jeff 👨‍💻

Software Architect turned Engineering Manager

  • 31 Posts
  • 31 Comments
Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 11th, 2023

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  • It’s a patent case. It has nothing to do with the creative design of the games.

    But yes. Every pokemon is copyrighted. Every pal is copyrighted. (In the US) All creative work is automatically copyrighted to the creator.

    You can’t copyright “a standing lizard with a small flame on its tail” but you can copyright Charmander. If you copy enough elements that a lay person can’t distinguish the original and the copy then it opens it up for a copyright claim.

    None of that is relevant in this case.

    A patent is to protect a specific invention from being copied. In this case, there is an innovative game mechanic that Nintendo patented has that Palworld copied. The speculation is with throwing an item that captures a character that fights other characters in a 3d space.

    The patent is dumb. Personally I don’t think it is innovative or special enough to be patented. Patenting software or game mechanic are dumb anyway.



  • Someone didn’t read the article. She addresses exactly this.

    I can already hear the trolls making jokes about women being concerned about breaking a nail. If it’s so inconvenient, why not just have short nails? Well, I’m not out here wearing long nails for fun. Being a reviewer often means acting as a part-time hand model for whatever gadget I’m testing. The Internet Nail Police has repeatedly shown up in my comments over the years if my polish is chipped or, god forbid, there’s a smudge of dirt under my natural nail.





  • Getting started is always the hardest part. Once you’ve done some good work you can start relying more on word of mouth and charge more.

    I would recommend doing some small jobs on Fiverr or Upwork. Contracting isn’t for everyone, nor is running a small business. Fiverr and Upwork will be pretty disconnected from your local contacts so if you mess up or decide it’s not for you then it’s easier to leave.

    Ultimately it’s networking, instead of rolling your eyes when an acquaintance has an app idea you can offer to help.


  • Right. There is no solution to the halting problem, that’s been proven. But you just showed you can very easily create a way of practically solving it. Just waiting for 10 seconds does it. That will catch every infinite loop while also having some false positives. And that will be fine in most applications.

    My point is that even if a solution to the halting problem is impossible, there is often a very possible solution that will get you close enough for a real world scenario. And there are definitely more sophisticated methods of catching non-halting programs with fewer false positives.