I Have a Job, They Don’t: Visiting TIme

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I'm big on relocation – having moved across a country to do it – and because let's face it, economic opportunities (and the recovery) aren't uniform across the nation – or a state, or the world.  Sometimes you have to do it – now more than ever.

Of course is a location right for you – or for, say, a friend or family member looking to move there?  the best way to go is to A) know someone there, and B) visit them.

You see where this is going.

However, if you don't see it, here's something I advise – and have done.  Find that person engaged in a job search, and put them up for a short time (say a week or two) to scout the area you live out.

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Go Farther: Media Cons

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I hear the term "Media Con" be used more and more lately to refer to those cons that are just, well . . . everything.  You know a con may have started as SF, or fantasy, or anime but after awhile it's about many media in all but name.  Comic cons are certainly evolving into "geek media", and there's cons dedicated to broad media interests, or broad but specific slices (such as pulp fiction, etc.).

So in my roundup of the way cons can go farther, of course I had to speculate on what the more general/media conventions can do for career events.  This includes those cons that were always general media or evolving that way.

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News Of the Day 5/16/2011

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Sony is back with some surprising limits. An interesting alliance around games. LinkedIn's IPO is coming soon. Lots of news for progeeks, profans, and protaku . . .

Sony's Not-Quite-Over Outage:
Looks like Playstation Network is up in the US . . . but the Japanese government isn't letting it up in Japan. It's still erratic (mainly due to all the password changes). I've got a few comments at e-commerce times.

This has been drifting around a bit: Amazon.com's EC2 servers may have been used to do the Sony hack. That will be interesting to follow.

Economics/Geekonomics:
In case you hadn't heard, the US isn't raising it's Debt Ceiling – and here's a look at the history of the issue. Now as a warning, if this drags on it creates further economic uncertainty – and last I heard, past 10-11 weeks we have a chance for a serious meltdown. Paul Krugman chimes in with an opinionated but insightful piece about what's going on.

Comics:
An FPS multiplayer game in Gotham City? I have no idea what this is, if it's going to work, or if the dismal performance of Brink may affect such an plan. This just sounds like a weird way to dress up gang warfare in DC settings, so I want to watch this just to see what's up.

Want to work for IDW? A Senior Editor position is open.

Remakes:
Er . . . a poster and more info on the Muppets return/revival film. Thing.. I'm not sure what to say about this considering the weird poster and standard plot. Maybe if this tanks people will figure there's enough of the revival/remake schtick.

. . . and Seth MacFarlaine is remaking the Flintstones. I'm not sure why it needs to be remade.

Social Media:
Mashable's latest Social Media and tech event roundup if you're looking to learn, network, etc.

LinkedIn's IPO is the 19th. If you're enthused about this you're as big a Career Geek as I am. In all seriousness, this could be quite big as it may mean new directions for the company, can validate (or invalidate) the value of the company, and the results will be looked at by other possible IPO companies (say . . . Facebook).

Technology:
We've got some VC coming into mobile – mobile billing company Billing Revolution raises $6.6. million and tool-and-service company StackMob raises $7.5 million. First, these sound resume-worthy, second, I'm noticing a lot more VC investments below 10 mil – which I wonder is a new trend.

Barnes and Noble's now-tabletified Nook? 1 million app downloads in the first week. Appears successful . . . at least for Angry Birds.

Video:
Mirimax has a multiyear deal with Netflix for its movies, which include some serious fan favorites. More power for Netflix – and some interesting info on how availability may rotate or change to coincide with different events.

Video Games:
Pop Cap's first Android game will sell through Amazon.com. Now there's a partnership – and of course Amazon wants it's own Android sales platform, and a PopCap game is pretty good attention fuel. Powerful partnership and shows how Amazon is going into all kinds of content – so you better be ready.

Duke Nukem was going to have a gay robot sidekick and the implementation of it just seems weird and odd. You know as much as I love Gearbox (and am probably about to play Borderlands AGAIN), I'm starting to feel the Duke property is just cursed.

QUESTION OF THE DAY: How dedicated is PopCap's relationship with Amazon?

– Steven Savage