Steam Contributions to Linux

[Roguehorse]

Good luck on your education, Rougehorse!
College, especially grad school was the most fun and rewarding period in my life. If I could have afforded it I would have become a professional grad student, or, gone on to a PhD and do research. But, with two kids and a wife who was getting tired of the school routine, the pressure was on to get out and get a job. Fortunately, the JC I first attended offered me a job teaching science, which is even more fun than coding.

Thank you for your support!

Yes, it's difficult being a full time student + full time employee + full time parent + look for work full time in a new career field that pays enough to actually "live" instead of just "get by". I pray that all this work pays off sooner or later but, I still have another year on my BS and then I will more than likely go for my MS to improve my options.

It's been rough trying to find work where I am no longer around loud and aggressive people where there is drug and alcohol activity associated with gambling and sports nuts who prefer to spend all their time watching TV. I prefer to be around a more "mature" group of engineers who are quiet and professional in their demeanor and conversation. I have a case of PTSD from being around the wrong culture too long and now I work behind a coded gate and two layers of coded doors in a very quiet room. I still don't make enough to really live on and no benefits, but at least I don't have to take pills to keep from having anxiety attacks. I once got to visit the Googleplex in Mountain View and it was so quiet, clean and the people there were so well behaved that the memory is ingrained in my mind of that is the environment for me. Whether it is Google or not remains to be seen, but you get the idea.

The hardest part is getting the right experience but, I hope with some of these groups from Meetup.com and participating with some open source groups I'll be able to make up for what I don't get from my job from other sources. Right now I'm kind of in a rough spot but, its getting better all the time.

[GreyGeek]

I'm very familiar with the routine you are going through. I always worked 20+ hours/week while going to school, and when the wife got pregnant a prof recommended me for a job at an analytical lab (Bradford Labs) working 37 hours/week. The limited me to 12 semester hours per semester and going to school during the summer as well, but it paid the bills and kept me in school. When I got the BS I was awarded a Welch Foundation Research grant in Anti-Cancer metabolites. It paid $7,000/ academic year (1965-1968). My first teaching job as an Assoc Prof of Nat Sci at York College paid only $5,000/yr. My wife and I were also house parents at a children's home and as the paid employee she made 3X as much as I did teaching. My undergraduate training was as a HS science teacher. I earned a BS Ed which, after I had it in hand, decided it was too weak of a degree and took classes for 18 months to strengthen it to a BS in Chemistry. By the time I graduated with an MS in Biochemistry I had also earned major hours in Chem, Physics, Math, Bio and Geology. I was certified to teach in 5 areas. Unfortunately, teaching doesn't pay very much compared to the time one has to put in to do a good job, so after 18 years of teaching I started my own computer consulting business and did it for nearly 20 years.

IF I could have done it I would have stayed in college until I earned a PhD in Biochemistry, but wife and family comes first. As it turns out, a lot of the chemicals we were using to create the compounds we were testing were carcinogenic, which wasn't discovered until decades later. To be best of my knowledge I am the only person in my graduate class who is still alive and hasn't succumbed to cancer.

[Feathers McGraw]

I'm very impressed that both of you managed to work while studying, I've recently graduated from a 5 year MEng in Civil Engineering, and I really don't think I could have worked during the degree, it was so full on!

Anyone who tried doing something else as well (sport team etc.) gave up after a couple of months, even if that thing was something fun and relaxing.

[SteveRiley]

Steam actually delivers software that sells you closed-source software that is installed it on your computer, right now. And plans to distribute an OS with this built in. No one jumps all over that and beats Gabe up over it.

By the way, did you guys see this announcement yesterday?

[Feathers McGraw]

Hehe

[GreyGeek]

Ok, Steve, what do you think MS buying VALVE will do to its supply of Linux games?

[oshunluvr]

And you accuse me of having too much time on my hands...lol

[Feathers McGraw]

How long did that take? Did you grab the source for the page and edit it, or was it a GIMP job?

[claydoh]

By the way, did you guys see this announcement yesterday?

Cool!
No, I did not, because I was busy installing a new rom for my phone, based on a newer version of HTC's Sense. (aosp and cyanogenmod are just too meh. Seriously. Plus CM is too buggy. )

[Feathers McGraw]

Cool!
No, I did not, because I was busy installing a new rom for my phone, based on a newer version of HTC's Sense. (aosp and cyanogenmod are just too meh. Seriously. Plus CM is too buggy. )

I really miss CM, was using it on my old Nexus 7 (grouper); I bought myself a new Nexus 7 (deb) but there's no stable release for it yet so I'm on stock android.

The small things make the difference, like being able to easily set a custom hostname, clear recent apps with a single button, etc.

[SteveRiley]

How long did that take? Did you grab the source for the page and edit it, or was it a GIMP job?

Grabbing the HTML was my first thought -- but then when I actually looked at the source, I realized that a lot of it was generated by scripts. So I used KSnapshot to grab the Konqueror window displaying a real press release and mucked it up in KolourPaint. I'm surprised how much you can do with that little tool. It's a standard part of the KDE SC, but it isn't included by default in kubuntu-desktop. Total time was about 30 minutes.

[Feathers McGraw]

I like KolourPaint , very easy to use. Am impressed that you made it look so convincing with such simple tools!

Looks like I need to think up some questions to keep you busy