The 25th was my 34th birthday. The day after I went for yet another interview. The third one with a famous Japanese developer for a position in the research department.
I was asked to bring copies of some documents regarding my current salary.
This time around the interview was a bit more serious. There was money to talk about and I’m not particularly good at it. I surrended pretty quickly for entering doing more or less what I’m already doing, and wait a few months for a review.
I couldn’t tell if my current earnings are somewhat higher than expected, but I don’t think so, as I’ve previously gave a rough figure of my salary to other interviewers. I also previously explained that I had to take a decision by the end of this month. There are only two days left and so I got in touch with this company today again.
The answer was that the process of issuing an offer, if any, will most likely take more than two days.
I realize that certain things require time, but I’m also in a difficult situation. I could try to be sneaky and accept the offer I have to possibly leave shortly after, in case of a better offer. But that would suck.. it would be a lot of hassle to eventually change jobs right away, both for me and the company involved.

I’m currently hoping that I will get any new offers by tomorrow, or else I will have to decide wether to accept the current offer and ignore any new ones that would arrive shortly after, or ask for a delay to the offering companies, so that I have enough time to see what’s available.

Ummmmmmmmm !!!!

I’ve also been doing some work on DSharingu. A new version should come soon. Finally a decent version which has an usable compression with progressive refinement and some added usability: less buttons and standard Windows menus.

Posted by Davide Pasca as Diary at 4:30 AM EDT

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Yesterday I went for a last round of interviews. The second round for a very popoular developer, and the first (and only ?) with a larger company which perhaps used to be more famous in the past.
They both were group interviews. I had the first one with the popoular developer at noon, with my prospect coworkers. I think it was mostly to see if we’d make a connection, and I think it went fairly well. We all had fun but we also spoke of our past experiences and the things we like to do. I had a chance to briefly speak about image compression, but also a chance to mention that I go clubbing from time to time 8)
It was bright outside and I really felt at ease.. but I should not be too relaxed until I hear the result !

The second interview was with the larger business located not exactly very near Tokyo, but sporting its own set of cool looking buildings, although the interior was definitely more on the functional side…

Because my reading abilities are very limited, I was given one extra hour to do the multi-choice tests, plus the possibility to use whatever electronic dictionary (specifically the Nintendo DS to rapidly consult kanji).

The skills tests varied greatly. I started with a warm-up section that was a concentrated litteracy-level test for native Japanese readers. I could only see kanji I coudln’t recognize and I had 4 minutes.. I stared at the paper until the alarm rang and the lady in charge came into the room to see how I “did” 8)
Other tests were simpler, involved understanding little or no Japanese. Doing equations, making sense of numerical series, associating figures, basically a simple IQ test.
I regret that I was not able to solve a simple equation with two unknowns. I was definitely not well organized, I tried to skip steps and I found myself possibly making mistakes and possibly misunderstanding the equations which were to be derived from a plain language explanation.

The attitude test had about 120 questions to which one had to answer either with 5, 4 or 3 possible answers, depending on the type. I did as far as I could, starting at about 14:50, and then came the interview at 17:00.
This was again a group interview. Everybody was pretty kind, although not necessarily upbeat. I was told that I could resort to English if I had problems, but I did not, aside from introducing 2-3 words to make sure I was understood. The word 残業 ([zangyo] = overwork) this time came from one of the interviewers. I was basically told that the norm is to work about 11 hours and sometimes on weekends.
Overall it seemed to me like a very Japanese (so to speak) work environment. Making no excuses for working late everyday but also being honest about it.
The icing came when, after the interview, I was kindly given unlimited time to complete the attitude test. That was a bit harsh. I went on and used another hour and a half to complete the test, but this time I didn’t really try to understand well every question, as it would have taken me at least 3-4 more hours.
I understand the company policy, but if that piece of paper really matters, then I don’t think it’s a good idea to make it fill it up to someone that has obviously problems understanding the questions. However I didn’t complain and I took that as a good exercise 8)

As I’m standing, I’m one more company should supposedly contact me to set an interview. The contact at this company answer with an average 10 days delay (!). I was also told by a friend that sook some business with them in the past, that they are basically snob asses.. so I’m not holding my breath !
Another company has yet to give any answer (did they get the resume ?). And another big foreign one, which recently had no more need for a position for which I was introduced by some contacts (in English), finally apparently answered to my original (mandatory) online inquiry for another position (in Japanese).
They now ask me to send my resume, over one month later, while it should have taken 1-2 weeks. Honestly, I have 8 days to go before I’m jobless, I need to start doing paperworks for the apartment, and I have a sure offer from a good company that was kind enough to promptly show its interest.

