I’ve been reading about different ways that people go about designing games, and one of the concepts that really stuck with me was ‘If you build your game with X, you tend to get X.’
What I took away from it was, the way you design something will show up in the final product and your users will know. Be it a game, a book, software, or anything else creative.
This got me to thinking about how I design my games. I feel like I take the “whatever works”, sort of haphazard approach. I’ll be playing a game, watching a movie, or in the car, and I’ll get an idea and run with it. There’s nothing approaching a formal method I use to build games, nothing like rules engines, systems for diagramming decision trees, or anything sophisticated. The result is that I generally get a game with a cool concept, and some pretty good mechanics, but not a lot of cohesion between the pieces and certainly none of what the kids call ‘Polish’.
I’m basically the Amateur Hack archetype of a designer. The kind of guy a game publishing company would probably laugh out the door. I’m cool with that.
But still, sometimes I wonder – maybe if I used a little bit more sophisticated methods for building a game, then when people played the game, they’d say “this game is really tight, the rules are totally balanced and polished.” Yeah, whatev. I’m not trying to build polished games. I’m out to make fun games. You know, the kind of games that make me all psyched up. The kind of game that makes me want to make more games.
Some of my friends were really excited when my games came out. Not just because I made them. In fact, some people were pretty skeptical at first. They were just humoring a raving lunatic at first. But they were genuinely excited the first few times through the game.
And to me was saying that the premise was strong. Subsequent plays found parts of the games to become a mix of bland, predictable, complicated, or inconsistent. Over time the more annoying aspects started to stick out worse than the good things. -- The games weren’t polished. The players wanted the crap that I’d glossed over in the first iteration fixed.
That’s easier said than done.
I’ve found the things I do to create a new game are quite a bit removed from the tasks and methods used to tighten up a game.
At any rate, I need to figure out how to get better at the tightening up part of game development.
If I come up with something, I’ll let you guys know.
Thursday, December 07, 2006
Thursday, November 09, 2006
Atlas / Ajax
I have to say that I'm totally psyched about the near future of ASP.Net development after attending a training last night.
Microsoft's framework for beefing up the user experience in .Net Web applications last night will really bring down the barrier to entry for companies to start exploiting the same tricks that have made Google the darlings of the internet community.
Of course, Google will undoubtedly keep pushing the envelope. But this framework will bring Google's type of web-apps to the mainstream business software development world.
Microsoft's framework for beefing up the user experience in .Net Web applications last night will really bring down the barrier to entry for companies to start exploiting the same tricks that have made Google the darlings of the internet community.
Of course, Google will undoubtedly keep pushing the envelope. But this framework will bring Google's type of web-apps to the mainstream business software development world.
Tuesday, September 19, 2006
Lacking Depth of Substance
There are so many new venues for media out there that didn’t exist a decade ago. You have You Tube, Deviant Art, YTMND, and several good music sites. All of these are great forms of expression for artists. But lately, I’ve gone back to reading books again.
I’ve been getting the feeling lately that our attention spans keep going down. There are some fantastic flash animations, images and video shorts out there – but it has taken up the attention space of telling stories with substance.
Maybe I’m just looking in the wrong places – but despite all the new forms of expression, it seems like we haven’t really seem much meaningful work. The field is dominated by a girth of fleetingly amusing or interesting snippets. Some things gratify my attention for a few minutes, only to be forgotten a few days later. Others allude to an enticing tip of an iceberg - only to find that the creator created nothing that exists beyond it. Just empty shells of promising ideas.
It isn’t that I don’t like many of the things out there: I just wish I saw some inkling of things with substance now and again.
But maybe that’s not the web’s strength. Maybe I’m just hoping to find depth in the wrong places.
I’ve been getting the feeling lately that our attention spans keep going down. There are some fantastic flash animations, images and video shorts out there – but it has taken up the attention space of telling stories with substance.
Maybe I’m just looking in the wrong places – but despite all the new forms of expression, it seems like we haven’t really seem much meaningful work. The field is dominated by a girth of fleetingly amusing or interesting snippets. Some things gratify my attention for a few minutes, only to be forgotten a few days later. Others allude to an enticing tip of an iceberg - only to find that the creator created nothing that exists beyond it. Just empty shells of promising ideas.
It isn’t that I don’t like many of the things out there: I just wish I saw some inkling of things with substance now and again.
But maybe that’s not the web’s strength. Maybe I’m just hoping to find depth in the wrong places.
Wednesday, September 13, 2006
Who Wants a Cool Roof?
Does anyone else out there get annoyed in the summertime when they see a huge flat retail building with a black-top tar roof, and think, “That’s hot.”
I start wondering – how much are the owners paying for air conditioning? A lot of these buildings are quickly constructed with cheap steel and little insulation. The black tar roof is quick and cheap and simple. It’s also really hot in the summer time. Black tar can get up to about 175 – 200 degrees Fahrenheit on a hot summer day.
I understand that when a business starts up, they don’t have very much capital, and that they need a facility quickly and cheaply.
But it turns out there are a lot of low cost additions or alternatives to black top roofs that have a positive return on investment within a couple of years in energy costs. Couple this with the fact that a more efficient roof can allows a building to reach the same level of cooling with a less powerful (cheaper initial cost) air conditioning unit, and you’ve got yourself the makings of a good idea.
Energy Star has already started working on this one. They have certified several types of Cool Roof technologies. They have painted metal roofs, white ceramic, and many other options. They’ve also designed thin paneling that can be installed overtop an existing roof with no structural changes required.
A white roof can be 75 to 100 degrees cooler than the same roof in black.
