Notices by The Bishop Of Bobbins (bobbins@bobbinsrobots.com)

Oh no, it’s graphs and numbers day again. Scarper!

Oh god, it’s just dawned on me that the reason people think 220 slides aimed at investors and telling CEO’s they’re doing a good job, it’s everything else that’s at fault is aimed at them is because they really think they’re swimming in the same pool.

Also. I cannot handle the doomerism. Folks looking for stuff to go “oh god, it’s bad, it’s so bad, we’re so very fucked” all the time and scaring themselves witless with numbers and passing round scary looking graphs with all the context removed, just numbers going up or down, no meaning, nothing to divine from or work with, no relationship to people’s experiences.

I know normal people don’t spend 20 odd years thinking about the stuff I do and fair enough but *I can’t live like that*.

These “state of the industry” reports aren’t for us. This guy’s job is to tell C Suite it’s the world outside that’s got it all wrong and writes thousands of words about that, has graphs to prove it. It’s not for human consumption. It’s corporate toxic waste. It’s built on the intrinsic belief that we are all in competition with each other.

It’s poison.

Going for a big old swim in it is against all medical advice.

@sinbad The dude just *really* liked his job.

TATWATCH INTERMISSION: my perfect teen flick.

https://fishwithlasers.bearblog.dev/intermission-my-perfect-teen-flick/

Related to this, right. When I was a much, much younger Rob and first started watching a glut of any old thing I could tape off the TV to watch, I spent a really, really, long time confused about American teenagers.

Like, did they just count teen years differently over there? How long were they at senior school for? Did you stay on to 35 or something and that’s why they all looked like that?

It had me stumped for years.

In my defence, I also went to a school where at least one teacher still wore a cape and mortar board so, you know, I had no idea what normal was.

Looking for Tom Nook.

Can’t stop gawping at the mound of people on there who Very Strongly BelieveTM that BSky is different and exists to benefit the users more than the people running BSky and the investors who want money and influence from their investments. As the site speedruns going to shit faster than I thought it would.

Reminds me of Keith stuff and all the “sure, he keeps saying he’s going to do shit things but he just needs to say that to get power” belief. You can’t puncture it, it’s way too deep.

So, there’s a bunch of folk trying to keep the vanguard at bay and it’s caught between legit “fuck this shit off, this is a danger to me and/or to people” stuff and a bunch of weirdos who seem to think they can tweetfluence their way to reasoning with BSky itself because BSky is different and they really, really care about the safety of the users in spite of the site’s hyper-libertarian bent, no safety, and taking money from crypto firms etc

And it’s horrifyingly fascinating to watch unfold

The *only* thing BSky needed to collapse under its own weight was the other place getting so bad that the fash, bigots, provocateurs got bored and needed people to prod. There’s too much money in the grift, too much power behind it, for folks to let it lie now.

You’d think the folks running the place were kindly folks wanting to make the world a better, safer, place. Rather than brakes off hellsite. It’s properly bizarre.

I don’t understand it.

I don’t want any social network to ‘win’, I just want some fucking peace from brands, clout chasers with shit opinions, transphobes and nazis.

I’m thinking of setting an alarm the way things are going. Week before payday and I’m all but out of money and the cupboard is nearly bare again. Doesn’t seem to matter how careful, how diligent, how *cheap* I am, everything keeps going up so fast. Still waiting on our joyous overlords decisions.

Just totally fed up of it now. It stopped being a novelty a while back and I’m tired of being tired of it. If anyone can help out, I’d be grateful.

https://ko-fi.com/robfearon / https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/retroremakes

Still kinda thinking about that RPS GMTK interview a bit (https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/how-ten-years-of-game-makers-toolkits-design-analysis-informed-mind-over-magnet) and I’m sort of left with three thoughts:

1) is this a jam culture thing because obv. I spent years running a game dev forum and none of this would be news to the most amateur amateur in 2000.

2) from that, is this then what happens when you absolutely nuke any sense of community … all this obvious stuff lost to folks fumbling around on their tod? Two seconds on a game dev forum, if you didn’t know this stuff.

Like, everything in here is a known quantity, right? Playtesting, iterating, planning… to me, this is first principles kind of stuff. But! Part of that is because I immediately got thrown into an environment with people much, much more knowledgeable than me, much more practised than me and crucially, supportive and tolerant of folks knowing nothing and starting from nothing and because no-one has to be business headed, free to fuck around a lot how they like.

I don’t think you can reproduce that with a microblogging service, a Reddit or a discord. Much like then having an IRC channel, they’re additive and have their own use but without the permanence, shit gets lost. Experience gets lost. Culture gets lost. Not passed down.

Honestly, I must have been an intolerable shite so often going off and doing stuff anyway like a know it all nob but *always* had folks to catch me when I fucked up whatever I was trying this time.

Not that they could stop me being a dick because I totally was, but there was always a “ok, so that’s why I do it this way” from someone with more experience to fall back on. I don’t know how you can retain that given what most people will be walking into when they’re getting started now.

But I may just be old man shouts at cloud. I dunno. I am just very grateful that I got the best people to know and they continue to be brilliant people today.

My third thought is “fuck me, you can go ten years not knowing this?” and part of what I’m getting at is that I don’t blame Mark here, okay … entirely blame Mark here … , but it does aggravate me.

It aggravates me because I want people to be off out making their own wild shit but I also want them to have people to catch them and if that’s not there, that people can go ten years not knowing the importance of these basic ass things, structurally something is awry. You should not go that long!

And really, I think the bonus fourth thought is that I really was a lucky bastard, in timing and in finding community because I could then, and I am so grateful to everyone who made up and held together all the things I benefitted from.

And why whenever I see folks have their little clubs and communities they built themselves, it keeps me from throwing my hands up in the air and shouting fuck this shit and proverbially walking into the sea. It’s not gone, just things are a mess out there.