one of the things that annoys me, that I only complain about probably every other day, but it feels like it's been ages since i've had a good whine about this:
Endlessly recreating software from the 1970s and 1980s out of nostalgia.
I get it, I have nostalgia too.
but this stuff was designed around 1980s limitations, and it made 1980s usability comprimises because better hardware just wasn't available.
And yet, when we recreate the software, we copy the bad parts along with the good parts
this is what bugs me most about pico8 actually.
It's not the concept of limiting the games themselves that bug me- creativity from constraints is awesome! it's the having to create the games inside the tiny pixelated 128x128 window with shitty 40 year old eyes. I can't do it. it feels too cramped, like I'm making a miniature game in a bottle through a bottleneck with tweezers.
This is why we still have the "floppy disk" icon with no actual floppy disks. We make jokes about it, but not only do we not have floppy disks anymore- we don't *need* the save command anymore either. We have enough disk space that everything *could* just be getting autosaved to a spatial metaphore database with infinite undo and version checkpoints. Apple tried this at some point, and I admire them for trying, but their implementation was halfed assed and confusing.
@zens You have a much better grasp than I about the technical end of this(I had to look up what a spatial metaphor database was), but people do seem to have a hard time looking backwards and forwards at once. We go out into the world with the idea that the future has no limits and is wide open, only to re-make other's mistakes and find out what really works. We hold onto these hard-earned lessons, as we should, but maybe too much. Wisdom is having both mindsets.
@zens That is literally in our DNA. Explains a lot actually.
@daniel there was an experoment with a group of chinpanzees where they had them in a pen with an electrified floor. (gosh some psychological experiments are startlingly cruel!)
the scientists would dangle a bunch of bananas from the ceiling and zap *everyone* if any one of them went for the bananas.
they would keep doing this until over time they started to police each other not to touch the bananas. 1/2
@daniel
then when new chilpanzees were introduced, who didn’t know the rules, the new guy would get tackled by the other chimps if he tried to get the bananas.
then they stopped the zaps. even though they *could* get the bananas, the avoidance and policing continued.
even after there were no chimpanzees left who experienced the zaps first hand, they continued preventing banana touching- even though mo one really knew why.
@daniel of course, because it’s science, there was a control group that just got to enjoy bananas in peace and everything was fine.
@zens Pope Rheesus, authority on all things monkey and ape! Seriously though, the older I get, the more I understand how very limited we are with time and intelligence. It IS a bit disturbing to want to reach for something you can't grasp. Just enjoy the bananas if you can I guess. Good analog story.
@daniel there’s making the same mistakes, but there is also collectively forgetting why certain decisions were originally made, and never revisiting the decidion, simply copying it over and over again well beyond its initial utility- sometimes this is called cargo culting, but i am not sure that quite captures it.