This also helps out with the Urban Heat Island effect, which contributes to greater energy needs in urban areas due to higher temperatures caused by more dark materials and less vegetation than rural areas have.
There’s also a market for personal homes. However, sloped roofs don’t see as much of a benefit from improved materials as flat roofs. This is mostly because the amount of sunlight hitting a sloped roof is less than that of a flat roof. Further, sloped roofs usually have better insulation and ventilation that make the benefit of a cool attic less crucial. In most houses there’s a crawl space of some kind on the top floor, whereas in a flat roofed building, the top floor is usually within inches of the roof.
Still, if your home is in a warmer sunny climate, there’s still a sizable cost savings to choosing a lighter colored tile than a darker one. But if you’re like me, and live in a cooler cloudy climate, then you’re better off insulating the space between your living space and your attic, or planting deciduous trees on the Southwest and Southeast corners of your building. (That’d be Northwest and Northeast for people in the Southern Hemisphere.)
All that said, next time I’m in the market for a new roof - a.k.a. no time soon – I’ll be looking into the energy efficient options.
Friday, August 18, 2006
A Practical Example of Measuring Your Effect
In my last article, I brushed the surface on my theory of lifetime productivity.
After reading the past article, it seems as though the conclusion is that to do the best, one should evenly excel in all three categories. However, I would contend that the better strategy is to make sure one is always trying to improve all three categories.
So, here’s an example of how growing can beat out a long-term even approach:
Jimmy Plunko is a software developer. He’s bright, but pretty new at the profession, so we’ll call him a 5 in skill. He works at a big company building up a vanilla, but successful business application. He likes his job, but he’s not passionate about it. Work ethic 5, and direction 5.
He gets a call one day from a friend. His friend has an opening at a new company working on a software application for 3-d rendering new Frisbees designs. Plunko is a former UlimateFrisbee champion, and knows he’d be passionate about working on frisbees. But the frisbee industry is tough, and most companies fail. If he went there, he’d be working with some other talented and passionate people, because the risk involved in trying to break into the frisbee industry up is going to attract only the people that really love frisbees too. We’ll call the new opportunity work ethic 8, direction 2. 2 is a stretch. I mean, come on - its frisbees.
So, Plunko, thinks about the potential scores here:
Where he's at now: 5 * 5 * 5 = 125 (skill * work * direction)
At the Frisbees: 5 * 8 * 2 = 80
According to this, Plunko should stay where he’s at.
But, if Plunko works at the Frisbee company for a while, he’s going to learn some new tricks that he’d never learn at his big company, because there are just some problems you only have to solve when you’re building frisbee software. But knowing how to solve them will make him a little more skilled at solving all other problems. So, after a year because of the new problems he’ll have to solve, his skill will turn into a 7.
7 * 8 * 2 = 112
Plunko’s skill level isn’t going to rise as fast building up the business application. After a year, his skill will rise to 6, but his work ethic will drop to 4, because he finds the work boring and wishes he was working on frisbees instead.
6 * 4 * 5 = 120
If the frisbee company succeeds, the usefulness of his work goes from very low, to something good. If they become the #1 force in frisbee research, suddenly the direction of the company becomes 5. (Hey, we’re still talking frisbees here, not exactly life changing stuff).
Now his score becomes:
7 * 8 * 5 = 280
That’s way better than the 120 he’d be at working at the job he has now on the business application.
But of course, most Frisbee companies don’t make it. So we’ll say the company’s got a 20% chance of making it.
Even still, if the company goes belly up, he’ll be working now at a skill level of 7. And because he has a skill level of 7 now, maybe he works at another vanilla company in a position where he’s making more engaging decisions, and his work ethic is a 6.
So, two years later, if the Frisbee company fails, and he goes back to working on some other business application, he’s still much stronger than before at this score:
7*6*5 = 210
Just to sprinkle a little bit of expected value on this:
The 280 score is probably only 20% likely.
The 210 score is probably 80% likely.
So, the theoretical expected score is 280 * .2 + 210 * .8 or:
224.
So, the options are this:
Where he's at:
Score 125 for the next year, and 120 for the next 2 years:
With the frisbees:
Score 80 for 1 year, 112 for a year, and 224 the 3rd year.
That’s:
365 for staying put over the next 3 years.
416 for going after the Frisbee opportunity.
More importantly, no matter what, he’ll be in a better position to get more points down the line if he switches companies now, because his Skill level and Work ethic will be better after 3 years. And he won't second guess himself for never following his passion.
What this example illustrates is that putting yourself in a position to improve yourself can be a much better decision in the long run. I think the point was:
Concentrate more on building your long term prospects rather than creating something average now.
And:
If your potential is high, your output will naturally be high too.
Or maybe just:
Its good to work on what you're passionate about.
After reading the past article, it seems as though the conclusion is that to do the best, one should evenly excel in all three categories. However, I would contend that the better strategy is to make sure one is always trying to improve all three categories.
So, here’s an example of how growing can beat out a long-term even approach:
Jimmy Plunko is a software developer. He’s bright, but pretty new at the profession, so we’ll call him a 5 in skill. He works at a big company building up a vanilla, but successful business application. He likes his job, but he’s not passionate about it. Work ethic 5, and direction 5.
He gets a call one day from a friend. His friend has an opening at a new company working on a software application for 3-d rendering new Frisbees designs. Plunko is a former UlimateFrisbee champion, and knows he’d be passionate about working on frisbees. But the frisbee industry is tough, and most companies fail. If he went there, he’d be working with some other talented and passionate people, because the risk involved in trying to break into the frisbee industry up is going to attract only the people that really love frisbees too. We’ll call the new opportunity work ethic 8, direction 2. 2 is a stretch. I mean, come on - its frisbees.
