OT: To my white friends. A few words on #BLM.

Hi all.

We all see what's going on in the US these days, so I'll cut to the chase. This isn't going to be a lecture, do not worry, nor I'm turning this blog into a political platform.

But, I realized over the years that I've not been always part of the solution for our ongoing social issues, and I hope some of the following can help others.

This is not about where to donate or what to do or not to do to help. 

This is about how to help yourself. It is our responsibility to solve our own conflicts, and only through that, we can be good to others.

Forgive yourself. Then move forward.

This is not easy. There is a reason why we minimize social issues, why our brains are always trying to see a justification. Yes, it sucks, but... But he shouldn't have done this. But let's see how it goes. We have to hear from both sides. But, but but...

You're fighting against yourself. We are all privileged in some way, we truly are.

To be open to that means shaking your foundation. We've been given something that we didn't do anything to deserve. But we do deserve things! We are smart, we worked hard, we have our issues, we have our self-worth. We matter!

Saying the word "privilege" is an attack, no matter if it registers consciously or not, it erodes some of our self-worth. Our brains, our very own humanity, is not built to accept it.

Have you ever looked at a person on the street and felt an idea forming in your mind, that perhaps they did something to deserve it. Perhaps their situation is a result of their actions?

That's the mechanism in action. We cannot accept that we are not the masters of our lives, that we don't have control. It's scary and uncomfortable, and we are built to resist it. What meaning does life has if the biggest differences between people are left to the toss of a coin?

This is not about justifying our actions or inactions. It's not about moral judgement at all. It's about understanding how ego and feeling work, understand that they are part of humanity and for a good reason.

But also, once you truly understand it, you can move past them, not by suppressing them, but by knowing they exist for a reason, and not having them dominate your choices.

This is not about judgment, it's not about being nice either. It's a continuous self-reflection that helps us live consciously. It's not easy, it's definitely uncomfortable, and there is no victory to be had.

It is, what some might call, a practice, or a philosophy. You cannot win or lose, fail or succeed, because judgment is not part of any of this. It's about being conscious of our own humanity.

All lives matter?

That said, I want to address a couple of issues that I think stem from our egos, maybe you will agree.

The first is the phrase "all lives matter", which is always uttered by us, white people. Now, given the above, you might know where I'm going.

Why do people say this? Are they racist? What does it mean to be racist anyway? Is being fair racist now? Let's try to untangle these things.

First, you have to realize that this is an emotional response, that your brain masks with rationalization. Wait a second, hear me out, don't get defensive now. I think you can see how the phrase is at face value, quite silly.

When an acquaintance faces a loss, we say, I'm sorry for your loss. We do not say, I'm sorry for all the people that lost others in the world. Imagine being on the receiving end of a similar rebuttal. You feel strongly about something, and someone feels the need for interjecting and shifting the attention. You see the problem?

And it's a rationalization. It's obvious that "black lives matter" does not subtract from the worthiness of others, but it shines a light to a specific imbalance of power. A picture is worth a thousand words:

The "all lives matter" crowd is not about good or bad people, shades of racism. It's a natural response that we have. The feeling is human, but it is not a justification. It is our own responsibility to learn how to deal with feelings, understand what are they telling us, and act after we observed them, not driven by them.

There are bad people on both sides.

Now that we got the easy one out, this is going to be a bit more of a challenge.

How do we feel about looting? Here we have a divide, the uncomfortable line. Should I say ACAB? Can I justify riots, destruction? What do they want to achieve! Don't they realize they're undermining the message, the mission? I stand for political change, for laws being passed, the bad apples removed, this doesn't help at all!

I understand. And you're right. But, realize this is a matter of perspective. And hold on! Because I'm not going to justify anyone here, just try to look at the problem from a different angle.

The reason why we want change, actual action, push for laws, make donations, perhaps even study the problem in papers and publications, understand how's best to spend money, de-fund police and prioritize social programs and so on...

All these thoughts I understand, I grew up in a middle class, intellectual, left-wing, progressive family. I get fighting the good fight, being involved, I get socialism and welfare.

What I didn't get, until recently, is how other people didn't see the same. How is it that even if we want the same objective, some people are looting and some people are reading?

In retrospect, the answer is obvious. It's because I believe in society. And why wouldn't I? It always worked great for me.

