Could you say a bit more about "it is very unreliable"? I'm considering using django-tasks with an rq backend [1] and would like to hear about your experiences. Did you find it dropping tasks, difficult to operate, etc.
https://app.dev-esc.com/new_game/ - an online escape room for developer teams. I aimed to make a team-building experience that was a bit different. unashamedly geeky: you’ll need puzzling and some coding to solve the challenges.
Fully remote for teams of 1-8ish; free to explore. Requires a computer, although you can explore on mobile/tablet.
Originally it was free to play - I got a fair few plays off my HN post, now I have a trickle of paying customers.
Oh I played this! I bought it to play with a friend over Discord and we had a real fun time, it was sort of the perfect niche (for us)
Personally I wish there were more of these. Having the one was nice but it's hard to play with another person when you already know the solution. And it's just fun to play more puzzles with the same friend.
I have recently made a new room for /dev/esc - my idea was that in the run-up to Christmas, plenty of dev teams would be looking for activities to do together. Full disclosure: it didn't work - I didn't get a bump of new customers.
If you can look past the festive theming, IMHO there are some good, totally original new puzzles in "Santa's Tech Disaster". (choose from drop-down when setting up a new game)
A more general approach I use - search on Twitter for the project name. If many users say that something does not work, it usually is not a "me" problem. Another strategy is to use websites which do connectivity tests from different locations (example: https://tools.keycdn.com/ping). You can use SSL scanning sites for that matter too.
Any reason why "Google Compute Engine" is highlighted in red on that page? Other entries seems fine that are also using it, but not the one where the service is currently broken. Makes it seem like the problem is Google Compute Engine is at fault, when that's obviously not true.
The current selection for the affected component automatically selects the `locations` entry. The `website` component selects the Google Compute Engine in this case.
Agreed that this can be confusing, we'll have to check whether the status page interface allows for more fine granular selections.
Maybe the best status page we could have would be a status page that just queries the HN Algolia API for "$SERVICE + DOWN" and checks if there is any hits in the last hour.
Really fun idea and a great implementation. I have been trying to come up with programming puzzles for my own project https://www.dev-esc.com - an escape room for devs
That looks really cool, of course you can incorporate a puzzle!
I don't have data on solution times, but I think it's very different for an individually-solved series of similar puzzles and a group escape room-style puzzle. My recommendation would be to prefer a puzzle that requires an "Aha!" moment and from there is relatively quick, rather than a more meticulous one that requires tweaking parameters and messing around a lot.
Thank you. That’s an interesting thought about “aha” moments versus meticulousness. I’ve tended to offer “slow burn” puzzles, although I think there’s one exception in the escape room at present.
I've built an online escape room for developer teams. I am seeking alpha testers.
Come and try to escape, and help me while doing so!
* Free to play (for now). Asks for an email address, completely optional.
* Fully remote; BYO video conf (works over Zoom, Skype, Teams, Google Meet - anything that enables screenshare + audio)
* Team size can be between 1 and 12
* You'll need to understand code, maybe write some code, hack a bit (needs a real computer, not a tablet or a phone)
* Currently, every game will be the same. In future I can build custom games, parameterised games, pick'n'mix.
Basic premise: for dev teams, coding together is something that is actually enjoyable. Get some satisfaction and build some team cameraderie without, y'know, meetings and JIRA and, well, clients/customers. Especially with covid-imposed remoteness, I see dev teams needing a bit of levity, a bit of (cringe) team building - I wanted to try a way that's not online drinking or a straight-up quiz.
Each player will be asked for a player name, then the team is dropped together into the escape room. Swarm over the puzzles, pair up or spread out (up to you) - puzzle/code/hack your way out together, then reflect on the fun you had on the way. Heavily influenced by Advent of Code, Project Euler.
I would like to charge for this eventually. The main challenges as I see it are content and game dynamics. I would like to learn from the first few teams that play. Getting the puzzle difficulty right, making hints available to the players at the right times, finding out how different teams handle and react to the UX. That kind of thing.
I look forward to hearing people's initial reactions, ideas and feedback.
Pretty cool looking game. :) I'm not the type of person who enjoys figuring out escape games but looks like some personality types could have fun here.
Love this article. I wonder if this is a brain-type thing. It really rings true for me.
Developing the idea, I have a similar multiple definitions problem, in a much smaller context, with the word “prescription”.
In the UK it means all of: a doctor’s idea of what medicine to give to a patient, a piece of paper with that written on it, and the medicine itself.
I got thoroughly confused when I went to collect a prescription from a pharmacy and was told “it’s (still) over at the surgery”. It wasn’t, or rather, it was. But we were talking about different prescriptions.
“Meter” is multiply overloaded. A unit of distance. A thing that makes measurements. An adjustment to a rate of flow.
“Extrusion” is a process as well as the object resulting from that process.
“By referencing the meter and adjusting the metering valve during extrusion, we can create a precisely meter long extrusion.”
Micrometer is a unit of measurement and measurement device that measures in that range, but often measures in thousands of an inch, which are commonly called “mills”, which is also the act of a type of machining and the name of the machinery that does it as well as the name of a common type of cutting tool that goes into that machine.
“Put an end mill in the mill and mill off five mills.”
Early days in a creative experiment with tech - we have had great success getting young children to connect with their grandparents. This feels so much better than "here's YouTube, be quiet for an hour". What have others tried? Does this trigger any other good HN ideas?
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