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<!DOCTYPE html>
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<title>Wake Up, Sheeple: Falcon 9 Edition - Comfortably Numbered</title>
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<h1>
<a href="/"><span class="left-word">Comfortably</span><span class="right-word">Numbered</span></a>
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<section>
<h2>Wake Up, Sheeple: Falcon 9 Edition</h2>
<h4>Thursday, September 17, 2015 · 3 min read</h4>
<p>Everyone’s talking about <a href="https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/76866912/">an addicting new
webgame</a> that lets you try and land
SpaceX’s Falcon 9 Lander.</p>
<p><a href="http://gizmodo.com/try-landing-the-spacex-falcon-9-yourself-with-this-flas-1731352484">Gizmodo</a>
says the game “will frustrate you no end”.
<a href="http://www.gamespot.com/articles/try-to-land-elon-musks-spacex-rocket-in-this-chall/1100-6430668/">GameSpot</a>,
<a href="http://techcrunch.com/2015/09/17/this-spacex-falcon-9-rocket-isnt-going-to-land-itself/">TechCrunch</a>,
<a href="http://www.engadget.com/2015/09/17/web-game-landing-falcon-9-pretty-much-impossible/">EnGadget</a>,
<a href="http://www.popularmechanics.com/space/a17389/this-spacex-game-lets-you-know-how-hard-a-barge-landing-is/">Popular
Mechanics</a>,
<a href="http://www.theverge.com/tldr/2015/9/17/9344475/spacex-falcon-9-landing-game">The
Verge</a>
and <a href="http://www.popsci.com/think-you-can-land-spacex-falcon-lander-go-ahead">Popular
Science</a>
seem to agree. The Twitterverse is <a href="https://twitter.com/nschmiedicker/status/644517861596221440">forming conspiracy
theories</a> about
SpaceX’s recruitment strategy.</p>
<p>But, as usual, everyone is missing the point:</p>
<h3 id="-spacex-falcon-9-lander-was-probably-written-by-a-kid-"><em>SpaceX Falcon 9 Lander</em> was probably written by a kid.</h3>
<p><em>Popular Science</em> parenthetically remarks that the game is not affiliated with
SpaceX. <em>The Verge</em> mentions that it was made with “software born out of the
MIT Media Lab”, whereas <em>GameSpot</em> gets it completely wrong and says that the
game was “developed and published for educational purposes by the MIT Media
Lab”.</p>
<p>In their rush to sensationalize every little bit of news, all of these websites
missed perhaps the most exciting bit of information. <em>SpaceX Falcon 9 Lander</em>
was probably written by a kid.</p>
<p><a href="http://scratch.mit.edu">Scratch</a>, you see, is a programming language designed
by researchers at MIT, intended to teach children how to program. I wrote some
of my first lines of code in Scratch, when I was nine. I still frequent the
site.</p>
<hr>
<p>Here’s something you might not know: unlike just about any other popular Flash
game, <em>SpaceX Falcon 9 Lander</em> is open-source. That means you can read the
source code. Right now.</p>
<p>In fact, if you sign up for your free Scratch account, you can also change the
source code, and publish your changes. You can make <em>Mars Rover Lander</em> by
changing a few of the images that the game uses—Scratch has a built-in paint
editor. You can twiddle some of the physics to make it easier or harder to win.
You can embed a cheat code, and then take screenshots to post proudly on the
Internet.</p>
<p><img src="/static/falcon-lander-hacked.png" alt="I didn't even try on this one."></p>
<p>You can do all of these things <em>right now</em>, for <em>free</em>, with <em>absolutely no
technical knowledge</em>. Assembling a program in Scratch is similar to putting
together LEGOs: easy and intuitive. Left alone for an hour or so, your kids
will figure it out on their own. In the process they will learn fundamental
skills in math and logic that will show up again and again throughout their
schooling and career. They will impress you.</p>
<p>Not convinced? Here’s what the code to play the sounds looks like.</p>
<p><img src="/static/falcon-lander-script.png" alt="Easy as pie."></p>
<p>Someone who has never seen a computer before should be able to understand what
that’s doing. That’s the beauty of Scratch.</p>
<p>Scratch is the future of computer science education. Scratch has inspired
beginners’ computer science classes at Berkeley and Harvard. Scratchers go on
to build amazing things, go to amazing universities, and lead amazing lives.</p>
<hr>
<p>In a society increasingly dependent on technology, it’s scary how few of us
know how it all works. We’re breeding armies of muggles afraid of the handful
who try to discover how things work. We’re imprisoning inquisitive
schoolchildren and trying to “protect” the public with a war against
<a href="http://hardmath123.github.io/dear-hollywood.html">“hackers”</a>.</p>
<p>And it’s not going to change anytime soon. Of the over twenty <em>thousand</em> views
the game has gotten, only <em>nineteen</em> people have bothered to look inside at
what makes it tick.</p>
<p>Wake up, sheeple.</p>
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