10 ms·
A programmer's view of the Universe, part 1: The fish
- rnesh 18y agoThere were so many good points made in this post that I'm left speechless. This reminded me of similar experiences I've had with my betta, and all the curiosity I saw in him. I miss that little guy.
- dill_day 18y agoReally good. I like this more than anything he's written for a while now.
- swombat 18y agoSay what you will about Steve Yegge's usual posts, but whether you like him or not, this one is outstanding. Not a blog post, really, more like a short piece of literature. Socrates once said: the unexamined life is not worth living. I believe in that statement. Tracing out that vine is part of what makes life worth living. But what if the tracing of the vine is ultimately pointless, because it only points to the inescapability of death? Are then the blissful masses who don't examine anything better off? I don't think so. I'd rather die with my eyes open, having traced out the vine and made sure there's really no way out.
- gnaritas 18y agoI usually bitch about the length and boring nature of his posts. For once I can finally say, damn good writing and interesting piece. Finally a story that stays focused and actually entertains the reader from beginning to end. Makes me wonder if he actually spent some time editing this one instead of just spewing it out in his usual stream of conscienceless style. No complaints, damn fine writing, I actually felt for the poor fish! Best post I've seen from him.
- yters 18y agoTangent on the length complaint: I felt that way when I first started reading his stuff, but now it's kind of a relaxing thing. The writing style just pulls you through, and at the end you feel like you've learned something of significance. It is a nice break from the more hectic style of reading I do online. At least, that was my experience after reading his post on the properties pattern.
- unalone 18y agoThis is a gripe, so excuse me for nit-picking, but I don't think this is exactly "literature." It's not particularly well-written, and it still has the attitude of an enthused amateur. I'm not saying I didn't like the article. I did: it's the first Yegge I've actually cared to read in its entirety. But people, particularly people who aren't word people, tend to attribute superlatives to things that they like, and the word "literature" in particular is one that bugs me. This was a good story, absolutely. It was heartfelt and sincere. But that's only a part of what makes good writing good. Literature is about the art of crafting words, of putting them together in ways that are aesthetically pleasing. There are people who can write great yarns who aren't writing literature. And this blog post, while it's very good for a blog post, isn't literature. Which isn't to say it's not worth reading! Some people assume that literary merit is all that makes writing worthwhile; those people miss out on a lot of things that are beautiful and worth reading, just for the manner of the prose. I don't think that's true, and I agree with you with everything else you said. Just... don't assign attributes to a thing needlessly. It's like people that listen to a rap song and praise its harmonies. There are other ways to compliment a piece of writing. Excuse me if this was unwarranted with your writing. I'm hoping this didn't come across entirely as somebody's being a dick needlessly. It's just something little that sets me off, and it provoked my writing something this time.
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- jrockway 18y agoWhy do you get to decide what is and is not literature?
- unalone 18y agoI hold very specific definitions for terms. For me, literature is defined by aesthetic quality, and that is measurable. The rhythm of the sentences, the flow of the actual sound of the language, and the conciseness of the language... all of that is what makes writing literature to me. But I use literature as a very specific phrase. I don't hold it to encompass all of writing. I use it to define a very particular branch of writing: the sort of writing that has an emphasis on language. However, I don't dismiss things that I don't call literature, either, and I don't hold literature necessarily on a level above everything else, either. For instance: I think that the Narnia series is better-written than Harry Potter, and that it's a more literary series. However, I think that Harry Potter is a better story, and I think that it has more about it that interests me than Narnia. I think the characters are more interesting, the arc of the story is more powerful, and I think that Rowling singlehandedly changed the face of the "children's literature" genre. If I were to pick which of the two series to keep and cherish for the rest of time, I'd go for Harry Potter. So, as I said. Take what I said precisely for what I said. I'm not dismissing Yegge's article. I'm just saying that I take the term "literature" to define writing that is memorable for its aesthetic. Steve Yegge is an interesting writer, and at times he's compelling, but he is not particularly good with using the English language. He isn't bad, he just isn't good.
- oligophagy 18y ago"the blissful masses who don't examine anything," huh; masturbate often?
- swombat 18y agoAs often as I can.
