Press Reset

Press Reset

Author: Jason Schreier

Publisher: Grand Central Publishing

Published: 2021-05-11

Total Pages: 304

ISBN-13: 1538735482

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From the bestselling author of Blood, Sweat, and Pixels comes the next definitive, behind-the-scenes account of the video game industry: how some of the past decade's most renowned studios fell apart—and the stories, both triumphant and tragic, of what happened next. Jason Schreier's groundbreaking reporting has earned him a place among the preeminent investigative journalists covering the world of video games. In his eagerly anticipated, deeply researched new book, Schreier trains his investigative eye on the volatility of the video game industry and the resilience of the people who work in it. The business of videogames is both a prestige industry and an opaque one. Based on dozens of first-hand interviews that cover the development of landmark games—Bioshock Infinite, Epic Mickey, Dead Space, and more—on to the shocking closures of the studios that made them, Press Reset tells the stories of how real people are affected by game studio shutdowns, and how they recover, move on, or escape the industry entirely. Schreier's insider interviews cover hostile takeovers, abusive bosses, corporate drama, bounced checks, and that one time the Boston Red Sox's Curt Schilling decided he was going to lead a game studio that would take out World of Warcraft. Along the way, he asks pressing questions about why, when the video game industry is more successful than ever, it's become so hard to make a stable living making video games—and whether the business of making games can change before it's too late.


Blood, Sweat, and Pixels

Blood, Sweat, and Pixels

Author: Jason Schreier

Publisher: HarperCollins

Published: 2017-09-05

Total Pages: 312

ISBN-13: 0062651242

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NATIONAL BESTSELLER “The stories in this book make for a fascinating and remarkably complete pantheon of just about every common despair and every joy related to game development.” — Rami Ismail, cofounder of Vlambeer and developer of Nuclear Throne Developing video games—hero's journey or fool's errand? The creative and technical logistics that go into building today's hottest games can be more harrowing and complex than the games themselves, often seeming like an endless maze or a bottomless abyss. In Blood, Sweat, and Pixels, Jason Schreier takes readers on a fascinating odyssey behind the scenes of video game development, where the creator may be a team of 600 overworked underdogs or a solitary geek genius. Exploring the artistic challenges, technical impossibilities, marketplace demands, and Donkey Kong-sized monkey wrenches thrown into the works by corporate, Blood, Sweat, and Pixels reveals how bringing any game to completion is more than Sisyphean—it's nothing short of miraculous. Taking some of the most popular, bestselling recent games, Schreier immerses readers in the hellfire of the development process, whether it's RPG studio Bioware's challenge to beat an impossible schedule and overcome countless technical nightmares to build Dragon Age: Inquisition; indie developer Eric Barone's single-handed efforts to grow country-life RPG Stardew Valley from one man's vision into a multi-million-dollar franchise; or Bungie spinning out from their corporate overlords at Microsoft to create Destiny, a brand new universe that they hoped would become as iconic as Star Wars and Lord of the Rings—even as it nearly ripped their studio apart. Documenting the round-the-clock crunches, buggy-eyed burnout, and last-minute saves, Blood, Sweat, and Pixels is a journey through development hell—and ultimately a tribute to the dedicated diehards and unsung heroes who scale mountains of obstacles in their quests to create the best games imaginable.


