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The most awful format ever; A chain of tweets interspersed with memes. This should be a blog post, but I guess that's too 1999 for the author. So why do foxes
by hypertele-Xii 5y ago
The most awful format ever; A chain of tweets interspersed with memes. This should be a blog post, but I guess that's too 1999 for the author.
So why do foxes lead you to treasure? Answer: They pathfind away from player not by euclidian "distance", but simply by number of navmesh polygons. The game world has uneven navmesh density, with points of interest (locations often housing treasure) having a higher number of polygons, so the foxes tend to pathfind their escape path into them.
- crackercrews 5y agoTwitter doesn't let me view the thread because I'm not logged in. Is this A/B testing a new "feature" or is this their new rule?
- hn_go_brrrrr 5y agoHappened to me too. Switch to desktop mode.
- whoooooo123 5y agoYes, I've noticed Twitter has started doing this in the last few days. I'd like to thank the bean counters at Twitter, because I'm not going to sign in, so this new feature means I'm going to spend a lot less time on Twitter.
- foresto 5y agoAny nitter instance can help with such things. Here's one: https://nitter.nixnet.services/joelburgess/status/1428008043556622336 https://nitter.nixnet.services/joelburgess/status/1428008043... P.S. Nitter also puts RSS links at the top of everyone's timeline, which is handy if you would rather use an RSS reader than a Twitter app.
- photon-torpedo 5y agoJust installed "Nitter Redirect" browser extension. Thank you, Twitter, for finally making me avoid your site entirely.
- bmn__ 5y agoCorresponding browser add-on: https://github.com/SimonBrazell/privacy-redirect https://github.com/SimonBrazell/privacy-redirect
- pcthrowaway 5y agoYou have to open it in a new tab. I can't click to expand threads or follow anything on twitter (it appears to start loading, then gives me the 'Sign up' prompt). But I follow a link in a new tab, it works fine
- belgesel 5y agoI believe it is their new rule. But it shows up only if you are using twitter for a while as logged out. Clear data from browser and it goes away, but will eventually show up again.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- usrusr 5y agoOpen in incognito tab to receive the preferential treatment new users get. Data-greedy product managers training is to starve them.
- Severian 5y agoIf on desktop, just block all cookies from Twitter.
- kdmccormick 5y agoHoly shit, do you think developers are the only people who deserve to consume information? Yes, he could have told the story in one paragraph. Would it be as entertaining? Debatable. Would it be as accessible to the non-tech crowd? Definitely not. I can send these tweets to my non-techie girlfriend, and she'll understand and enjoy them. Your paragraph wouldn't cut it. This smacks of the whole "A monad is just an endofunctor in the category of monoids, what's the problem?" joke, but instead of category theorists being condescending, it's just developers being condescending.
- duxup 5y ago>do you think developers are the only people who deserve to consume information? I think he just meant the overall narrative was hard to read, I think it was too. I don't know what 'non-tech crowd' has to do with it. They can read blogs and paragraphs and other formats too...
- kdmccormick 5y agoSorry, maybe I rage-read-into GP's comment too much. I interpreted it as "this is a garbage format, here's a paragraph that would've sufficed". What I'm arguing is that adding pictures/memes/space/cadence to information can be helpful to readers who aren't familiar with the subject area. Twitter makes that easy, and also has a broad reach.
- enumjorge 5y agoThat bar for readability is extremely low though. 260 characters at a time with pictures in between is basically a children’s picture book. I don’t think the GP’s comment is being unreasonable.
- smoe 5y agoNot GP, but the point was that what he wrote should be an article/blog post instead of in a chain of tweets. It's not about the length or conciseness at all. That they also summarized it in one paragraph for the audience here on hn is separate from that point My opinion is, that the author, the one putting the work in decides the format and platform to use, but people are also free to dislike the format.
- SilverRed 5y agoThe ironic thing is that the explanation would have fit in an actual single tweet.
