Last Post For Zegarkus.

My first post here was 6 years ago on 3 November 2007 and I will conclude my final post today on 12 Nov 2013 (or if you are numerically inclined 11-12-13 if you use American style dating). I simply haven't had the motivation to continue blogging here.

This was my first real attempt at blogging. It has been relatively anonymous; I felt comfortable putting my thoughts without explaining myself to a wider social network.Looking back, I have noticed myself change over the years:  I feel like I've matured and become a better person.

Though hasn't been that productive (only 117 posts here), here are some of the more 'popular' ones (based on a paltry some of pageviews):

• Isometric Game Engines: http://www.zegarkus.com/2007/11/isometric-game-engines.html
• Treehouses: http://www.zegarkus.com/2007/11/incredible-tree-houses-of-world.html
• Lua Script on Windows: http://www.zegarkus.com/2009/07/how-to-run-simple-script-lua-script.html
• Homemade Motorhomes: http://www.zegarkus.com/2008/06/homemade-motorhomes-diy-rvs-and.html
• Antarctica with no ice: http://www.zegarkus.com/2007/11/antarctica-with-no-ice.html
• EU countries dual citizenship: http://www.zegarkus.com/2009/07/european-countries-that-allow-dual.html

My personal favourite post here has been a critique of the Falling Man photo from Sept 11 Tragedy: http://www.zegarkus.com/2009/07/911-falling-man-another-look.html, perhaps the most original thing that I have written to date.

So what will happen to this site? I don't know if I agree with everything I wrote in the past, but I'll keep this blog as snapshot of who I was at certain point in time.I will continue to renew the domain; I'd hate for domain squatters to get it. There simply won't any new posts here. Should I continue blogging again, I will do so on a new site. For those who have left comments or simply took the time to read anything I wrote; I sincerely thank you tolerating my little personal experiment on the internet.

-- Zegarkus.

Some more treehouses

Very long time since the last post. Forgot how much I love blogginng. Unfortunately, my 'Treehouses of the World' post has fallen into some disarray (dead images which I'll try to fix up at some point).

However it looks like someone on Tumblr have long since picked up the torch on treehouses. Tumblr is great format for this type of stuff. So get off your couch and back into your tree, check out 'Fuck Yeah Treehouses!'

Google 'Hacker' search

Just discovered this, google search in 'hacker speak' format. Google to Google Hacker here.

Making Isometric Games Book

For those still interested in isometric games, O'Reilly Books has a new title called Making Isometric Social Real-Time Games with HTML5, CSS3, and JavaScript. The blurb on their website:

Walk through the process of designing and implementing from scratch an isometric real time game such as some of the most succesful Facebook Games. Applying HTML5, CSS3, and JavaScript, this piece shows how to build games using isometric map making, sprite animations, networking, social network integration, high performance rendering and game design.

Using your browser as a game engine is interesting indeed - and shows that there is still a lot of life left in traditional 2D game concepts. For a list of isometric game engines, click here.

Monkey from Mars - UFO Hoax

Here's a strange little story about a UFO hoax that took place in Georgia, USA during the 1950's. A dead, exfoliated and tail-docked monkey was used to play a practical joke on gullible UFO believers.

This story was taken from here and of course wikipedia.

At the height of UFO hysteria then sweeping the nation, two young barbers and a butcher took a dead monkey in 1953, lopped off its tail and applied a liberal dose of hair remover and some green coloring to the carcass.

Then they left the primate on an isolated road north of Atlanta in the pre-dawn hours of July 8, 1953, burning a circle into the pavement with a blowtorch before a police officer came around the curve in his patrol car.

"If we had been five minutes earlier, we would have caught 'em in the act," said Sherley Brown, the officer who happened on the scene.

The barbers, Edward Watters and Tom Wilson, and the butcher, Arnold "Buddy" Payne, told the policeman they came upon a red, saucer-shaped object in the road that night. They said several 2-foot-tall creatures were scurrying about and the trio hit one with their pickup before the other creatures jumped back in the saucer and blasted skyward — leaving the highway scorched.

Canvas 2D game engine - Flax.ie

Canvas is bringing some unique opportunities to the isometric gaming world. Here's a new 2d game engine I've add to my isometric game engine list:

The Flax Engine (henceforth called Flax) is to be a 2D game engine for the web, using features introduced in HTML5, specifically the canvas and audio tags. Flax will be developed in Java using GWT 2.0 to cross compile the code into robust JavaScript code which will run across all mordern browsers and is intended to be a native framework for developing 2D browser-based games. Adobe Flash is used to program the vast majority of browser-based games (with Java applets coming distant second), though Flash is not supported on many mobile devices (specifically, any running Apple’s iOS) and is also rather heavy on hardware requirements. Also with the upcoming release of an operating system which completely depends on the Internet for its applications and data storage (Chromium OS) we are very excited about being able to develop games for these type of mobile devices.

How to sabotage a job opportunity

My job sometimes requires me hiring some very skilled programmers for companies. I'm no headhunter (I profession I disdain) but I am proud of the fact I've placed several key people into roles they love in a company that values their expertise. Overall I've placed about 8 people in various programming jobs. Not a high number at all, but I am not a headhunter. An interesting observation is that out of those 8 people I've hired, only only one was local.

One thing that always irked about people who were applying for jobs is an attitude of 'entitlement' - this either killed the job opportunity or kept the hiree from future growth. Some examples.

• One applicant from Western Europe wanted to a full range of medical, leave and other benefits that are not available here in this country. This was for a job from a self funded startup. Lack of doing 'your homework' about the country you want to move to as well as the company itself left bad taste in mouth. It especially irked me to hear "Because I'm from [x] country - No one will hire me!" - no one will hire you because you are making unreasonable demands!
• One North American applicant was going swingingly through the application process. The salary and work was agreed upon. One the third interview out of the blue the applicant demands 10K more in salary - startling us. I wasn't so much the 10K - it was more the attitude of greed. We said that after a trial period we would be more than happy to increase his salary but demanding it upfront was in bad taste. Needless to say, he left without a job.
• Last example actually came from a successful applicant. This applicant was actually a very honest person and terrific negotiator. He was very good during the interview process and managed to get salary that was substantially higher than not only the other programmers but more than the directors of the company themselves!
  
  So whats wrong with that? Nothing - but the problem was that this was a start up. Since he negotiated salary - something more in the 'here and now' he missed out hugely on getting shares of the company. Other programmers started out much lower than him and got shares and now make much more than him. He is still the highest salaried employer in the organisation- but will never be offered shares because he felt 'entitled' to get a high salary.

The people that were hired were hungry to prove themselves - proud of the coding abilities but with a realisation that sometimes you have to start a bit humbler to get places - and I can say these guys are all getting paid very well now!