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Jonathan Blow has spent the past decade designing 1,400 puzzles

arstechnica.com

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Re: Jonathan Blow has spent the past decade designing 1,400 puzzles

#191

Post by meheleventyone »

jstimpfle wrote: post #123
enqk wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He also had a 88 for a long time in his twitch channel name

I would be very surprised if this connotation was intentional of him. His name was "Naysayer88" for a long time, and I had wondered as well where that 88 came from -- maybe it was a rhyme on "Naysayer", which (ignoring the number) is an apt description of his ways and approaches. At some point he changed the name. I assumed the reason was he had gotten aware of the connotation.

I agree that the number choice was probably unintentional but you'd have to really strain to make 'naysayer' and '88' rhyme so thats probably not it.

Re: Jonathan Blow has spent the past decade designing 1,400 puzzles

#192

Post by dagmx »

torginus wrote: post #78
piker wrote: post #10

I always find Jonathan Blow and Casey Muratori to be great educators and advocates on the “simplicity” end of the spectrum. Jonathan can be super abrasive and comes with some political baggage, but does a good job advocating against what he perceives as unnecessary complexity in software. Opponents would suggest his domain and cherry-picked examples create the perfect environment for his positions and that he does ta…

Political? The most political I've seen him get was when he spoke out against the idea of accepting technical compromises for the sake of not hurting people's feelings and being PC. As in, you get to be cranky as long as you're arguing for the highest quality solution

Just a comment, that often when people say things that are within your own political belief system, that people often don’t consider them political.

But what is neutral to someone is not inherently neutral to others. Or even if it’s neutral to them, it’s still a form of political expression.

Re: Jonathan Blow has spent the past decade designing 1,400 puzzles

#193

Post by d--b »

thrance wrote: post #180
contrarian1234 wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

The idea that there could be biological dispositions to using a computer , the least natural thing I could think off, is well and truly absurd. Anyone still "interested" in this topic is coming from a place of unsubstantiated vice signalling, and completely uninterested in hearing any actual biologist's take on the subject, in my experience. Let's not forget that the first generation of programmers was mostly women,…

Not defending the guy, but he's possibly on the autistic spectrum, given he grinds solo on his projects for decades and stuff.

He may perceive his own appetite for programming as being linked to some form of autism. Because, well, computers are not people, so it's nice to avoid people.

Given that there is a proven gender discrepancy in the distribution of autistic disorders, it's not completely absurd to imagine that men could biologically be more attracted to working with computers than women.

Re: Jonathan Blow has spent the past decade designing 1,400 puzzles

#194

Post by latexr »

jstimpfle wrote: post #152
latexr wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“who also” means “in addition to”, it doesn’t mean the points follow from each other. The quote does not support your point.

Don't be silly, it's brought up as a support clause that is also lacking any factual evidence.

Why are you so hung up on scrutinising Blow’s words to defend him, but then take the critic’s words with a broad general brush to dismiss them?

You even decry the lack of factual evidence in the critic’s case, but for some reason said nothing about Blow doing the same first.

That’s what looks silly to me. You’re not treating them the same.

Re: Jonathan Blow has spent the past decade designing 1,400 puzzles

#195

Post by fzeroracer »

torginus wrote: post #78
piker wrote: post #10

I always find Jonathan Blow and Casey Muratori to be great educators and advocates on the “simplicity” end of the spectrum. Jonathan can be super abrasive and comes with some political baggage, but does a good job advocating against what he perceives as unnecessary complexity in software. Opponents would suggest his domain and cherry-picked examples create the perfect environment for his positions and that he does ta…

Political? The most political I've seen him get was when he spoke out against the idea of accepting technical compromises for the sake of not hurting people's feelings and being PC. As in, you get to be cranky as long as you're arguing for the highest quality solution

If you haven't seen much of his posts or opinions in the past five years maybe, but he's gone pretty far off the deep end recently (see: calling all men under the age of 40 supercucks). He's always been sort of a holier-than-thou asshole and that's driven him to increasingly dumb arguments.

