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11-20-2012 , 10:50 AM

#6526

Gullanian

Carpal \'Tunnel

Join Date: Dec 2006 Posts: 14,014

I think you could fairly easily argue that it's ethically bad if you take the position that the game designers are actively designing the game to be as addictive as possible.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't believe they have any safe guards in place for people who do get addicted to their games. So by releasing something to the public that you have designed to be highly addictive and not taking any responsibility afterwards of the users of your product could be considered unethical. Compare it to poker which has evolved a little further on, they have perma bans, they have various legal obligations to their players etc.

It would also be easy to argue that simply the act of designing something to primarily be as addictive as possible to earn money is a fairly unethical practise.

I think it might be best to evaluate these sorts of things with a utilitarianism outlook. It's my opinion that poker causes far more net sadness than it does happiness. For Farmville, I'm not so sure.

Quote

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11-20-2012 , 12:18 PM

#6527

jjshabado

Carpal Tunnel

Join Date: Jul 2006 Posts: 22,732

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gullanian

I think it might be best to evaluate these sorts of things with a utilitarianism outlook. It's my opinion that poker causes far more net sadness than it does happiness. For Farmville, I'm not so sure.

I think this is probably my belief too. Even if you subscribe to the idea that Zynga (and all/most of its product people) don't care at all about people enjoying their games (which I don't really believe) I don't think that matters that much. And I have a hard time believing that Farmville creates net sadness in the vast majority of people (especially since Facebook made it easy to block the updates these stupid games give out).

For the record, I actually don't believe Poker (or other gambling games) create net sadness either. Definitely more debatable though.

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11-20-2012 , 01:16 PM

#6528

MrWooster

veteran

Join Date: Mar 2007 Posts: 2,984

Pretty sure no once cares... but just completed Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup for the first time... took over 400 games to get there!

If any of you are in to rogulikes you should check it out.. its a really great game, and has a very active development community.

My finished game file http://dobrazupa.org/morgue/mrwooste...120-164823.txt

Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup (DCSS) home page http://crawl.develz.org/wordpress/

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11-20-2012 , 01:34 PM

#6529

jjshabado

Carpal Tunnel

Join Date: Jul 2006 Posts: 22,732

But did you enjoy it?

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11-20-2012 , 02:05 PM

#6530

MrWooster

veteran

Join Date: Mar 2007 Posts: 2,984

Oh yes

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11-20-2012 , 08:16 PM

#6531

daveT

S.A.G.E. Master

Join Date: Jun 2005 Posts: 23,955

I know I'm late to the party on this one, but I finally started using Emacs Python-mode and its awesome!

Not sure how Vim-Python is, but if anyone is wishing IDLE would go **** itself, I strongly suggest using Emacs even if you only use the mouse the whole time. I'm guessing since many posters here seem to use Vim, I am guessing that Vim is awesome too.

Quote

11-20-2012 , 08:24 PM

#6532

daveT

S.A.G.E. Master

Join Date: Jun 2005 Posts: 23,955

The interview with that company went pretty good. He was telling me that the person who was managing before was out of their element because they didn't understand anything at all about programming or the development cycle. We had a pretty interesting conversation and I think it went pretty well. The interview was one hour long and we covered a lot of bases.

I sort of like my chances but I think my inexperience will be a huge buffer. Either way, I enjoyed the interview.

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11-20-2012 , 09:29 PM

#6533

gaming_mouse

Carpal \'Tunnel

Join Date: Oct 2004 Posts: 13,786

Best of luck, Dave

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11-21-2012 , 01:35 AM

#6534

Xhad

Carpal \'Tunnel

Join Date: Jul 2005 Posts: 10,962

Quote:

Originally Posted by jjshabado

I also find this whole premise of games needing to be fun at their core kind of ridiculous. Look at house gambling games: Slots (pushing a button), Roulette (picking a number), Craps (picking a number), Black Jack (following a fairly simple predefined strategy of asking for cards), etc. None of those games are fun at their core. Virtually no one plays these games without the reward structure but it seems to me that people still get genuine enjoyment from playing these games.

