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mscottmcbee

129 karma · joined April 24, 2013

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mscottmcbee··on Rust 0.9 released
This has been my experience as well, even after trying to follow a few guides.
mscottmcbee··on Why I can’t call myself a gamer anymore
While it makes sense, "I'm a ludophile" is way too easy to mishear.
mscottmcbee··on Gamers
I see it less being an issue of violence, and more of an issue of conflict being the only means of resolution. It's become so pervasive, that a game where you don't fight or compete against SOMETHING is considered very weird.

As for puzzle and adventure games, have you tried Antichamber or Gone Home? Those two are among my favorite games to have come out this year.

mscottmcbee··on Gamers
I've been thinking about this lately, and I wonder how much of the problem is a result of the games themselves. A majority of games, and almost all "real games" (as categorized by people who identify themselves as gamers), are not only violent, but portray violence as the most straight forward way to resolve conflict.

If someone is truly engrossed in a medium where the default interpersonal resolution method is to "defeat" the opposing party by whatever rules are deemed legal by the system, it's not hard to see why every time that person is provided with an alternate viewpoint it would be met with toxic hostility.

If the only tool you have is a gun or sword, everything looks like a target or monster.

mscottmcbee··on Show HN: Myth – CSS the way it was imagined
It looks like a disaster on FF as well. I don't understand why designers have been on a binge of typefaces that look like unreadable garbage.
mscottmcbee··on Mozilla in 2013
Not sure why this was downvoted, I'd like to see a DartVM as well, once the spec is standardized.
mscottmcbee··on [dead]
Man, that's a lot of effort put into something so hateful and deplorable.
mscottmcbee··on Ludum Dare #28 starts today
There's a pretty decent discovery mechanism. The more you rate, the closer you are to the front page. It's not perfect, but I don't think I've gotten less than, say, 50 people rating my games (http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/author/mscottmcbee/ If you're interested).

Rate others, leave comments, and people will play your game.

mscottmcbee··on Ludum Dare #28 starts today
Do it for yourself. Don't worry about comparing your work to others. If you make something you yourself are proud of, then what does it matter if Notch or Terry Cavanagh are participating?
mscottmcbee··on Ludum Dare #28 starts today
There's two parts to a jam, the theme and the time limit. If you throw either one out, you're not really doing it.
mscottmcbee··on A Battery Breakthrough that Proved Too Good to Be True
I think this is mostly a reflection of tech/science reporting. Batteries are hard. They're complex with many factors into what goes into a good battery. But the moment a lab creates one with good energy density, headlines just say "Scientists create batteries 20x greater than your iPhone" without paying attention to the fact that it has 20 charging cycles before it's useless.
mscottmcbee··on Why PHP continues to thrive in the age of the PaaS
No, I'm not out right discrediting it, but given how little I do in web and how small most of my experiments are, I probably won't use it for a long time just because I don't need what it provides.
mscottmcbee··on Why PHP continues to thrive in the age of the PaaS
Who said anything about giving up?
mscottmcbee··on Why PHP continues to thrive in the age of the PaaS
A lot (a majority?) of websites aren't made by people that need those things. A lot of people just want to get their ideas up on a page so they can show their friends. The thing I walked away with from the article was that PHP is still active in part because it has such a low entry point for those people, where as Rails does not.

Like you said, they're very different entities, but a lot of people can't tell or don't care about the difference.

mscottmcbee··on Why PHP continues to thrive in the age of the PaaS
True, it's not exactly fair to compare getting started with a language and getting started with a framework, especially one as opinionated as Rails.
mscottmcbee··on Why PHP continues to thrive in the age of the PaaS
I don't do much web development, just a product once every year or so to play around with an idea. Always in PHP. A few months ago I was asked by a close friend to help them with a not-so-serious site. I decided that I'd use Rails, because, hey, I've heard nothing but good about it from HN and the like.

I was absolutely blown away by how much work it required to get started. That, and how painful it was to explain to a non technical person how to make visual changes.

I was told by a few friends I vented to that what I was doing was "too small" of a project, or "Rails is meant for web apps" which confused me because I assumed a site where you could upload images via a form and then browse and view them was right up its alley.

Edit: A lot of comments are talking about wrapping my head around the framework, MVC, ect. I had no problem building the initial application. My sore points are more about deployments and updating smaller things, like the image of a link. non-technical people don't often remember "oh, and if you want your change to show up, go to this folder, open 'restart.txt' and change it in some way. doesn't matter what, just add a space to the end".

mscottmcbee··on The Art of Computer Programming - eBook
I have the first 4 books, but reading that makes me want to get it as an e-book, as well.
mscottmcbee··on Dark Matter Developers != Bad Developers
What would you call the middle ground between the two of them? I feel like I spend a lot of time reading, but I just can't bring myself to blog. I've had one for years that has maybe 5 posts. It's a combination of being tired at the end of the day, feeling like I have nothing useful to say (that hasn't already been said), and generally not thinking about it.

It's also a similar story with Stack Overflow. When I think to try and answer questions, they've already been answered by people more knowledgeable than me.

mscottmcbee··on Rust is not fast
Ok, that makes me feel better. I've been watching and waiting for Windows support to get better, and I'd hate to have it fizzle before I really got to play with it.
mscottmcbee··on Rust is not fast
>If Servo (written in Rust) isn't faster than Gecko (written in C++), then Mozilla won't continue funding Rust. Rust needs to be fast in a very existential way.

Ouch, I didn't know the project had a deadline. By when does it need to be faster?

mscottmcbee··on Ask HN: What tools or frameworks needed to make a Pocket Trains Style App
If you're looking for an engine for mobile games, checkout Unity3D and Corona
mscottmcbee··on What's new in Unity 4.3
Other than the official documentation, you'll probably have to wait a few days/weeks.
mscottmcbee··on Treat strangers to coffee
You might want to do some moderation on tags. Looking up "Android" brings up "Android", "Android Development", and "Android App Development". Looking up "Golang" returns "golang" and "Golang".

I wonder how much people are going to miss out on connections if they pick one of three terms for what's probably the same idea.

mscottmcbee··on Treat strangers to coffee
It's not much better in the US. I live in Atlanta and I feel like I'm missing out on most of the fun. If you're not in SF or NYC, there's a lot you don't get.
mscottmcbee··on Is Anonymous Social Media the Answer to Cyberbullying?
Isn't this essentially the point behind 4chan?
mscottmcbee··on Introducing ART – A new Android runtime being introduced experimentally in 4.4
Go is still very young. Doesn't make sense to write such a critical piece of software with it quite yet.
mscottmcbee··on Android for all and the new Nexus 5
I was wondering about that. Can you can still buy an unlocked phone and use it with their service?
mscottmcbee··on Android for all and the new Nexus 5
I love this as a stark juxtaposition to the Apple "Hold a grand event to announce new OS and phone dates"
mscottmcbee··on Torvalds: SteamOS will "really help" Linux on desktop
Can you expand on this with examples?
mscottmcbee··on If C++ is so bad, what should game developers use?
It depends on the kind of game you're making, but C# is a less ideal language because of garbage collection. Fighting GC pauses are no fun when you're trying to make a real-time game.

C++ is largely used because of speed, memory control, and momentum with tools, libraries and experience.

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