Tetris, atmospheric phenomena on Mars, and late-night epiphanies in Off Topic

ID:81836
 
Sep 12 2009, 6:40 am
Keywords: rambleramble
Interesting article on Gamasutra about a guy who was involved in licencing Tetris for consoles. However, the really interesting part of the article is the bit about his four long-term goals: weaning the world off fossil fuels, ending war, creating a "backup" of the Earth by terraforming Mars, and ultimately discovering how the universe ends. Heady stuff. Worth a read.

There's a link in the article comments to these fascinating pictures of atmospheric phenomena on Mars. Clouds, dust devils, dust storms... for a place devoid of life, it's pretty dynamic. Of course, the really amazing thing is that the human race managed to build a bunch of robots and send them over to take photographs and do science. Some day humans will walk there. And this guy has the serious ambition of terraforming it!

You know what? We could bloody well do it, too. I mean, just really think about that for a minute. This is not just science fiction. We can terraform Mars if we want to.

OK, so it's late and that probably makes me more susceptible than usual to being blown away by insights which are really quite obvious and somehow mundane, and y'all may just be saying "yeah, so?", but... we can terraform Mars if we want to. How cool is that!

As a species, we really can do anything. Our time starts yesterday. What are you waiting for?

Stop reading this and go do something awesome!
#1 Sep 12 2009, 6:42 am
Well, at least that's better than "STOP MAKING GAMES". =)

And I am doing something awesome. GIAD is on, and I'm working hard on being awesome.
#2 Sep 12 2009, 6:46 am
Heh. I never did get around to articulating what that was all about, and I'm no longer sure it was worth doing anyway. :-)

Good to hear! Keep it up! I'd tell you to sleep because it's midnight already, but GIAD is of course more important. ;-)
#3 Sep 12 2009, 7:48 am
Crispy wrote:
Heh. I never did get around to articulating what that was all about, and I'm no longer sure it was worth doing anyway. :-)

I assumed the follow up "start designing them" was meant to most of the BYOND populace as "Stop diving into the code, take a step back, and put some thought into what you want to do before you start doing it. Or else, it's just going to suck, if you manage to release it." Or at least, that's what it seemed like.

Good to hear! Keep it up! I'd tell you to sleep because it's midnight already, but GIAD is of course more important. ;-)

Of course. =D
#4 Sep 12 2009, 11:44 am
Earth first! We can ruin the other planets later.
#5 Sep 12 2009, 11:49 am
I think Bender summed it up best.
Leelah: But it's bad for the planet!
Bender: So what? It's not like it's the only one we've got!
#6 Sep 12 2009, 2:19 pm
Stop reading this and go do something awesome!

My mind refused to read what you wrote, and instead stuck this in it's place:

Stop reading this and go TERRAFORM MARS ALREADY!
#7 Sep 12 2009, 6:18 pm
Foomer wrote:
Earth first! We can ruin the other planets later.

I agree 110%. In fact the interviewee's first two goals are about exactly that - fixing the immediate problems on Earth. Terraforming other planets is a longer-term goal; more of a hedge against events such as asteroid collisions, supervolcano eruptions, etc. It's not intended to be a climate change cop-out. We absolutely do need to learn to live sustainably on our existing planet before we can seriously contemplate living on two planets.

I'm optimistic that we can live sustainably on Earth. It's going to take a lot of effort from a lot of people, but heck - we can do that! There is nothing we cannot accomplish if we set our collective wills towards it. Which was really the point of this post.


Tiberath wrote:
I assumed the follow up "start designing them" was meant to most of the BYOND populace as "Stop diving into the code, take a step back, and put some thought into what you want to do before you start doing it. Or else, it's just going to suck, if you manage to release it." Or at least, that's what it seemed like.

Yep, that was it exactly. Too many BYOND games are just collections of thrown-together features, which aren't "designed" in any real sense.


IainPeregrine wrote:
My mind refused to read what you wrote, and instead stuck this in it's place:
Stop reading this and go TERRAFORM MARS ALREADY!

Haha. Works for me!