- kqr2 18y agoAccording to this link, bettas do particularly well in fish school: http://www.fish-school.com/gallery.htm http://www.fish-school.com/gallery.htm I wonder how Steve's pet would have reacted to exploring a fish tube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lxMRqZ9dUx8 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lxMRqZ9dUx8
- ojbyrne 18y agoThe best part? The promise contained in "part 1."
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- thwarted 18y ago"The fantasy element that explains the appeal of dungeon-clearing games to many programmers is neither the fire-breathing monsters nor the milky-skinned, semi-clad sirens; it is the experience of carrying out a task from start to finish without user requirements changing." --- seen on zombierobot.com
- thwarted 18y agommh.. seems the comment I was responding to was edited or something. it mentioned something about programmers just wanting adventure.
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- kaens 18y agoThis is my favorite piece that Steve has written so far (also, note the "part 1"). While not on the usual subject matter, this was a beautifully written piece that makes a point on multiple levels - and is probably appreciable by people outside of the "programmer / IT culture". Bravo, Steve. I felt for that fish.
- visitor4rmindia 18y agoWow. That was insightful and sad at the same time. This guy can write! I've got a lump in my throat right now.
- tdavis 18y agoAmazing piece. It makes me feel sorry for all those fish out there, stuck in tanks... and all the people in similar positions as well. I've spent my entire life trying to avoid prisons, whether it's a job I can't get out of or a really long-term commitment (military service not withstanding... although after nearly 6 years I'm really starting to feel that one) While I can't speak for all programmers, I must admit that I have a very high demand for adventure -- or at least routinely changing circumstances. I don't like to be "safe" or "secure" and I don't like starting adventures that I know will end. Perhaps that's why programming appeals to me so much; no matter how much I learn or try there will always be more. There's no way for a person to "master programming" in general because there are just way too many adventures out there to ever finish them all. Of course, the ultimate adventure that will end is life itself. Then again, I guess that one is supposed to end. Otherwise we'd never have a reason to start truly living in the first place.
- rw 18y agoDeath is not necessary to give life meaning.
- run4yourlives 18y agoOn the contrary, one could say that death is the only thing that gives life meaning.
- tdavis 18y agoLife and death, up and down, pleasure and pain, you and me. Without contrast you have nothing. Life wouldn't exist without death, it would just be... nothing. Never experiencing pain would suck because you could never experience pleasure. Without you there couldn't be me because there'd be nothing to define my individualism. This leads to the idea that we all define everything else in the universe and are everything at the same time, but I'm getting off topic. Grab a piece of printer paper. It's blank; nothing there. Grab a pencil; add some contrast. Now you're onto something. Then again, you could have a completely different opinion on the matter. I wish you would have explained it :)
- adamc 18y agoBest Yegge essay in quite a while; illuminating and to the point.
- matt1 18y agoI don't usually read long blog posts, but I couldn't stop reading this one. Very well done. Poor betta.
- nihilocrat 18y agoBettas are known to jump out of their tank if they can manage it. I never knew why, but now I think I might have a hypothesis. Maybe he never saw this happen because he had a covered one.
- dejb 18y agoUm yes. So maybe stopping keeping animals as slaves in tiny cages might be a good idea. Just a thought. Would almost make one want to think about the animals that are kept for food and the like. Kind of puts me of my food just thinking about it.
- rokhayakebe 18y agoThis sounds like me and my day job. At least 50% of the time.
- andreyf 18y agoI'm not sure I agree that there are complexities beyond our fundamental ability to understand (that's what the tank is a metaphor for, right?). It might just be that if we are able to conceive something complex, we are able to abstract away and simplify it. It's just a matter of finding the right metaphors and abstractions.
- rw 18y agoLook up Kolmogorov complexity.
- byrneseyeview 18y agoI'm not sure we can say one way or another; something beyond our understanding may be beyond our perception.
- andreyf 18y agoBut how can can things outside of our perception be said to "exist"? (pass the bong, dude)
- byrneseyeview 18y agoIf they have minor, persistent effects. So technically within our perception, but not really noticeable. If some force of nature made your shadow .1% shorter on even-numbered Thursdays, it would exist but be outside our perception for some value of perception. Something whose existence cannot be observed or falsified doesn't 'exist' in any meaningful sense, but I suspect that there are things that exist, in a meaningful sense, even though they won't be noticed.
