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Before the iPhone, I worked on a few games for what were called "feature phones"

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Re: Before the iPhone, I worked on a few games for what were called "feature phones"

#71
post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Twitter web UI if you are not logged in is purposefully broken. Every so often, it will just show you "access denied" or "you don't have permission". It is the peak of dark patterns.

I think this is a bug rather than deliberately blocked. The on-page retry button will continuously fail, but if you go up to the address bar and keep hitting enter it will eventually work. Still embarrassing for a tech company of twitter's size. Displaying a tweet to a logged out user should be the single simplest job their service has, but it's usually broken.

The fact that threaded tweet links like this don't work on non-official apps (I use Talon on Android), to me, is a sign that this is deliberate.

Re: Before the iPhone, I worked on a few games for what were called "feature phones"

#72
post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Twitter web UI if you are not logged in is purposefully broken. Every so often, it will just show you "access denied" or "you don't have permission". It is the peak of dark patterns.

It seems to require randomly from 1 to 5 page refreshes to display anything (and don't be fooled by helpful retry button, it won't work, you need to use browser refresh). I thought it was just broken, but you say it works when logged in? WTF.

Most probable explanation: logged and notlogged requests go through a different path in the infrastructure and the not logged one doesn't work that good and they have no pressure in fixing it. Maybe it's not a dark pattern but it smells like one for sure.

Re: Before the iPhone, I worked on a few games for what were called "feature phones"

#73
post #49
post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm curious how the UI looks to other people, because "all in once place" isn't really a complaint I can understand about the Twitter UI I'm seeing. There's buttons and stuff between tweets, but with 280 characters per tweet (140 was definitely less readable) they're not significantly more difficult to read on Twitter than they are in the paragraphs you posted.

The Twitter web UI if you are not logged in is purposefully broken. Every so often, it will just show you "access denied" or "you don't have permission". It is the peak of dark patterns.

That's entirely possible. I don't really ever browse it without being logged in.

Re: Before the iPhone, I worked on a few games for what were called "feature phones"

#74

The chain all in one place, such that it's readable: > Before the iPhone existed, I worked on a few games for what were called "feature phones": Doom RPG 1&2, Orcs&Elves 1&2, and Wolfenstein RPG. Qualcomm's native-code BREW platform had better versions, but I haven't seen any emulators and archives for it, so they may be lost at this point. The J2ME (java mobile) versions are still floating around, and can be emulate…

Thank you. Twitter's user experience is the worst.

Although there is no reason why he didn't post on say medium and post the link. He chose to use a 140-char-limit site to write a novel.

Re: Before the iPhone, I worked on a few games for what were called "feature phones"

#75
post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Twitter web UI if you are not logged in is purposefully broken. Every so often, it will just show you "access denied" or "you don't have permission". It is the peak of dark patterns.

I think this is a bug rather than deliberately blocked. The on-page retry button will continuously fail, but if you go up to the address bar and keep hitting enter it will eventually work. Still embarrassing for a tech company of twitter's size. Displaying a tweet to a logged out user should be the single simplest job their service has, but it's usually broken.

Thank you! I had given up on reading any HN post from Twitter because of this issue.

Re: Before the iPhone, I worked on a few games for what were called "feature phones"

#76
post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, malloc and free are black boxes as well. And in typical implementations can potentially take arbitrary amounts of time to run, too. (Though they usually don't.)

It depends on your allocator - ptmalloc, the default linux allocator - is open source, and there's plenty of very robust open allocators (jemalloc, mimalloc, tcmalloc, etc). Understanding how your allocator works can be very important in certain contexts. On windows I'd expect the default allocator to be a black box, but I might be wrong. For garbage collection I strongly recommend this book (on top of the source cod…

Wouldn't the garbage collection for most common runtimes also be open source?

Re: Before the iPhone, I worked on a few games for what were called "feature phones"

#77
Two friends of mine used to work on projects that depended on BREW. Brazilian videogame console (zeebo) was also dependent on it. At the time they didn't spoke negatively about it. With my free software roots, I had a very negative view on proprietary platforms and dev tools.

A few years forward, no zeebo game can be played on non-original hardware that is no longer manufactured for about a decade. These games will become unplayable and unsalvageable too. Although not spectacular, losing part of history is always a dent on culture preservation.

Basically the same happens with the BREW software that won't run anywhere else and brew devices that simply became unusable because they require signatures.

Locked down platforms should be regulated or laws should exist to force companies to open specifications after some time and release signatures.

Re: Before the iPhone, I worked on a few games for what were called "feature phones"

#78
post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So if people wish to be treated like normal human beings, they must hide behind pseudonyms? That may be the current reality of the situation, but it doesn't mean we have to keep it that way. I'm not saying he doesn't deserve his status, I'm just saying let's not get too fanatical about it.

fame and fame admiration is as old as civilization. And yes, using pseudonyms has been used for 100s of years for the same reason. You are complaining about something that is deeply human in nature. I don't think the comment was fanatical at all, it was a lighthearted joke.

Just because it appeals to nature, doesn't make it good.

While I agree it was likely lighthearted, that does not exempt it from criticism.

Re: Before the iPhone, I worked on a few games for what were called "feature phones"

#79
post #3

Must be fun being related to John Carmack.

Just a fun question. If you had a choice; would you rather be John Carmack or Tony Hawk?

For the general case, it’s going to be a lot easier when you’re 80 years doing Carmack stuff than it will be Hawk stuff.

Re: Before the iPhone, I worked on a few games for what were called "feature phones"

#80
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would absolutely blow my mind, I would even merge it without multiple approves. :D And add a new contributors section in the readme with John Carmack at the top.

John Carmack is awesome, but I find this level of deification (of any individual) kinda creepy - it just feels unhealthy. Would you like to be treated that way, in Carmack's position? I realize that your comment was likely made in jest, but it still bugs me.

Eh, well while I agree, he's far better than Bezos, Musk, or Zuckerberg COMBINED, and look at all the idolatry those guys receive.

Purely in terms of a programmer. Things he's created.

Everyone should be able to have heroes. You don't need to necessarily elevate them to the level of Gods, but John is very readily a video game real life hero.

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