What's going on with your life?

Quote from Corwin

15 hours ago, Corwin said: I've been working too hard for a few years now, went through some deep burnouts and such, but taking control back a bit. Putting boundaries on work, and investing in a healthier lifestyle -- I realize I don't like living in a city because I don't know what to do when I take a break from work (that is, things that don't involve spending money) and have been picking biking and exercising a bit. The appartement above mine was also not used for the last 3 years but now peeps are moving in and I have to get used to the reality of living in an appartement building (especially since I work late at night to be in sync with the US.)

Working too much did help me save money so I've been looking at houses for a few weeks but running into walls: houses that were sold in less than 24 hours or while I was on my way to visit them, and since I'm renovating my mom's house I don't quite feel like another year's worth of renovations for the next purchase. When I was starting to think I should wait this housing market rush out (the rate of people looking for homes vs those selling is crazy right now in this part of France), I ran into a cool house close to the coast that ticks all my requirements. It's like a 8 min walk to the beach and close to hiking trails. Was dubious at first because there's no cell-phone coverage at all and shittiest internet, but after poking around the town officials guaranteed optic fiber internet and 4G coverage by end of year. My offer was just accepted I got pretty lucky on it as the estimation was done before confinement so prices didn't rise, and I might be selling my flat super quickly and at a good price because there's a high demand in the area. Peeps built it themselves because the whole family worked in construction, so it's a 2nd-hand. Its layout is weird and its interior is a bit odd for the area (the owners liked the style of mountain homes, with lots of visible wood inside), and I'll tweak the decoration, but I generally really like it.

Now if only I could see my american girlfriend, we've been kept apart since February...

Jesus... Thats cozy looking house ? Congratz!

Damn, awesome find, she's a beauty, congrats

Thanks!

Waiting for your next renovation thread man

Quote from RaVaGe

On 9/17/2020 at 6:49 PM, RaVaGe said: Waiting for your next renovation thread man

Hehe don't think I'll make another thread but here's a few pics of what I'm up to with my uncle and brother, on my mom's house. I was crunching for a couple of weeks to get a pitch video done and jumped into the renovations right after so I'm exhausted, but spending time with family is nice and my uncle is only around for a couple of weeks so we're giving it a big push to get all piping/waste/electrical setups done before he leaves while we have his pro tools, truck and expertise -- he used to work as an electrician and has been renovating houses all his life so it's invaluable having him around.

We have a 2-floors building + a small extension of 2 floors too to make livable. As you can see in the pics, we're having fun digging up old pipes to connect new toilets and such to, as there's loads of pipes used for rain water that we're running into. We paid masons to carve a new door into a wall, the poor guys had not really calculated the width of the wall, it turned out to be 1.05m wide made of giant stones.

Also, I got an offer on my apartment on the 1st visit -- I bought it 88k (which turned into almost 102k with taxes/agency fees) and selling it back at 150k net (taxes/fees for the buyer are added on top of that price) less than 4 years later, so it's not bad.

So I decided to leave the medical tech industry a few months back and take some time off. I was a little burned out working at a startup and have had an unprecedented amount of family and friend deaths in the last year (covid/suicide) I just needed a break so I could stop treading water trying to deal with all this stuff.

It's been pretty nice and I've finally had time to do stuff like read non-academic books, playing video games, studying math and going to school for Japanese. I'm also getting a lot more exercise. Even entered a game jam for the first time in 4 years. Finally I started tinkering with Unity. I used unity about 8 years ago and wasn't much of a fan of it but I decided to give it another go and it's come a long way.

Thinking about getting a license for Houdini, I used it a couple years ago and absolutely loved it. It's been well over 10 years now since I started programming and not doing art/design every day and it's so cool to see how all the 3d tools have advanced.