The thing I cannot see is the perspective of someone that doesn't believe in it anymore. That is not willing to fix the social contract, it's just ok to tear it up because it never worked. I can imagine the scenarios. What if my life didn't matter much anymore? Would I be thinking of what's best for the world, or just watch it burn?

Understand that you will never fully understand. That it is not the responsibility of others to explain either, nor it justifies actions. Actions will be the perspective of history, and what in the end did or not change society.

I think that looting will probably not help, it's actually a complex effect like anything real world is, that's not the point.

The point is that we cannot escape living lives from a given perspective. It's not because we're good or bad, it is yet another limitation of being human.

If we get that, then hopefully we can understand how we feel, understand that others feel, and have less a need to justify nor judge.

Lastly, when it doubt, take responsibility. You might think "butwhatabout... X", or "yes, but...Y". And you're right. X and Y matter, it is true, it's not crazy, it's not a lie. But check if X and Y are about others, other communities, other people's behaviors, farther from you.

Then, understand that responsibility starts with us, radiates from us. Again, this does not justify or diminish X and Y. They are still true, and important. But, as a great philosopher once said "I'm starting with the man in the mirror".

As all my posts are, this is improvised, and I might revisit it in time. Stay safe. Love you all.

Menger sponge-ish

Did these a while ago for the namecards of our rendering team at Roblox.

Figure someone might like them as desktop backgrounds...

They were done in Processing, exported as SVGs and finalized in Inkscape.

Sample...

Grab the Images here

Sketches

Privacy, bubbles, and being an expert.

Privacy is not the issue.

Much has been said about the risk of losing our privacy in this era of microwaves that can turn into cameras and other awful "internet of things" things. It seems that today there is nothing you can buy that does not both intentionally spy on your behaviors and is also insecure enough to allow third parties to spy on your behavior.

It's the wrong problem.

Especially when dealing with big, reputable companies, privacy is taken really quite seriously, there is virtually zero chance of anyone spying on you, as an individual. Even when it comes to anonymized data, care is taken to avoid singling out individuals, it might be unflattering, but big companies do not really care about you.

What they care about is targeting. Is being able to statistically know what various groups of people prefer, in order to serve them better and to sell them stuff.

CV Dazzle

The dangers of targeting.

Algorithmic targeting has two faces. There is a positive side to it, certainly. Why would a company not want to make its customers happier? If I know what you like, I can help you find more things that you will like, and yes, that will drive sales, but it's driving sales by effectively providing a better service, a sort of digital concierge. Isn't that wonderful? Why would anyone not opt in in such amazing technology...

But there is a dark side of this mechanism too, the ease with which algorithms can tune into the easiest ways to keep us engaged, to provide happiness, rewards. We're running giant optimizers attached to human minds, and these optimizers have access to tons of data and can do a lot of experiments on a huge (and quite real) population of samples, no wonder we can quickly converge towards a maximum of the gratification landscape.

Is it right to do so? Is it ethical? Are we really improving the quality of life, or are we just giving out quick jolts of pleasure and engagement? Who can say?
Where is the line between, for example, between keeping a player in a game because it's great, for some definition of great, and doing it so because it provides some compulsion loops that tap into basic brain chemistry the same way slot machines do?

Will we all end up living senseless lives attached to machines that provide to our needs, farmed like the humans in the Matrix?

Ellen Porteus

Pragmatically.

I don't know, and to be honest there are good reasons not to be a pessimist. Even with just a look at the history behind us, we had similar fears for many different technologies, and so far we always came up on top.

We're smarter, more literate, more creative, more productive, happy, healthy, pacific, rich that we ever were, globally. It is true that technology is quickly making leaps and opening options that were unthinkable even just a decade ago, but it's also true that there is not too much of a reason to think we can not adapt.

And I think if we look at newer generations, we can already see how this adaption is taking place, even observing product trends, it seems to be becoming harder and harder to engage people with the most basic compulsion loops and cheap content, acquiring users is increasingly hard, and the products that in practice make it onto the market doing so by truly offering some positive innovation.

Struggling with bubbles.

Even if I'm not a pessimist though, there is something I still struggle with: the apparent emergence of radicalization, echo chambers, bubbles. I have to admit, this is something hard to quantify on a global scale, especially when it comes to placing the phenomenon in a historical perspective, but it just bothers me personally, and I think it's something we have to be aware of.

I think we are at a peculiar intersection today. 

