What do you do?

[iFreilicht]

Sorry, we're completely OT now, but the Xeon D-1571 is unfortunately far from available right now, especially with the X10SDV boards, which are the only ones yet confirmed to actually be sold with that CPU.

The current pipeline is only containing the X10SDV-12C-TLN4F, the -16C-TLN4F and the -16C+-TLN4F, the first of which only uses the D-1557 with 12 cores @ 1.5GHz, 45W and the second and third use the D-1587 with 16 cores @ 1.7GHz, 65W. The D-1571 is pretty much an underclocked version of that, but until it is actually available, the 16 Core X10SDVs will be 65W, not 45.

 

[onlyabloke]

I work for the government as well - US Air Force here though. I'm a Security Forces Patrolman (Police) but because I'm in the middle of some medical issues, I hang out at the Visitor Center and write passes for visitors all day.

 

[ChainedHope]

I currently work as the CTO of a lan center chain in the midwest while also going to college for Computer Engineering. Not really focused on SFF for either of those but I have been slowly trying to get all the pcs in the centers to go SFF since they all travel quite a bit.

 

[Kmpkt]

I've spent the last ten-ish years working as a Physiotherapist. Started out in computer science hoping to be a programmer until I failed out of all my first year math classes. Ran across campus to the Phys Ed department to do a physiology and human kinetics degree and computers have been a hobby and not a career path ever since.

 

[Rusty McFot]

I'm an electrical engineer. Currently working for a worldwide automation and control company, here in Australia

I had been an electrician for about 12 years before studying to become an engineer. I completed my further studies 12 months ago, and now I work on programming PLC and HMI industrial automation control systems, industrial electronics, as well as commissioning and field service for installations and breakdowns.

 

[robbee]

I've been a webdesigner for 3 years. No technical background, but a healthy interest for hardware in general and small computers specifically.

 

[Rusty McFot]

I am and have pretty much always been a civil engineer with a specialization in geotechnical work. I started out with a consultancy specializing in mining waste impoundments. After a brief hiatus due to the 90's economy crash in the Pacific Rim, I moved to the US midwest and have been with a few consulting firms learning some new tricks along the way. About 10 years ago, I moved to working for a relatively small family-owned (currently 2nd-generation owner) contracting firm specializing in deep foundations, heavy highway (i.e., bridges) and earth retention. I do most of the design work (except for actual bridge design or unusually heavy structural stuff) and even my own CAD work!

Finally! Someone I can talk to about building my secret underground bunk..... I mean, wine cellar!

 

[DrLeroy]

Design Systems Specialist/Manager for an Engineering and Design consultancy in Australia, essentially I manage and define configurations for our design systems, put together the CAD builds, and convert written client CAD standards or older digital ones into the applications for use. I get to work from home 2 days a week (though it's been from home full time for around 6 months now!) my secondary role is also sort of governance on Information management Standards, i.e. adhering to metadata, naming, codification requirements for clients, and its delivery seeing as a large volume of this information is fed from the systems I manage.

 

[timginter]

Nice motley crue Really interesting backgrounds.

Another software dev here, I also have a small investment company. I worked as a Software Engineer and IT Project Manager before. Caught the computer bug with my first Commodore a few centuries ago Started tinkering with software and Turbo Pascal, good times.

Haven't had a PC for over 15 years now, a few years ago I started experimenting with laptops and eGPUs. My latest "DIY laptop" brought me here

 

[Solo]

I just piss away time as a college dropout

 

[Phuncz]

I've never even finished kindergarten and look where I am now.


Sitting at home, moderating a forum.

 

[AddendumIndependent]

I have been a Railway Signals & Communications Maintainer for 11 years in West Michigan, maintaining railway crossing and wayside signal control systems, track circuits, and related equipment, and performing the federally required scheduled inspections of such.

On top of that, I served as the Lead Producer & Operations/Maintenance for the Grand Haven Musical Fountain (think Bellagio Fountain, but on a sand dune along the waterfront of a small but popular tourist town along the shore of Lake Michigan) for over 13 years before handing it over to a younger guy with more free time. I spearheaded massive upgrades to the fountain, from LED lighting, control and software upgrades, mechanical upgrades, audio upgrades, and producing feature-length themed shows that grew the audience from a couple hundred nightly to 7,000+ on weekend evenings. it definitely has been the highlight of my career so far.

