Don't :P Where You Eat

It is common for us petty engineers to hold our knowledge and abilities in high esteem. When we practice a trade that can only be known to the common person through weeks, months, or years of learning and training, such a thing is to be expected. However, because of this, and because of the competitive nature of humans, we often lose sight of the fact that this knowledge is merely a product of our own circumstances, and has come at a price for all of us.

That price can be measured in time, effort, and sometimes even in a literal sense (for those who have invested money in an education). However, the fact that we were able to pay the price and had the will to do so is nothing to be proud of. It's merely been a part of who we are, and a part of our natural circumstances in this world. If we lose sight of this, we will begin to :P uncontrollably.

Indeed, the need to :P (or any of its variants, such as :p, =P, and :-P) has become somewhat of an epidemic amongst our people. Originally, the :P was intended for use by females, children, and homosexual males. A way to traditionally mimic the implications of sticking one's tongue out, it could be a playful gesture, or indicate something of a taunting nature, along the lines in which a child might express "nyah nyah".

Unfortunately, through its origins as a form of taunt, the :P has become something darker, and less representational of its intended use. It has become an emoticon which indicates a certain level of smugness, used to enforce a certain level of "I'm right"-ness, and/or dictate that the user is on a higher "intellectual plane" than the conversational target of the :P.

This abusive use of :P has taken strong hold within engineering communities. Confidence in one's own abilities is productive and beneficial in many ways, and :P would seem to represent this. Unfortunately, :P's use rather reflects a certain well of insecurity within the user - an artificial mask of confidence, artificially asserting the user's dominance. This becomes especially evident when the user needs to :P more than once in a single conversation.

Misuse of :P has proven to be statistically higher amongst basement engineers - those who devote more hours than most to their trade, researching endlessly into their specific area(s) of expertise, while having little to actually show for it in terms of social and worldly success. These engineers are plagued with insecurities, and are therefore prone to taking a :P whenever possible, in order assert their knowledge and dominance, which has not served to bring them confidence or success in other areas of life.

Because of these trends, we can now spot :P users through their insecurities, and choosing to :P in public places has become an evident sign of weakness and/or ill-gotten, artificial confidence. However, there are still those who are unaware of these contextual implications, and those who still choose to :P freely without realizing how deeply they are exposing their own insecurities. We can only combat this problem by being fully aware of :P.

So, please, if you find that you need to :P, consider the context and implications. Don't just :P without knowing what it means. You'll be glad you took the time to make sure you're choosing to :P the right way. Thank you for listening to this message, and if you see anyone trying to :P irresponsibly, please don't let it continue. As a member of society, you are responsible for making sure your fellow man uses :P the right way.

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#7

Rich Whitehouse

March 11, 2010 at 8:05 am (CST)
Hey. Still trying to finish my game up, and I've been playing FF13 over the past couple days. I don't really like the new combat system, although the need to perform paradigm shifts regularly at least keeps it from being completely automated.

FF12 had a far better angle when it came to automating the experience. It automated the stupid trivial things (e.g. not having to hit "attack" every single turn for normal battles) and allowed you great flexibility in determining what you wanted your characters to do with conditionals. FF13's "auto battle" is basically a rigid fixed-function gambit that there's rarely any reason to not use.

My game is going...kind of well. I spent the past several days making tons of environmental models, because I didn't want to hire another person to do it. Actually, the whole process of contracting someone out and worrying about their skill level/quality and trying to get them familiar with my asset pipeline probably would've taken weeks anyway. Getting new people up to speed with things is usually more trouble than it's worth.

But aside from that, there's still just tons of content to make. I've been adding more and more things without much regard for the delays they impose, because I figure, if I've already waited this long, I might as well just go all out. It'll get done soon enough anyway, and the iPhone market has gone to shit and isn't gonna return from shitdom, so there's no reason to rush for that reason. (the game is also going to be released on a few different platforms now, but iPhone is still the first - unless of course Apple gives me enough shit about censorship issues to delay it for months, which wouldn't be surprising)

That logo in the upper-right actually changes randomly, it's been like that since I made the site. There's kitten food, savior, assassin, cannibal, vampire, and software engineer. I think that's everything.

Well, back to work/FF13.


#6

ukurereh

March 10, 2010 at 10:35 pm (CST)
Hey Rich, haven't heard from you for a while. What's been happening? And when did you become "Professional Developer & Assassin"?


#5

Rich Whitehouse

February 11, 2010 at 3:30 pm (CST)
That's understandable, if your machine can't support Windows 7 properly. Though I don't understand why you can't :P under XP.


#4

shanky887614

February 11, 2010 at 7:40 am (CST)
i don't use :P anyway i use XP


#3

Rich Whitehouse

February 10, 2010 at 7:53 pm (CST)
I pronounce it as "pee", although "colon pee" works nicely as well, as a metaphor for diarrhea. I have noticed that you tend to use a one-minus-:P now and then, which is what I call :P of a self-deprecating nature. Though I have no problem with that, since it isn't a malicious form of :P. Both self-deprecating and legitimate silliness uses of :P are completely acceptable, though one-minus-:P can have extremely negative consequences on the user if used too frequently.