On one hand, we have increasingly risen out of ignorance and starting to be concerned with the matters of the world more. This might not seem to be the case looking at Trump and so on, but it's certainly true if we look at the trajectory of humanity with a bit more long-term historical perspective.

On the other hand, the kind of problems and concerns we are presented with increased in complexity exponentially. We are exposed to the matters of the world, and the world we live in is this enormous, interconnected beast were cause and effect get lost in the chaotic nature of interactions. 

Even experts don't have easy answers, and I think we know that because we might be experts in a field or two, and most big questions I believe would be answered with "it depends".
There are a myriad of local optima in the kind of problems we deal with today, and which way to go is more about what can work in a given environment, with given people, than what can be demonstrably proven to be the best direction.

Echo Chambers

The issue.

And this is where a big monster rears its head. In a world with lots of content and information, with systems that allow us to quickly connect to huge groups of similar-minded people, algorithms that feed contents that agree with our views seeking instant satisfaction over exploration, true knowledge and serendipity, when faced with increasingly complex issues, how attractive the dark side of the confirmation bias becomes?

We have mechanisms built-in all of us, regardless of how smart, that were designed not to seek the truth but to be effective when navigating the world and its social interactions. Cognitive biases are there because they serve us, they are tools stemmed from evolution. But is our world changing faster than our brain's ability to evolve?

Pragmatically again though, I don't intend to look too much at the far future (which I believe is generally futile, as you're trying to peek into a chaotic horizon). What annoys me is that even when you are aware of all this, and all these risks today, it's becoming hard to fight the system.
There is simply too much content out there, and too many algorithms around you (even if you isolate yourself from them) tuned to spread it in different groups that finding good information is becoming hard.

Then again, I am not sure of the scale of this issue, because if again, we look at things historically, probably we are still on average better informed today and less likely to be deceived than even just a few decades ago, where most people were not informed at all and it was much easier to control the few means of mass communication available.

Yet, it unavoidably irks me to look around and be surrounded by untrustworthy content and even worse, content that is made to myopically serve a small world view instead of trying to capture a phenomenon in all its complexity (either with malice, or just because it's simpler and gets clicks).
Getting accurate, global data is incredibly hard, as it's increasingly valuable and thus, kept hidden for competitive advantage.

John W.Tomac

Being an expert, or just decent.

I find that similar mechanisms and balances affect our professional lives, unsurprisingly. I often say that experience is a variance reduction technique: we become less likely to make mistakes, more effective, more knowledgeable and able to quickly dismiss dangerous directions, but we also risk of becoming less flexible, rooted in beliefs and principles that might not be relevant anymore.

I find no better example of these risks than in the trajectory of certain big corporations and how they managed to become irrelevant, not due to the lack of smart, talented people, but because at a given size one risks to have a gravity of its own, and truly believe in a snapshot of the world that meanwhile has moved on. How so many smart people can manage to be blinded.

Experience is a trade-off. We can be more effective even if we might be more wrong. Maybe, more importantly, we risk losing the ability to discover more revolutionary ideas.
How much should we be open to exploration and how much should we be focused on what we do best? How much should we seek diversity in a team, and how much should we value cohesion and unity of vision. I find these to be quite hard questions.

I don't have answers, but I do have some principles I believe might be useful. The first has to do with ego, and here it helps not to have a well-developed one, to begin with, because my suggestion is to go out and seek critique, "kill your darlings".
This has been taught to me at an early age by an artist friend of mine who was always critical of my work and when I protested made me notice how the only way to be better is to find people willing to trash what you do.

In practice, I think that we should be more severe, critical, doubtful of what we love and believe than anything else. We should set for our own ideas and social groups a higher standard of scrutiny than what we do for things that are alien to us.

The second principle that I believe can help is to encourage exploration, discovery, experimentation and failure. Going outside our comfort zones is always hard but even harder is to face failure, we don't like to fail, obviously and for good reasons.
So one cannot achieve these goals without setting some small, safe spaces where exploration is easier and not burdened (I would say unconstrained, but certain other constraints actually do help) by too much early judgment.

Lastly, beware that for how much you know about all this, and are willing to act, many times you will not. I don't always follow my own principles and I think that's normal. I try to be aware of these mechanisms though. And even there, the keyword is "try".

Epilog: affecting change.

I believe that polarizing, blinding, myopic forces are at work everywhere, in our personal and professional lives, in the society at large, and being aware of them is important even just to try to navigate our world.