Anyways I'll be re-joining the games industry again in a few weeks. All good things must come to an end

I burned out too while working on Riders Republic at Ubisoft Annecy last year. I can rely and say that not having a full time job is nice ahah. I've had kind of the same recovery moment after the burnout, covid madness and political insanity in France, climate change depression, breaking out with my girlfriend, family member's illness.... Life shit.

But it's cool, I took time to build new courses for my level design lectures, I finished to write my game career book and signed a contract with a french book editor, I have time to read (I read the Ants trilogy from Bernard Werber, Karl Marx's misery of philosophy (and soon others), and bought many other things like Proust, Balzac and more classics) and exercices more. More importantly, I ride around France during two months by bike, visiting, riding and camping, meeting new people and way of living. That was a energizing adventures for sure. Will do again.

Now, I have regular lectures in game schools for level design, I've started again my interview podcast of game devs (only in French sorry). The main question now is what do I do? Do I take a new job in a company? There are plenty of opportunities for technical design positions. Or do I go freelance as my heart is telling to? Am I able to work remotely? Am I not already too lonely? Should I live in a big city to benefit of culture and plenty of chicks? Or should I go and live in the countryside to get the garden I need, green lands and space for a dog? Wouldn't I be too lonely ?

I'm really fighting with myself on those questions. My heart would like to work a third of my time on freelance mission, a third on lectures, and a third doing what I want but the impostor syndrome is challenging my ability to build a freelancing business on level design and tech design. Yet, I have an int for a potential client working on serious games and requesting assistance on UE4 stuff, may be that could be a good start and try for this way of life.

Quote from TheOnlyDoubleF

8 hours ago, TheOnlyDoubleF said: I burned out too while working on Riders Republic at Ubisoft Annecy last year. I can rely and say that not having a full time job is nice ahah. I've had kind of the same recovery moment after the burnout, covid madness and political insanity in France, climate change depression, breaking out with my girlfriend, family member's illness.... Life shit.

But it's cool, I took time to build new courses for my level design lectures, I finished to write my game career book and signed a contract with a french book editor, I have time to read (I read the Ants trilogy from Bernard Werber, Karl Marx's misery of philosophy (and soon others), and bought many other things like Proust, Balzac and more classics) and exercices more. More importantly, I ride around France during two months by bike, visiting, riding and camping, meeting new people and way of living. That was a energizing adventures for sure. Will do again.

Now, I have regular lectures in game schools for level design, I've started again my interview podcast of game devs (only in French sorry). The main question now is what do I do? Do I take a new job in a company? There are plenty of opportunities for technical design positions. Or do I go freelance as my heart is telling to? Am I able to work remotely? Am I not already too lonely? Should I live in a big city to benefit of culture and plenty of chicks? Or should I go and live in the countryside to get the garden I need, green lands and space for a dog? Wouldn't I be too lonely ?

I'm really fighting with myself on those questions. My heart would like to work a third of my time on freelance mission, a third on lectures, and a third doing what I want but the impostor syndrome is challenging my ability to build a freelancing business on level design and tech design. Yet, I have an int for a potential client working on serious games and requesting assistance on UE4 stuff, may be that could be a good start and try for this way of life.

It sounds like you've really been using your time well. Spending 2 months biking around France sounds amazing! Balzac also sounds really interesting, I should read that some day. Maybe in French.

Post a link to the podcast! Quand j'etais un enfant je pouvais parler plus Francais que Englais m'est je n'avais pas parler Francais chaque jour pour 20 ans alors c'est jours mon Francais est merd

I'm also heavily struggling with the city vs country thing. My partner is Japanese and the Japanese government is currently giving away 8 million houses, sometimes they even give you extra money to renovate them. We've thought a lot about maybe moving there and possibly having some sort of cafe or business. Either way, Japan is WAY cheaper than Vancouver. Since I'm a programmer I can pretty much work from anywhere and stuff is relatively cheap in Japan compared to where I live.