Re: Jonathan Blow has spent the past decade designing 1,400 puzzles

#196

Post by dymk »

hyperbolablabla wrote: post #134
saberience wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Blow made his own language because he's so eye-wateringly arrogant and thinks every language (that he didn't make) sucks, and only he is smart enough to design a better language for programming games. Seriously, this is why he did it. His ego and arrogance is off the charts and if it wasn't made by him, he thinks it sucks (e.g. he doesn't like Linux, probably because he realizes Torvalds is actually smarter than him)…

This is a very reductive take. Even if you don't like Jon, calling Jai an exercise in arrogance is simply untrue. When he started making Jai in ~2014, there were very few viable alternatives to C/C++ in the systems programming space that offered the kind of expressive power becoming of a langauge built this century. Rust is great, but it prioritising correctness is not always the right choice, especially not for game…

How has Jai introduce ideas if it’s not even released? How can we claim to know what it did “right” when only a few projects have been built in it?

Re: Jonathan Blow has spent the past decade designing 1,400 puzzles

#197

Post by tialaramex »

speedgoose wrote: post #59
embedding-shape wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does that change how good/bad the game someone releases is? Don't get me wrong, being obviously anti-scientist isn't that great if I absolutely have to judge them, but I'm not sure if that has any impact on how fun a game is. If I'd stop consuming stuff from people/organizations I disagree with politically, I literally would have to move into a cave and start my own hunter-collector society from scratch. Is this real…

Separating the art from the artist is a long and old debate. I personally can’t watch Roman Polanski’s art, the classic and easy example. You can be a great movie producer, pedophilia and rapes are big no-no to me. But not to everyone apparently. For the non vocal people believing in pseudoscience and fascist propaganda, I can close my eyes more easily. I don’t want to know. I can guess sometimes but I won’t check. A…

Death of the Author.

One of the important elements here is the extent to which materially it matters. If I buy a book Lovecraft wrote a hundred years ago the money isn't going to end up diverted to support the "patriots" who want to intimidate my neighbours, whereas when I buy a Harry Potter box set for a relative you can bet that Rowling's share will help fund "Gender Critical" movements trying to make life worse for some of my friends and colleagues...

For books particularly I can totally buy Death of the Author, what I think I read might be entirely different from what the author says they intended, which further nobody can prove is what they actually intended. For that last for example I do not for one moment believe Vernor Vinge that he "Didn't know" what Rabbit is in "Rainbow's End". It's an AI. Maybe Vinge doesn't intend the book as a Singularitarian Catastrophe (you can argue the book thinks it's about avoiding such a catastrophe) but I don't see any way to interpret it where Rabbit isn't a super-human AI.

Re: Jonathan Blow has spent the past decade designing 1,400 puzzles

#199

Post by jstimpfle »

mariusor wrote: post #154
jstimpfle wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's _obviously_ reductionist and biased, not losing any more words on that.

I'm trying to offer a good faith argumentation. Why aren't you giving me the same courtesy?

My apologies, not trying to fight here, and I acknowledge you've been more balanced and nuanced in other comments.

Re: Jonathan Blow has spent the past decade designing 1,400 puzzles

#200

Post by DonHopkins »

d--b wrote: post #193
thrance wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The idea that there could be biological dispositions to using a computer , the least natural thing I could think off, is well and truly absurd. Anyone still "interested" in this topic is coming from a place of unsubstantiated vice signalling, and completely uninterested in hearing any actual biologist's take on the subject, in my experience. Let's not forget that the first generation of programmers was mostly women,…

Not defending the guy, but he's possibly on the autistic spectrum, given he grinds solo on his projects for decades and stuff. He may perceive his own appetite for programming as being linked to some form of autism. Because, well, computers are not people, so it's nice to avoid people. Given that there is a proven gender discrepancy in the distribution of autistic disorders, it's not completely absurd to imagine that…

How does DNA know about computers?
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