Bullshit Jobs

Bullshit Jobs

Author: David Graeber

Publisher: Simon & Schuster

Published: 2019-05-07

Total Pages: 368

ISBN-13: 1501143336

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From David Graeber, the bestselling author of The Dawn of Everything and Debt—“a master of opening up thought and stimulating debate” (Slate)—a powerful argument against the rise of meaningless, unfulfilling jobs…and their consequences. Does your job make a meaningful contribution to the world? In the spring of 2013, David Graeber asked this question in a playful, provocative essay titled “On the Phenomenon of Bullshit Jobs.” It went viral. After one million online views in seventeen different languages, people all over the world are still debating the answer. There are hordes of people—HR consultants, communication coordinators, telemarketing researchers, corporate lawyers—whose jobs are useless, and, tragically, they know it. These people are caught in bullshit jobs. Graeber explores one of society’s most vexing and deeply felt concerns, indicting among other villains a particular strain of finance capitalism that betrays ideals shared by thinkers ranging from Keynes to Lincoln. “Clever and charismatic” (The New Yorker), Bullshit Jobs gives individuals, corporations, and societies permission to undergo a shift in values, placing creative and caring work at the center of our culture. This book is for everyone who wants to turn their vocation back into an avocation and “a thought-provoking examination of our working lives” (Financial Times).


"We Are All Fast-Food Workers Now"

Author: Annelise Orleck

Publisher: Beacon Press

Published: 2018-02-27

Total Pages: 322

ISBN-13: 0807081787

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The story of low-wage workers rising up around the world to demand respect and a living wage. Tracing a new labor movement sparked and sustained by low-wage workers from across the globe, “We Are All Fast-Food Workers Now” is an urgent, illuminating look at globalization as seen through the eyes of workers-activists: small farmers, fast-food servers, retail workers, hotel housekeepers, home-healthcare aides, airport workers, and adjunct professors who are fighting for respect, safety, and a living wage. With original photographs by Liz Cooke and drawing on interviews with activists in many US cities and countries around the world, including Bangladesh, Cambodia, Mexico, South Africa, and the Philippines, it features stories of resistance and rebellion, as well as reflections on hope and change as it rises from the bottom up.


Working Effectively with Legacy Code

Working Effectively with Legacy Code

Author: Michael Feathers

Publisher: Prentice Hall Professional

Published: 2004-09-22

Total Pages: 457

ISBN-13: 0132931753

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Get more out of your legacy systems: more performance, functionality, reliability, and manageability Is your code easy to change? Can you get nearly instantaneous feedback when you do change it? Do you understand it? If the answer to any of these questions is no, you have legacy code, and it is draining time and money away from your development efforts. In this book, Michael Feathers offers start-to-finish strategies for working more effectively with large, untested legacy code bases. This book draws on material Michael created for his renowned Object Mentor seminars: techniques Michael has used in mentoring to help hundreds of developers, technical managers, and testers bring their legacy systems under control. The topics covered include Understanding the mechanics of software change: adding features, fixing bugs, improving design, optimizing performance Getting legacy code into a test harness Writing tests that protect you against introducing new problems Techniques that can be used with any language or platform—with examples in Java, C++, C, and C# Accurately identifying where code changes need to be made Coping with legacy systems that aren't object-oriented Handling applications that don't seem to have any structure This book also includes a catalog of twenty-four dependency-breaking techniques that help you work with program elements in isolation and make safer changes.


Machine of Death

Machine of Death

Author: Ryan North

Publisher: Machines of Death LLC

Published: 2010

Total Pages: 468

ISBN-13: 0982167121

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MACHINE OF DEATH tells thirty-four different stories about people who know how they will die. Prepare to have your tears jerked, your spine tingled, your funny bone tickled, your mind blown, your pulse quickened, or your heart warmed. Or better yet, simply prepare to be surprised. Because even when people do have perfect knowledge of the future, there's no telling exactly how things will turn out.


A Survival Guide for Working with Bad Bosses

A Survival Guide for Working with Bad Bosses

Author: Gini Graham Scott

Publisher: Amacom Books

Published: 2006

Total Pages: 226

ISBN-13: 9780814428979

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The sad fact is that the majority of people in the workforce have a less than perfect relationship with their supervisor and many of them consider themselves to be working for "a bad boss". But what can they do about it, short of leaving their job? "A Survival Guide for Working with Bad Bosses" gives readers all the guidance they so desperately need not just to survive, but thrive while reporting to someone incompetent, mean, unethical, or even worse.