So, Plunko, thinks about the potential scores here:
Where he's at now: 5 * 5 * 5 = 125 (skill * work * direction)
At the Frisbees: 5 * 8 * 2 = 80
According to this, Plunko should stay where he’s at.
But, if Plunko works at the Frisbee company for a while, he’s going to learn some new tricks that he’d never learn at his big company, because there are just some problems you only have to solve when you’re building frisbee software. But knowing how to solve them will make him a little more skilled at solving all other problems. So, after a year because of the new problems he’ll have to solve, his skill will turn into a 7.
7 * 8 * 2 = 112
Plunko’s skill level isn’t going to rise as fast building up the business application. After a year, his skill will rise to 6, but his work ethic will drop to 4, because he finds the work boring and wishes he was working on frisbees instead.
6 * 4 * 5 = 120
If the frisbee company succeeds, the usefulness of his work goes from very low, to something good. If they become the #1 force in frisbee research, suddenly the direction of the company becomes 5. (Hey, we’re still talking frisbees here, not exactly life changing stuff).
Now his score becomes:
7 * 8 * 5 = 280
That’s way better than the 120 he’d be at working at the job he has now on the business application.
But of course, most Frisbee companies don’t make it. So we’ll say the company’s got a 20% chance of making it.
Even still, if the company goes belly up, he’ll be working now at a skill level of 7. And because he has a skill level of 7 now, maybe he works at another vanilla company in a position where he’s making more engaging decisions, and his work ethic is a 6.
So, two years later, if the Frisbee company fails, and he goes back to working on some other business application, he’s still much stronger than before at this score:
7*6*5 = 210
Just to sprinkle a little bit of expected value on this:
The 280 score is probably only 20% likely.
The 210 score is probably 80% likely.
So, the theoretical expected score is 280 * .2 + 210 * .8 or:
224.
So, the options are this:
Where he's at:
Score 125 for the next year, and 120 for the next 2 years:
With the frisbees:
Score 80 for 1 year, 112 for a year, and 224 the 3rd year.
That’s:
365 for staying put over the next 3 years.
416 for going after the Frisbee opportunity.
More importantly, no matter what, he’ll be in a better position to get more points down the line if he switches companies now, because his Skill level and Work ethic will be better after 3 years. And he won't second guess himself for never following his passion.
What this example illustrates is that putting yourself in a position to improve yourself can be a much better decision in the long run. I think the point was:
Concentrate more on building your long term prospects rather than creating something average now.
And:
If your potential is high, your output will naturally be high too.
Or maybe just:
Its good to work on what you're passionate about.
Thursday, August 03, 2006
A Way To Measure Your Effect On Society
Hypothesis: The most effective way for a person or group to effect positive change is to maximize skill, effort, and direction.
Skill : a combination of knowledge and natural ability. It can be increased through learning.
Effort : time spent working. It is bounded by the time of the day and the length of a lifetime.
Direction: how efficient your actions are in attaining your goal. In a large sense, direction is based on WHAT you decide to work on. In a small sense, direction is HOW you decide to work on it.
The best way to get something accomplished is to maximize Skill and Effort.
To make sure that what you are accomplishing is exacting positive change, you need direction.
Getting the most out of Skill * Work * Direction is a quick and effective means of measuring your effect. (I'm hypothesizing)
Here's a couple of examples:
A mediocre MRI technician, working part time at hospital.
5 skill * 5 work * 8 direction = 200 overall effect
A highly skilled programmer, working 70 hours a week on a start-up company that fails before it ever ships a product.
10 skill * 10 work * 0 direction = 0 overall effect.
A mastermind crime boss who steals from and kills the innocent:
10 skill * 10 work * (-10) direction = -1000 overall effect.
Of course, if the guy at the start-up succeeded and it became the next Google (direction 8, perhaps?), he'd have a score of 800, and would be blowing away the MRI guy in net effect.
What's your score?
Skill : a combination of knowledge and natural ability. It can be increased through learning.
Effort : time spent working. It is bounded by the time of the day and the length of a lifetime.
Direction: how efficient your actions are in attaining your goal. In a large sense, direction is based on WHAT you decide to work on. In a small sense, direction is HOW you decide to work on it.
The best way to get something accomplished is to maximize Skill and Effort.
To make sure that what you are accomplishing is exacting positive change, you need direction.
Getting the most out of Skill * Work * Direction is a quick and effective means of measuring your effect. (I'm hypothesizing)
Here's a couple of examples:
A mediocre MRI technician, working part time at hospital.
5 skill * 5 work * 8 direction = 200 overall effect
A highly skilled programmer, working 70 hours a week on a start-up company that fails before it ever ships a product.
10 skill * 10 work * 0 direction = 0 overall effect.
A mastermind crime boss who steals from and kills the innocent:
10 skill * 10 work * (-10) direction = -1000 overall effect.
Of course, if the guy at the start-up succeeded and it became the next Google (direction 8, perhaps?), he'd have a score of 800, and would be blowing away the MRI guy in net effect.
What's your score?
Monday, June 12, 2006
Peru - First Impressions
A thick fog enveloped us on May 20th as our plane touched down in Lima, only a few hundred yards from the Pacific Ocean. For a Peruvian living in Lima, it was a foggy morning like any other, but for a couple of foreigners the warm desert fog seemed glaringly out of place. But Lima was just out of reach as we longingly gazed out towards the muted skyline from the airport, both of us wishing to be anywhere else in Peru but at the airport at six in the morning.Three hours, an uncomfortable nap, and one insanely sweet, Bubble-Yum flavored Inka Cola Light later, our plane soared into the air to our final destination: Arequipa. The White City.
