241–250 of 436 posts
Instead of pulling a Wozniak, why not pull a Sergey Brin? Use the incredible resources you gained from your first success to finance all the cool side-projects you ever dreamed of? Notch could start any web experiment he wanted, and when he got bored, pass it along to an army of coders to refine and finish.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> If Bruce Wayne truly wanted to use his money to reduce crime, he would be donating it to preschools and after-school sports programs. To be fair, Bruce Wayne does, in most versions of the Batman stories, incredibly vast amounts of local charity of that type (and others), as well as personally going after criminals one by one, and there's probably limited capacity to productively absorb those funds (Wayne's pump-pri…
So we could say that Bruce Wayne knows well how to purchase fuzzies and utilons separately [0]. He spends a lot of his resources to help effectively by donating to local charities, and he gets the fun and good feelings from helping people by chasing criminals himself as Batman. [0] - http://lesswrong.com/lw/6z/purchase_fuzzies_and_utilons_sepa...
The other day there was a post about some Doom map viewer Notch had written in Dart. One of the top comments said something along the lines of "This is why we all need to be rich, so we can work on stuff like this." I thought the comment was so sad because honestly, almost no one is going to benefit from a mostly broken Doom map viewer in Dart that's abandoned after a few days. Same with the numerous games he's start…
I hope he means 'abandoning it to people who will develop it further so more people can enjoy it: I'm not going to deal with that aspect anymore'. But I could just be optimistic.
I wish I had a pithy explanation as to why this was but I haven't figured it out yet. "some people aren't cut out for fame" doesn't really do it justice, because the problem isn't entirely in the Notch's of the world, but also how we relate to them and how fame is characterized in our culture.
This whole Minecraft thing has been very interesting to follow. I tried the game a few times and it's not really for me but everything around Notch's story is interesting (I bet their going to make a movie about this at some point). Not everyone can be an entrepreneur and I feel that in this case (on a different scale of course), we basically watched a plausible version of how Apple could have gotten started if there…
In the broader picture, I am struggling to understand some of the opinions of this story out there, particularly on HN. What I mean is, I suspect that a majority of us dream of this type of success. We dream of connecting our creative force with financial success, especially when that success would free us to work on practically anything that we wanted. I would say that a lot of us dream of being able to lead entirely self-directed lives that financial freedom can afford.
Therefore, why is it bemoaned when we see the very success that we dream of unfold for someone else? Why are there suddenly opinions of, "Well, I can't believe Notch would work on something that he would abandon?" Or, "Notch should spend his money this way or that way."
It just feels, well, extremely egotistical. Who is anyone to call out how someone else should spend their money, enjoy their time... live their life?
A similar situation happened with Dong Nguyen. He essentially tapped into the modern-day equivalent of Pac-Man Fever. In the 80s, it swept the world, to the tune of billions of dollars. It was the highest-grossing arcade game ever produced. People simply loved the game, and they couldn't get enough of clearing boards of dots, power-pellets and ghosts.
In a similar way, Flappy Bird took very simple game-play, and combined it with a simple challenge. This is, of course, not the first game to do this, but it took off. The power of the Internet has made Nguyen's name known, and quite sadly in some circles, despised for his financial success, when how much he was making on ad revenue was revealed. Or, with comments like those found in this piece [1], its intellectual lamenting with, "[...] I begrudge a society that would turn it into a phenomenon."
I suspect that the author would have said the same about Pac-Man.
I really feel for Notch, Dong Nguyen and those creatives of the world that worked to bring a dream to reality, only to have this happen to them. I'm reminded of a phrase from the song Limelight [2] ...
Cast in this unlikely role
Ill-equipped to act
With insufficient tact
One must put up barriers
To keep oneself intact
[1] http://www.forbes.com/sites/insertcoin/2014/02/03/flappy-bir...
The other day there was a post about some Doom map viewer Notch had written in Dart. One of the top comments said something along the lines of "This is why we all need to be rich, so we can work on stuff like this." I thought the comment was so sad because honestly, almost no one is going to benefit from a mostly broken Doom map viewer in Dart that's abandoned after a few days. Same with the numerous games he's start…
Can you please post a link to his streams? I bet it'd be fascinating to watch.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
>I don’t make games with the intention of them becoming huge hits, and I don’t try to change the world. >I think that's the essence of being a real game developer. Really? (to be read with the least amount of snark possible) I think most game developers have the same sort of mindsets as other people in creative fields, and while the objective is to make great games, most developers seem to have that little twinkle in…
Phil Fish "needs" to hide because he's an asshole who, amongst many other things, successfully bullied a sexual assault victim into apologizing for talking about the fact that he'd been sexually assaulted. Edit: and even then he doesn't have to hide from the internet except to avoid the flamefests he keeps actively starting, fueling, and turning into Twitter pileons against people he dislikes if he doesn't.
And yeah I've seen the video about him becoming a symbol, which is terrible and all but still not a consequence of his creative output.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
>It's like Bruce Wayne deciding to spend the rest of his life playing with legos. I like this image. Bruce Wayne's character in batman is always thinking big. He tries to push things in the direction he thinks is right. The idea that someone would have all the power and decide to play with toys makes me worry about the rest of us. I would like to see people like Notch (creative, thoughtful people) having a say in wha…
Bruce Wayne's character in batman is always thinking big. He tries to push things in the direction he thinks is right. No, Bruce Wayne is incredibly myopic. If you have billions of dollars and you want to fight crime, the last thing you should be doing is developing fancy equipment so that you can personally go after criminals one by one. If Bruce Wayne truly wanted to use his money to reduce crime, he would be donat…
Going straight up _why is about the only way he might create another important work. I'd lay even odds.
This whole Minecraft thing has been very interesting to follow. I tried the game a few times and it's not really for me but everything around Notch's story is interesting (I bet their going to make a movie about this at some point). Not everyone can be an entrepreneur and I feel that in this case (on a different scale of course), we basically watched a plausible version of how Apple could have gotten started if there…
"I'm sure there are many here that dream of having their idea be a huge success [...]" In the broader picture, I am struggling to understand some of the opinions of this story out there, particularly on HN. What I mean is, I suspect that a majority of us dream of this type of success. We dream of connecting our creative force with financial success, especially when that success would free us to work on practically an…
I don't. He cashed in and, well somehow wants the sympathy of free & open-source wish-keepers.
He's in the money; and that was his choice.