i am noky these are my random musings…

There Are Jobs, We Just Don’t Want You (as you are).

Image via Wikipedia

Man, can we be done talking about how much the job market sucks? For that matter, can we stop complaining about how the economy sucks as a whole? Is everyone missing the silver-lining here?

Now is the time to start a cooperative and buy some real estate. Now is the time to dump money in to stocks (actually, you might've missed the window on that). And more than ever, now is the time for you to stop looking for another (or your first) crappy 9-5 and take steps to have your dream job.

The articles I like reading today are the ones where people are quitting their job or doing foolishness.

Maybe I'm just naive and don't understand the severity of everything. However, the way I see it. No one is looking to pay you right now so you might as well do something you want to do since you're not eating anyway. Scale back, flip some burgers or wait tables to pay rent, and do something you love in the mean time. Either your side project will take off or someone will hit you back with a job offer.

If you got an opinion: comment and let me know. I think my dad's entrepreneurial blood has me jaded.

Source: Job Forecast for College Seniors: Grimmer Than Ever - TIME

Did I Mention I Love Nokia? Skype and Nokia partner up

Image by Hector Milla via Flickr

So anyone who really knows me knows: I love Nokia. Three out of four of my phones have been Nokia devices. My first phone was this crappy Verizon candy bar phone. I switched to the original AT&T Wireless promptly after I realized the extras were cheaper. The handset? A "progressive" 3650. It was my introduction to the S60 world. I skipped a beat when switching to Cingular and got a Sony-Ericsson Z500A. It was then I realized that I made a mistake leaving the open world of S60. After a long contract, welcome to the present with a Nokia E62. I've had my current E-Series for quite some time and while I've been disappointed with the sluggish nature of my phone, I can't be more impressed with the wide array of features an S60 3rd phone provides. I think I've covered myself enough.

I've been considering a new phone for quite some time and I've also considered not having a phone for even longer. Reading this (relatively) recent press release from Skype gives me the urge to drop a serious wad of cash on what one could call: the mobile device. Apparently, the new N97 will sport full Skype integration to go along with the bevy of slick features. Thanks to an old Cingular contract, I pay very little for unlimited internet access on my mobile (which balances the paltry 300 minutes and 100 text messages). This would essentially mean I can talk to everyone and their mother for next to nothing. The drawback is a big one though: the phone weighs in at a cool $800. Some retailers are even asking $1200 for a chance to wield this impressive piece of technology. Chances are, the price won't drop too much either. The original front-runner, the N95, is still selling for $375.

The question is: Does Skype support make this impressive phone worth it?

The more important question: Is Skype support what we need to see more of?

With providers subsidizing phones and trying to make their dollar on plans. This sounds like bad news for all the major telcos. With the ever expanding plans for city-wide Wi-Fi/Broadband access, a market is emerging to phase out the old system and drive more profits to the handset providers.

Skype and Nokia partner to integrate Skype into Nokia devices - About Skype

The Living Ain’t Easy: Gentrification Failure?

So a friend of mine lives in this pretty nice place in College Park and it prompted me to re-evaluated the new complexes in the area. We're not here to talk about my friend's place.

Recently, Laurel has been going through a purging of sorts. It's valiantly trying to upscale itself and consequently push out the majority of it's lower class residents. Unfortunately, for the new people coming in, all the old citizens haven't been relocated yet. Which brought about a few minor complaints from the Westchester crew:

"Men beating their wives/girlfriends. A lady attacked behind one of the buildings. A drug bust early this year. Yes Folks!! You can get all this and more for the starting price of $1400.00!!"

It's seems like building shiny new buildings does little to change the neighborhood. I always wondered how things were progressing just over the line. Now I know: not as well as could be. Based on these comments, I'm confident living in Camden @ College Park is a lot better. I'm still not looking forward to finding my own place. I wonder if living in Baltimore for $1400/mo. gets you the same sort of color?

The Price of Gaming: Noky Tackles the Recent Chatter

There has recently been a lot of talk about pricing in the casual gaming market. I think it's a fair topic to discuss, however I think things are being blown out of proportion.

Lets tackle the first article from Make It Big In Games.