While I don’t like the idea of having to reject any offer, I hope I will soon have a chance to choose and finally relax.

We’ll see !!!

Posted by Davide Pasca as Diary, Japan at 11:24 AM EDT

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Last Thursday I went for an interview at a pretty famous Japanese game company. As expected I had to undergo a standard test before the actual interview.
The test consisted in having to answer 270 dual choice questions in about 40 minutes. I could only manage to answer to 40-50 because they were all written in Japanese ! The Japanese<->English dictionary on the Nintendo DS helped a bit to find out kanji readings.. but that’s definitely a rather lengthy process.

The interview was for a position in the research department. I was asked straight away to give a simple explanation of what Spherical Harmonics are all about in 3D graphics.
I tried to speak Japanese as much as I could, but I gladly resorted to English when it was time to talk technically. The technical interviewer could speak English and it felt great to talk about 3D graphics without getting stuck every other word. I was actually excited… you don’t get a chance to talk about that stuff with other people very often !!

The interview apparently went well and now I’m scheduled for a second one. The second interview should be with more people and I fear that I will be crushed under the pressure of my poor Japanese.
For this reason I decided to intensely study Japanese.. but I haven’t really studied that much ! Instead I’ve been working on DSharingu.. lots of work on the interface. Which made me realize how sometimes programming is so needlessly time-consuming. Doing GUI programming is pretty sucky but it’s also the bulk of application programming !
So, now I spent few days coding at home after a stupid interface, but the screen compression system is the same weak thing. bha !

Recently my home server’s FTP went crazy. I changed some settings and now I can’t make it work again. I was running a free, but really not so good, Windows server.
So, I decided to try use Linux. I installed Ubuntu Server on a VMWare virtual machine and I’m currently experimenting with that.
Apache was no problem but doing FTP is quite a different matter. Linux Linux Linux.. it’s crap !
Unix is very powerful, but you need to know a lot of things. I searched around and found out documentation telling me how to install ProFTPD.. only to find out that on this release I have I’m supposed to go uncomment some lines in some config file so that I can force the system to go look for the package to update. Otherwise it tells me it can’t find it.. what the hell ?! It’s the second most famous FTP server !
They tell you: “use vsftpd !”. OK.. and just to get it running the way you want (easily done with any Windows FTP server), you need to learn how to configure dozens of options in some obscure text files… from various sources that are often not up to date with the current changes of the software.

I realize that my frustrations aren’t too different from those of those people that sit in front of a Windows PC for the first time and can’t get things working. I often feel like blaming Windows newbies, and I can see like a Linux person could blame me for not being able to install and configure an FTP server.

In the end it shouldn’t be the user’s fault. It’s the fault of who designs those interfaces.

Posted by Davide Pasca as Diary at 11:39 PM EDT

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Up until the start of Iraq war I’ve written a lot against Bush, etc etc. I then stopped doing that because it became obvious how things were, plus there were a lot other people infinitely more influential that shared my opinions.
As it turned out, nothing really changed. When I was living in USA I realized how detached from the rest of the world one can be. Simplified thinking is pushed to the extreme. Money is the key value there, and people are easily convinced by simple repetition (not an American exclusive for sure 8).
Politicians will overwhelm the media with a key message until people are convinced. The process of sending a simple message then becomes more like brainwashing. Things are simplified and dramatized. An evil dictator can be an ally one day and the next day a mean mean person that needs to be brought to justice.
A politician will talk about mass murder and rape (that always strikes a chord) while he actually means that something has to be done before all countries start selling oil for Euro rather than Dollars. People that like the rhetoric (the majority) will go for the idea of killing a rapist, and if they ever find out about the economy issue, at least they will settle with the idea that it’s for the economy 8)

But at the end of the day this doesn’t really matter much. We live in a sugar coated reality where dead people far away are numbers. I hear news of dozens of people blown up everyday and I don’t think much about it anymore. Torture, dismembering, suicide bombers.. we hear about it, but hardly ever feel anything anymore. People don’t have time to worry about others, especially other nations !