But if instead of just navigating the world, one wants to actually affect change, then it's imperative to understand the fight that lies ahead.

The worst thing that can be ever done is to feed the polarization forces, cater to our own and scare away people who might have been willing to consider our ideals. It does not help, it damages.

Catering to our own enclaves, rallying our people, is easy and tempting and fulfilling. It's not useless, certainly, there is value in reaffirming people who are already inclined to be on our side, but there is much more to be gained in even just instilling a doubt reaching out to someone who is on the opposite side, or is undecided in the middle, than solidifying beliefs of people that share ours already.

You can even look at current events, elections and the way they are won.

Understanding people who think differently than us, applying empathy, extending reach, is so much harder. But it's also the only smart choice.

OT: Ten pragmatic tips regarding pens & notebooks

A follow-up to my previous guide to fountain pens. Game Developers Conference is next week and you might want to take notes. Some practical advice for what I think it's the best equipment to take notes on-the-go...

1) Get a spiral-bound, A5 notebook. 

It's the only kind that not only stays easily flat open, but they completely fold in half and have thick cardboard backs, making it easy to hold them one-handed when you don't have a table.

Muji sells relatively inexpensive ones that are of a good quality. Midori is another brand I really like for spiral-bound ones.

Midori "polar bear" spiral notebook.
Muji fountain pen. Lamy safari. Kaweco sport. TWSBI Mini.

Rhodia is a favorite of many, but their spiral-bound notebooks (e.g. the very popular DotPad) have side perforations to allow to remove pages, unfortunately, these are very weak and will detach. Not good to carry around, only for temporary notes/scratch.

Stitched (threaded binding) and taped notebooks are the second best, they easily lay flat because only a few pages are stitched together, then these groups are bound together with tape. 
Notebooks held with only staples in the middle are the least flexible. 

2) You might want to prefer more absorbent paper for quick notes on the go.

Usually, fountain pens are used with smooth, non-absorbent paper that helps to avoid bleed-through, feathering, and allows the ink to dry over time, bringing out the eventual shading or sheen.

Unfortunately, this might not be the best for quick note taking (even if I don't mind it at all, the dry times are still quite fast with fine nibs), there are absorbent papers out there that work great with fountain pens. The Midori Cotton notebook is an example.

I also usually buy only notebooks with blank pages, not lined or gridded. That's because I tend to draw lots of diagrams and write smaller than the lines.

A Midori Cotton notebook, threaded binding.
Lamy studio and a Faber Castell Loom.
J.Herbin Perle Noire.

3) The best fountain pen for daily notes is a Vanishing Point (fine nib), bar none.

I have a fair collection of fountain pens, but nothing that touch the Namiki/Pilot Vanishing Points (a.k.a. Capless). They are incredible writers, especially in the smaller point sizes (from medium to extra-fine, which are the ones you'll want for notes).

They are fast and clean, due to the retractable nib, and they don't spill in airplanes either (to my experience, you might still want to travel with pens mostly full/without air bubbles and keep them upright during the trip).

Pilot Capless Decimo

The Capless Decimo and its bigger brother, the Vanishing Point.

4) The best cheap fountain pen is the Muji aluminum pen.

This might be actually hard to find, I got one from a store a year ago but never found another one in my subsequent visits since then.

I have the longer model, not the foldable one (which is somewhat worse). It's very cheap, it writes very well, it's not bulky but it's very solid, it works well in planes and it can easily hold a spare cartridge in the body. 
I also like that it uses a screw-on cap, which is a bit slower to upen but will ensure that ink doesn't get suddenly suctioned out the nib (as some tight push-on caps do, by creating a vacuum).
The only downside is that it's fairly skinny, which might not be too comfortable for some.

Alternatively, a starter pen that is as good (or maybe even better, my only Muji might have been an outlier...) is the Lamy Safari, a solid, no-nonsense German performer. It's a little bit more expensive than the Muji one, but it won't disappoint.
I hear great things about the Pilot Metropolitan as well, but I personally don't own one. Namiki/Pilot is probably, though, my favorite brand.

5) If you write a lot, avoid very thin and short pens.

Once upon a time, I used to love very compact pens, and still today I won't ever buy too bulky ones. But I did notice that very thin pens stress my hand more. Prefer pens with a decent diameter.

Some compact pens: a Visconti Viscontina,
A brass Kaweco Lilliput and a Spalding and Sons Mini.