Also helped a close friend out with his live sound business, assisting with backline, load-in/load-out and mixing for many well-known national and international touring acts.

As for my interest in SFF, I am an essentialist, and prefer to keep my possessions to a lower amount, out of the way, and not “screaming” for visual attention in a space, and as such, my Ghost S1 gaming build serves that need well.

 

[Valantar]

I'm working on a Ph.D. in videogame studies, coming into it from a BA and MA in humanist media studies. I'm currently about halfway through (at least that's what my contract says, heh ), and thankfully I'm lucky enough to come from a country where Ph.D. research is actually recognized as labor and treated as a job, meaning I don't have to rely on grants, scholarships, parental support or side jobs to get by.

My experience is that I'm often a bit of an odd one out in computer hardware/gaming circles with my interest in this not being linked to much interest in programming, math or natural sciences, but instead in humanist questions of how these things affect us as people, how they convey meaning (or how we use them to convey meaning), how they fit into (and in turn shape) our lives, how we make use of them in various contexts, etc. Luckily the field of game studies, even if it is extremely interdisciplinary, has quite a few people sharing those interests.

I'm still a complete rookie in what I do (no matter if my advisers keep telling me otherwise), but I'm pretty much set on taking this as far as it can go. There aren't many job opportunities outside of academia, but research is what I want to do and keep doing, as I think understanding how videogames affect us and shape our lives and societies is an extremely important field of study now and in the future.

My job doesn't relate to SFF directly in any way, though it obviously relates heavily to computers in general. I've been building, using and playing on PCs since I was in my early teens, and my journey into SFF mostly grew out of sheer exhaustion at the size of mainstream PCs and how difficult they were to fit into my living conditions - at one point during my studies my desktop PC sat unused in storage for a year as there was no way to fit it into my apartment. I'm also generally a fan of DIY projects (though please don't ask me how many of them I ever finish!), and I like the general idea of space efficiency and compact living, which means I don't mind the extra work of building something compact even if there's extra effort involved. It's definitely a rather snobbish attitude, but huge PCs definitely rub me the wrong way - I always find they dominate the room (a big humming box will do that), and given how PCs work these days I don't see any real advantages with larger form factors.

 

[eedev]

I'm a Web Developer since 2008. I mostly work on mostly PHP CMS that you all know like Drupal and Wordpress and also use PHP frameworks such as Symfony and Laravel. Last year I started Angular because I don't want to stagnate, I have worked on one real project with it so far.

Other than that, I am a very curious person but unfortunately single tasking, usually I focus on one thing until I have seen enough and then move on.
I call it passion but usually it turns to obsession .

 

[Phuncz]

@Valantar very interesting ! People have been demonizing games for a long time while ignoring the reality how important games have become in today's world. Not just as an industry, but as an experience, as a therapy vehicle, as a teaching platform, as social lubricant.

 

[Valantar]

@Valantar very interesting ! People have been demonizing games for a long time while ignoring the reality how important games have become in today's world. Not just as an industry, but as an experience, as a therapy vehicle, as a teaching platform, as social lubricant.

Heh, yeah, that's been a consistent bugbear that is thankfully starting to go away (though it's still my go-to topic whenever I need to exemplify the practical uses of my research to people outside of the field ), in large part thanks to a ton of high quality research conducted within the field (mainly sociologically or psychologically oriented, though not only). People love black-and-white answers though, and grey-area findings like "what you get out of a game depends on what you bring to it and how you use it" are really difficult to propagate. Still, media researchers are quite used to new media triggering various degrees of panics or skepticism (anyone remember how VHS or LPs would ruin the youth?), so it's kind of expected, but it's also a difficult environment for establishing a new field of study when the public reaction to the objects of study are either snobbish/elitist "they're kids' toys, not worthy of attention, and certainly not worthy of study as impactful cultural objects" or panicky "they're corrupting our children and turning them into monsters!" I'm quite happy that I didn't start this track in the late 90s or early 2000s, as those were generally not good times to be a game researcher. These days it's a lot easier, both getting funding, having the research recognized, and of course there are a lot more institutions, journals, conferences and other support structures in existence, though it's still a tiny niche field. I've experienced other Ph.D. students (from more traditional/conservative fields) literally laughing when they hear what I'm researching, so we've definitely still got a long way to go.