Jeff Tunnell makes a lot of good points throughout the article. The market seems to be more receptive toward games at lower price points. However, I think where he gets a bit "delusional" (and I use that word very loosely) is when he considers the idea of successful games emerging at ridiculously low prices of under $4. Quality innovation does not happen at that low of a price point. I believe you would have to move too many units to generate a profit. I can't even begin to generate hypothetical numbers but I would imagine you'd have to move near to 100,000 units just to pay yourself a reasonable salary. Of course the problem gets worse as the price point drops.

"In this market, the right price for a game is $0, and I believe that is where all game prices are heading."

Free games? Not profitable from a current distribution standpoint. The main way free games generate revenue is through advertising which usually happens by driving site traffic and getting banner impressions. In-game ads are an option but is that where we want to take gaming? A glorified billboard? I'll pass thank you. I'm not adamantly against any sort of advertising in-game but in order to pay for development it would have to a lot more significant that I'm willing to accept at this point in my life. Maybe my mind will change with age.

So the future of casual gaming is a bunch of competing ad-machine portals? Instead of buying seperate consoles we buy seperate portal subscriptions? Looking at the console situation now, I'm going to have to say I doubt it'll turn out that way.

I think in order to understand Mr. Tunnell he should propose how the industry could posssibly survive at these price points. Developers don't necessarily want to charge as much as possible, they really just want to eat a good meal at the end of the day. Supply and demand is a nice way to reason but there are too many assumptions made with that model in order for it to be the end all of an argument. This market is not perfectly competitive.

Next up: Maciej Biedrzyeki of Code Minion.

Now, this post is already a bit long but I'm going to try and be concise here.

Basically, he tackles the argument just like I do: questioning the survival of developers. However, he has a couple of troubling notes.

"Additionally the games could be shorter – who has the time and money to
create long games with 10+ hours of gameplay and sell them for less
than 10 USD?"

No one does. You create your game with 10+ hours of gameplay and then you sell it for 20 USD. How does that work? Because not all games are created equal. As long as the game is worth the investment, people will pay. It's when prices are hiked to that upper tier that they become a problem. Premium content will always exist and it should be priced with a premium.

In the same vein, Maceij calls for standards in pricing. In a way, I agree there needs to be some agreement of pricing levels but they need to have their disparity. Larger budget and scope games should be priced higher. Then again, that's why the distinction between AAA titles and casual games exist. So just between casual titles, there should be some sort of understood price points. That kind of gets in to price fixing so I'm not sure I'm completely convinced but right now it sounds like a good idea.

Critical Motivation

Mandatory Election Post

I'm over a week late but I figured I should say something regarding the recent events. So here it is: Black People Officially Own the World!

Or something to that effect but not really. I'm actually heavily turned off by all the excitement and hoop-lah surrounding this election. We've taken a man who represented something different in the political system and turned him in to some sort of saint candidate that can't possibly achieve what we expect him too. At least it keeps journalists employed. The sheer number of articles on the subject have to be at an all-time high. It's ridiculous. I admit, I voted for the man but now I wish I hadn't. What I really want to see right now is a McCain/Palin presidency where McCain dies (the cause doesn't matter) and Palin becomes the new President. Talk about change, the country would go crazy.

Yay, CitiGroup is My New Bank…Sigh

So now that Citigroup Wells Fargo bought up Wachovia, I'm officially looking for a new bank. PNC has been looking attractive lately. Why switch? The big three of banking have a habit of throwing their weight around. Yeah, you can bank anywhere but you pay the price for it: worse rates, larger fees, virtually no deals. Good thing Chevy Chase owns Maryland, it's not going anywhere.

Source: New York Times

UPDATE: I can't believe I never got around to editing this. Wachovia was snagged by Wells Fargo and to further destroy any predictive capabilities I have, Chevy Chase was bought up by Capital One. Maybe it's time to switch banks?

Tissue Princess performs Triangular

Coolest Remix of a Children’s Anime Theme Ever!

The Future of Browsing: Aurora

So Mozilla is smoking again and they came up with something crazy in their concept labs. Enter Aurora highly collaborative web-surfing experience that at one point resembles something out of Real Drive (an anime). Check out their concept video here:

http://www.adaptivepath.com/aurora/