- criticaltinker 5y agoGP did a good job summarizing the explanation, but there were a lot more details and at least one useful photo in the twitter thread. Transcribed and lightly condensed below for the convenience of others: > Among Skyrim players, you'll occasionally see this tip: if you see a wild fox, follow it and you'll be led to treasure. Sometime shortly after shipping, we saw this going around online, and an informal investigation started. Who made foxes do this?! > Skyrim uses something called 'navmesh' for AI navigation. For non-dev folks, this is an invisible 3D sheet of polygons that is laid over the world, telling AI where it can and cannot go. > In most situations, you're seeing AI decide what do to (run at player, hide in cover, etc), use navmesh to make a path, and navigate along that path. Foxes are no different. But their AI is very simplified: they basically can only run away. > So foxes flee. Why would they flee towards treasure? This is where it gets interesting. If you're close to an AI, it's in "High Process", or the most fancy, cpu-intensive pathfinding. It uses the full navmesh and will do things like line of sight and distance checks. > To contrast, there's also "Low Process" - used for stuff like NPCs walking a trade route across the world. These are only updated every several minutes, and position is tracked very loosely. > There is a sort of "Medium Process" for characters nearby, but who didn't need the complex pathing of combat. Because of the way the fox's AI worked (always be fleeing!) it's basically ONLY using this process. > This is where understanding of how Skyrim uses navmesh comes in. Swaths of the outdoor world have simple navmesh. You don't need to add lots of detail in a space with basic topography, little clutter, or a low chance of combat. So wilderness = small number of big triangles. > When you stumble across something like a camp, however, navmesh gets way more detailed. Added visual detail means added navmesh detail, and if we're placing NPCs of any kind, we also tend to add even more detail. So Points of Interest = big number of small triangles. > You see where this is going? The Fox isn't trying to get 100 meters away - it's trying to get 100 triangles away. You know where it's easy to find 100 triangles? The camps/ruins/etc that we littered the world with, and filled with treasure to reward your exploration. > So foxes aren't leading you to treasure - but the way they behave is leading them to areas that tend to HAVE treasure, because POIs w/loot have other attributes (lots of small navmesh triangles) that the foxes ARE pursuing. > It's a nerdy little story, but I love it. Emergent Gameplay is often used to describe designed randomness, but this is a case of actual gameplay that NOBODY designed emerging from the bubbling cauldron of overlapping systems. And I think that's beautiful.
- Tenoke 5y agoI like it a lot more than the even more common method of using videos. 'Sadly' there are many people on the internet with different preferences.
- senko 5y agoAgree about Twitter not being suitable for this format, but this Q&A summary takes all the charm out of the story told there.
- zwaps 5y agoI opened this on mobile and you either have to log in or open the tweet in the app to read the entire thread (twitter login wall). I was going to do neither things.
- wombosombos 5y agoBtw here is the thread without loginwall and in blog format: https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1428008043556622336.html https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1428008043556622336.html
- 00deadbeef 5y agoI opened it in mobile (Safari) and read the chain fine without having to log in
- zwaps 5y agoSuch is the nature of AB tests I guess. I an currently on twitters shit list: if I click on anything, it opens the install-app block screen
- thih9 5y agoI like the Q&A summary. 1. It answers the clickbait like title question and in that way saved me a click. 2. It’s very clear, concise, easy to read and understand.
- MrGilbert 5y agoIn my opinion, you are overly negative on this one. I found it rather easy to read, and I'm a 1999-era citizen.
- CaliforniaKarl 5y agoI agree. It disappoints me that GP is the top-rated comment right now.
- rebuilder 5y agoI found it impossible to read since I don't have a Twitter account...
- jfoutz 5y agoSuper weird you don’t have a “show this thread “ link. I technically have a Twitter account, but haven’t logged in for perhaps 8 years. Anyway, datapoint, works for me.
- mulmen 5y agoIt changes day to day. I haven't logged in to Twitter in over a decade. I haven't been able to go to mobile.twitter.com and do anything in years, just gives me a sign up page. I can follow a link to a tweet and use the search from there. But in the last week or so if I tap a tweet or a search result I get sent to a sign up page. This behavior varies over time.
- alpaca128 5y agoA while ago Twitter liked to give me some kind of "connection" error in 50-80% of linked tweets, which miraculously disappeared once I logged in.
- handrous 5y agoThey still do this to me. It's a widely reported issue, that's been going on for years. It has to be intentional, at this point.
- barneybooroo 5y agoI like the format! Something about organising your thinking into tweet-sized chunks lends itself to a nice pace for telling stories. Your TLDR certainly doesn’t retain any of the accessibility (to non-developers) or whimsy of the original.
