alex_c

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361.
by alex_c 14y ago
That is a great explanation, thank you. I think it's what I was really aiming for, but didn't quite get there.
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by alex_c 14y ago
But... but... it has graphs! The "scientific" part was pretty tongue-in-cheek given all the handwaving I do, I obviously didn't hook up electrodes to anyone's brain while they're playing (although that would be fascinating). I'll edit the
363.
by alex_c 14y ago
That's a good point. I was originally disappointed with the item system in Diablo 3, but I quickly realized it doesn't matter as much as I would have expected. The core gameplay feels a lot more solid and fun than in Diablo 2, and that's wh
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Why Diablo 3 is less addictive than Diablo 2: a scientific explanation(alexc.me)
222 points by alex_c 14y ago|192 comments
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by alex_c 14y ago
That argument works for the purely logical definition of "understand", but not so much for the "appreciate" or "accept" meanings of the word.
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by alex_c 15y ago
Nobody said anything against really short names, the article argues against non-descriptive variable names, whether short or long.
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by alex_c 15y ago
It may not be inherently at odds, no, but I haven't seen any evidence or studies that social mobility is in any way increasing - and it does seem counter-intuitive that social mobility could increase at the same time as income inequality.
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by alex_c 15y ago
For those of you who haven't read them, Jordan Mechner's "The Making of Prince of Persia" is one of the most engaging things I've read online. http://jordanmechner.com/old-journals/ Just realized there's an e-book now... I'll probably get
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by alex_c 15y ago
The article keeps using "scam" and "spam" interchangeably. As far as I can tell, no one's actually getting scammed in any way, it's purely spam.
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by alex_c 15y ago
186 miles is 11,784,960 inches, and an Eastern Gray Squirrel is 9-12 inches. I'm impressed, did you actually make the calculation first?
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by alex_c 15y ago
This is a common failing of... our kind, I suppose. Too often we tend to get stuck on details and miss the bigger picture. My favorite example are analogies. Every single time one is made, it results in a string of other comments attempti
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by alex_c 15y ago
Because comparing app loading time to website page load times is meaningless. A better comparison are common tasks in Photoshop, like selection, fill, layer operations, filters, etc. - things that are done constantly while using the applica
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by alex_c 15y ago
Someone has to pay. Whether it's a higher price for users, less time spent on other features, or lower profits for the company, the effort has to come from somewhere. I don't disagree that responsiveness and user experience are important,
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by alex_c 15y ago
Also, it doesn't really matter if your opinion of them drops--they're interviewing you. Unless you're desperate to take any job you can, any interview is a two-way process.
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by alex_c 15y ago
A splash screen basically tells me, in very clear-cut terms, that my time is worth nothing whatsoever. It's a fresh reminder that users' needs don't count as much as programmer convenience does. So... how much IS your time worth? How much
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by alex_c 15y ago
>While Zynga reports 150 million users, only 2.2% (or about 3.3 million) actually pay to play. Further, 70% of Zynga's annual $800 million in revenue comes from only 680,000 of these paying customers. >In other words ... 70% of Zyng
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by alex_c 15y ago
I think the strength of the emotion is perfectly understandable. The unfortunate side effect is that it makes rational discussion very difficult - because it's such an emotional issue, it's easy to misunderstand what others are saying, or
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by alex_c 15y ago
Napster was centralized, Gnutella was (is?) decentralized.
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by alex_c 15y ago
Flashbacks to Napster, Kazaa, Gnutella, etc. Come on, that wasn't THAT long ago. Do people really not learn anything from history?
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by alex_c 15y ago
Industry insiders correct me if I'm wrong, but Grim Fandango was pretty much the final nail in the coffin (no pun intended) of the pure adventure genre, because it had terrible sales. Simultaneously, it was a true masterpiece - one of the
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by alex_c 15y ago
Apple is getting a lot better with their approval process, I've had updates approved in 24-48h without doing anything special.
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by alex_c 15y ago
>I would posit that the world of Star Trek eliminates the alienation of everyday life on Earth that leads one to social networking in the first place. Furthermore, and this is admittedly handwavy, but any analog to the internet would ei
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by alex_c 15y ago
You think Spotify is going to cancel their sweetheart deal with Facebook because some random blogger said Facebook-only logins are bad? Of course, I would love to see some actual numbers on whether it was worth it for Spotify (I suspect it
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by alex_c 15y ago
>It's sad to think that quality is not always enough to get noticed. It's not sad to think that, it's essential. "If you build it, they will come" is the fastest path to failure, an average product with great marketing will beat a grea
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by alex_c 15y ago
As a counter-point, I did get a refund from Valve for a game that claimed to have multiplayer, but no longer did (because the publisher had shut down the servers). Valve refused at first, I politely insisted, and got my refund. I am, howev
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by alex_c 15y ago
You can try http://www.reddit.com/r/fitness , there are some pretty knowledgeable people there. Also try searching there, similar questions pop up from time to time.
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by alex_c 15y ago
If your car is found full of drugs, they will also impound it and inconvenience the other possibly innocent passengers. While we're coming up with analogies, this seems more like impounding all the other cars in a public parking lot becau
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by alex_c 15y ago
Random link on the topic: http://venturebeat.com/2011/06/02/airbnb-admits-gaming-craig...
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by alex_c 15y ago
"Lorem Ipsum" is more of a designer thing.
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by alex_c 15y ago
The question of what should be done in cases of copyright infringement is the only one that can really be usefully discussed, which is probably why most people are addressing that instead. Should people copy photographs for commercial purp

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