FWIW I'm not a fan of house games either, but I've been on the receiving end of "honey, I just blew your entire roll on a blackjack binge while you were sleeping" so I might be biased.

But seriously, the only time I played slots it was with someone else's money, I actually ran pretty hot over the course of it all and my reaction was "I'm bored. This is an arcade game without the game." I'm honestly not 100% sure how I feel about a game like poker where it can be a strategic game for the people who want it to be but is basically an even more vindictive house game for the majority of fish. It also may be that I consider addiction mechanisms "forgivable" if the game has other things going on; most of my recent posts are in a Magic: The Gathering Online thread and that is a game that is just as addictive as gambling games and with worse rake and no cashouts.

As to whether something like Farmville causes net happiness, I don't know. I mean, I'm sorry to go back to this analogy yet again but I bet drugs are fun while you're taking them. Addictions are bad for what they displace from the rest of your life, and I'm sure almost 100% of activities a person could be doing are more enriching than Farmville and friends. Maybe Zynga is better than MMOs in this respect, since I'm not sure Zynga has the equivalent of "wtf how did I right-click on rats all weekend."

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11-21-2012 , 09:31 AM

#6535

jjshabado

Carpal Tunnel

Join Date: Jul 2006 Posts: 22,732

Anyone making the drugs analogy should go to youtube and search for "Drug Withdrawal" and "Drug Overdosing" videos and then search for "Farmville Withdrawal" and "Farmville Overdosing" to get a dose of reality.

Quote:

and I'm sure almost 100% of activities a person could be doing are more enriching than Farmville and friends.

I'm sure almost 100% of activities a person could be doing are more enriching than posting on 2+2.

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11-21-2012 , 11:20 AM

#6536

jjshabado

Carpal Tunnel

Join Date: Jul 2006 Posts: 22,732

NSFW:

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11-21-2012 , 11:24 AM

#6537

jjshabado

Carpal Tunnel

Join Date: Jul 2006 Posts: 22,732

Anyway, to change the topic. We just had another developer accept a job offer. So now there's 4 of us doing dev work. Woot!

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11-21-2012 , 02:38 PM

#6538

clowntable

Carpal \'Tunnel

Join Date: Jun 2006 Posts: 45,557

What would you guestimate my chances would be if I applied for YC with the plan of creating an ultrasecure P2P cloud with the intention of eventually using it (or maybe a non P2P version) to provide the software side of backup and restore of human brains (mostly neocortex).

Like github but for brains.

Quote:

I sort of like my chances but I think my inexperience will be a huge buffer. Either way, I enjoyed the interview.

This usually matters way less than people think. Personal relationship/chemistry is way more important. Seems like that worked out well and you fit their criteria to boot. Dunno how much competition there was for the job but I'd be somewhat optimistic if I were you.
Usually what people look for from what you told me is basically "a not supergeeky developer that is willing to switch to management but understands how devs tick and how software development works". Your relative seniority should actually help you as well.

Either way good luck.

Quote:

We already established that this part of the drug analogy is broken. An argument can be made that it's more evil if there is no cold turkey. I think gambling addiction is a good example actually. There's bar slot machines here and addiction to those is treated like any old addiction. Those addicts are really poor slobs that destroy their families etc.
Farmville is modelled exactly around the same principles mostly the classic skinner rat reward ZOMG I could get a reward cycle.

Also let me reiterrate for the record: I think cigaretts are evil, I think crack is evil, I think Farmvile is evil and I think producting weapons of mass destruction is evil. But I also think none of those should be outlawed.

Last edited by clowntable; 11-21-2012 at 02:54 PM.

