Tuesday, December 28, 2010

....방법

울고싶다.

그렇지만 우는 방법을 모르겠다.

울고 싶은데 난 웃는다.

오늘도 그렇게 지나간다...

Wednesday, August 18, 2010

The Vicious Cycle of Our Lives

Even though we are prone to bad behaviors all the time, it is my firm belief that we know exactly what is the right things and the wrong things to do each and every moment--unless you're either high or drunk, but that's beside the point--even while we're doing the wrong thing. This is because, I believe, of laziness. I, for example, know that I really should concentrate on work, and I should stop blogging and surfing the net--I keep blogging because working requires more energy and willpower to maintain focus.

Here is a list of some other things that I know I really ought to be doing on daily basis, but I am not:

  1. Be truly religious. Give up my everything to Him and be a humble servant. This, contrary to today's culture of greed and pride, is the only true way to real happiness on this Hellish world. Be helpful to others, be loving, and give up. Simple, yes, but extremely hard.
  2. STOP PLAYING GAMES. This may be the single most life-depriving activity I constantly come back to every day. While gaming itself can't be faulted for every hardship I go through, it is the root of all evil as it takes up most of my free time and energy that I should spend on other more productive activities, such as the next one.
  3. Work on personal projects. As I've expressed several times before, the current job isn't in the path to the career goal I wish to pursue. Basically, I'm sticking with this position to survive this economic winter, and keep paying the bill. So, it's probably given that I am not getting any experience in skills that are directly applicable to my desired career. To supplement this gap, I need to launch some project that is in alignment with my goal.

I realize that more than a quarter of my life have already passed. Each year is becoming shorter and shorter as I grow older and older--There's only 1/3 of 2010 left, already! I don't think I should waste any of my time, but of course, this is easier said than done. If you ask me why I don't do the above if I know so well, I'll say that I am waiting for someone to break me out of it. By myself alone, it just feels impossible to do anything else than repeating yesterday. Or maybe I'm afraid of something. As Frodo said,

" I know what I must do, it's just that... I'm afraid to do it. "

Tuesday, August 10, 2010

The Alignment of Your Career

Soon after I started working in a different team, one of the technical lead sat down with me and another employee and talked a bit about how to excel in a company, and later make some big bucks. It was rather simple:

Align your career with company's objectives.

By this, he meant that you need to think about what kind of business the company is in to generate revenue. Does it make some machines? Or maybe build web solutions? And then, you need to think about what you are doing at the company, and see how it relates to that business. If your career does not directly relate to the product, regardless of what you think, you are not among the most valued member of the organization. There are plenty of others who can replace you, and will replace you, once you become old, inefficient, or both. Conversely, if your work is related to making the product, then congratulations. You will probably make a lot of money. (Provided you work hard, of course.)

Here's an example the tech lead gave us: if your company makes satellites, then there's no use being a software developer; your career will soon hit a ceiling and stop growing after a certain point. On the other hand, if you are a system integrator, who knows software as well as the hardware, then you're on the road to be among the most valued workers at that company. (Satellite is basically that--a system of hardware and software.)

This may be painfully obvious if you're currently working for, or have worked for a small or medium sized company, such as start-up or venture companies. However, for someone like me who has launched a career in a huge corporation and lack a clear view of the big picture of his career life, or has spent way too much time in one that the career has lost its momentum, this advice is rather new, fresh, and quite alarming one.

Now, the company I'm working for, at least the branch I am working at, builds military airplanes that are used all over the world. And I'm working there as--guess what?--a software engineer. Again, a software guy working at a hardware company. This, he tells me, is a big no-no. I have practically no hand in getting the airplane through the door, and so, from the company's point of view, I am placed pretty low in the corporate pyramid.

Now that I know, there are two options available: 1) adjust my career goal to go along with this company and set my mind on building the airplane, or 2)--I hope no one at my work is looking at this--switch the company to the one that makes money doing what I want to do.

And so far, I haven't decided.

Thursday, July 29, 2010

Upgrading Street Views and Street Slides

Deriving from Microsoft Research's Street Slide, I'm thinking:

Wouldn't it be great to have each photos vectorized? This would create clean and infinitely zoom-able street views, no, Street Slides. It will display building shapes and signs without all the fuzziness. This data could also be used to create a complete 3D representations of streets.

Of course, the challenge is how to have this automated, but I'm sure there are plenty of bright people to handle this.

Hey, this could be a good business, don't you think?

Thursday, July 15, 2010

My Dream Company

Sometime ago, a friend of mine who actually seems wanting to see me working for a game company asked which company I would die to work for.

I couldn't answer.

It's not because I didn't have any favorite game company, and certainly not because I didn't want to jump into game industry. But it was rather because I was tired of corporate, dull work life.

Many would think that's why people join game industry, to live the exhilarating development life, but most development studios that people know are already a part of big companies, and are tied down by their own processes and procedures.

Of course, to produce quality work, there has to be some kind of process to manage the development. But when a parent company forces a studio to do something it's not willing to do, I see no point of working there (see Activision and Infinity Ward fiasco).

There were some names that floated in my head at the moment of asking: Valve Software, EA, Ubisoft Montreal... But each of those didn't seem good enough for me to say it outright.

Yeah, as if I can work for any of those, if I just wanted, right? Maybe it's best for me to accept that there will never be the dream job that I think about all the time.

*sigh*

Thursday, April 22, 2010

Asians... :P

An Asian joke passed by my coworker today:

There is this barber in the US. One day a Caucasian florist goes to him for a haircut. After the cut, he goes to pay the barber. The barber replies: "No charge today. I am doing community service." The florist is happy and leaves. The next morning the barber finds a "thank you" card and a dozen roses waiting at his shop door.

An African American cop goes for a haircut and gets the same "community service treatment." The cop is happy and leaves. The next morning the barber finds a "thank you" card and a dozen donuts waiting at his shop door.

An Asian software egineer goes for a haircut and he also gets the "community service treatment." The next morning when the barber goes to open his shop, guess what he finds there. A dozen Asians waiting for a free Haircut.