- Kiro 5y agoNo idea why you are so condescending. Maybe he doesn't have a blog and he's just using the platform where his following is. Fwiw, I prefer chain of tweets like this to blog posts. It forces the author to compress as much information as possible into every paragraph and split up their thoughts.
- wayneftw 5y agoYou can't even read a thread on Twitter without working around their constant badgering for you to sign up. The web interface is absolutely horrendous on desktop and on my phone.
- FractalParadigm 5y agoTo each their own, but I feel like the discoverability of the 'whole story' seriously suffers. Any time I try to follow a Twitter thread I can usually find 2/3 of the posts pretty easily while the rest tend to be buried somewhere in the memes and pointless banter. A blog post can be equally "to the point" as a Twitter post, your SEO might suffer but I'd imagine 99% of bloggers really don't care. And FWIW, anyone can setup a WordPress in just a few minutes assuming you use a *.wordpress.com, to name just one of many free blogging platforms.
- hutzlibu 5y agoI never enjoyed reading anything on Twitter.
- bottled_poe 5y agoThat sounds more like a content problem, not a formatting issue
- hutzlibu 5y agoTo me it is both. The UI and UX makes for terrible content, perfect for drama, but hard for clear exchange. My opinion of course. Those who enjoy the twitter conversations, go for it.
- haliskerbas 5y agoI for one appreciate this Q&A summary. I can never figure out the Twitter layout especially on mobile. (I’m in the millennial bucket in case the ageism comments come in).
- arc-in-space 5y agoThat's funny, just this week I was writing an AI for a creature in a side-project game that uses this exact same heuristic of getting away n nav-mesh nodes away from the player. Something to keep in mind I suppose.
- bottled_poe 5y agoA blog would be a barrier to sharing brief information. I don’t understand why twitter is not appropriate.
- jokethrowaway 5y agoAn html blog post doesn't prevent you from using paragraphs. We even have a tag just for this <p>
- bottled_poe 5y agoIt’s a bunch of comments, not an essay
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y agoAgain, static HTML does not prevent this. You can even keep the GIFs.
- alpaca128 5y agoA blog has actually a lower barrier because it doesn't require a Twitter account. It can potentially also load much faster and has actual text formatting.
- jorisd 5y agoA blog post requires an account with a blogging provider or a hosting provider though, so I wouldn't call it a lower barrier if you don't have it. Besides that, the context matters here. This post is riding off of the attention that another Skyrim WTF bug got recently, which was posted on Twitter. Continuing the conversation there seems like the lowest barrier to entry to me, considering that the author already has a Twitter account and a following there, especially if you actually want to reach people that might find it interesting.
- alpaca128 5y ago
- jpxw 5y agoI totally disagree on the format, FWIW. When I see a link to a Twitter thread, I know immediately what to expect. I know that the formatting will be consistent. I know that the site will be accessible and at least somewhat readable. I can see the reactions of other people to the content immediately. I can interact with the author in a uniform and easy way, if I want to. I know that the content likely won’t be too long. This without even mentioning the benefits to the writer of the post. Twitter is free. It’s widely used, so you can get way more impressions that you’d ever get on a blog. It allows you to immediately see and interact with people reading your posts - it’s incredibly painful to do that with a blog that you host. It gives you decent analytics. It’s obviously way easier than hosting a blog. Of course, blogs have many advantages too. Blog posts and Tweet threads solve two different problems.
- ricardobeat 5y agoI don't hate the threads, but the GIFs were getting in the way. Like Medium posts that start with random Unsplash images.
- thrwyoilarticle 5y agoPlease can we talk about the content rather than the same Twitter debate that happens every time one of these gets linked?
- enumjorge 5y agoThe problem is that a good chunk of us can’t participate in the discussion because the content is locked behind a Twitter sign in modal.
- nescioquid 5y agoNote that the parent boiled away all the noise to the actual information -- which could have been contained in a single tweet. I wouldn't have bothered wading through all that to get to the simple little factoid. I appreciate the post, therefore.
- benhurmarcel 5y agoYou can fold threads that don’t interest you.
- graynk 5y agoAbsolutely agree. Thankfully, threadreaderapp and nitter exist (for now).
