This is one of my all time favorite games. It and Shenzhen I/O do a wonderful job of capturing the essence of what makes programming fun and put them into a game.
My biggest surprise from playing EXAPUNKS is how futile it is to try and pre-optimize a solution. I had to remind myself time and again to solve the puzzle first, then try and try and optimize it.
While the games are fun on their own, I recommend playing them at the same time as a friend. Trash-talking about finding more optimal solutions really added to the overall fun of playing the games.
This comment resonated with me in a way that few pieces of writing do. My only complaint is that it’s perhaps too short. I get the impression that you could turn this comment into longer post (with citations) and I encourage you to do so.
Can anybody point me at any interviews of Fabrice? I've looked several times (including just now) and I can't find /anything/ - am I missing something obvious?
I helped set up the first meeting between a Microsoft executive and Thomas Preston-Werner.
One of the moments that stood out to me was when Robert Youngjohns (the exec) asked Tom what it would take to have GitHub move to Azure. I was surprised that Tom had a response ready, saying that IOPS were really important and that virtual disks weren’t fast enough.
Tangentially related: Since you are at Texas Instruments, I wonder if you could find out what the status is of the intellectual property for the TI Explorer lisp machines. I know who owns the IP for Genera, but wasn’t able to find out about TI’s lisp OS
As somone who vigorously declines meetings, this gave me some extra criteria to use (estimated speaking time per attendee)
What I found the most useful was the focus that was put on having agendas for every meeting, something that I try to do for every meeting that I schedule.
It’s weird, and a little unnerving, to have a line from Anathem by Neil Stephenson immediately come to mind:
“Can you read? And by that I don’t just mean interpreting Logotype…” “No one uses that any more,” said Quin. “You’re talking about the symbols on your underwear that tell you not to use bleach. That sort of thing.”
For me, it was more like cigarette usage: "I can quit any time" I thought, even as the constant demands for my attention distracted and upset me. Recognizing how much I disliked Facebook, then quitting cold-turkey was the only way I was able to break my addiction.
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