Jump to content

NEW VIDEO: The Dark Side of Gaming (Documentary)

Ed

Members
  • Posts

    197
  • Joined

  • Last visited

Recent Profile Visitors

2,986 profile views

Ed's Achievements

Newbie

Newbie (1/14)

208

Reputation

  1. Thanks Cam. It's good to see you making progress on your mission.
  2. Thanks. Yes I took that picture. I used a Canon M50 and the Canon app on my phone.
  3. Wow, can't believe it's over a year since I posted here. So if anyone remembers me here's a quick update Things are going well. My job is going well but not overly exciting at the moment. I haven't done a lot of programming/electronics for a while. But I have been a little obsessed with photography lately. I've managed to improve immensely in the short to time I've been doing it. I think my technical skills have helped a lot. I've still got a lot to learn but I'm consitently improving. Here's a selfie I took a few days ago I tried to make it a little smaller, I'll see if i can adjust it once I'm on my computer. I hope everyone else here is doing well.
  4. Just bought a ticket for the Gold Coast show
  5. Been a while since I've posted so just a quick update on where I am. Things are finally starting to look up, after getting a ton of rejections I'm starting a new job tomorrow. It's an entry level position, and the pay isn't great, but it's a lot better than zero. Plus it's a company that makes huge positive difference in people's lives and I get experience with microscope soldering. I'm still working at getting better at programming and I've recently released my first app on Google Play. It's a basic budgeting app, if you have an Android device you can download it here or if you're interested in looking at the code here's the Github repository. It's totally free and I haven't put any ads in it. The purpose isn't to make money from it, more to put it out there as evidence that I can program, hopefully leading to better opportunities in the future.
  6. I know it's the right choice. But right now Brisbane is kind of kicking my ass, I'm currently in that stage where nothing is going right. You know that stage, the nothing stage, it's right before all the seeds you planted actually start growing. I'm re-reading Scott Adams' How to Fail and Still Win Big. One of the things that he talks about is that in life you get to keep pulling the lottery lever, eventually by doing things that have a small chance of winning you get the jackpot. I know things will work out, but damn it sucks to be in one of life's valleys.
  7. I have a fair bit of experience with Toastmasters. I can't say for sure what your experience will be like, every club is slightly different. But the one thing they all seem to have in common is that the organization and the people in it are very supportive. I'll give you a likely scenario of your first experience. Firstly find a group in your area, most have websites and most will be happy for you to just drop in on their Toastmastering night. I would advise calling before just in case they have a different venue or event for the night. When you arrive and walk in, it's possible you'll feel a little lost to begin with but someone will talk to you about Toastmasters and what to expect. They might ask a little bit about you just so they can introduce you as a guest. Don't worry, it's not a big thing, just a formality they do soon after the meeting starts. You might have to sit through a business session(not my favorite part), you'll get to hear a couple of speeches. You also might get the chance to participate in Table Topics, this is where someone gets a question or a statement and they speak about it, off the top of their head for 1 or 2 minutes. If they do give you this opportunity you're not obligated to do it. On my first meeting I was asked if I wanted to give it a go, I think I managed to talk semi coherently for about 12 seconds. After the speeches and Table Topics they will have other members evaluate the previous speeches. At the end of the meeting they will ask guests if they have any comments about the meeting, again your not obligated to say anything but even saying, "thanks, it was a fun night" will be appreciated. There are advantages and disadvantages with Toastmasters, some clubs might charge bigger fees. They're quite often not as critical of a speech as they could be. Though if you're at the stage where you get extremely nervous about giving a speech this is a great thing. Obviously I can't vouch for everyone in the organisation but everyone I met has been incredibly supportive. I can not recommend Toastmasters enough, they've helped me immensely, they'll help you. At the very least go and checkout a meeting.
  8. I haven't written here for a while so a quick update. Firstly, I've been using Habitica to keep track of some daily habits. One of them is avoiding video games, just noticed that my streak just hit 90 days. I've recently moved over 1000km, so now I'm living in Brisbane. Bigger city, more opportunities. Unfortunately, at this stage I'm not doing great, getting a job is turning out to be harder than I anticipated. But I've been in worse situations than this and I've always managed to turn things around. This time will be no different.
  9. You weren't joking about "lots more coming", that's a lot of media attention. Congratulations.
  10. Gambling addiction is included in the DSM-5. It makes no sense to me that one is included when the other isn't. Either both gambling addiction and video game addiction is a real thing or they're both not real. Yet there are far less people arguing that gambling addiction isn't a problem. Read the criteria for gambling addiction, replace the word "gambling" with "gaming" https://www.problemgambling.ca/EN/ResourcesForProfessionals/Pages/DSM5CriteriaGamblingDisorder.aspx While these labels are important in the big picture, it's not as necessary to worry about as individuals. I agree with the original post, if quitting something improves your life, doesn't matter what label it has.
  11. Congratulations, that's great publicity for Gamequitters.
  12. Official notice has been given to the real estate agent. Just a few more weeks and I'm moving out. There's been some very hard personal decisions that have gone into this decision. I don't want to talk too much about that publicly at this stage. But I will say that, while it's exciting to be moving, there are a number of real concerns. I'll write more later, but right now it's late and I need sleep
  13. Embedded systems is definitely something I'd like to get into in the future if I can get into it without having a degree. Embedded systems was actually my favorite course that I did at uni. But for now I'll be concentrating on Android app development. I think that once I get good at using Java it shouldn't be too hard to switch back to C/C++.
  14. Wow, been a long time since I posted in this thread. So I'm going to be honest and say that lately I have not been doing as well as I would like. For the last couple of years I decided to go back to uni to study electrical engineering. I was an electronics technician before that, and it was a job I enjoyed. So I figured that it seemed the next logical step in my career. Turns out I suck at taking exams and in hindsight it was a very bad decision. I did well in the electrical subjects throughout the semester but often bombed on the exam. I was still passing, but considering I would be competing against guys significantly younger it didn't make sense to continue. Right now I find myself without an income. Where I currently live there aren't a lot of jobs/opportunities. But this is not a pity post. One thing that I truly believe is that almost everyone has the ability to improve their life if they put the work in. It's absolutely worthless to wallow in self-pity, there's always something that can be done. So what I'm doing about it is teaching myself programming, specifically Java/Android apps. And I'll be moving to a bigger city in about a month's time(Brisbane) so that I can at least get a crappy job while I'm working on other things.
  15. For anyone who doesn't want to download the html file but still interested in what my map looks like: @Reno F has a good idea with using google maps to put the markers on. I may be a little bit biased against that because I spent a lot of time getting the markers lined up for this map, and don't really look forward to doing that tedious work all over again. The markers don't necessarily line up but here is what it looks like when I swap in Reno's code: There are some disadvantages and advantages with doing it either way. Like I said, I may be slightly biased because of the work I've already put in, but a couple of objective reasons to use the first map is quicker loading times and later we also have the ability to colour in the countries.
×
×
  • Create New...