One in a million chance to ask such a niche nonsense rando and expect an answer, but… does anyone have a clue what the green machine in the blurred background on the shelf is?
The (likely) wheels on top look like a press, kinda like I’d expect from a rubber vulcanizing press. The side covers look like it’s either geared or belted. The side opposite the beefy lever arm looked like a motor to me at first, but that doesn’t make sense for the lever arm IMO.
I don’t know the guy or reference, but that looks like an electronics lab with prototyping capabilities; something I do as a hobby too. The machine might be related to screen printing, toner transfer, photo lithography, a film based solder mask or even multi-layer composite stacks for printed circuit boards, based on my limited knowledge. It would be fun to know what that is exactly.
He’s Gabe Newell, the founder (and I think still CEO) of Valve Software.
Former Microsoft employee that started up a small game studio in the 90s. They took the Quake engine, modified the balls off of it, and used it to make Half Life, an FPS game that revolutionized the landscape forever with things like real time in-engine cutscenes that wove the story in through the gameplay, and through how advanced the enemy AI seemed. It also featured a ton of miniscule details requiring some clever coding to pull off, which really added to the atmosphere.
They also made the Steam gaming client, Portal, Left 4 Dead, Team Fortress, Counter Strike, Dota 2.
He’s not involved with the day to day much anymore. Pretty much retired in (I think) New Zealand now.
Very nice guy by most accounts. Was still responding to fan emails semi-regularly around 2010, and was one of the main voices in the dev commentary features in their games up through the Orange Box (Half Life 2 Ep 2, L4D, Portal, TF2).
No no no. I want a bunch of little tiny plastic and cardboard pieces that take forever to arrange and pack up when I’m done. I want text that’s too small to read. I want a rules book that I need a degree in to properly interpret. And only ever want to play during the handful of times a year I can get everyone around the table together.
I enjoy the convenience of digital games. I don’t like having to figure out which case my kids put a game in because they sure as shit don’t put them back in the right one.
lemmy.world
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