The Everything Store

The Everything Store

Author: Brad Stone

Publisher: Little, Brown

Published: 2013-10-15

Total Pages: 404

ISBN-13: 0316219258

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The authoritative account of the rise of Amazon and its intensely driven founder, Jeff Bezos, praised by the Seattle Times as "the definitive account of how a tech icon came to life." Amazon.com started off delivering books through the mail. But its visionary founder, Jeff Bezos, wasn't content with being a bookseller. He wanted Amazon to become the everything store, offering limitless selection and seductive convenience at disruptively low prices. To do so, he developed a corporate culture of relentless ambition and secrecy that's never been cracked. Until now. Brad Stone enjoyed unprecedented access to current and former Amazon employees and Bezos family members, giving readers the first in-depth, fly-on-the-wall account of life at Amazon. Compared to tech's other elite innovators -- Jobs, Gates, Zuckerberg -- Bezos is a private man. But he stands out for his restless pursuit of new markets, leading Amazon into risky new ventures like the Kindle and cloud computing, and transforming retail in the same way Henry Ford revolutionized manufacturing. The Everything Store is the revealing, definitive biography of the company that placed one of the first and largest bets on the Internet and forever changed the way we shop and read.


The Millionaire Fastlane

The Millionaire Fastlane

Author: MJ DeMarco

Publisher: Viperion Publishing Corp

Published: 2011-01-04

Total Pages: 337

ISBN-13: 0984358102

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10TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION Is the financial plan of mediocrity -- a dream-stealing, soul-sucking dogma known as "The Slowlane" your plan for creating wealth? You know how it goes; it sounds a lil something like this: "Go to school, get a good job, save 10% of your paycheck, buy a used car, cancel the movie channels, quit drinking expensive Starbucks mocha lattes, save and penny-pinch your life away, trust your life-savings to the stock market, and one day, when you are oh, say, 65 years old, you can retire rich." The mainstream financial gurus have sold you blindly down the river to a great financial gamble: You've been hoodwinked to believe that wealth can be created by recklessly trusting in the uncontrollable and unpredictable markets: the housing market, the stock market, and the job market. This impotent financial gamble dubiously promises wealth in a wheelchair -- sacrifice your adult life for a financial plan that reaps dividends in the twilight of life. Accept the Slowlane as your blueprint for wealth and your financial future will blow carelessly asunder on a sailboat of HOPE: HOPE you can find a job and keep it, HOPE the stock market doesn't tank, HOPE the economy rebounds, HOPE, HOPE, and HOPE. Do you really want HOPE to be the centerpiece for your family's financial plan? Drive the Slowlane road and you will find your life deteriorate into a miserable exhibition about what you cannot do, versus what you can. For those who don't want a lifetime subscription to "settle-for-less" and a slight chance of elderly riches, there is an alternative; an expressway to extraordinary wealth that can burn a trail to financial independence faster than any road out there. Why jobs, 401(k)s, mutual funds, and 40-years of mindless frugality will never make you rich young. Why most entrepreneurs fail and how to immediately put the odds in your favor. The real law of wealth: Leverage this and wealth has no choice but to be magnetized to you. The leading cause of poorness: Change this and you change everything. How the rich really get rich - and no, it has nothing to do with a paycheck or a 401K match. Why the guru's grand deity - compound interest - is an impotent wealth accelerator. Why the guru myth of "do what you love" will most likely keep you poor, not rich. And 250+ more poverty busting distinctions... Demand the Fastlane, an alternative road-to-wealth; one that actually ignites dreams and creates millionaires young, not old. Change lanes and find your explosive wealth accelerator. Hit the Fastlane, crack the code to wealth, and find out how to live rich for a lifetime.


The Hacker Crackdown

The Hacker Crackdown

Author:

Publisher:

Published:

Total Pages:

ISBN-13:

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Features the book, "The Hacker Crackdown," by Bruce Sterling. Includes a preface to the electronic release of the book and the chronology of the hacker crackdown. Notes that the book has chapters on crashing the computer system, the digital underground, law and order, and the civil libertarians.