Sunday, 09:55 pm, 25 January 2004

Time Lost vs Money Spent

What is your time worth? This is something I have been pondering for a number of days. Mainly actually through my dealings with miniature painters. One of the miniature painting sites spawned a musing session about how totally elitist and stupid it was to pay people to paint figures. I think it was really aimed at people who could afford figure painting. It really is a yuppie luxury. Figure painting and cleaners are two luxuries I have begun to accept as a welcoming to the middle class.

It makes me feel uneasy really. But, if you are going to employ someone to do anything what is their time worth? To me, the sole justification for cleaners was that my time on a weekend was worth more than UKP20. That this amount for a fortnightly cleaning, was much less than my weekend was worth to me. Roughly one weekend every two a large part of the weekend was spent cleaning. It was better to pay someone to do it.

Figure painting? Similarly - I would love to have the luxury of figure painting (time). But it wasn't getting done. So I pay someone to do it. It really has become a thing in itself though. I now spent my time looking on eBay. Doing some research into figures I would like Fred Reed to paint. I put in time to this. And it isn't really a rewarding hobby. I do feel that people like Fred Reed should be paid to paint. I think it is great that people who have an obscure artistic skill are able to create commercial work.

Another go no-where Barbalet Log muse? No. I have been working this weekend on the IEEE article. And it has been more time consuming than I expected. Not a lot of output for so much time put in, The article looks similar. Some minor changes but nothing too elaborate.

It's a funny thing writing. I wrote the IEEE article about four months ago - if not more. And I found it really difficult to recapture the style. Get the elements in the right direction. I have thought a lot about writing in terms of a 'best before' date. If when you write something, you actually codify time into what you write. Perhaps, if one writes enough, the style evolves or just changes. But continuing to convey the same subtle emotional points through even a 5,000 word work, proved difficult after four months.

Total War is replacing large chunks of my home alone time too. I have a somewhat critical eye with regards to the Noble Warfare development. But I must confess, I think Total War is a hard one to beat. In terms of graphics integration, I won't be able to compete with Total War. I don't have the personal drawing skills and there hasn't been a flood of volunteers - even to beta test. Just a few.

I'm feeling very tired currently - partially the onset of the next wave of cold weather - but also I think a natural sign to get more sleep. How unprofound that sounds! In that spirit... Good night.
Saturday, 10:27 pm, 24 January 2004

Too much time spent playing Total War and cleaning up miniatures for the US Orcs + a group of local eBay Orcs to send to Fred Reed when he gets back from the US.

Regulars to the website will remember my discussion about getting some figures to other paints whilst Fred is away in the US. Following about a month of communication and apparently some painting, I am yet to see any of the miniatures in the alloy. Phil R. has sent me two digital images of the progress he is making. But not a peep from Chris Blair and a brief touching base email from Willi Winter following me sending him one.

I think in general figure painters are not good emailers. Whilst scrubbing Orcs and Goblins today I wondered almost outloud about why I continued with this hobby. I don't display the figures. They just go into suitcase storage. It is getting to the stage where I would need a display case at least 8-foot by 6-feet to display the suitcases worth. In anycase, more pondering t'row. Hopefully post Noble Ape Mailout.

Good night.
Tuesday, 07:57 pm, 20 January 2004

Two thoughts over the past couple of days. I have been watching the WWDC 2003 DVDs. Always interesting viewing. I typically go through a warm and fuzzy period of - perhaps I should try this - or - maybe this technique will be useful. Some of the WWDC sessions are actually good overviews. But all seem to lack a level of detail. I don't know of other Mac conferences that may institute such discussion. In fact, MacHack seems to be a Pax Americana fest. I really wonder sometimes about the inter-US conferences version outta-US conferences. GDCe was low key. I didn't get the sense it was well attended and it didn't have the US conference feel. Developers - anyone connected with the technology industry - can expect at least four conferences a year in the US. Out of the US, I would be lucky to see one a year.

The conference industry in the US, from hotels to conference centres, is phenomenal. In terms of the information they produce - really marginal. I don't think I have ever seen a conference either through attendance or through papers that have a wow factor. Really I am pretty jaded. Even seeing Noble Ape displayed at WWDC 2003. It was cool initially. But it would have been nicer to be there.

There is some angst about the difficulties getting to conferences. When I attended conferences regularly, I always felt empty. Now I don't attend conferences, I don't miss them. But I feel remote. I feel remote anyway.

Point two - I am looking through my IEEE article currently. I am doing a resketch before a redraft. I know the areas that need change. I just want the changes to be coherent. Stylistically, I don't want to change it. Aside from the technical information, there is a strong narrative of 'I did it my way!' I don't know if it will get respect. It isn't about righting wrongs. It is about writing wrongs.

The interesting thing about the IEEE article is I will probably lose copyright or publication rights for it. For this reason, I don't want to write too much about it in the log, because most of the folks reading the log won't have a chance to read the IEEE article. I also don't know how the IEEE article will be received with such a dynamic - potentially small readership.

Take for example a recent article on Apple's developer website;

http://developer.apple.com/tools/shark_optimize.html

So far this article has netted about ten visitors to the Noble Ape website and two have been me. The real stat is that more people have gone from the Noble Ape website to the Apple article linked in the log than the other way around. Tracking people's readership or interest is something I stopped doing long ago. So the IEEE article - I will only predict following it.

Nathan Slingerland and Sanjay Patel at Apple have done wonders with the development. I can not fault their assistance. I just think people's interest is not a predictable thing. Some things come from no-where to bring eyes to the site. A release will always get good numbers. But a release may not be for a while.

Good night.

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