The World Doesn't Need The Olympics
Welcome to What We Learned This Week, a digest of the most curiously important facts from the past few days. This week: The Olympics are actually bad, "Half-Life 3" is never coming out and whiteboard interviews are stupid.
Even If 'Half-Life 3' Happens, It's Not Going To Be Good
Watching Looper's thorough breakdown of why Valve has yet to release "Half-Life 3" feels sort of like when someone explains why they're breaking up with you. The signs were all there, you just refused to acknowledge them. And now you get to feel sad.
But you don't have to feel sad, because I'm here to tell you that "Half-Life 3" would not be a very good game. How do I know this? Because I've played both "Half-Life" and "Half-Life 2" recently and, well, they don't hold up.
That's not to say they are "bad" games. At release, they were unique takes on the first-person shooter genre — "Half-Life" introduced a new narrative format to the FPS, and "Half-Life 2" pioneered physics simulation and environment interactivity. It's a testament to the influence of the "Half-Life" franchise that these elements are now bog-standard in any modern FPS.
So, let's say "Half-Life 3" comes out next week? What does it look like? Well, if it's a traditional "Half-Life" game, then it's not going to be a very good game. And if it's a modern, good first person shooter then, well, it's not going to be a "Half-Life" game now is it?
The "DOOM" remake in 2016 sort of bottled lightning by offering a modern spin on a genre of FPS that's been untouched since, well, Doom. Reinventing "Half-Life" would mean focusing more on the narrative, which means we'd more likely see Gordon Freeman wandering around in a "Gone Home" style adventure, rather than picking up the crowbar again.
[Looper]
We Can Do Without The Olympics
With the exception of London, three out of the four past Olympic games have played host to an unlikely event: ruin porn photography. Athens, Beijing and now Rio are decaying examples of what happens when an international sporting event forces a city to pump billions in the hopes of… what exactly? Infrastructure improvement that sits vacant? Fleeting tourism revenue?
The Ringer's Rodger Sherman proposes a simple idea: What if the International Olympic Committee just stopped? There are, Sherman argues, just about five cities on the planet capable of hosting the Olympic games without bankrupting themselves. Maybe the IOC should just host the games there. Would this ruin the "spirit" of the games? Probably! But at least it would rid of us of the IOC's parasitic conquest of every major city across the planet.
Ikea's Billy Bookcase Is Boring Triumph
There's nothing revolutionary about Ikea. They didn't invent simple design, nor were they the first to exploit economies of scale. The Billy Bookcase — so ubiquitous that you probably know at least two people with one — wasn't a triumph of bookcase design when it hit the world in the late '70s.
What it is, though, is a shining example of how Ikea became everyone's favorite well-I-have-to-furnish-my-apartment-with-something choice. Tim Harford's excavation of what made the company what it is today, reveals that Ikea just kept finding ways to save money. Savings here or there that, when passed onto the customer, made them the obvious choice when it came to buying something as functional as a table or bookcase.
Sometimes, a bookcase is just a bookcase, and deep down that's all people really want.
[BBC]
Programmers Are Starting To Rebel Against The Whiteboard
For a time, a common and accepted interview procedure for programming candidates, people who almost exclusively do all of their work on a computer, was to draw out programs on a white board. And these aren't like, "Hey how would you solve a problem that's directly related to what we might hire you for" types of questions. Whiteboard tests often require programmers to recall arcane and obscure knowledge to… prove they're "real" programmers? It's the equivalent of telling a friend that you, too, enjoy pop punk and then that friend immediately demanding you name the sixth track on New Found Glory's Sticks and Stones, and then also it's length.1
Thankfully, this is coming to an end. The Outline highlighted a recent movement of programmers who are confessing that they, shockingly, do not know the entirety of computer science, and must sometimes resort to the internet for answers. Hopefully, interviewing for developer positions will soon look like that of the rest of the world. Otherwise, it would really suck if writers were required to diagram sentences.
Previously on What We Learned This Week
You Can Actually Pay People Too Much
The Darkest Town In America Is In Nevada
For more Internet distillations like this, check out our back catalog of Digg Roundups. And for more stuff from Digg, check out our Originals archive.