Sunday, April 16, 2006
Fixing Pittsburgh
So I've been catching up on Pittsblog, and I decided to throw in my own two cents on a perennial subject of hand-wringing, fist-clenching tribulation (at least for the locals): how do we fix Pittsburgh?
First of all, any discussion of the ills of our fair city inherently implies that there's something wrong with it. At least, something wrong enough to outweigh all the good it has. Maybe it's our "smoky steel town" history, our inability to retain young people, the weather, the crazy-ass road system, etc., etc. Let me throw in another suggestion: maybe it's our collective inability to focus on the positives! So what can we do to accentuate the things we do have?
When I think about Downtown, what comes to mind? The stadiums. Point State Park. The total lack of activity after 5pm (Cultural Dist. excepted). The views from Mt. Washington. Three rivers.
My wife and I visited Portland, OR last Memorial Day weekend. I thought it was absolutely beautiful. I think there are a lot of parallels to Pittsburgh there - mid-size city, riverside parks. But one thing that sticks out for me is - we spent practically two full days within the "downtown" city limits, and never ran out of things to do.
Going back to my list of Pittsburgh activities - what is there for a family to do that's a regular downtown draw? Notice I said regular - so the Regatta and the Arts Festival are out. (Portland, btw, has the Rose Festival... stop here if you want to end it at "Steel City" vs "City of Roses" :)
Point State, IMHO, is terribly underused. Yes it's an island of tranquility in the midst of the city, and there's the history of Fort Pitt to boot. But honestly, the whole time I worked downtown I can't say I ever really stopped down to the Point specifically for the peacefulness. It's much more about the green space, to me, and there are a number of neat little spots downtown for a nice lunch in a natural setting. (Trust me - take the Enjoy book and try to hit every downtown restaurant in it. We must have found a dozen little parklets here and there.)
What I would like to see is an area along the river for amusements - something to get everyone out of the house and down to the city on warm spring evenings. Something like the Navy Pier in Chicago or the Inner Harbor area of Baltimore. I'd like a combination of restaurants and outdoor entertainment (maybe under a tent or other open shelter, for when it is the weather holding people back). Bessemer Court is, in typical Pgh fashion, a worthy but insufficient effort in the (general) right direction. Whee - water choreographed to Rick Springsteen!
Ok, so people come and eat, see a live band or ride a ferris wheel - then what? How about shopping? Portland has the Saturday Market, which isn't actually strictly limited to Saturdays. It's similar to the Arts Festival, but it runs practically year round. They don't isolate the food booths from the crafts, either - so there's actually a half decent chance that the Fried Oreo people will *gasp* buy something. This is what I would like to see down at the Point - but please, let's be more mindful of the plastic chairs and the lawn-trampling masses so it's not an eyesore.
Then I would take it one step further. Run a Molly's Trolley, an amphibious WWII relic, or just a plain old PAT bus down Penn/Liberty Ave smack into the Strip, gratis for anyone with a booth voucher. Have them point out all the cool places along the way - the O'Reilly, SPACE, the Wood Street Galleries, the CLP. Mention all those awesome restaurants, hawk that Enjoy book. *cough* local business *cough* While you're at it, talk up the architecture and the walking tours.
How about bike, wagon, and rollerblade rentals? How about a farmer's market - and not up at the City-County Building? How about making the City a weekend destination? Once we've got that, we can start talking about big name retailers. We can think about redesigning downtown living space. We can start making transit connections to Oakland, the North Shore, the East Hills - because the people will be wanting to come here not go there. And they will come not just to see the rivers and the views, but to enjoy themselves while they're here.
The only way any of this would succeed would have to come from the marketing. Not marketing the region, or its identity, or whatever. We have a regional identity crisis, ok? And guess what - the neurosis is coming from us. We've convinced ourselves of our own second-rate, also-ran status. It's us, the people from the suburbs and the surrounding areas, who need to be convinced that downtown is somewhere worth being. Once we've got that, everyone else will follow.
First of all, any discussion of the ills of our fair city inherently implies that there's something wrong with it. At least, something wrong enough to outweigh all the good it has. Maybe it's our "smoky steel town" history, our inability to retain young people, the weather, the crazy-ass road system, etc., etc. Let me throw in another suggestion: maybe it's our collective inability to focus on the positives! So what can we do to accentuate the things we do have?
When I think about Downtown, what comes to mind? The stadiums. Point State Park. The total lack of activity after 5pm (Cultural Dist. excepted). The views from Mt. Washington. Three rivers.
My wife and I visited Portland, OR last Memorial Day weekend. I thought it was absolutely beautiful. I think there are a lot of parallels to Pittsburgh there - mid-size city, riverside parks. But one thing that sticks out for me is - we spent practically two full days within the "downtown" city limits, and never ran out of things to do.
Going back to my list of Pittsburgh activities - what is there for a family to do that's a regular downtown draw? Notice I said regular - so the Regatta and the Arts Festival are out. (Portland, btw, has the Rose Festival... stop here if you want to end it at "Steel City" vs "City of Roses" :)
Point State, IMHO, is terribly underused. Yes it's an island of tranquility in the midst of the city, and there's the history of Fort Pitt to boot. But honestly, the whole time I worked downtown I can't say I ever really stopped down to the Point specifically for the peacefulness. It's much more about the green space, to me, and there are a number of neat little spots downtown for a nice lunch in a natural setting. (Trust me - take the Enjoy book and try to hit every downtown restaurant in it. We must have found a dozen little parklets here and there.)
