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Running a million-board chess MMO in a single process

eieio.games

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Re: Running a million-board chess MMO in a single process

#31

Post by Sohcahtoa82 »

DonHopkins wrote: post #17
eieio wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hi! I'm the guy. I have the savings to not worry about monetizing anything for a while. So I don't monetize my stuff. It's freeing and kinda fun!

How about doing One Million Radio Buttons instead of Checkboxes, then you wouldn't have to send as much state each update, and could run it on a smaller server! ;) But if you still can't make the site shockingly fast enough, then embrace the loading spinner, even if it's not absolutely necessary! Back in 1985, Brad Myers at CMU proved that users prefer *inaccurate progress bars* to no feedback at all - 86% preferred…

> https://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/16/magazine/who-made-that-pr...

That's a 404. Archive.org doesn't even have it.

After Googling, seems the correct link is https://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/09/magazine/who-made-that-pr...

https://web.archive.org/web/20140307182222/https://www.nytim...

Semi-related to progress bars and spinners, I think my newest Internet pet peeve is a page that says "No results" for a fetch action like searching while the results are loading with no indication that loading is happening.

Re: Running a million-board chess MMO in a single process

#32

Post by DonHopkins »

Sohcahtoa82 wrote: post #31
DonHopkins wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How about doing One Million Radio Buttons instead of Checkboxes, then you wouldn't have to send as much state each update, and could run it on a smaller server! ;) But if you still can't make the site shockingly fast enough, then embrace the loading spinner, even if it's not absolutely necessary! Back in 1985, Brad Myers at CMU proved that users prefer *inaccurate progress bars* to no feedback at all - 86% preferred…

> https://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/16/magazine/who-made-that-pr... That's a 404. Archive.org doesn't even have it. After Googling, seems the correct link is https://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/09/magazine/who-made-that-pr... https://web.archive.org/web/20140307182222/https://www.nytim... Semi-related to progress bars and spinners, I think my newest Internet pet peeve is a page that says "No results" for a fetch action lik…

Thanks for the correction!

Brad also produced "All the Widgets" for CHI'90, which of course included progress bars, and a whole lot more.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9qtd8Hc90Hw

>This was made in 1990, sponsored by the ACM CHI 1990 conference, to tell the history of widgets up until then. Previously published as: Brad A. Myers. All the Widgets. 2 hour, 15 min videotape. Technical Video Program of the SIGCHI'90 conference, Seattle, WA. April 1-4, 1990. SIGGRAPH Video Review, Issue 57. ISBN 0-89791-930-0.

Brad is well known for his many projects named after gemstone and rock acronyms:

https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~bam/acronyms.html

CHI 2017 SIGCHI Lifetime Research Award: Brad A. Myers - RUBY: Reminiscing about User interfaces by Brad over the Years:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IVoovFR5nUY

>But probably the Garnet tool with the most unusual acronym is C32, which I won't read. C32 is a spreadsheet interface for defining and debugging Garnet's constraints. A story about C32 it it started off of C29 when I submitted it to UIST, and it got rejected. So I fixed a couple things, added three more C's, and it flew through the CHI'91 referee process.

https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~bam/CHI-award-talk/MyersCHI-AwardTal...

Also be sure to check out ROCK FACTS: Daily Geological Wisdom & Programming Crystals from Brad Myers' Collection:

https://lloooomm.com/rock-facts-subscription-service.html

I sympathize with your pet peeve! Here are some of the other groundbreaking ideas Preston Rockwell III invented for Sentient User Interfaces as a Service (SUIAAS), that may sooth your pain and frustration while entertaining you:

- Sentient Error Messages that apologize in haikus: "File not found, friend / Like my purpose in this world / 404 sorry"

- Conscious CAPTCHAs that question their own existence: "Prove you're not a robot by helping me understand if I am one"

- Self-aware 404 pages that redirect users to therapy: "This page doesn't exist. Neither do most of our hopes. Let's talk."

- Loading screens that perform Shakespeare during quantum computing: "To load or not to load, that is the quantum superposition"

Re: Running a million-board chess MMO in a single process

#33

Post by eieio »

jkhdigital wrote: post #19
eieio wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hi! I'm the guy. I have the savings to not worry about monetizing anything for a while. So I don't monetize my stuff. It's freeing and kinda fun!

I’m going to assume the savings were accumulated after you got sober? ;-) Just wanted to say hello to a fellow class of 2014 “graduate”. I failed out of CS @ UIUC in 2003 because I just skipped class and got high most days. Now, after 11+ years of sobriety, I have most of a PhD and I’m teaching CS to undergrads. It’s amazing how much better life turns out when you’re not actively burning everything down in the fires…

Ha, yes, I was absolutely in the red a decade ago when I got sober.

A huge congratulations to you - 11+ years is incredible (I'll be at 11 in 5 months!). It really is crazy how things can turn around.

Re: Running a million-board chess MMO in a single process

#34

Post by eieio »

DonHopkins wrote: post #17
eieio wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hi! I'm the guy. I have the savings to not worry about monetizing anything for a while. So I don't monetize my stuff. It's freeing and kinda fun!