I'm Looking forward to seeing what you decide to do

Here's an example of a cafe started by some game developers close to Tokyo. They run the cafe and work on their games at the cafe at the same time. Sounds amazing https://picopicocafe.com/index_en.html

EDIT : I found some more photos of the cafe with people in it https://placehub.co/articles/2911580594

Voilà le lien vers le podcast : https://open.spotify.com/show/6nyuHat61…iT22MZz_6pZHiYA

I would not hesitate if the French Government was giving away houses in the countryside ahahah.

I had some sort of alternative idea too. When I left ubisoft, my plan was to build a place outside of a big city where I could have a small game dev team but also space to have additionnal people working there like local freelancers, etc. A coworking place next to our game dev studio, and possibly welcoming some kind of game art residence there in greenlands. Sure the place would have a common food forest and a crop garden for people working there.

Quote from TheOnlyDoubleF

1 hour ago, TheOnlyDoubleF said: Voilà le lien vers le podcast : https://open.spotify.com/show/6nyuHat61…iT22MZz_6pZHiYA

I would not hesitate if the French Government was giving away houses in the countryside ahahah.

I had some sort of alternative idea too. When I left ubisoft, my plan was to build a place outside of a big city where I could have a small game dev team but also space to have additionnal people working there like local freelancers, etc. A coworking place next to our game dev studio, and possibly welcoming some kind of game art residence there in greenlands. Sure the place would have a common food forest and a crop garden for people working there.

Sounds awesome, the dream. Can you send me some of your riches please so I can do this.,

Quote from AlexM

23 hours ago, AlexM said: I'm also heavily struggling with the city vs country thing. My partner is Japanese and the Japanese government is currently giving away 8 million houses, sometimes they even give you extra money to renovate them. We've thought a lot about maybe moving there and possibly having some sort of cafe or business. Either way, Japan is WAY cheaper than Vancouver. Since I'm a programmer I can pretty much work from anywhere and stuff is relatively cheap in Japan compared to where I live.

That's fantastic! I'm surprised they have houses to give away really, thought it was hard to find as they seem so squished together in cities. You talking about apartments or other sorts?

Italy has been doing this as well for several years, or better said, local municipalities that have become progressively deserted due to youngs moving to cities. I think in most cases you have to pay a nominal fee, maybe just some law loophole, but we are talking of €1-2. The catch is that in most cases you have to turn them into businesses, cos they are of course hoping to revive those areas with these operations.

I'm pretty sure I've seen the same sort of deals in past years in central Italy, and I think the occasional "train crossing house" goes on sale (I believe is where crossing operators used to live as they had of course to be on-site to do it).

~

@TheOnlyDoubleF the idea sounds amazing, throw in an Airbnb for game jams anyway was great to see your face on your facebook updates during the cycle. Grand adventure, well done!

Quote from TheOnlyDoubleF

3 hours ago, TheOnlyDoubleF said: Voilà le lien vers le podcast : https://open.spotify.com/show/6nyuHat61…iT22MZz_6pZHiYA

I would not hesitate if the French Government was giving away houses in the countryside ahahah.

I had some sort of alternative idea too. When I left ubisoft, my plan was to build a place outside of a big city where I could have a small game dev team but also space to have additionnal people working there like local freelancers, etc. A coworking place next to our game dev studio, and possibly welcoming some kind of game art residence there in greenlands. Sure the place would have a common food forest and a crop garden for people working there.

That sounds amazing.

Quote from blackdog

1 hour ago, blackdog said: That's fantastic! I'm surprised they have houses to give away really, thought it was hard to find as they seem so squished together in cities. You talking about apartments or other sorts?

Italy has been doing this as well for several years, or better said, local municipalities that have become progressively deserted due to youngs moving to cities. I think in most cases you have to pay a nominal fee, maybe just some law loophole, but we are talking of €1-2. The catch is that in most cases you have to turn them into businesses, cos they are of course hoping to revive those areas with these operations.