A number of those acceptable uses in contrast and combination are what led to the rise of the evil :P, but that does not make them evil in and of itself. A healthy :P is still good for everyone, and can indeed depressurize a situation with a much-welcome stream of relief.

Going back on the topic of web stuff, I'm actually a bit torn on allowing a separation between presentation and content at all. It really doesn't make sense to have in this standard, since presentation in web documents is almost always integral to the content. I think there are more suitable document formats already if you just want to get your content across in the most simplified manner possible.

The 3D web I'm thinking of basically is O3D, I think. However, I have no idea how O3D goes about implementing data from the user. In order to keep things hardware-friendly and user-friendly (in terms of content creation being extremely simple and easy), the system needs to have a good variety of procedural core primitives (shapes like cubes, spheres, etc) and corresponding functionality regarding attachment of primitives to each other. So that, say, something like a rotating cube with a 3D typeface on its side could be accomplished with two simple group definitions, but more advanced functionality like meshing of primitives together would also be desirable. Because of the nature of the content, text integration with each primitive is fairly vital.

I think a good example of what can be accomplished by users with access to a well-thought-out set of base primitives is very evident with the Spore character creator, actually. But in addition to this, it would be easy to bolt on a standard for custom primitive definition and a 3D file format, allowing advanced users to point the browser at their own geometric pieces. However, this complicates things in terms of ensuring low-end hardware support. But leaving the low end in the hands of the web site creator is not really a bad idea. People will conform to low-end standards as much as their own user bases demand them to.

Because of the "building block" functionality of the system, it would be possible to define a simple 2D page with no more effort than it would take to write out an HTML document (with a single "plane" primitive, referencing a single content block). This is where basic HTML/RTF/"any-stylized-text-format" would be an appropriate sub-feature for text stylization within any referenced text content block, as well. But in addition to allowing such simple functionality, it could allow anything from adding a 3D rotating cube to the 2D page, to building a complete 3D world out primitives which could be traversed through the web browser.

Coordinates for primitives would be easily-defined and probably even default to orthogonal projection modes (for the purposes of being able to whip up a document with the same ease of existing plain HTML standards). Perspective projection mode coordinates could be managed totally seamlessly with a decent editor as well, but would still be mentally manageable for simple page layouts. Furthermore, object sort orders would be defaulted to "whatever ends up making the best amount of sense", but could be forced by the content creator.

There have been a whole ton of proposed 3D web standards. But I think the big problem is that none of them have combined true ease of content creation with the 3D element, or they have attempted to create something that is simply on a whole different playing field (like Second Life), and therefore is very unlikely to ever replace existing web standards. Good built-in primitive support is really vital functionality for that reason. Again, I'll reference Spore's creature creator. People have done tons of insane/brilliant things with that simple tool - just imagine such functionality being built into a global web standard.

I think HTML and all of its variants are quite extendable, though CSS is probably less-so without back-breakage. Though it may not be an ideal format to begin with for certain types of data representation, there's no arguing that it can't be forced into doing pretty much anything anyone could ever want it to do. It's easy to make a format that continues to be extendable, but making a system in which the format can be extended freely is another matter.

Almost everything is prone to supporting specific types of data from its format - such as, say, a model format expecting its triangles as index lists. But then in the future, maybe we decide we want triangle strips too. Well, that's easy to add to the format, but the system using it has to then support both lists and strips. Here, we've got a pretty finite range of potential functionality. But for something like a generic web standard, what happens is we continue having to tack on tons of support for new functionality, and a lot of it makes the old functionality totally redundant and undesirable, but we still have to support it for the sake of compatibility. That inevitably leads to the implementation becoming a terrible mess.

I think foresight is the only answer to this problem. Foresight also isn't always possible, so sometimes there's just no avoiding the hell down the road. You just have to take a look at the problem you're trying to solve, think about the best way to solve it, and hope you didn't miss anything big. But then, local deployment and testing are also vital for this stage. You can't be afraid to kill the whole thing off and start from scratch if it turns out unsuitable for any core reason. It's better that than allow it to turn into a hideously mutating global standard. Then again, if your scope for the format and its use is limited enough, then it's not even worth caring about. :)


#2

ukurereh

February 10, 2010 at 6:51 pm (CST)
Huh, I didn't realize how often I use :P (though I know this wasn't directed at me). And I'm not entirely sure why I :P, either. It's definitely one of my smilies of choice, next to ^-^, :D, and -_-. I guess I use it as an indicator of silliness or non-seriousness if it's not already obvious, or sometimes I use it for no good reason at all.

But yea, sometimes when people use it, it seems more smug than silly or self-deprecating. Maybe part of the problem is that since :P is supposed to be silly, it gets used in already-tense situations where attempts to calm things down can backfire.

But what about examples of right and wrong usage of :P? I'm imagining a public service announcement in which improper usage causes internet demons to leap out of the computer and devour the offender. Not to mention the potential for real-life misuse. Don't :P and drive, people!

P.S. Does anyone else thing of :P as being pronounced as "bl"? Like the last syllable of "wobble"?


#1

Firestorm

February 10, 2010 at 10:13 am (CST)
heh, i was surprised by how much i liked and agreed with this post

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