7 ms·

When you're driving you're re-enacting an ancient space combat SIM

17 points by figbert 2y ago

carterschonwald 2y ago
The shared session cursors with location flags kinda surprised me
- jollyllama 2y ago
  It's insufferable
throwaheyy 2y ago
Weird, highly distracting arrow things darting around the page. I gave up trying to read it after a few paragraphs.
- ben_bai 2y ago
  yeah it's other peoples mouse courser, as they browse the site.
- darkwater 2y ago
  Doesn't work on Firefox/Linux, I see nothing moving. What I do see and drove me a bit crazy is that the background slowly and slightly morphing color, depending on how much time passed.
M95D 2y ago
I used to select the text as I read a web page. About 10y ago I began to think that selecting text is bad habit. About 5y ago I began to think that interacting with a web page in any way while I read, other than PgDn is a bad habit. This page proves that it's an extremely bad habit. I should stop using the mouse altogether while browsing, and maybe using a touchscreen to directly click links.
nrclark 2y ago
TL;DR: the little arrow that represents your car on Google Maps is descended from Space Wars.
- paleotrope 2y ago
  I can't tell if this is profound or not. It's just an arrowhead.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
hoseja 2y ago
Has the "in Google Maps" been editorialized out of the title? It makes no sense otherwise, I was racking my brain trying to come up with the aspects of driving that don't precede computers, so I've been clickbaited to find out wtf this is about. Also, what is the little arrow in Spacewar re-enacting? Perhaps the shape of the reed stylus pressed into a clay tablet?
ChoGGi 2y ago
> To give you an idea of how much 1985 was a different era: there were no GPS satellites No publically available GPS satellites. Wiki says first launch was '78.
cwillu 2y ago
‹sees mouse cursors moving on the page, closes page›
benjedwards 2y ago
This is a fun post, I appreciate the mentions. Matt missed my later piece from How-To Geek where I talked to Stan Honey and the Etak engineers again, then interviewed Asteroids designer Ed Logg, and he sent he his original sketch for the cursor. Indeed, his inspiration was Space War. https://www.howtogeek.com/696738/did-you-know-the-gps-triangle-cursor-comes-from-ataris-asteroids/ https://www.howtogeek.com/696738/did-you-know-the-gps-triang...
johnea 2y ago
> "When you’re driving around in Google Maps" ?! A perfect example of failure of perspective. No one is driving "in" goggle maps, their driving IRL, goggle is plotting the location. This is certainly a more valid connection than the connection to spacewar. The failure to recoqnize this error in perspective is a fundamental root cause of millenial disease: "the inability to understand that physical reality hosts all other 'virtual' realities"...
TZubiri 2y ago
https://hips.hearstapps.com/hmg-prod/images/musk-weed-1536332069.jpg?crop=0.502xw:1.00xh;0.356xw,0&resize=1200 https://hips.hearstapps.com/hmg-prod/images/musk-weed-153633...:*

17 points by figbert 2y ago

carterschonwald 2y ago

The shared session cursors with location flags kinda surprised me

jollyllama 2y ago
It's insufferable

throwaheyy 2y ago

Weird, highly distracting arrow things darting around the page. I gave up trying to read it after a few paragraphs.

ben_bai 2y ago
yeah it's other peoples mouse courser, as they browse the site.
darkwater 2y ago
Doesn't work on Firefox/Linux, I see nothing moving. What I do see and drove me a bit crazy is that the background slowly and slightly morphing color, depending on how much time passed.

M95D 2y ago

I used to select the text as I read a web page. About 10y ago I began to think that selecting text is bad habit. About 5y ago I began to think that interacting with a web page in any way while I read, other than PgDn is a bad habit. This page proves that it's an extremely bad habit. I should stop using the mouse altogether while browsing, and maybe using a touchscreen to directly click links.

nrclark 2y ago

TL;DR: the little arrow that represents your car on Google Maps is descended from Space Wars.

paleotrope 2y ago
I can't tell if this is profound or not. It's just an arrowhead.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

hoseja 2y ago

Has the "in Google Maps" been editorialized out of the title? It makes no sense otherwise, I was racking my brain trying to come up with the aspects of driving that don't precede computers, so I've been clickbaited to find out wtf this is about. Also, what is the little arrow in Spacewar re-enacting? Perhaps the shape of the reed stylus pressed into a clay tablet?

ChoGGi 2y ago

> To give you an idea of how much 1985 was a different era: there were no GPS satellites No publically available GPS satellites. Wiki says first launch was '78.

cwillu 2y ago

‹sees mouse cursors moving on the page, closes page›

benjedwards 2y ago

This is a fun post, I appreciate the mentions. Matt missed my later piece from How-To Geek where I talked to Stan Honey and the Etak engineers again, then interviewed Asteroids designer Ed Logg, and he sent he his original sketch for the cursor. Indeed, his inspiration was Space War. https://www.howtogeek.com/696738/did-you-know-the-gps-triangle-cursor-comes-from-ataris-asteroids/ https://www.howtogeek.com/696738/did-you-know-the-gps-triang...

johnea 2y ago

> "When you’re driving around in Google Maps" ?! A perfect example of failure of perspective. No one is driving "in" goggle maps, their driving IRL, goggle is plotting the location. This is certainly a more valid connection than the connection to spacewar. The failure to recoqnize this error in perspective is a fundamental root cause of millenial disease: "the inability to understand that physical reality hosts all other 'virtual' realities"...

TZubiri 2y ago

https://hips.hearstapps.com/hmg-prod/images/musk-weed-1536332069.jpg?crop=0.502xw:1.00xh;0.356xw,0&resize=1200 https://hips.hearstapps.com/hmg-prod/images/musk-weed-153633...:*