Then some rich person goes to Africa and sees the bottom of human life, survival to the extreme, and decides to be vocal about that. “We need to help Africa ! People are dying today !!!”
Yes, I agree, but honestly, I don’t think most people really care. It’s hard enough to feel for the loss of someone you met once, imagine for the loss of a millions of strangers that have an incredibly low life expectancy.
Aren’t we trained to be insensitive anyway ? When we see a homeless person we are told that he/she is just a good-for-nothing bum that doesn’t like to work like “the good people” do.

Moving into a nation with massive amount of logistics isn’t an incredible feat.. it’s easily done when it’s needed to make war 8)
I honestly don’t see how the poorest parts of the world are going to pick up any speed. One needs a drastic change, a miracle. One needs to go in the middle of some desert and start building some sort of Las Vegas or a Dubai. Only an overwhelming investment is going to bring any change.

Anyhow, if you really want to read about USA and middle east, you are better off at the The Dilbert Blog. If you want to know why things suck in Italy, you can instead read Beppe Grillo’s Blog, a famous Italian comedian very critical of Italy’s politics. About 3 years ago he gained a lot of respect for foreseeing the collapse of Parlamat.

..over there there is a lot to read. And if the articles aren’t enough, you can try find some decent comment, or even post your own opinion. Which to me it really equates at wasting exponential amounts of time.
This stuff is addictive ! Better do some coding !!!

woooooo

Posted by Davide Pasca as Society at 3:24 PM EDT

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I’m all geared towards my first day at my new job. I want to go and kick some ass ! ..Sorry for the dudeish expression, but that’s more or less the feeling. I want to go and code new stuff, get tasks, etc etc.
Chances are that my first tasks will be somewhat boring, although I really hope they won’t be ! There is also a fear that I may end up in some place where there is a weird coding standard.
My current employer required (but I never complied (^^;)) that one had to put an underscore before any local variable (WTF ?!), an ‘m’ before every method, and some funky names for looping variables.

for (int i=0; i < 10; ++i)

…becomes…

for (ulong32 _Lp=0; _Lp < 10; ++_Lp)

..give me a break !

My current rules for writing C++ code are the following:

//===============================================================
/// @file class_name.h
//===============================================================
class ClassName
{
    int     _class_item;

public:
    ClassName();
    ~ClassName();

    void    PublicMethod();

private:
    void    privateMethod();
};

..I hope that I can keep that to some extent. Or at least that I won’t be forced to use some very weird and/or paranoid coding style.

Changing topic. I recently received some positive and some negative feedback regarding my search for employment.
The large foreign company that I was aiming for apparently isn’t doing great business in Japan and it’s not looking anymore for new people for the position I applied for. It could be an excuse, but on the other hand I didn’t really have a chance to go for an actual interview after the initial phone chat (which it seemed like it went well).

Positive feedback comes instead from two big Japanese game companies. They both want me to allocate at least 3 hours to undertake an interview and a test.. rigorously in Japanese.
One company says that I will receive help in reading and that I can bring my brand new CASIO XD-ST7400 8)
The other company contacted me directly with an appointed day and hour. So, I will have to ask about the test. If good reading comprehension is required, then I may as well avoid wasting everyone’s time. I don’t like to take tests where there is a good chance that I’ll fail !

I’ve recently worked on DSharingu. A new release fixes a crash problem. But it really needs just a lot of work. I need to improve compression, especially for complicated wallpapers.. but I also need to improve the interface.
Currently the settings allow to specify one party to connect. If one wants to change he/she has to change the IP manually but also change the passwords relative to that destination.
I’m now working on an interface that keeps a list of destinations (or “remotes”), each with a name and a password.

ole’

Posted by Davide Pasca as Programming, Diary at 10:54 AM EDT

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At the news that I resigned from my job without first having found a new one, everyone was more or less worried (me included !). That ranged from “it’s usually advisable to..” to “are you nutsss ?!!!”.
I can’t help but thinking that those that were worried the most are also those that underestimate me the most. I’ve been told that I had balls/guts.. so I receive appreciation for being adventurous. That’s certainly a compliment, but it also sounds as if I’m not that good of a programmer, and that I could end up jobless.
That was never an issue, also because I have experience doing web development and everyone needs a web developer 8)