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11-21-2012 , 06:48 PM

#6539

DarkMagus

Carpal \'Tunnel

Join Date: Jul 2007 Posts: 8,390

TIL that this is an actual Unicode symbol: http://shapecatcher.com/unicode_info/128169.html

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11-21-2012 , 10:05 PM

#6540

tyler_cracker

Carpal \'Tunnel

Join Date: Apr 2005 Posts: 15,828

Quote:

Originally Posted by clowntable

Like github but for brains.

i have never been more afraid to rebase.

Last edited by tyler_cracker; 11-21-2012 at 10:06 PM. Reason: on the plus side, i can now replace expensive therapy sessions with `git blame neuroses/`. i knew it was you, mom!

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11-22-2012 , 01:08 PM

#6541

mindsplatter

grinder

Join Date: Aug 2005 Posts: 524

Say i have a list of 2 types of locations, for example schools and hospitals.
I have the geo co-ordinates of each location.

I want to perform the following query.

Return _all_ the hospitals that have 4 schools within 10 km.

What type of search is this? What terms should i be looking up to find out more implement this. I'm trying to find out what type of problem this is in general so I can find the most efficient way to achieve this. Each location is indexes in a nosql document index/database. Working out the distance between geo co-ordinates are handled by the index/database.

edit:

I'm still going to do the following right?

for each hospital:

return x (all schools < 10 km)

and then return all the one where x > 4

Then depending on the size of the dataset it only then becomes a map reduce problem?

Last edited by mindsplatter; 11-22-2012 at 01:15 PM. Reason: more thoughts

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11-22-2012 , 09:15 PM

#6542

Neko

Pooh-Bah

Join Date: Jul 2005 Posts: 4,000

google for "geospatial query"

Quote

11-24-2012 , 04:00 PM

#6543

sdturner02

old hand

Join Date: Jul 2010 Posts: 1,230

I do quite a bit with geolocation using lat/lon coords. I use MySQL. I know that you're not using MySQL, but I don't think it would be too tough to tailor this to what you need.

This is from an application that allows users to broadcast e-mail and text message "alerts" to one another within a given distance.

Users set a home zip code and a maximum distance from which they want to receive alerts in their account profile (either 50, 100, 200, or 300 miles). They receive all alerts sent within the specified distance from their home zip.

I have two tables -- one table has all 40K or so zip codes with their corresponding lat/lon coords. The other table, called "users", has a column with the home zip code and max alert range for each user:

Code:

CREATE TABLE `zips`
(
    `zip_code` mediumint(5) unsigned zerofill not null primary key,
    `lat` decimal(9,6) not null default 0,
    `lon` decimal(9,6) not null default 0
)
ENGINE=InnoDB;

CREATE TABLE `users`
(
    `user_id` mediumint unsigned not null auto_increment primary key,
    `home_zip` mediumint(5) unsigned zerofill not null default 0,
    `alert_range` smallint unsigned not null default 0,
    // a few other columns
)
ENGINE=InnoDB;

When a user sends an "alert", the application first looks up the user's home ZIP and the lat/lon coords for that ZIP code from the zips table.

It then uses those lat/lon coords in this query below to calculate the distance from the alert for each user, selecting the users that are within the alert range of where the alert was sent:

Code:

$query = "SELECT users.user_id, round(( 3959 * acos( cos( radians($lat) ) * cos( radians( zips.lat ) ) * cos( radians( zips.lon ) - radians($lon) ) + sin( radians($lat) ) * sin( radians( zips.lat ) ) ) ), 2) AS distance
	  FROM users, zips
	  WHERE zips.zip_code = users.home_zip
	  HAVING users.alert_range = 50
	  AND distance <= 50
	  OR users.alert_range = 100 
	  AND distance <= 100
	  OR users.alert_range = 200
	  AND distance <= 200
	  OR users.alert_range = 300
	  AND distance <= 300";

That's PHP code, and the bolded variables are the lat/lon coords that I would have pulled for the ZIP where the alert originated from.