 

[Phuncz]

@Valantar I see, I'm not surprised. I hope your work is recognized and valued according to its contents. I think we've long not respected healthcare enough but look at the past year how we've depended on it as a society.

With gaming becoming popular and mainstream, I think there is hardly enough real research going on, or atleast the limited amount of results seeing the light of day. Concepts like lootboxes, microtransactions and exploitative behavior from publishers is being abused a lot and people keep focussing on the wrong aspects of games that might be harmful.

 

[timginter]

Heh, yeah, that's been a consistent bugbear that is thankfully starting to go away (though it's still my go-to topic whenever I need to exemplify the practical uses of my research to people outside of the field ), in large part thanks to a ton of high quality research conducted within the field (mainly sociologically or psychologically oriented, though not only). People love black-and-white answers though, and grey-area findings like "what you get out of a game depends on what you bring to it and how you use it" are really difficult to propagate. Still, media researchers are quite used to new media triggering various degrees of panics or skepticism (anyone remember how VHS or LPs would ruin the youth?), so it's kind of expected, but it's also a difficult environment for establishing a new field of study when the public reaction to the objects of study are either snobbish/elitist "they're kids' toys, not worthy of attention, and certainly not worthy of study as impactful cultural objects" or panicky "they're corrupting our children and turning them into monsters!" I'm quite happy that I didn't start this track in the late 90s or early 2000s, as those were generally not good times to be a game researcher. These days it's a lot easier, both getting funding, having the research recognized, and of course there are a lot more institutions, journals, conferences and other support structures in existence, though it's still a tiny niche field. I've experienced other Ph.D. students (from more traditional/conservative fields) literally laughing when they hear what I'm researching, so we've definitely still got a long way to go.

Do you have any links to those studies?

Not surprised people laugh, probably shows their ignorance more than anything else - simulators were used to train pilots since before WWI. I've seen video games used for pain management, memory and coordination training. I can't find a link now, but there was also a small study about people playing competitive, high-paced games (e.g. Counter Strike) - they were able to react quicker in seemingly unrelated tasks, e.g. dangerous situations while driving. I've also read that interviewers are increasingly interested in hobbies of potential candidates, example was that strategy games can be an indication that someone likes and potentially is better at problem-solving.

It's a great topic, hope it will go smooth with your studies. With games being targeted and addictive/gambling practices like lootboxes being added, feels it should be studied more.
If someone laughs, they should think about AI, AR and VR in training and medicine. Recent breakthroughs in chemistry were based on AI initially written to play a game - Go. Possibilities are INSANE, it's a great topic and definitely will be an important one in the future

 

[GuilleAcoustic]

Heh, yeah, that's been a consistent bugbear that is thankfully starting to go away (though it's still my go-to topic whenever I need to exemplify the practical uses of my research to people outside of the field ), in large part thanks to a ton of high quality research conducted within the field (mainly sociologically or psychologically oriented, though not only). People love black-and-white answers though, and grey-area findings like "what you get out of a game depends on what you bring to it and how you use it" are really difficult to propagate. Still, media researchers are quite used to new media triggering various degrees of panics or skepticism (anyone remember how VHS or LPs would ruin the youth?), so it's kind of expected, but it's also a difficult environment for establishing a new field of study when the public reaction to the objects of study are either snobbish/elitist "they're kids' toys, not worthy of attention, and certainly not worthy of study as impactful cultural objects" or panicky "they're corrupting our children and turning them into monsters!" I'm quite happy that I didn't start this track in the late 90s or early 2000s, as those were generally not good times to be a game researcher. These days it's a lot easier, both getting funding, having the research recognized, and of course there are a lot more institutions, journals, conferences and other support structures in existence, though it's still a tiny niche field. I've experienced other Ph.D. students (from more traditional/conservative fields) literally laughing when they hear what I'm researching, so we've definitely still got a long way to go.

I play video games and roleplaying games (with dices), listen to metal and have long hairs .... guess I'm somewhere between the son of Satan and a serial killer

 

[Solo]

I am also a menace to society like @GuilleAcoustic.

Not only do I shave my head and listen to metal, I play first person shooters. The holy trifecta of psychopathy.