You're completely right-- and sometimes it's a real bummer when we show up at the place (stadium, concert hall, ballroom, corn field, whatevs) and all the info we need to set up boils down to "isn't that a power outlet over there? It is! Good luck!"

Hence, the comparison to someone getting back from Ikea with an electric couch and setting it up with... instructions in Swedish?.

Mod parent up. I work with licensed sound engineers, gaffers, and A/V techs all the time...we get loads wrong all the time, and we're trying to do it right.

Either "electric furniture" is your new business model (yikes!) or don't do it, ever.

Mod this up! Professionals in the field often have to refer to or re-use assets from previous jobs-- do you think those stupid superbowl robots you see every year are re-built from scratch?

What happens when a deadline hits and a quick re-skin turns into a total rebuild because Adobe's servers went down that week... or Adobe has gone out of business?

There's a great documentary about Harryhausen as well as some of the artists he inspired. It's on the Netflix for streaming, as I recall:

The Sci-Fi Boys

R.I.P Ray, your work with skeleton fights in "Argonauts" opened my eyes to the world of animation and all things morbid! You will be missed.

"The Problem Pit" by Fred Pohl. I forget how it ended... mass extinction? Incest? Everyone goes home happy?

A couple (>10) years back I was at Denis' Place for Games over on Belmont in Chicago. Found a wallet on the floor. Walked outside to find a cop, tried to hand him the wallet.

Cop: "Is there any money in it?"
Me: "No, I didn't check" *looks inside, finds 20 bucks*
Cop: "Keep the money, give me the wallet."
Me: *uncomprehending look*
Cop: "If I take this to the precinct, the money will be gone in minutes. You might as well get a reward".
Me: *looks suspiciously at the cop*
Cop: "Here, take it. Get out of here."
Me: Goes back in to play Mortal Kombat 2.

True story.

Is this "service pack 1" mentioned in the summary compatible with my XP installation?

If not, I'll wait for service pack 2 before installing sp1. It's just common sense.

Is it weird that I think this is a good thing for app developers? Along with some apps on the various app stores, I have an online store (PayPal, barf) that I use for selling video plug-ins. Since it's "my" store, I get all customer information every time there's a purchase. As a result, whenever I have updates or new products I like to be able to send out an email to all my customers with a promo code and a quick "Thanks for buying from me in the past, as a reward here's a discount code for some new stuff!"

I get a lot of new sales that way.

With these app stores, I don't have a lot of info about my customer other than the poorly managed review process, and in the case of Apple, the remarkably shitty "sales manager" window.

I like knowing who my customers are, it helps me be a better vendor. Of course, I'm not an evil email harvester or spambot.

If you're writing progress bars, I feel bad for you son.

I've got 99... wait, 45... wait... 85 problems and being trolled ain't one.

Mod this Anonymous Coward up. Niche markets are great for little side projects-- they tend to have a userbase that is starved for choice, so they are more inclined to spend money... and when you're talking software, a niche market can be comprised of hundreds of thousands of people.

AV covers more than lighting systems for home entertainment, it can involve visuals for nightclubs, cool DMX interfaces, etc. This industry has some nice perks (rock and roll, hookers and blow), and when you get into stadium-sized projects the money can be pretty breathtaking as well .

As a side note, what's the OP's problem with making 20 bucks? Do more advertising, expand your user base by 10000, and you've done quite well.

I read it in a game blog somewhere... it must be true!

My impression was that the prototype/proof-of-concept was built in flash, with (as you suggested) the native-code versions built later. I, of course, could be completely mistaken in which case I'm sure someone will correct me, preferably with an anecdotal car-analogy.

Flash compiles to Android and iOS without any problems-- beyond the hassle of dealing with the App store and developer certs of course.

Angry Birds was originally written in Flash. So was Canabault-- which you may not have heard of, but every "running" game out there owes a debt to. There's tons of iOS apps built in Flash.

I'd be perfectly happy to see flash off the browser and used for what it's best at-- desktop or mobile applications.

Before I get flamed for suggesting that Flash is an appropriate dev tool for mobile, keep in mind that a crappy app with a lame UI and tons of memory leaks is not the fault of the platform-- it's the fault of the programmer. JAVA, I'm looking at you here, with a degree of sympathy.

Some of us look forward to the inevitable shitstorm and think this kind of excitement is just... great!

Obligitory Animal House