Prior to becoming a game designer, I had actually not read any books on game design. I’ve been an avid gamer since the age of 5 and a web/graphic designer since highschool so it wasn’t much of a stretch, but I hadn’t had any actual formal education in the field prior to getting into the industry. It’s funny but I started reading game design books only after getting the job. So far, all of the books I’ve read on the subject have been an utter waste of time except for a Theory of Fun by Raph Koster.

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Ever wanted to take a course to learn something that may enhance your ability to get a really really good jobs? But you didn’t have the time or the money to go to school. Ever dream of going to an ivy league school…hmm I don’t know like MIT but didn’t have the marks, money or even knew what the application process was.

Well thanks to the open source era you can now get online courses for free from a miriad of great universities including MIT.

How you may ask? Well MIT developed an OpenCourseWare site. You have access 1800 courses ranging from Engineering to health sciences, they even have cources for Humanities and the arts.

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I wanted to share with you this series of books I’ve been devouring for the last year or so. It’ll seem like I’ll be revealing some spoilers here but that’s not the case.

1632 by author Eric Flint is the first book in an expending series known as the Ring of Fire. It’s a feast for history and technical buffs. To make the introduction short, it’s about a small (about 2000 souls) West-Virginian town being thrown back from the year 2000 to the middle of the Holy Roman Empire (Germanies) smack in the middle of the Thirty Years War.

For those who lack background in this war, it was a turning point in Europe. Its conclusion, the Peace of Westphalia, was the cornerstone of the balance of power in Europe up to World War I.

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Carnegie Mellon Professor Randy Pausch, who was dying from pancreatic cancer, gave his last lecture at the university Sept. 18, 2007, before a packed McConomy Auditorium. In his moving talk, “Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams,” Pausch talked about his lessons learned and gave advice to students on how to achieve their own career and personal goals. For more, visit www.cmu.edu/randyslecture.“Journeys” are special University Lectures in which Carnegie Mellon faculty members share their reflections on their journeys — the everyday actions, decisions, challenges and joys that make a life. (more…)

In today’s day and age we are all looking to be successful somehow. Some of us play the lottery hoping to win millions of dollars. Others study toward becoming one of the trifecta of educational success: doctor, engineer or lawyer. And some of us break the law and try to cheat the system making a quick buck here and there.

How to become successful in life is something that I ponder about a lot. Being a manager of 27 employees it’s my job to motivate and support people in their career and life goals. In doing so I always look for fun team building activities to do and I look for great videos to watch in team meetings.

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Being a fan of the books written by Robert E. Howard, i had to try this game out. I even got into the beta version, playing it some weeks before release and i thought it was a really nice game. I tried a few different characters, leveling them up to level 10 before moving on. They would all be deleted anyway, so i didn’t bother investing more time going beyond level 10.

Now that the game is out, i must admit I’m kind of disappointed. In Tortage, the first town you visit, every quest is given to you in spoken dialogs. There are a lot of cinematics and storyline missions, which i found interesting. Rewards almost come in non-stop as you receive new skills, points to distribute, feats to organize, everything sounds perfect right?

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When first I heard that Yoda and Darth Vader were going to be in Soul Calibur IV, I was more peeved that I was going to have to decide which version to get since Yoda was to be on the 360 version, and Vader on the PS3. Although the choice was easy (Vader > Yoda), I was still peeved that I wouldn’t get both. That’s how I felt when Soul Calibur 2 came out and I had to play with Link when Spawn was the character I really wanted (forget Heihachi, he was useless anyway).

I loved Link and, although I agree he didn’t fully fit-in because his bomb move and other similar moves, I still had fun playing with him. And Spawn has had many incarnations, one of which was Medieval Spawn. Having those two in the Soul Calibur world was a bit of a stretch, but not NEARLY as big of one as having Star Wars characters.

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Today, I finished reading David Gemmell‘s Echoes of the Great Song for the second time. I read a lot of books but there are very few that I’ve read more than once. I’m a huge fan of the late David Gemmell as I have read nearly all of his books and Echoes is by far my favorite of his works and one of my favorite books of all time.

If you like Heroic Fantasy, you’ll love this book. The characters are unique, the story is superbly written, and the world is both believable and surreal at once. There’s really not much more to say … go out and buy it!

Since MP3′s, WinAmp, Napster, iPods and the like, the Music industry has been in trouble. Fewer people are buying Music CDs and more are downloading songs and albums. The Recording Industry sees declining revenues year in and year out. They’re also not the only ones complaining. Both the PC and Console game markets are seeing declines in sales due to pirating. The movie industry is trying to crack down on the number of illegal movie downloads to no avail.

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