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I'm pretty sure I've seen the same sort of deals in past years in central Italy, and I think the occasional "train crossing house" goes on sale (I believe is where crossing operators used to live as they had of course to be on-site to do it).

~

@TheOnlyDoubleF the idea sounds amazing, throw in an Airbnb for game jams anyway was great to see your face on your facebook updates during the cycle. Grand adventure, well done!

The thing about those 8 million houses is they are in very small towns. Very little of the free stuff is in the city. My understanding is that part of the reason this program exists is there were people who died who were the last of their bloodline so the property went to the government. The other motive is to bring people back to small towns that are losing population. I guess there's some similarities to Italy's program.

About a week back, we did see a listing where you can inherit a large onsen ryokan (traditional japanese hot spring inn) but part of the deal is you have to agree to run it for at least 5 years.I wouldn't be able to pull that off

Btw : love those Kirsten Dirksen videos!

My 1.5 years old was pointing at my tshirt last night, so she can now say Doom almost perfectly #goals #gamerdad

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Duuh, my 2 years old is singing the Emperor March from Star Wars, I win !

Also fuck the cold. I wish I was in California or somewhere hotter right now

Quote from ElectroSheep

3 hours ago, ElectroSheep said: Also fuck the cold. I wish I was in California or somewhere hotter right now

I went on vacation to Montreal a couple years ago in August and absolutely loved it. Way more interesting city that Vancouver when it comes to nightlife and stuff to do. I was seriously considering moving there.

I mentioned my thoughts to the security guard at the hotel we were staying and he said "maybe take another vacation here in December before you decide to move here

Quote from AlexM

46 minutes ago, AlexM said: I mentioned my thoughts to the security guard at the hotel we were staying and he said "maybe take another vacation here in December before you decide to move here

Yeap, exactly this.

At least Vancouver's weather is way more tolerable, since the pacific ocean (and coast) is way warmer than the atlantic.

I have a friend who just moved from London to Vancouver this week, he told me that if you look at the avg temps between both cities during this time of year, you'd think they're about the same, but Vancouver feels way warmer. This actually sent me down one of those internet rabid holes, and turns out there's other aspects to how cold it feels that temperature (C/F) can't read, there's the dew point and relative humidity and others that might or might not be less relevant like how far you are from the arctic jet streams. So since London tends to feel more humid, 10c will feel way colder than 10c in drier location, which will just feel cool.

But yes, fuck the cold man... I can take rainy weather, but I'm not a fan of freezing my ass off!

Quote from ┌HP┘

1 hour ago, ┌HP┘ said: Yeap, exactly this.

At least Vancouver's weather is way more tolerable, since the pacific ocean (and coast) is way warmer than the atlantic.

I have a friend who just moved from London to Vancouver this week, he told me that if you look at the avg temps between both cities during this time of year, you'd think they're about the same, but Vancouver feels way warmer. This actually sent me down one of those internet rabid holes, and turns out there's other aspects to how cold it feels that temperature (C/F) can't read, there's the dew point and relative humidity and others that might or might not be less relevant like how far you are from the arctic jet streams. So since London tends to feel more humid, 10c will feel way colder than 10c in drier location, which will just feel cool.

But yes, fuck the cold man... I can take rainy weather, but I'm not a fan of freezing my ass off!

That explains a lot. When I lived in Japan it wasn't THAT much hotter than Vancouver in the summer but I was dying and taking like 5 showers a day. It was however WAY more humid. Most of my neighbors had rice paddy's and they would flood them in May. During that time I felt like I was drowning just breathing air

Now I know what people mean when they say "it's not the heat, it's the humidity"

Quote from ElectroSheep

14 hours ago, ElectroSheep said: Also fuck the cold. I wish I was in California or somewhere hotter right now

You don't wanna be there

Quote from ElectroSheep

14 hours ago, ElectroSheep said: Also fuck the cold. I wish I was in California or somewhere hotter right now