What I would like to see is an area along the river for amusements - something to get everyone out of the house and down to the city on warm spring evenings. Something like the Navy Pier in Chicago or the Inner Harbor area of Baltimore. I'd like a combination of restaurants and outdoor entertainment (maybe under a tent or other open shelter, for when it is the weather holding people back). Bessemer Court is, in typical Pgh fashion, a worthy but insufficient effort in the (general) right direction. Whee - water choreographed to Rick Springsteen!
Ok, so people come and eat, see a live band or ride a ferris wheel - then what? How about shopping? Portland has the Saturday Market, which isn't actually strictly limited to Saturdays. It's similar to the Arts Festival, but it runs practically year round. They don't isolate the food booths from the crafts, either - so there's actually a half decent chance that the Fried Oreo people will *gasp* buy something. This is what I would like to see down at the Point - but please, let's be more mindful of the plastic chairs and the lawn-trampling masses so it's not an eyesore.
Then I would take it one step further. Run a Molly's Trolley, an amphibious WWII relic, or just a plain old PAT bus down Penn/Liberty Ave smack into the Strip, gratis for anyone with a booth voucher. Have them point out all the cool places along the way - the O'Reilly, SPACE, the Wood Street Galleries, the CLP. Mention all those awesome restaurants, hawk that Enjoy book. *cough* local business *cough* While you're at it, talk up the architecture and the walking tours.
How about bike, wagon, and rollerblade rentals? How about a farmer's market - and not up at the City-County Building? How about making the City a weekend destination? Once we've got that, we can start talking about big name retailers. We can think about redesigning downtown living space. We can start making transit connections to Oakland, the North Shore, the East Hills - because the people will be wanting to come here not go there. And they will come not just to see the rivers and the views, but to enjoy themselves while they're here.
The only way any of this would succeed would have to come from the marketing. Not marketing the region, or its identity, or whatever. We have a regional identity crisis, ok? And guess what - the neurosis is coming from us. We've convinced ourselves of our own second-rate, also-ran status. It's us, the people from the suburbs and the surrounding areas, who need to be convinced that downtown is somewhere worth being. Once we've got that, everyone else will follow.
Thursday, April 06, 2006
Are All New Ideas Evolutionary?
My creativity seems to be generally cyclic. I’ll be highly creative for a time, and then have a lull for a while. Usually during this lull, at some point I start consuming new media, be it TV shows, movies, games, books, conversations with people, whatever. Once I start consuming this new media I get inspired by a whole set of new ideas that spark the next highly creative period.
So I got to thinking the other day that what we’re capable of creating is limited by the influences around us. And further, what we can accomplish in our lives is limited by the sum of human knowledge during our lifetime. Archimedes was a super genius Greek mathematician, but he had no chance of figuring out the General Theory of Relativity (E=mc2) that Einstein came up with, simply because physics was in its infancy at that time. Meanwhile I would conjecture that in the 1900's some other physicist would definitely have derived the General Theory of Relativity within 10 years of Einstein had he say – been more interested in going to the bar every night. I make this claim based on the fact that Einstein’s figured out his famous theory while working as a patent clerk. He was a genius – but for him to come up with the theory, the field of physics must have already been pretty close to that breakthrough when he was born.
As another example - The Beatles weren’t ready to write Norwegian Wood in the early 1960’s, because even though they were one of the most talented bands ever, their knowledge of the music scene just wasn’t there in 1960. They had to do a lot of drugs and go to India first.
A lot of times, I think artists and other people get too paranoid about being heavily influenced by outside ideas that they fear anything they create will just be an evolution of different current ideas. But really, that’s people can do. Ideas that seem revolutionary, like the Einstein example, are more about a really talented person living at a time where humanity’s current knowledge sits on the cusp of a development that, though it may not be a huge conceptual jump, it turns out to have huge implications.
That is, Aristotle didn’t live in ancient Newfoundland, he lived in ancient Greece, a place brimming full of philosophers. He was a product of the people and writings that influenced him more than he was an independently revolutionary thinker. Aristotle just did philosophy better than his contemporaries in subtle new ways that suddenly made sense to everyone, and so we remember him.
Imagine what you would be capable of if you grew up on a deserted island with plenty of food, but no interaction with society for your whole life. If you were lucky, you’d come up with something resembling a language. Maybe. That’s about the best you could hope for.
Based on that, it seems that allowing yourself to be selectively influenced by good and new ideas, and keeping up with current developments is more than an acceptable part of creative development – it is an essential ingredient.
I guess what that all means is that original creativity is an addition to the known sum of human knowledge. And that no ideas exist in a vacuum. Or rather that ideas that do exist in a vacuum are starting from scratch, and are therefore extraordinarily unlikely to create something new and significant.
So I got to thinking the other day that what we’re capable of creating is limited by the influences around us. And further, what we can accomplish in our lives is limited by the sum of human knowledge during our lifetime. Archimedes was a super genius Greek mathematician, but he had no chance of figuring out the General Theory of Relativity (E=mc2) that Einstein came up with, simply because physics was in its infancy at that time. Meanwhile I would conjecture that in the 1900's some other physicist would definitely have derived the General Theory of Relativity within 10 years of Einstein had he say – been more interested in going to the bar every night. I make this claim based on the fact that Einstein’s figured out his famous theory while working as a patent clerk. He was a genius – but for him to come up with the theory, the field of physics must have already been pretty close to that breakthrough when he was born.
As another example - The Beatles weren’t ready to write Norwegian Wood in the early 1960’s, because even though they were one of the most talented bands ever, their knowledge of the music scene just wasn’t there in 1960. They had to do a lot of drugs and go to India first.
