221–230 of 408 posts
Additionally I use a flash created "alarm clock" from the early 2000s almost every day for various tasks.
I remember creating a simple "catch the falling X" game in Flash 20 years ago. It was basic, but had everything you'd expect in a beginner project: points, multiple game states/screens, a victory condition, basic story (which was just a screen at the beginning, like NES). The thing is, I was a literal child and I also had no clue how to code -- I did everything by following tutorials and gluing together code I copy&p…
That's how I feel about HyperCard. Some apps were so ahead of their time that when they were axed, nothing comparable replaced them. I believe that this is due to a tragedy of the commons in the software industry. We're all so creative, with so many dreams, but spend the majority of our lives working 40 hour weeks to outcompete each other and make rent. Then when someone wins the internet lottery, they succumb to the…
It doesn't even have to come down to greed though.
If some meme stock speculation 1000x'd, my family could live off the gains in perpetuity and I could spend all my time working in a soup kitchen, doing good.
But if I instead figured out how to turn that into even more money, I could start a new soup kitchen and help even more people, doing even more good.
But if I instead figured out how to turn that into even more money, ...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
it's a generalized trend. Python is the new BASIC, but Python is SO much more complicated than BASIC. Web development was easy, now it's impossibly complicated, etc etc... Rebol, Red, tcl/tk are good and easy programming languages, but kinda niche and obscure. I have no idea why computing is getting more complicated instead of easier.
I only disagree on web development. It was never easy. The web always always a mess, and nothing really worked. Today it's a mess, but you can make it work if you know what you are doing. But yes, looks like the web was a trendsetter that pushed things into becoming harder without any good reason. Or maybe the web was just following the trend of the toolmakers all going out business at the early 00's (thanks a lot to…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's how I feel about HyperCard. Some apps were so ahead of their time that when they were axed, nothing comparable replaced them. I believe that this is due to a tragedy of the commons in the software industry. We're all so creative, with so many dreams, but spend the majority of our lives working 40 hour weeks to outcompete each other and make rent. Then when someone wins the internet lottery, they succumb to the…
> Then when someone wins the internet lottery, they succumb to their ego and do a bunch of stuff in business to hoard even more wealth, rather than working to reform the system which keeps so many others down. It doesn't even have to come down to greed though. If some meme stock speculation 1000x'd, my family could live off the gains in perpetuity and I could spend all my time working in a soup kitchen, doing good. B…
I remember creating a simple "catch the falling X" game in Flash 20 years ago. It was basic, but had everything you'd expect in a beginner project: points, multiple game states/screens, a victory condition, basic story (which was just a screen at the beginning, like NES). The thing is, I was a literal child and I also had no clue how to code -- I did everything by following tutorials and gluing together code I copy&p…
Some of the better years of my life a little over a decade ago were spent on mofunzone playing the stick figure fights with friends. I remember bullet time fighting (matrix clone with swords, guns, slow motion) and there was also an amazing action narrative series called Ray with Southpark themed characters and one of the craziest platformers I ever played called N. I managed to snag some of these a while back and pr…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
"FWIW it never went away¹ and targets standards-based runtimes these days. " I just tried Adobe Animate recently and nothing worked out of the box or like flash used to. I basically had to tinker, until even basic animations somewhat worked. And I even have quite some experience with EaselJS, the target framework, but that didn't helped much. The power of flash was the ease of use - that is gone.
You might like Svija — you can easily animate SVGs using Illustrator. It's not as powerful yet as Flash, but that's our goal. Disclaimer, I made it ;-)
I must admit, this isn't the most inspiring landing page for someone like me, who could be your exact target demographic (long-time Illy user and someone who likes to tinker with new web tools). I don't really 'get it' and (this is entirely personal) the design looks quite dated.
I'll bookmark it, share it and keep an eye on it though - Good luck!
I remember creating a simple "catch the falling X" game in Flash 20 years ago. It was basic, but had everything you'd expect in a beginner project: points, multiple game states/screens, a victory condition, basic story (which was just a screen at the beginning, like NES). The thing is, I was a literal child and I also had no clue how to code -- I did everything by following tutorials and gluing together code I copy&p…
That's how I feel about HyperCard. Some apps were so ahead of their time that when they were axed, nothing comparable replaced them. I believe that this is due to a tragedy of the commons in the software industry. We're all so creative, with so many dreams, but spend the majority of our lives working 40 hour weeks to outcompete each other and make rent. Then when someone wins the internet lottery, they succumb to the…
Only in Silicon Valley, and that's probably a big part of the problem. In some of the highest paying, most creative occupations on the planet people are drooling at the feet of billionaires to save them while they slave away M-F.
Most people throughout history didn't look at the rich with anything but contempt. In Silicon Valley they're held up as geniuses on every subject. Look at how a subsection of the industry treated Elon Musk taking the axe to Twitter (politics aside).
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Because for everyone to make what they want to make is, as of current year, a pie in the sky fantasy until scarcity is solved, and perhaps not even then. There are 8 billion humans, the world doesn't need another hundred thousand programming languages or web frameworks or game development platform or even indie games or fiction or music or film, produced every year when the whim strikes someone's fancy. Even if we co…
Personal opinion: I think scarcity is mostly a solved problem, in that most of us are working on projects that only exist to make someone else more money, not to fulfill any actual needs of those 8 billion humans. There are exceptions of course. But most of us could stop working tomorrow, and aside from the lack of income, the scarcity of resources available to us would not change. The real problems that causes hunge…
Who would grow your food? Who would make the tools and fertilizer that enable the farmers to grow your food? The robotics and software that enables those tools and fertilizer to be produce? Who would organize, transport, package, preserve and process the produce so that you can access it?
Apply the same questions to healthcare, education, transport, construction, entertainment, etc.
Some jobs are superfluous and arise out of coordination failure, that's true. Lawyers, administrators, salespeople and parts of finance and the government comes to mind. But "most people could stop working" is an unreasonable assertion.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Then when someone wins the internet lottery, they succumb to their ego and do a bunch of stuff in business to hoard even more wealth, rather than working to reform the system which keeps so many others down. It doesn't even have to come down to greed though. If some meme stock speculation 1000x'd, my family could live off the gains in perpetuity and I could spend all my time working in a soup kitchen, doing good. B…
Is this effective altruism?