In any case, today I received an offer, I think.
I’m flattered and I really appreciate no-nonsense companies that get to the point. No need to keep one hanging for weeks.
There was some money talk and then an offer and it was all in Japanese. When it comes to talk about money I can’t find my way around in Italian.. much less so in Japanese.
I’m waiting for the details to be put in writing. But in general the feeling I got is that I won’t become rich as a game programmer anytime soon. This can be also related to the fact that for the past 5 years I couldn’t release any major product. Nothing that would resound on my resume, nothing that showcased any particular technology.

Basically, I’m good but not excellent..

And if I were considered excellent ? I’d get paid like anyone with a good experience programming Visual Basic, Excel and Oracle.

Polyphony Digital, the creator of Gran Turismo on the PlayStation, was offering (until the end of August) a maximum of 1 million yen/month. Being a hot programmer on the best selling racing game will give you more or less what any programmer will get in the finance business.
Stock traders instead make a lot more money. I hear that to become a trader one has to have balls, build experience in some place and and suck it up to his boss until he’s given the chance to become a trader.

I feel a bit cheated. I’m told that the gaming business is worth more than the movie business. As a programmer I’m supposedly at the heart of this business, and yet, if I want to be able to step up the social ladder, if I want to be able to enjoy more refined things in life.. I need to become somewhat of a merchant.

Anyhow, I’m fairly happy 8)
One of the very few companies I was really aiming for wants to give me a chance. It’s about developing rather popoular games, flexible work schedule with supposedly not so much overwork. I think that the company is cool, and it offers free (”call now the operators are standing by !!!”) Japanese courses on site, which is also convenient.

I’ll give it some time to see what others have to offer and then I’ll make a decision.

cool cool !

Posted by Davide Pasca as Society, Diary at 4:38 AM EDT

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Yesterday (Monday) I started my round of job interviews.
On the same day I had a phone interview and a physical one. The phone interview was for a big foreign company, the other one was for a relatively small but rather active Japanese developer.
There are a lot of game developers in Tokyo, but I actually aimed first at those two companies. There are probably a lot of nice opportunities out there, but given what I know (I’m not really well informed nor connected), my gut feeling is with those two companies for now.

I was a bit scared of the first interview cause I was worried that I’d receive the personality profile sort treatment. Big companies are famous for employing dedicated personnel for screening potential employees with trick questions.
As it turned out, it was a rather short layd back chat with an actual potential boss. Big relief !

I went into the second interview prepared to have to do it in Japanese but the person interviewing actually made me choose between Japanese and English. I bravely picked Japanese knowing that I could easily throw an English word here and there.
The second interview was not so long but definitely a lot more indepth. I was told that, as is often the case with not very large dev studios, I would have to assume more than one role, not just 3D. I was also told that R&D was mostly about development and not so much about research (fair enough).
When it came to questions, I asked about work time and specifically on the more or less expected (unpaid) overwork. The answer (if I understood correctly) was that the company isn’t a sweatshop, but of course one has to be ready to work late hours around milestones (fair enough, again).
I asked about Internet security. Apparently security is pretty strict. I asked if I could chat with my mother on lunch break (!) and the answer was “yes, if it’s lunch break…”. Well frankly was a somewhat dumb question to ask to your potential CEO ! But I wanted to raise those issues.

In any case it seems that network security has been tightened more and more recently. I have a friend working in a large company that can’t chat anymore, can’t use GMail, and to move files on a company laptop needs go through some hops on some encryption server.
I understand that one is paid to work, but it’s also nice to stay in the office if one can use a distraction from time to time. It’s a bit as if with the advent of the Internet we’ve all given a cubicle next to a window, and now we are being forced to close the blinds. You can take a peek perhaps but you definitely aren’t supposed to enjoy the view.

The position at the large company is about helping other local developers, rather than doing direct development of a title. This could be potentially quite interesting, perhaps a chance to break the long term project work and to face a variety of problems, plus of course the recognition that comes from working for a large company.

ummmmmmmmmmmmm

Posted by Davide Pasca as Society, Diary at 4:16 PM EDT

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