6) You might want to prefer a waterproof ink.

Inks are most of the fun in playing with fountain pens! Inks that shade, inks with sheen, inks with flakes, pigmented inks, iron-gall inks... all kinds of special effects. 

It's all fun and games until a drop of water hits the page and your precious notes are completely erased... Extremely saturated inks might even smear just with the humidity from the hand!

So, especially if you're on the go, the best ink is a waterproof or at least water-resistant one, and one that flows well while drying fast. 

Often, the more "boring" inks are also the best behaved, like the Montblanc Midnight Blue or any of their permanent inks (black, blue, gray). 

My personal favorite, if I had to pick one, would be the Platinum Carbon Black, it's the best black ink I own, it flows perfectly, it's permanent and looks great.
Unfortunately, it's a bit harder to clean, being a pigmented ink, so I use it only in cheaper pens that I have no problems dismantling (it's a perfect match for the Muji pen).

I tend to prefer cartridge converters in my pens and I usually fill them from bottled ink with a syringe, it's less messy.

8) You won't look back at most of your notes.

Taking notes for me is just part of my thinking and learning process. I like it, and as I don't have a great memory, they work as some sort of insurance.

I have a notebook with me at all times, and every time I finish one, I quickly take photos of all pages with my phone and store them in my dropbox account. Easy.
I still find much easier to work on paper than with my anything else when it comes to notes and diagrams, so much that I will even often just draw things on paper, take a photo with an iphone and send it to my computer during discussions with co-workers, to illustrate a point.

That said, unless the notes are actual, actionable things I need to follow-up on (e.g. meeting notes, to-do lists, ideas to try, sketches for blog posts), I mostly don't look back at them, and I gather that this is common for most people. So, be aware of that!

9) Stick a few small post-its at the end of your notebook.

I always have a small number of different shaped post-its at the end of my notebook, so if I need to put a temporary note on a page, I can. I also use small removable stickers as bookmarks, often.

Another thing that I sometimes do, is to use both ends of a notebook. One side, e.g. from the front, I use for "permanent" notes, things that I am fairly certain about. Meetings, summaries of things I learn, blog posts and so on. 
The other side, e.g. going from the back, can be used as a scratchpad for random quick drawing, computations and so on, if you don't have a separate notebook for these...

10) Try not to go too crazy.

Fountain pens can instigate a compulsion to start a collection, easily. That might be good or not, depending on your point of view. But never fool yourself into thinking that there is a rational need for expensive pens.

Truth is, fountain pens are already a useless luxury, and lots of expensive ones are not really great writers, certainly not better than some good cheap ones. A pen is a pen.

How to spot potentially risky Kickstarters. Mighty No9 & PGS Lab

This is really off-topic for the blog, but I've had so many discussions about different gaming related Kickstarters that I feel the need to write a small guide. Even if this is probably the wrong place with the wrong audience...

Let's be clear, this is NOT going to be about how to make a successful Kickstarter campaign, actually, I'm going to use two examples (one of a past KS, and one of a campaign that is still open as I write) that are VERY successful. It's NOT even going to be about how to spot scams, and I can't say that either example is. 

But I want to show how to evaluate risks, and when it's best to use a good dose of skepticism because it seems that there is a lot of people that get caught in the "hype" for given products and end up regretting their choices.

The two example I'm mostly going to use are the following campaigns:

• Mighty No.9, Inafune's unofficial chapter of the MegaMan series that ended up enraging fans
• The recent PGS Labs PGS portable x64 gaming console. Update: this has been killed now, and it was much more of a scam than I even thought. If you want to check out its interesting story, watch this.

I could have picked others, but these came to mind. It's not a specific critique to these two though, and I know there are lots of people enjoying Mighty No.9, and I wish the best to PGS Labs, I hope they'll start by addressing the points below and proving my doubts unfounded.

The Team

This is absolutely the most important aspect, and it's clear why. On Kickstarter you are asked to give money to strangers, to believe in them, their skills and their product. 

Would you, in real life, give away a substantial amount of money to people, for an investment, without knowing anything about them? I doubt it.

So when you see a project this successful...

...first thought muse be, these guys must be AMAZING, right?

I kid you not, that's the ONLY information on the PGS Lab team. They have a website, but there is ZERO information on them there as well.

From their (over-filtered and out-of-sync) promo video, we learn one name of a guy...