The query is using the Haversine formula, which calculates the distance between two points on a sphere (the earth, obv). The result of that query is that all users that should receive the alert are selected, regardless of the individual distance preferences.

Lemme know if you need anymore explanation.

Quote

11-24-2012 , 04:13 PM

#6544

sdturner02

old hand

Join Date: Jul 2010 Posts: 1,230

Btw, that formula is adapted from this tutorial about creating a store locator:

https://developers.google.com/maps/a...hpsqlsearch_v3

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11-25-2012 , 02:36 AM

#6545

daveT

S.A.G.E. Master

Join Date: Jun 2005 Posts: 23,955

Brag: I have an article on the front of HN.

It's now 10:30pm and Google Shows 50-ish visitors right now. Pretty good feeling. Won't be as popular as hacking a vagina, but still pretty neat.

I almost feel sorry for those who are opening. It's a really long article.

Quote

11-25-2012 , 04:49 AM

#6546

sdturner02

old hand

Join Date: Jul 2010 Posts: 1,230

Quote:

Originally Posted by daveT

Hell yeah dude! Which one is it?

Quote

11-25-2012 , 05:21 AM

#6547

daveT

S.A.G.E. Master

Join Date: Jun 2005 Posts: 23,955

The Circle of Fifths.

I'm getting pretty well bashed for the questionable code example and typos but I think they like it overall. It was rushed out a tad fast and **** Libre Office for not catching everything. I have a bit of work to do after traffic dies off.

Total time-sink watching Google Analytics. Just seeing the article getting linked from all sorts of sites is pretty neat. Peaked at around 100 simultaneous views and currently around 1500 views.

The goal is to codify all of music theory in the series.

Quote

11-25-2012 , 05:26 AM

#6548

daveT

S.A.G.E. Master

Join Date: Jun 2005 Posts: 23,955

Quote:

Originally Posted by sdturner02

Code:

CREATE TABLE `zips`
(
    `zip_code` mediumint(5) unsigned zerofill not null primary key,
    `lat` decimal(9,6) not null default 0,
    `lon` decimal(9,6) not null default 0
)
ENGINE=InnoDB;

CREATE TABLE `users`
(
    `user_id` mediumint unsigned not null auto_increment primary key,
    `home_zip` mediumint(5) unsigned zerofill not null default 0,
    `alert_range` smallint unsigned not null default 0,
    // a few other columns
)
ENGINE=InnoDB;

Code:

$query = "SELECT users.user_id, round(( 3959 * acos( cos( radians($lat) ) * cos( radians( zips.lat ) ) * cos( radians( zips.lon ) - radians($lon) ) + sin( radians($lat) ) * sin( radians( zips.lat ) ) ) ), 2) AS distance
	  FROM users, zips
	  WHERE zips.zip_code = users.home_zip
	  HAVING users.alert_range = 50
	  AND distance <= 50
	  OR users.alert_range = 100 
	  AND distance <= 100
	  OR users.alert_range = 200
	  AND distance <= 200
	  OR users.alert_range = 300
	  AND distance <= 300";

This, btw, is awesome. I was wondering how to do this...

Quote

11-25-2012 , 12:44 PM

#6549

sdturner02

old hand

Join Date: Jul 2010 Posts: 1,230

Don't worry too much about all of that. HN commenters in particular, and devs in general (myself included), are nitpicky by nature. Plenty of people have talked about it, but there is a tendency for HN posters to be sharply critical of pretty much everything. I know that you know that.

What's FAR more important, and what you should be most proud of, is the analysis in your post. I would gladly trade a few typos and some unpolished details for very strong analysis any day of the week. And I suspect most people would.

Best example I can think of: Mark Cuban's blog. I've been following it for a few years, and I don't think he's made a post yet that didn't contain some kind of typo. He also has this really weird thing where he seems to always put a space before a question mark or exclamation point when using one to end a sentence. But, his posts are so insightful that I don't think anyone cares about those small mistakes.