A lot of times, I think artists and other people get too paranoid about being heavily influenced by outside ideas that they fear anything they create will just be an evolution of different current ideas. But really, that’s people can do. Ideas that seem revolutionary, like the Einstein example, are more about a really talented person living at a time where humanity’s current knowledge sits on the cusp of a development that, though it may not be a huge conceptual jump, it turns out to have huge implications.
That is, Aristotle didn’t live in ancient Newfoundland, he lived in ancient Greece, a place brimming full of philosophers. He was a product of the people and writings that influenced him more than he was an independently revolutionary thinker. Aristotle just did philosophy better than his contemporaries in subtle new ways that suddenly made sense to everyone, and so we remember him.
Imagine what you would be capable of if you grew up on a deserted island with plenty of food, but no interaction with society for your whole life. If you were lucky, you’d come up with something resembling a language. Maybe. That’s about the best you could hope for.
Based on that, it seems that allowing yourself to be selectively influenced by good and new ideas, and keeping up with current developments is more than an acceptable part of creative development – it is an essential ingredient.
I guess what that all means is that original creativity is an addition to the known sum of human knowledge. And that no ideas exist in a vacuum. Or rather that ideas that do exist in a vacuum are starting from scratch, and are therefore extraordinarily unlikely to create something new and significant.
Tuesday, March 21, 2006
Where's My Beefy New Desktop, Dude?
Last August I talked about hardware trends in terms of what is changing in the landscape of consumer electronics. But I think an update is in order here, as several things have changed, and there were a few things that I didn’t really talk about in the first article.
I was recently in the market for some new hardware because my current computer had run out of hard drive space and I’d run across a game that my video card wasn’t good enough for. So I got to thinking about what has and hasn’t changed over the 10 years since I’ve been a computer consumer.
I tend to be willing to spend between 1,000 and 1,500 for a new system, so if we take price as a constant, all other things equal, if I were to buy a computer in 2006, it should be about the same ratio of goodness from a computer in 2001 as that computer would be to one from 1996. That is, ever 5 years, the various components should increase at the same multipliers. (You might have heard of Moore’s Law).
In 1996, I was running a 166 MHz Pentium I, on 96 MB of memory and 1.6 GB hard drive. Sadly, I was also using this machine in 2002. But in 2002 I bought a new machine. 1.8 GHz P IV, 512 MB memory, and 40 GB of hard drive space. Furthermore, the memory that I did buy with this computer was RDRAM, which is very fast. If I were to buy a comparably priced computer in 2006, it would be about 2.8 GHz P IV, 1024 MB memory, and 160 GB of hard drive space. Plus, the 1024 MB memory is SLOWER than the 512 I bought in 2002.
Whew – that’s a lot of numbers. The point is this, from 1996 to 2002, the hard drive got 25 times bigger, the processor was 10 times faster and the memory was 5 times bigger. From 2002 to 2006, the hard drive got 4 times bigger, the processor got 1.5 times faster, and the memory was 2 times bigger. If Moore’s law were holding up, we’d expect to see much more even numbers there. (The extra year from 1996 to 2002 doesn’t explain the jump).
What we’re looking at from 1996 to 2002 was a new generation of machines. In 2006, consumers are still buying the same family of Pentium processors, and the same type of memory. It’s the same generation of hardware. Just a gradual evolution.
So what explains this difference?
The main thing is all of the research by hardware companies in notebook computers. Notebooks in 1996 were total crap. In 2002, they were decent, but not great. In 2006, most people I know who own a computer have a notebook, and overall notebook sales have surpassed desktop sales. They spent gobs of money racing to get market share, expending time and money on minituraization and power consuption in current technology. Plus the explosion of Wi-Fi. (I'm not saying this is a bad thing).
The other thing is the onset of flat-panel monitors. Almost all new desktops are packaged with flat-panel monitors, which are still on the expensive side. So, since my numbers kept price constant, the flat-panel ate away at other hardware I could have bought. A new desktop with a CRT would have the following specs in my price range. (Who wants a CRT these days though? I scowl at mine daily. There are days I go to work just so I can stare at my dual-19 inch flat panels in silent reverence. Its so choice.) Ah-em. Anyway - the CRT 2006 era system came out like this - 3.0 GHz, 2 GB memory, and 250 MB hard drive. That ups the ratios slightly, but only the memory ratio is comparable to 1996 levels at that point. And keep in mind, that memory is still slower than the memory from 2002.
As a side note – the fast memory from 2002 turned out to be dead end technology for various reasons. It basically turned out that doubling your RAM speed wasn’t as good as making your RAM twice as big. Especially when the big RAM cost less. Cause people bought big cheap memory over small fast (expensive) memory.
There are a few hidden benefits to current technology – current processors are now Dual-Core or hyper-threaded. That basically means that you can run more programs at once without your computer slowing down. Intel has invested a lot of money betting that you care more about running a lot of things rather than one thing quickly. It’s a smart bet, considering how most people use their computers.
There was also a lot of money spent on 64 bit processors. AMD has come out with some successful 64 bit processors, and has really surpassed Intel in that area. Most of the money Intel spent on the 64 bit processors seems to have been wasted. So that’s another reason why we may have slowed down.
Clock speeds haven’t increased but your computer hardware’s capability of multitasking has. Unfortunately, software and software developers haven’t caught up to Dual-Core technology yet, so buying a dual-core probably won’t be as big of an advantage as it seems for another few years until your favorite operating systems and compliers are re-written to take advantage of the new hardware. Tough luck.
The elephant in the room though is that consumers aren’t buying computers as often as they used to. Is it the chicken or the egg? Would I perceive that I needed a new computer if new hardware was on the scale of 10 times better, rather than 2 times better than what I currently have? Or is it more that I am satisfied with a computer that runs every program I can possibly pay attention to at once – without any problems?