- anthonyrubin 18y agoI guess I'm the only one that found this article to be really awful. Having kept tropical fish for many years -- with much greater success than Steve apparently -- I found many parts of it hard to swallow. I don't doubt the activities of his betta, only his conclusions. Having said that, cichlids are a great choice if you are looking for intelligent freshwater aquarium fish. Many species of cichlids are very easy to breed in captivity (removing the need to harvest them from the wild) and they tend to be very hardy. I highly recommend Kribensis and convict cichlids.
- gills 18y agoTwo thoughts: 1. Great post. I hope Steve Yegge continues down this path (i.e. parts 2..n). I wonder if he's ever read Donald Knuth's "Things a Computer Scientist Rarely Talks About." 2. I had a betta once. It lived in a 20-gallon tank with two goldfish. The tank was on top of a bookcase by a window, so they had plenty of interesting trees and birds to watch (not to mention the cat which no doubt terrorized for a few minutes each day). Eventually, the goldfish killed the betta. And then they killed each other.
- fawxtin 18y agoA good read about why they kill each other: Konrad Lorenz, On Agression.
- dhbradshaw 18y agoHe should have bought a female betta.
- arjungmenon 18y agoThat's in fact a very good point. It is highly possible that the cause for the betta's incredible sadness was the denial of its need to procreate. The reproductive drive is so fundamental to life, especially in lower organisms that the lack of a mate has have serious consequences. This has been observed in dogs, elephants (lone elephants - they're basically male elephants doomed to celibacy, which turns them into very violent creatures), and many other animals. In fact humans are no exception. See the Psychology Today article "Ten Politically Incorrect Truths About Human Nature" - http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/index.php?term=pto-4359.html http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/index.php?term=pto-4...
- mynameishere 18y agoA new winner for the most mystifyingly dead post: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=348571 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=348571
- palish 18y agoShh!... ... they don't know they're dead! At the threshold I saw more than a thousand angels fallen from Heaven. Angrily they shouted: 'Who is this, who is not dead, yet passes through the kingdom of the dead?' ... Then they reined in their great disdain enough to say: 'Let him be gone, who has so boldly made his way into this kingdom. Let him retrace his reckless path alone -- let him see if he can, for you shall stay, you who have led him through this gloomy realm.'
- utefan001 18y agoI liked the post, however, we should save the baby human first, then we can worry about the fish. Sorry for bringing this up, but life begins, when, well, when it begins. Neither Roe or Wade are pro death anymore. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norma_McCorvey http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norma_McCorvey
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- dgordon 18y ago"Sorry for bringing this up" No you're not.
- alex_c 18y ago"We're just two lost souls swimming in a fish bowl, year after year" -- Pink Floyd
- run4yourlives 18y agoPerfect. Pink Floyd at their best.
- asdflkj 18y agoThe pathos is there, but it's a terrible, jumbled metaphor. The problem of the fish, or at least the persona he projected on it, is not that it was humbled by its own limited ability to understand. It was precisely the opposite: the world was too limited for its apparently oversized ability to understand. I can't wait to see those "ramifications for the way we think about things today".
- lst 18y agoMaybe most hackers should spend more of their real time in real nature? In fact, most of us live in a box, most of the time.
- unalone 18y agoThere's nothing wrong with writing long. My problem with Steve Yegge's blog is that it's absolutely not set up in a way to encourage long writing. Fluid width, to start, means that on a big screen I get little dangly lines of text, which makes reading his stuff seem like a pain. His stuff is written in a very generic gray Georgia; the style looks completely amateur. Compare his site to Paul Graham's, to pick the one source I'm sure everybody here has read. PG's site has thinner, stable margins, and it's written in a sans-serif font, which makes it easy to read his essays no matter the length. And it is possible to use sans-serif well. Yegge just doesn't. And psychologically, that turns me off from his essays before I begin to read. I've got it in my mind that somebody with something to say will at least take the minimal time to ensure it looks good.
- helveticaman 18y agoSteve, did you think of putting a female in there?