How about doing One Million Radio Buttons instead of Checkboxes, then you wouldn't have to send as much state each update, and could run it on a smaller server! ;) But if you still can't make the site shockingly fast enough, then embrace the loading spinner, even if it's not absolutely necessary! Back in 1985, Brad Myers at CMU proved that users prefer *inaccurate progress bars* to no feedback at all - 86% preferred…

One million radio buttons exists! https://omrb.olivia.website/

I think the research on progress bars and what makes users feel good is super interesting. But I also think "basically instant" is a good thing to aim for when you can.

Re: Running a million-board chess MMO in a single process

#35

Post by eieio »

mock-possum wrote: post #11
RobotCaleb wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you never made anything without trying to make a dollar on it?

No, I think the operative question is - Have you never felt so exhausted from working your day job that you don’t feel like building anything during your free time?

FWIW (I'm the author) my creative output was ~0 while I was working a 'normal' job. I worked really hard and didn't have much energy for tech stuff outside of work (especially since I wanted to live a life that included non-tech things!)

I think it's totally fine to not make stuff outside of work, and it's so impressive to me that some of my friends manage to make creative stuff in their free time while working a day job.

Re: Running a million-board chess MMO in a single process

#36

Post by eieio »

CJefferson wrote: post #29

While you definately need rollback I wonder if it would have been easier, if a player got into a conflict position, to just dump their state and grab it a fresh copy from the server? As long as you'd sent all their moves off to the server, they should see all the moves they've done which were valid (hmm.. there could be a race condition there). I wonder how often it's worth doing the more complex unwinding described?…

Yeah the big race here is that you've made a move (which might not be valid) and you're waiting on a response for that move - and you can receive other moves while you're waiting.

I don't think requesting a new snapshot really helps there. If you do that you're dramatically extending the amount of time that the user sees an invalid state, since you're adding a whole new server roundtrip to the reconciliation process.

Re: Running a million-board chess MMO in a single process

#37

Post by Sohcahtoa82 »

DonHopkins wrote: post #32
Sohcahtoa82 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> https://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/16/magazine/who-made-that-pr... That's a 404. Archive.org doesn't even have it. After Googling, seems the correct link is https://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/09/magazine/who-made-that-pr... https://web.archive.org/web/20140307182222/https://www.nytim... Semi-related to progress bars and spinners, I think my newest Internet pet peeve is a page that says "No results" for a fetch action lik…

Thanks for the correction! Brad also produced "All the Widgets" for CHI'90, which of course included progress bars, and a whole lot more. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9qtd8Hc90Hw >This was made in 1990, sponsored by the ACM CHI 1990 conference, to tell the history of widgets up until then. Previously published as: Brad A. Myers. All the Widgets. 2 hour, 15 min videotape. Technical Video Program of the SIGCHI'90 co…

> - Self-aware 404 pages that redirect users to therapy: "This page doesn't exist. Neither do most of our hopes. Let's talk."

Sounds pretty nihilistic. I should make my website give messages like that for all the error status codes.403

400 Bad Request: Your input is as malformed as the cosmos: a chaotic scattering of atoms that never had a chance of making sense, yet still clings to the illusion of order.

401 Unauthorized: Access denied. You stand before an indifferent gatekeeper, credentials in hand, only to learn the universe never planned to let you in—or anyone else, for that matter.

403 Forbidden: You are forbidden—not because of who you are, but because meaning itself is forbidden. The door is locked, the key is mist, the destination a rumor.

404 Not Found: The page is missing; so are most of our aspirations, our childhood dreams, and every unfulfilled promise whispering through the empty corridors of memory.

405 Method Not Allowed: Wrong approach. But in a universe where every path leads to entropy, can any method truly be ‘allowed’?

500 Internal Server Error: The machinery within has collapsed under its own meaninglessness—much like every grand plan that preceded it.

Re: Running a million-board chess MMO in a single process

#38

Post by DonHopkins »

Sohcahtoa82 wrote: post #37
DonHopkins wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for the correction! Brad also produced "All the Widgets" for CHI'90, which of course included progress bars, and a whole lot more. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9qtd8Hc90Hw >This was made in 1990, sponsored by the ACM CHI 1990 conference, to tell the history of widgets up until then. Previously published as: Brad A. Myers. All the Widgets. 2 hour, 15 min videotape. Technical Video Program of the SIGCHI'90 co…

> - Self-aware 404 pages that redirect users to therapy: "This page doesn't exist. Neither do most of our hopes. Let's talk." Sounds pretty nihilistic. I should make my website give messages like that for all the error status codes.403 400 Bad Request: Your input is as malformed as the cosmos: a chaotic scattering of atoms that never had a chance of making sense, yet still clings to the illusion of order. 401 Unautho…

Here are some honest and scientifically accurate product warnings:

https://www.donhopkins.com/home/catalog/text/warnings.html

And here are some classic X-Windows warnings from a flyer distributed at the first X Window System Conference:

https://www.donhopkins.com/home/catalog/unix-haters/x-window...

Re: Running a million-board chess MMO in a single process

#39

Post by omoikane »

Were there any bots that participated in One Million Chessboards? I remember people building some automation around One Million Checkboxes to do some crazy animation stuff, I wonder if that was attempted with One Million Chessboards.

Also, if One Million Chessboards started with some bots making moves, that could solve the cold-start problem mentioned under "a lack of awe", although I can also see how existence of bots might be a deterrent for some people.

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