Computers seem to be approaching the curve of diminishing returns when it comes to price in compared to what new stuff you can do with it. That’s why mobility is all the rage. People are realizing there’s a lot more value in a computer they can use where and when they want than a stationary power-desktop that doesn’t do anything stunningly better. The exception are power-gamers, but at this point they’re a small minority in the computer market.
The hardware industry looks to me as if it is going to become more of a commodity, if it already isn’t, where profits are very marginal. The good thing is that everyone will be able to afford multiple computers in the near future. The bad thing is, new and exciting developments in consumer electronics are going to keep slowing down, and will never get as fast again as they were in the 1990’s. (Unless we meet an alien race or figure out fusion power or something else totally whack like that).
*sigh* I said all that and I didn’t even get to tell all you guys about the cool new transparent computer technology. I guess that’ll have to wait for another time.
I was recently in the market for some new hardware because my current computer had run out of hard drive space and I’d run across a game that my video card wasn’t good enough for. So I got to thinking about what has and hasn’t changed over the 10 years since I’ve been a computer consumer.
I tend to be willing to spend between 1,000 and 1,500 for a new system, so if we take price as a constant, all other things equal, if I were to buy a computer in 2006, it should be about the same ratio of goodness from a computer in 2001 as that computer would be to one from 1996. That is, ever 5 years, the various components should increase at the same multipliers. (You might have heard of Moore’s Law).
In 1996, I was running a 166 MHz Pentium I, on 96 MB of memory and 1.6 GB hard drive. Sadly, I was also using this machine in 2002. But in 2002 I bought a new machine. 1.8 GHz P IV, 512 MB memory, and 40 GB of hard drive space. Furthermore, the memory that I did buy with this computer was RDRAM, which is very fast. If I were to buy a comparably priced computer in 2006, it would be about 2.8 GHz P IV, 1024 MB memory, and 160 GB of hard drive space. Plus, the 1024 MB memory is SLOWER than the 512 I bought in 2002.
Whew – that’s a lot of numbers. The point is this, from 1996 to 2002, the hard drive got 25 times bigger, the processor was 10 times faster and the memory was 5 times bigger. From 2002 to 2006, the hard drive got 4 times bigger, the processor got 1.5 times faster, and the memory was 2 times bigger. If Moore’s law were holding up, we’d expect to see much more even numbers there. (The extra year from 1996 to 2002 doesn’t explain the jump).
What we’re looking at from 1996 to 2002 was a new generation of machines. In 2006, consumers are still buying the same family of Pentium processors, and the same type of memory. It’s the same generation of hardware. Just a gradual evolution.
So what explains this difference?
The main thing is all of the research by hardware companies in notebook computers. Notebooks in 1996 were total crap. In 2002, they were decent, but not great. In 2006, most people I know who own a computer have a notebook, and overall notebook sales have surpassed desktop sales. They spent gobs of money racing to get market share, expending time and money on minituraization and power consuption in current technology. Plus the explosion of Wi-Fi. (I'm not saying this is a bad thing).
The other thing is the onset of flat-panel monitors. Almost all new desktops are packaged with flat-panel monitors, which are still on the expensive side. So, since my numbers kept price constant, the flat-panel ate away at other hardware I could have bought. A new desktop with a CRT would have the following specs in my price range. (Who wants a CRT these days though? I scowl at mine daily. There are days I go to work just so I can stare at my dual-19 inch flat panels in silent reverence. Its so choice.) Ah-em. Anyway - the CRT 2006 era system came out like this - 3.0 GHz, 2 GB memory, and 250 MB hard drive. That ups the ratios slightly, but only the memory ratio is comparable to 1996 levels at that point. And keep in mind, that memory is still slower than the memory from 2002.
As a side note – the fast memory from 2002 turned out to be dead end technology for various reasons. It basically turned out that doubling your RAM speed wasn’t as good as making your RAM twice as big. Especially when the big RAM cost less. Cause people bought big cheap memory over small fast (expensive) memory.
There are a few hidden benefits to current technology – current processors are now Dual-Core or hyper-threaded. That basically means that you can run more programs at once without your computer slowing down. Intel has invested a lot of money betting that you care more about running a lot of things rather than one thing quickly. It’s a smart bet, considering how most people use their computers.
There was also a lot of money spent on 64 bit processors. AMD has come out with some successful 64 bit processors, and has really surpassed Intel in that area. Most of the money Intel spent on the 64 bit processors seems to have been wasted. So that’s another reason why we may have slowed down.
Clock speeds haven’t increased but your computer hardware’s capability of multitasking has. Unfortunately, software and software developers haven’t caught up to Dual-Core technology yet, so buying a dual-core probably won’t be as big of an advantage as it seems for another few years until your favorite operating systems and compliers are re-written to take advantage of the new hardware. Tough luck.
The elephant in the room though is that consumers aren’t buying computers as often as they used to. Is it the chicken or the egg? Would I perceive that I needed a new computer if new hardware was on the scale of 10 times better, rather than 2 times better than what I currently have? Or is it more that I am satisfied with a computer that runs every program I can possibly pay attention to at once – without any problems?
Computers seem to be approaching the curve of diminishing returns when it comes to price in compared to what new stuff you can do with it. That’s why mobility is all the rage. People are realizing there’s a lot more value in a computer they can use where and when they want than a stationary power-desktop that doesn’t do anything stunningly better. The exception are power-gamers, but at this point they’re a small minority in the computer market.
