missn

If you're a good enough writer with good ideas and you keep pitching persistently, you'll get traction soon enough. It's whether or not you're able to survive the unstable early goings that's the issue.

From my experience, if you're jumping into freelance writing without any savings (and starting from scratch with no connections with editors, no previous published pieces, etc.), it's hard to survive. Pitches take time (some editors might take months to reply). Writing/research takes time (you're essentially unpaid until your piece gets published). Even harder is the invoicing. You have to hound some publications to pay you (some take 45+ days to pay after your piece gets published). You really have to plan your pipeline well. When I tried doing it full-time for a bit, I planned ahead in terms of income (i.e. income from this month came from all the work I did in November). The moment you slow down or you stop pitching though, you know it's going to affect you in two months time.

Getting through the gates is tough but the hardest part is trying to find sustainable work that can pay your bills month to month. If you can develop relationships with editors (who consistently greenlight your pieces or give you regular assignments), that helps a lot. But, if you're starting out without any of that, the constant grind to find something regularly is stressful.

I still do it because I love it but I don't do it full-time anymore because I need to pay my bills.

If your game was somehow a success, you had to keep making bigger games with a bigger team just so you can make that game 'relevant' to the big box stores. It's a never-ending cycle of needing to keep growing, expanding, and eventually that financial pressure swallows up indie studios. Nowadays, you have digital distribution channels like Steam or itch.io which make it significantly 'easier' to reach customers. Plus, there's less pressure to grow unless you want to. Like erik said though, there's definitely more competition nowadays.

I will say this though as someone who writes about games, a unique hook (ie in mechanics, story, tech, or maybe all of them) goes a long way in getting press to write about you. I suppose that's the way it is with other fields though.

As a writer, I love discovering and covering new indie games. I want to write about you but if you scroll through a lot of these games, it feels like stuff we've seen again and again. The one game that changes the formula even for a little or presents it in a novel way (ie Undertale or Her Story), you get people really interested and talking about it.

I'm going through something similar and you never want to go on a full on fight because, like you said, it's hard "knowing that you or the other person may not come out as friends anymore".

It's a hard lesson but I'm slowly realizing that it's better to know the limits of how real and true your friendships are rather than realizing it was all based off unstable foundations.

Wonder who'll come out on top. From my understanding, the APEX one has an Amazon-like 'verified traveler' system where only those who traveled on those flights will get to rate them (though it might be limited to partner airlines, not sure about the specific details).

(Full disclosure: Used to worked for an agency that did work w/ APEX)

I definitely agree though. You can't just take what works in film and expect it to work in a VR film. It'll be interesting to see how filmmakers experiment with the medium as more and more start pushing what it can do.

They let you experience what it's like to be another person via a custom-built video rig (i.e. you get to 'see' the world as another person).

A friend made a platformer for an incubator called "Runnin' Around With No Shirt On" where it's basically about a (shirtless) guy running around in hell (and dodging all the basic platform obstacles like spikes, moving platforms, etc.). The goal of the game was to defeat Satan in order to get his shirt back.

It was the most ridiculous thing I've ever played but I couldn't go one second without laughing at how ridiculous and how much fun it was to play.

I love "serious" kinds of play and games with these awesome narratives but sometimes you just want something funny and fun to play!

At the end of my second year, I transferred to McGill and I was a bit disappointed at the state of their online course offerings (barely had any, apart from some electives, that could count for my degree). Also felt the school had a misguided bias against online courses (if you take one externally, there's a limit of 2 courses that you can apply to your degree - http://www.mcgill.ca/oasis/away/online-courses). When I was trying to get transfer credits, any mention of the course being taken online got my advisor telling me that my course would probably be denied. It was a good thing Waterloo didn't differentiate in my transcript between the two or else a lot of my credits might have not transferred over.

This was such a stark contrast to Waterloo where I really felt they considered their online courses to be just as comparable to their on-campus ones. I suppose though it's the whole culture of the instition. It helps too that Waterloo has a whole department dedicated to just the creation, design, development and testing of online-based courses - where they have designers/devs/subject/qa spcialists working closely with professors to design the courses (both for credit courses and professional development/continuing education courses). I don't believe my school has such a department to rely on.

Love that flexibility when I was there. The cost per credit was the same whether I took the course online or on campus.

Did three semesters online before switching to the regular campus (my program wasn't fully online). The education was top-notch too with responsive profs and (for the most part) a good pace even though you're doing a lot of self-studying. My final exams were either held at colleges near my area or proctored at public libraries (the latter though I had to arrange on my own and the school just mailed the exams directly to the library).

Really interested to hear your experience (and the "pain points") as I know someone who is trying to write a book about this and he's always on the lookout for folks with different perspectives.

I once worked for a company that provided montly conferences to teachers (marketed as professional development courses). Apparently, the districts in our area provided teachers with a budget towards professional development courses and so for the majority of them, they just invoiced the cost of the seminar to their districts.

Not the typical education startup you would think of starting but they're completely self-funded and they seem like they're doing well (with a steady stream of attendees for the last ten years).

Maybe it's just a matter of looking for ways to use the money that is already allocated (but not used) rather than convincing districts to add more to the budget? I know for my former company, the issue wasn't about how teachers could pay for the conferences but rather teachers didn't know they had the money to use for these conferences to begin with.

The "Smarter Objects" (http://fluid.media.mit.edu/projects/smarter-objects) project seem to tackle some of the things you're talking about. This article (http://singularityhub.com/2013/05/20/virtual-and-real-object...) explains it a bit more.

Sure, you can focus on a few features that allows you to cater to your core market. But, what if they outgrow your program? What if they want to go to the next "level"?

A "deep" program like Photoshop allows for that flexibility. A beginner can start off with perhaps the most basic of features but as they become more comfortable with it, at least they still have the flexibility to move on to the next set of (more complex) features.

Yet, as you've mentioned, small talk leads to many more tangents than what you'd usually get online. And, if you actually eavesdrop on conservations (or even look at your own), they usually start slow with small talk but eventually build up momentum towards deeper issues.Sometimes we just need time to settle in a conservation and those "what's up" starters usually help in that regard.

Unfortunately though, after years of getting used to the mouse, I do find it hard doing detailed work in Photoshop (i.e. tracing something/colouring something). It probably has to do with me not being used to the tablet but in times like those, I (using the tablet) still don't have the dexterity to manipulate things as well as when using a mouse.

All the apps people are making here seem to be confined to course scheduling (whether something conflicts, etc.) or courses we need to graduate. They haven't actually gone into the realm of recommending possible courses we'd be willing to take.

As the article mentions, the schools have all these data they're not using. They can probably predict which students would succeed in courses (they have access to grades), know which similar courses students may be interested in (cross-reference with previous courses taken and see what others have taken with a similar plate) and even "learn" the scheduling habits of the student (see the previous class times the person usually chose for clases - i.e. a morning person scheduling all classes in the morning or someone scheduling all classes at night).

As long as we still have a choice (to accept or reject the recommendation), something like this would be useful (another resource to inform our decisions).

Saved me from carpal tunnel syndrome (I already had the early signs).

Inkjet Printer => LaserJet Printer

Didnt't realize how much I was missing. The time savings alone makes it worth it.

Design Major => Psychology Major

Sometimes it's true what they say, everything in moderation. Once I left art school, I found my passion for design again.

Yes, something like this is easy for people (easier than doing something perhaps). They'll participate because it's there and there's no commitment (you just write things on the wall). But, what of the people who pass by it and, as Dysiode has said, what if it sparks an idea in them?

It may not directly change the world but it sure can plant the seeds that do.