"We have brought together incredible Japanese engineers and wonderful industrial designers". A straight quote from the video, the only other mention of the team. No names, no past projects, no CVs. But they are "wonderful", "incredible" and "Japanese", right?

This might be the team. Might be buddies of the guy in the middle...

For me, this is already a non-starter. But it seems mine is not a popular point of view...

The team?

So what about Mighty No.9 then? Certainly, Inafune has enough of a CV... And he even had a real team, right? He even did the bare minimum and put the key people on the Kickstarter page...

Or did he? Not so quickly...

This is the first thing I noticed in the original campaign. Inafune has a development team (Concept) but it seems that for this game, he did intend to outsource the work.

Unfortunately, not an unusual practice, it seems that certain big names in the industry are using their celebrity to easily raise money for projects they then outsource to third party developers.

Igarashi for Bloodstained did even "worse". Not only the game itself is outsourced, but the campaign, including the rewards and merchandise, are. In fact, if you look at the KS page, you'll notice some quite clashing art styles...

...I suspect this was due to the fact that different outsourcers worked on different parts of the campaign (concept art vs rewards/tiers).

Let's be clear, per se this is not a terrible thing, both Igarashi and Inafune used Inti Creates as the outsourcing partner that has plenty of experience with 2d scrollers, which means the end product might turn out great (in fact, the E3 demo of Bloodstained looks at least competent if not exceptional)... But it shows, to me, a certain lack of commitment.

People are thinking that these "celebrity" designers will put their careers on the line, against the "evil" publishers that are not funding their daring titles (facepalm), while they are just running a marketing campaign.

This became extremely evident for Inafune in particular, as he rushed launching a (luckily disastrous... apparently you can't fool people twice) second campaign in the middle of Mighty No.9 production, revealing his hand and how little commitment he had to the title.

The demo: demonstrating skills and commitment

Now, when you got the team down, you want to evaluate their skills. Past projects surely help, but what helps, even more, is showing a demo, a work-in-progress version of the product.

It's hard enough to deliver a new product even when you are perfectly competent, I've worked in games done by experienced professionals that just didn't end up making it, and I've backed Kickstarters that failed to deliver even if they were just "sequels" of products a given company was already selling... So you really shouldn't settle for anything less than concrete proof.

How does our Kickstarters fare in terms of demos?

PGS Labs show a prototype. GREAT! But wait...

Oh. So, the prototype is nothing ore than existing hardware, disassembled and reassembled in a marginally different shape. In fact you can see the PCBs of the controller they used, a joypad for tablets which they just opened, desoldered some buttons and moved them into a 3d printed shell.

Well, this would be great if we are talking about modding, but proves exactly NOTHING about their abilities to actually -make- the hardware (my guess - but it's just a guess, is that in the best scenario they are raising money to look for a Chinese ODM that already has similar products in their catalog, and they won't really do any engineering).

Of course, when it comes to the marketing campaigns of "celebrity designers" all you get is what is cheaper to make, they know they'll get millions anyways, so, just get some outsourcers to paint some concept art

It's really depressing to me how, by just creating a video with their faces, certain people can raise enormous amounts of money. And I know that there are lots of success stories, from acclaimed developers as well, but if you look at them, the pattern is clear: success comes from real teams of people deeply involved with the products, and with actual, proven, up-to-date skills in the craft.

While so far I'd say all the projects of older, lone "celebrities" have -all- resulted in games that are -at best- ok. Have we ever seen a masterpiece coming out from any of these? Dino Dini? Lord British? 

Personally, as a rule of thumb I'd rather give money to a "real" indie developer, who really can't just go to a publisher in lots of cases or even self-fund borrowing from a bank, and that often do MUCH, MUCH better games by real passion, sacrifice, and eating lots of instant noodles I assume...

The "gaming press"

What irks me a lot is that these campaigns are very successful because they feed on the laziness of news sites where hype spreads due to the underpaid human copy and paste bots who just repeat the same stuff over and over again. It's really a depressing job.

And even good websites, websites where I often go for game critique and intelligent insights, seem to be woefully unequipped to discuss anything about production, money, how the industry works. 

I'm not sure if it's because gaming journalists are less knowledgeable about production (but I really doubt it) or if it's because they prefer to keep a low profile (but... these topics do bring "clicks", right?).

Anyhow. I hope at least this can help a tiny bit :)