The hardware industry looks to me as if it is going to become more of a commodity, if it already isn’t, where profits are very marginal. The good thing is that everyone will be able to afford multiple computers in the near future. The bad thing is, new and exciting developments in consumer electronics are going to keep slowing down, and will never get as fast again as they were in the 1990’s. (Unless we meet an alien race or figure out fusion power or something else totally whack like that).
*sigh* I said all that and I didn’t even get to tell all you guys about the cool new transparent computer technology. I guess that’ll have to wait for another time.
Saturday, January 28, 2006
Group Inspired Creativity
Creativity often seems to be as much a product of a vibrant communities as the contribution of any particularly great individuals. There are many examples - the technology explosion from Silicon Valley, Florence during the Renaissance, European political theory in the 1700’s, Seattle’s music scene in the 1980’s and 1990’s, Pittsburgh’s robotics because of Carnegie Mellon. The list goes on and on. Once a community reaches critical mass, not only do its members spark ideas in each other, but the community itself naturally attracts talent from a wider and wider range as it gains a reputation for success.
If there’s one thing I’ve learned over the past year, its that you don’t need to be great to start doing great things. You just need to do something. If you’re surrounded by a group of people who bring their own ideas and thoughts and inspiration, refining your ideas becomes a very rewarding part of the process in its own right. Let greatness happen later. I know too many people who seem to be stymied by perfection.
I was thinking of this based on a conversation I had with a friend the other day over dinner. My friends and I have been playing games our whole lives. I’ve started making my own. It’s a great group of people, because we have a solid mix of men and women. We also have a wide range of backgrounds from software to art, business, parenting and social work. All of us enjoy the playing games though, so it really helps get a broad perspective for what people really like about games.
My creation has also helped inspire some of the other people to get back into their development. We all sort of gave it a go a couple of years ago, made a lot of mistakes and got quagmire in details. I would love to see one of my other friends show off a game they’ve made sometime soon. Its wonderful to be in a creative community that’s capable of generating good ideas. I’m excited for the next step where I show these games off to strangers.
- Jake
If there’s one thing I’ve learned over the past year, its that you don’t need to be great to start doing great things. You just need to do something. If you’re surrounded by a group of people who bring their own ideas and thoughts and inspiration, refining your ideas becomes a very rewarding part of the process in its own right. Let greatness happen later. I know too many people who seem to be stymied by perfection.
I was thinking of this based on a conversation I had with a friend the other day over dinner. My friends and I have been playing games our whole lives. I’ve started making my own. It’s a great group of people, because we have a solid mix of men and women. We also have a wide range of backgrounds from software to art, business, parenting and social work. All of us enjoy the playing games though, so it really helps get a broad perspective for what people really like about games.
My creation has also helped inspire some of the other people to get back into their development. We all sort of gave it a go a couple of years ago, made a lot of mistakes and got quagmire in details. I would love to see one of my other friends show off a game they’ve made sometime soon. Its wonderful to be in a creative community that’s capable of generating good ideas. I’m excited for the next step where I show these games off to strangers.
- Jake
Tuesday, January 24, 2006
From the random link dept.
I found this on Penny Arcade - it's Brad Wardell's notes as he tests the AI for Galactic Civilizations II. Really good stuff.
Monday, January 09, 2006
SuperCharged Web Surfing
I remember ten years ago going to AltaVista and searching for stuff. I would scrounge through a shoddily list of results until I eventually found a decent site. Then about four years ago Google came along, and suddenly the results of what I searched were exactly what I was looking for. But there was still a problem -- I had to know what to look for. In other words, I had to know what I wanted to find before I found it. I was constantly in a rut of checking the same five or six sites that rarely had an update I wanted to read.
That’s all changed over the last year or so. With sites like delicious, MetaFilter, a real explosion of quality blogs, such as Science Blog, and the spread of RSS feeds, I am now satisfied. I don’t have to know where to look anymore. Other people find good things and tell other people about it. Word of mouth spreads like wildfire. The group knows the gist of what I want to read about before I do. All I have to do is screen the top 50 or so headlines for what really catches my attention and I'm set.
Some of my friends seem to be constantly surprised with all the stuff that I find on the internet. I tell them, “I don’t actually find anything, I just know how to look.” It’s like the difference between panning for gold in a stream and having someone bring gold bars to your house. It takes pretty much no effort. I just set up a dozen RSS feeds off of aggregator sites, and the rest is reading headlines and following stories that are able to immediately catch my attention. There are so many interesting things that I never, ever have time to read them all.
You might think that I am missing things, by just going along with what everyone else out there is reading. But I don’t think that’s the case. I never found this much good information before I used aggregators. The trick now is to know when to stop.
That’s all changed over the last year or so. With sites like delicious, MetaFilter, a real explosion of quality blogs, such as Science Blog, and the spread of RSS feeds, I am now satisfied. I don’t have to know where to look anymore. Other people find good things and tell other people about it. Word of mouth spreads like wildfire. The group knows the gist of what I want to read about before I do. All I have to do is screen the top 50 or so headlines for what really catches my attention and I'm set.
Some of my friends seem to be constantly surprised with all the stuff that I find on the internet. I tell them, “I don’t actually find anything, I just know how to look.” It’s like the difference between panning for gold in a stream and having someone bring gold bars to your house. It takes pretty much no effort. I just set up a dozen RSS feeds off of aggregator sites, and the rest is reading headlines and following stories that are able to immediately catch my attention. There are so many interesting things that I never, ever have time to read them all.
You might think that I am missing things, by just going along with what everyone else out there is reading. But I don’t think that’s the case. I never found this much good information before I used aggregators. The trick now is to know when to stop.
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