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Alan Au @alanau.bsky.social · 3m

Well, I held out a week longer this year.

Alan Au @alanau.bsky.social · Oct 2

I think I've hit my global despair quota for the month, and *checks calendar* ... oh no.

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Alan Au @alanau.bsky.social · 14m

Hoping it happens in my lifetime.

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Alan Au @alanau.bsky.social · 6h

In my opinion, the thing that made GDC compelling was the focus on craft rather than product.

The community is also important, so I can understand wanting to expand that community. But again, the thing that tied people together was the work and not the spectacle. I can get spectacle elsewhere.

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Alan Au @alanau.bsky.social · 6h

Yeah, okay, I'm one of those people who watches the televised performance of Golden (from KPop Demon Hunters) and thinks "it must have been really interesting to work on that stage lighting rig."

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Alan Au @alanau.bsky.social · 6h

Fun fact: how can you tell if you used too much butter in your cookie dough? The edges of the cookies will be a bit thinner and less even. Often you can also tell based on the dough consistency during the mixing stage, but I find that texture is also a function of the temperature in my kitchen.

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Alan Au @alanau.bsky.social · 6h

Can confirm, cookies are pretty great and make me significantly less mad at everything.

Except it looks like I slightly messed up the ratio and used a bit too much butter. (I know why, but also I'm not mad about this.)

Anyway, I guess I will have to destroy the evidence of my crimes. 😆

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Alan Au @alanau.bsky.social · 6h

It occurs to me that maybe I never actually finished recovering from burnout. Because it isn't a switch that gets turned on/off; it's all recovery by degrees, and I don't know that there's a reliable way to even measure this. 🙃

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Alan Au @alanau.bsky.social · 7h

I assume the viziers have been showing him old riot footage. 🤦

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Alan Au @alanau.bsky.social · 9h

I'm trying very hard not to get "mad" at things right now because it seems counterproductive.

Maybe I'll bake myself some cookies. I'd be trading a small amount of physical health for mental health, and right now, that seems like a very reasonable trade-off.

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Alan Au @alanau.bsky.social · 9h

Policy used to be if anything was requested more than once, make it a dashboard. Again, this counted towards "productivity" but added a recurring maintenance cost. Wouldn't do it that way again, personally.

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Reposted by Alan Au

Alan Au @alanau.bsky.social · 14h

TBH, I'm confused by the government shutdown. Who actually controls the money? We've seen funds pulled from critical programs by the illegal Doge overreach, but they can't spend any money now? Seems disingenuous to both say "we have total control" and also "our hands are tied."

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Alan Au @alanau.bsky.social · 11h

You seems like a really interesting person and someday I hope to be as cool as you are.

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Alan Au @alanau.bsky.social · 11h

Have I ranted to you about dashboards yet? People keep asking for dashboards, but then they don't look at them, but you have to spend cycles maintaining them anyway.

But also, at review time, you talk about how many new dashboards you made, because management considers them a "productivity" metric.

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Alan Au @alanau.bsky.social · 11h

It's on my backburner, but I still want to make a game about repurposed battlemechs that you use for farming, so you have all of these combat stats applied to planting and harvesting.

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Reposted by Alan Au

Melissa @n7memo.bsky.social · 12h

Minecraft is hiring for a fulltime technical program manager! This would be a position on the Realms client team, and it would mean you work with me every week! ✨ jobs.careers.microsoft.com/global/en/sh...

Technical Program Manager – Minecraft Realms Client in Redmond, Washington, United States | Program Management at Microsoft

Apply for Technical Program Manager – Minecraft Realms Client in Redmond, Washington, United States | Program Management at Microsoft

jobs.careers.microsoft.com

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Alan Au @alanau.bsky.social · 12h

I can think of a few good reasons to do this and lots of bad reasons to do this, and basically it's all just a waste of the applicant's time. But hey, they shove the burden onto someone else, so there's no incentive to fix it. 😒

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Alan Au @alanau.bsky.social · 12h

Fun fact, sometimes I fidget by tapping 2 against 3 syncopation rhythms. Or for slightly trickier stuff, 4 against 3 syncopation, and then switching on the fly between 4 and 2. But once you get it, you can basically just do it on autopilot.

I don't know if this skill is actually useful? Whatever.

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Alan Au @alanau.bsky.social · 12h

I can plan other people's parties but not my own, and I think maybe the secret to throwing a good party is to have someone else plan it.

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Alan Au @alanau.bsky.social · 12h

I think I have one of those joke "I'm voice activated" stickers around somewhere.

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Reposted by Alan Au

Anna Megill @annamegill.com · 14h

The OTHER project at CDPR's Boston studio is hiring a Lead Writer. (FT, onsite preferred) Come work with a very chill and creative team on Project Sirius ✨️

jobs.smartrecruiters.com/CDPROJEKTRED...

Lead Writer

Company Description: To create revolutionary, story-driven RPGs which go straight to the hearts of gamers — this is our mission. Want to dive deeper into our company’s culture? Explore our social medi...

jobs.smartrecruiters.com

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Alan Au @alanau.bsky.social · 12h

This is how "tech debt" happens.

Pavel @spavel.bsky.social · 14h

"You can just do things" is the rallying cry of wannabe "10× engineers" who ignore things like prioritization and maintainability to go off making cool shit. The team agenda becomes co-opted by one asshole creating problems everyone else needs to deal with, faster than they can deal with them.

Jay Owens @jayowens.bsky.social · 15h

As a principle, ‘You can just do things’ is both ‘broadly true, admirable, and helpful’ - and neoliberal, anti-social bullshit.

@jjvincent.bsky.social good on a phrase that's particularly buzzy in 9-9-6 grind Silicon Valley and EA communities.

thebaffler.com/latest/high-...

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Alan Au @alanau.bsky.social · 13h

My "solution" to this problem is having friends with large board game collections.

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Reposted by Alan Au

Matthew Dunstan @matthewdunstan.bsky.social · 21h

Today's video was a hard one for me to make - I wanted to talk about my experiences going through burnout in the last year or so as a game designer, and aspects of the wider tabletop industry that contribute to that.

youtu.be/D2rC_8F10R8

🎲✂️

The reality of being a full time game designer

YouTube video by Matthew Dunstan

youtu.be

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Alan Au @alanau.bsky.social · 14h

TBH, I'm confused by the government shutdown. Who actually controls the money? We've seen funds pulled from critical programs by the illegal Doge overreach, but they can't spend any money now? Seems disingenuous to both say "we have total control" and also "our hands are tied."

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Reposted by Alan Au

🧛VÆmpiric @empiricgame.bsky.social · 15h

I made this for reasons

Klam Panik meme about workshop attendance.

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