- EugeneOZ 5y agoAnd this toxic bs is upvoted to the top? It's disgusting. When I was reading that twitter-thread I was enjoying the style and the story. I don't like these pictures, yes, but it's just a miserably small part of the whole thing. And when I was reading your comment I was regretting I’ve opened HN today. Are you so old to be so grumpy or so young to be so toxic? Not cool.
- aaron695 5y ago> The most awful format ever; A chain of tweets interspersed with memes. This should be a blog post, but I guess that's too 1999 for the author. 2021: HN: That fact the world still doesn't conform to what we want after 14 years means the world is still wrong. Why not create a offline thread and link that for those who want it? Like this user did - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28231699 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28231699
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y ago> 2021: HN: That fact the world still doesn't conform to what we want after 14 years means the world is still wrong. That's not necessarily arrogance. Look at Windows 11. Sometimes the world just has perverse incentives to make everything suck.
- aaron695 5y agoIt's a total lack of understanding of UX and a refusal to learn. I don't see that as arrogance. It's complaining about a cool thing someone did on Windows 11 while the world uses Windows 11 and offering the same alternative to Windows 11 as in 1999. OP could have re-blogged it, rather than their not quite correct summary if blogging is where it's at. And I also liked the meme's, I literally wondered where he got them from and how much time it would take. They were artistically well chosen and helped drive a good story.
- moonbug 5y agoWhy are you so entitled?
- tvirosi 5y agoAgree. The gifs are so distracting, I could barely get through it.
- jtbayly 5y agoAnd suddenly Twitter stopped allowing me to view the thread without an account. :( I won’t be signing up for Twitter, so I guess I can’t read it.
- EricE 5y agothreadreaderapp.com is one of my favorite sites to extract the (rare) useful information from twitter.
- karaterobot 5y agoThe funny part of that whole thread was that you have to already understand how nav meshes work (at least a tiny bit, like me) in order to make the connection he wants you to make. But, if you already know a little bit about nav meshes, he could have explained what happened in a lot fewer tweets. I don't think Twitter is the wrong format to tell this story: probably more people read it as a result, and that's to the good. But I will note that one thing about blog posts is that the format encourages editing and revision, while Twitter encourages spontaneity. In this case, the story could have benefited from a second draft for the sake of clarity.
- nimbius 5y agoAgreed. Id rathe grok Skyrim in the decompiler for sixteen hours to find the "why foxes" answer than read tweetchains.
- brundolf 5y agoPlease, spare us. Every single time a Twitter link gets posted here there's somebody like you who just wants to complain. We all know how you feel at this point; if it bothers you that much, don't click twitter links. This is a cool and fun story. Just let it be that.
- engineer_22 5y agoTwitter won't allow me to read the thread, I have to create an account. A blog post would be better.
- brundolf 5y agoI'm able to see it without being signed in, but here you go: https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1428008043556622336.html https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1428008043556622336.html
- thebrain 5y agoTwitter seems to be showing the popup every time you follow a link within Twitter. The simplest way around this is to just reload the page.
- effingwewt 5y agoYou just complained about GP not liking something, insisted it was cool and fun just because you thought so, man the irony is astounding. GP's comment was fun and cool, every time someone posts something like this, you have to come in and throw your 2 cents in. We all know how you feel about it by now, if you hate it that much don't click on the HN comments. just let it be! Even if it had been in a blog, if it was interrupted with memes and meanders,it would be a bad article. I'm glad you enjoyed it, GP's comment should have nothing to do with whether you liked the article or not. Twitter is garbage, its format is garbage. I certainly appreciate GP cutting through the cruft.
- self_buddliea 5y ago"A chain of tweets interspersed with memes." I really liked the wholesome meme with the cat. The Cox-Zucker tweet was also quite amusing.
- forgotpwd16 5y agoFortunately tools exist that can unroll those tweets to nice long post. As an example check Threadreader below. Although the result with one sentence per line is a bit strange and the meme pictures continue being pointless additions. https://twitter.com/joelburgess/status/1428008043556622336 https://twitter.com/joelburgess/status/1428008043556622336
- TimSchumann 5y agoThank you for this, Twitter is even more annoying now that they’re forcing logins to even browse.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]