"Expand that up"? How? At best you're showing that hard disk capacity should be an integral number of bits, which it is.

You can't charge for the Web. The experience that most users get sucks. They are in IE on a PC and it sucks. There are too many other sources that also suck to bother paying, with very rare exception.

They should be making non-Web content to charge for. For example, iPad apps, or eBooks, and so on. And advertise that on your Web site.

Think of a Sunday newspaper with a magazine in it. Make the newspaper free (Web), charge a low price for the magazine (eBook). Make the part you pay for downloadable and rich in photos and videos and audio. Make the Web compete with that.

The reason HBO worked was it was something née and different from free ad-supported TV. They didn't try to take NBC to a paid model.

> base 2 number system, which is ultimately the most
> important base system for people working with computers

That is a truly ridiculous statement. "People working with computers" is EVERYONE. And they all have 10 fingers and count in base 10 and have standard measurements based on 10's in which a kilometer is 1000 meters.

You're doing the elitest programmer priesthood thing, but even there you are wrong. Programmers also use maps and drive cars and none have 10.24 fingers. What's more, computer programs have to work internationally, and be maintained by arbitrary programmers, so they need to follow standards. If one programmer is working with nonstandard 1024 kB and the rest aren't you have a problem.

The argument against this is the same as other arguments against SI in general. Carpenters don't want to give up inches, etc. Give us a break. The world is international and connected and very tiny. If you're not using SI you're asking people to fix your shoddy work or for a Mars probe to smash uselessly into Mars.

Games testing is highly overrated. Playing the same game, day in, day out, for three years? Hell no. When people think of games testing, they usually think of focus testing - which is very far removed from an average day in the life of a tester.

• Learn C++. Game jobs that don't require C++ are very few and far between. A reasonable working knowledge of how it works under the hood will be advantageous in interviews.
• Have an indepth understanding of general programming concepts. If you don't know your data structures and at least a couple of sorting algorithms (bubblesort and quicksort), you probably won't pass the interview.
• Do game-related projects at Uni if you can. If you can't, do them at home. A demo goes a very, very long way. Small in scope but highly polished is much better than broad and half-working. Something like a physics simulation (ragdoll falling down stairs is classic), some interesting rendering stuff, some kind of AI demo, whatever. The important thing is to focus on one area, do it well, and then do the minimum required in all other areas. Don't spread your efforts too thinly.

In the UK the level of degree doesn't hugely matter, although impressive shiny degrees do look impressive and shiny. But degrees don't mean anything if you don't have the demo.

There are a few games companies that have sections explaining what they're looking for in applicants - http://www.bizarrecreations.com/jobs/ one comes to mind, although I know there are others. http://www.gamedevmap.com/ is your friend.

Games dev is hard work and you will end up pulling long hours towards the end of a project - especially as a coder. If seeing your name on the credits when the game is finally released isn't enough of a payoff, it's probably the wrong job for you.

Good luck!

I think that was the intended reading, actually.