Oh gosh, why didn't I see this thread earlier??
Really surprised at how many programmers there are here, and you can add me to the list too! Mostly C/C++ for embedded systems, but I'm pretty handy with my C# / .NET stuff too. Over christmas I intend to *FINALLY* spend some quality time with the Unity game engine to help round my programming skills a little and also to get this game I've got rattling around in my head down on digital paper
Avionics? Was surprised to read that too lol. I work for an Avionics company who make aircraft navigation beacons (obviously I'm on the software team
), and I've always *LOVED* aircraft and flying! Hoping at some point to learn to fly a plane, but I figure I should probably learn to drive a car first!
Oh and if anyone's wondering - Lancaster Bomber is my favourite aircraft ever made
I've been fortunate to live in a place where one of the only two (IIRC?) left in the world that are still flying actually flies right over my house every few months for various displays and events. I always give the pilots a wave (they fly not much above rooftop level
), and there's just nothing like the drone of those twin Rolls-Royce Merlin engines.
Geek culture? CHECK! Games are a *HUGE* part of my life, and have been ever since I was a kid. I grew up on Sonic, and often whenever me and my friends played a new game, we'd sit down afterwards and design "<WHATEVER GAME WE WERE PLAYING> 2" with all our ideas of how we'd do it differently. My friends found it fun, but preferred playing the games more, while I absolutely *LOVED* trying to design something bigger and better
I watch vids on
The Escapist regularly (which reminds me - I need to watch this weeks lot!
) to keep up with what's going on, and I also keep up with
Extra Credits. As I mentioned above, I've got some games in my head that I really need to start laying down lol.
I tend to gravitate towards the Sci-fi end of the Geek spectrum - I love Star Trek (especially Enterprise - I don't get why people hate that series so much..
), Stargate, Farscape, Firefly and films like Enders Game (seriously awesome film). I do like a bit of fantasy in small doses though: LoTR / The Hobbit is really awesome there's no denying that (will probably go see Desolation of Smaug over the Christmas break
) and I'm going spare waiting for Game of Thrones Season 3 to come out on DVD (I don't have Sky.. FML
#firstworldproblems
). It's a similar story with my games of course - I loved Halo back in its hay-day, Fallout 3 is one of my all-time favourite games, the Crysis series is pretty well up there on my list, All Points Bulletin: Reloaded has been my main multiplayer game for the past few years, and I keep meaning to getting around to playing Bioshock: Infinite because it just looks so damn perdy!
Also loved Skyrim (not so much the other Elder Scrolls games though... dunno why I just couldn't get into them), I had a 2 year love-hate relationship with WoW back when it first came out (christ.. that was nearly 10 years ago now!
) and I absolutely *ADORE* Minecraft (which I see as being basically in the Fantasy ballpark).
The thing about gaming is - it's let me be the female me without any strings attached. Every game I've played ever since I can remember (and *CERTAINLY* since WoW) where gender has been an option, I've freely and pretty much instinctively chosen female. I've never felt comfortable playing male characters ever. Heck even in Left 4 Dead I always picked Zoe when I could!
Looking back in hindsight, I really do think that games have been a significant outlet for me to be the girl I really am (even if I denied it even to myself and wrote it off as "oh girls are just nicer to look at" to my friends
) and have prevented my dysphoria turning into depression. People are always quick to blame games these days for the latest serial killings (because people are stupid apparently..
), but they never seem to acknowledge all the stories of how games help people in really positive ways..
As for IQ: Well I've got a degree in Astrophysics (well, "Physics with Astrophysics" if you want to be pedantic lol). I only just scraped through mind you, but I'm told you need an IQ of at least 120 to even be able to attempt it, so there's that
..wow this post got big quickly lol
<333
