apike

@apike@mastodon.social

Working on what’s next. I founded Steamclock, host Fun Fact and It Shipped That Way, and write monthly about what I’m learning.

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collin, to random
@collin@ruby.social avatar

Do you have a blog? Tell me about it and I'll boost it. I'm looking for more good feeds to follow.

apike,

@collin I write once a month about making software, running teams, and sometimes breakfast cereal 😅 https://allenpike.com/

imyke, to random
@imyke@myke.social avatar

Inventory management should just not exist in video games. Nobody wants to do it, all it does is add frustration and overhead.

Let me pick up whatever I want and just give me sorting options!

apike,

@imyke Yeah, it's not a great solution. Since not-fun side efffecs happen when players pick up too much stuff, an interesting design might be to make picking things up more "expensive" at the time of pickup, rather than at inventory-max time.

Like maybe you can pick up fungible stuff like gold and ingredients for free, but picking interesting things up becomes somehow more difficult as you fill your backpack. Then players still think before picking up trash, but inventory can be soft-uncapped.

apike,

@imyke I tend to agree, but I think it tends to persist because of playtesting problems, such as:

  1. A massive inventory of things is unwieldy for players to browse and reason about, which leads to just using the 5 items they recall = less fun
  2. Looting everything means fewer decisions, less curiosity about items = less fun
  3. Unlimited inventory incentivizes looting every object that isn't nailed down, which is funny at first but stops being fun, yet many players will keep doing it = less fun
simon, to random
@simon@simonwillison.net avatar

Here's a brilliant neologism: "slop", for text generated entirely by LLMs and published, unwanted, on the Internet

> Watching in real time as "slop" becomes a term of art. the way that "spam" became the term for unwanted emails, "slop" is going in the dictionary as the term for unwanted AI generated content

Source: https://twitter.com/deepfates/status/1787472784106639418

apike,

@simon Love it when a new problem arises, then somebody finds just the right term for it. Now, we can easily talk about it, push back against it, etc.

bradellis, to random
@bradellis@hachyderm.io avatar

I saw so many people talking about “when Vision gets smaller and cheaper”. But look at your phone. It could be smaller, lighter, and cheaper. But instead it’s bigger and heavier and has lidar and 4 cameras. It might happen! Or maybe just judge it as it is and assume it’ll stay relatively the same.

image/jpeg
image/jpeg

apike,

@gruber I love how even today's desktop iMacs weigh way less than that

apike,

@chockenberry @bradellis The watches have gotten heavier! But Watch Series 0 customers weren't really complaining about the weight. I think there's more market pressure to make AVP lighter than with any previous Apple product I can think of.

apike, to random

I love the failure examples from OpenAI's new Sora video-generation model.

Like, it knows what a spilled drink looks like – but isn't exactly sure how a drink goes about spilling.

video/mp4

apike,

@Meyerweb Right? Every time you rewatch it, you can follow another detail (say, the sort of shovel-camera-pole thing) and track nonsensical aspects of it. It's wild how many of these errors don't stick out on first viewing.

apike,

I see, they're digging up a chair – oh okay, another chair, but it's kind of... oh... oh no

video/mp4

apike, to random

@danluu When you send out blog drafts for feedback, have you devised a less-bad workflow than sending readers a Google Doc with Markdown pasted into it?

apike,

@danluu Interesting, thanks.

It seems as if a tool like Docs or Bear or Notion that used Markdown for formatting and allowed line comments could exist and be useful. Even soliciting line comments on a github PR seems like it might be slightly less bad than round-tripping Markdown through Google Docs 🤔

sdw, to random
@sdw@mastodon.social avatar

oh lord to be that one OpenAI engineer that’s out there who’s about to come out of the Peruvian jungle after a weeklong ayahuasca retreat only to log on to all this

apike,

@sdw Back when I was in university I came in to work for my first day since I’d been on vacation, and found the door locked. And the lights off. After a minute the CTO came out and said, “Oh. Right." and went to fetch the paperwork that said “This office is now closed, goodbye”

_Davidsmith, to random
@_Davidsmith@mastodon.social avatar

Very cool to see that the mirroring which Apple was using during their demo's on an iPad isn't just an internal feature but something we can all do. Which will make user testing and design iteration much more straightforward.

https://www.apple.com/apple-vision-pro/specs/

apike,

@_Davidsmith Exactly. Without a list of sizes to pick from you can't even speculatively buy a couple sizes spaced out from one another, e.g. a “semi-small" and a "semi-large”

apike,

@_Davidsmith That is great – I've had good success with the equivalent feature on Quest when giving demos. I do wonder about usability testing with the light shield situation though – it seems like you'd need people to bring their own Vision Pro, or meet them where they are, or try to stream their mirroring? 🤔

apike, to random

@simon I’m curious what your take is on the design of GPTs, and whether the "bot can't speak first" constraint signals a grander plan on OpenAI's part: https://allenpike.com/2024/chatbot-to-everything-engine

apike,

@simon Oh for sure – but I expected the design to allow the GPT a hard-coded boilerplate first message so it can explain or ask a question. "What problem are you seeing with your car?” or “What is your character's name?” Most API-powered chat apps seem to have a static “initial message” like that.

apike, to random

Now that https://www.itshipped.fm has some momentum and an audience, I’ve started reaching further out to find guests. What leaders in tech, design, or product should I have on the show?

apike, to random

Is there really no way to set a timer on your iPhone and have its progress appear on your Apple Watch face? A few weeks in, I'm now used to most of the watch's other deficiencies, but this one is baffling to me.

apike,

@shepgo Currently I have a shortcut on my phone I find way faster for setting timers than the Timer complication. Maybe I need to try harder to tolerate Siri, or find a way on the watch to easily trigger that Timer shortcut (without using up the space that's meant to show the timer progress) 🤔

Meyerweb, to random
@Meyerweb@mastodon.social avatar

“Copyright protection is for us, not for you peons.” —OpenAI, probably
https://www.404media.co/openai-files-copyright-claim-against-chatgpt-subreddit/

apike,

@Meyerweb Interesting that they're using copyright to try and enforce what seems like a trademark issue.

rands, to random
@rands@mastodon.social avatar

Delighted to announce The Software Developer’s Career handbook is now available. https://randsinrepose.com/archives/the-software-developers-career-handbook/

apike,

@rands Glad to see that you get input on the covers. I know a lot of authors don’t get a say (though maybe that’s more of a fiction thing.)

apike, to random

Adding support for these exciting new technologies is Xcode 15. As you would expect from the version number, Xcode 15 adds support for Swift, iOS, macOS, watchOS, and tvOS versions 6, 17, 14, 10, and 17 respectively

apike, to random

I wrote a bit today about Nick Wilkinson finally taking the helm at Steamclock, over on the company blog. Feeling grateful for the team we’ve built at Steamclock – excited to see what they build next. ⭐ https://steamclock.com/blog/2024/04/managing-director

apike, to random

Just in case anybody has the illusion that my writing process is calm and orderly

apike, to random

It is advisable to use hearing protection when operating power tools, mowing the lawn, or daring to put vegetables in a child's lunchbox

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