also have to learn how to make most of the high-level tools you need. On top of all that though, the hardware to get into this is very cheap usually, and you may have most of it lying around your house right now. Just be cautious of what you make, and you'll be fine!
What about developing for the PC? At the time, finding a good, cheap, and well documented PC game engine to learn was incredibly tough. The tools tended to be very obscure, or super expensive, or limiting with what I could do. I picked up Game Maker for a little while (which I still believe is a great starting tool), but eventually reached a point where I couldn't do much more with it.
I went back to looking at video game consoles and came across this "new" thing called homebrew. Researching more into it, I realized that this would allow me to make games for the Nintendo DS, Gamecube, the Sony PSP, and more later on. This seemed incredible, but there was one big thing: I had to "hack" my systems to do so. Now as someone brand new to the homebrew scene, that worried me a bit at the time. Hacking? Wasn't that illegal? Couldn't I get into trouble with that? Is this a good way to go about learning to code?
To start tackling all of this, I began looking into what exactly I could do with it and whether it was worth even starting. The tools I was using (PAlib at the time) were fairly well documented and included tons of examples. Within a few days I had a simple demo up and running and had begun programming a game. This prompted me to go through and actually read about what I was using and the legalities with it.
Within a few months, I had discovered that homebrew really doesn't require anything illegal (usually, I'll explain more on that later though). While yes, you do have to "hack" the system, there isn't actually wrong with doing so to your own hardware. It's similar to if you got locked out of your car and had to break back in, it's your car, you own it. If that's the case though, why do people get so up and arms about it sometimes? It's because of what you can do with it.
To elaborate, let's image that you get locked out of your car and then break back in. Now imagine that you drive the car through a red light and get pulled over. Is the problem that you broke into your car? No, it's what you did with it. Homebrew is very similar. If you "hack" your device to play music you own on it, then that's perfectly fine. But if you create an application that plays music you don't own, then that's obviously not okay. These days, homebrew seems to have a very bad rap for what it is: A way for anyone to learn to program.
 |
| The Oculus Rift is another example of something that was started as a homebrew project and grew to something more! |
I think a huge part of why homebrew has become viewed in this way is due to what people have begun to use it for, especially in recent years. A big offender of this is software piracy, as most of these tools easily lead to it, mainly due to the sheer nature of these tools. It's not the fault of the tools' developers, it's just how these things work, and there's only so much one person (or even a group) can do to prevent piracy.
Another huge issue however is only showing up more recently, and that's the creation of tools using code by the companies make these systems. The PS3 saw this for a while, where homebrew developers would use tools owned by Sony, which was obviously not allowed. In some cases, making the tools is difficult, which can lead to an impassible barrier for making homebrew.
With all of that being said, is homebrew something worth learning? Absolutely! It's a cheap entry point for coding and allows you to learn a lot more than you normally would when coding for a PC. A good starting point for this actually is the Nintendo Wii. The system, while old hardware wise, is easy to get started with, and is a great entry point for learning how to work with systems that have these huge limitations. When you develop on a PC, you usually have a near-unlimited amount of resources for basic games. But when you work with something like the Nintendo Wii, or especially the Nintendo DS, you have to be very careful about what resources you use. A computer may have on average two gigabytes of ram, but the Nintendo DS? You're going to be using at most four megabytes of ram, a fraction of a PC.
These limitations, while tough to overcome, will ultimately help make you a better coder. You learn how to use faster sorting methods, so as not to slow down the CPU. You learn about memory management, and why it's important to release resources when you no longer need them. You also have to learn how to make most of the high-level tools you need. On top of all that though, the hardware to get into this is very cheap usually, and you may have most of it lying around your house right now. Just be cautious of what you make, and you'll be fine!
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