Metagame

Metagaming refers to the relationship between the game and outside elements, including everything from player attitudes and play styles to social reputations and social contexts in which the game is played. Post-game locker room conversations about the match are metagame interactions. Memorizing words in the Scrabble dictionary is a metagame activity, the honing of in-game skills. The typical playing strategies of a particular Go master are metagame information, useful if you are playing agai...

 Couples as Socially-Distributed Cognitive Systems

In everyday life remembering occurs within social contexts, and theories from a number of disciplines predict cognitive and social benefits of shared remembering. Recent debates have revolved around the possibility that cognition can be distributed across individuals and material resources, as well as across groups of individuals. We review evidence from a maturing program of empirical research in which we adopted the lens of distributed cognition to gain new insights into the ways that remem...

 Conversation is the Nemesis of Scientific Thinking

The archenemy of scientific thinking is conversation, as in typical human conversational discourse, much of which is BS. I have become rather fed up with talking to people. Seriously, it is something of a problem. Fact is, folks are prone to getting pet opinions into their heads and thinking they’re true to the point of obstinacy, even when they have little or no idea of what they’re talking about in the first place. We all do it. It’s part of how the sloppy mind-generating piece of mea...

 Written Worlds May Not be Memes

Think of the number of things you are likely to say to someone else today -- or the number of words you will hear other people speak. You might listen to the radio, watch television, have dinner with other people, help your children with the homework, answer the phone to people far away. Most of what is said in these conversations will never be passed on again. Most of it will not reappear as 'Then he said to her...' or 'And did you know...' Most will die at birth. Written words may not fare ...

 Can you stop thinking?

Can you stop thinking? Perhaps you have practiced meditation or some other method of calming the mind. If so you will know that the task is not trivial. If you have not, I suggest you try now to empty your mind for a minute or so (or if you cannot face it now, try it sometime when you have nothing 'better' to do, waiting for the kettle to boil, or the computer to boot up, for example). When any thought comes along, as it certainly will, just acknowledge it and let it go. Do not get tangled up...

 About Science Online 2011

ScienceOnline2011 is the fifth annual international meeting on Science and the Web. On January 13-15th, 2011 the Research Triangle area of North Carolina will once again host scientists, students, educators, physicians, journalists, librarians, bloggers, programmers and others interested in the way the World Wide Web is changing the way science is communicated, taught and done. As in all the previous years, the meeting will be held in an ‘Unconference’ style – the Program is built befor...

 Oulipo - "workshop of potential literature"

Finally elaborated, this definition remains the Oulipo's rule. In his conversations with Charbonnier, Queneau returns to it nearly word for word: The word "potential" concerns the very nature of literature; that is, fundamentally it's less a question of literature strictly speaking than of supplying forms for the good use one can make of literature. We call potential literature the search for new forms and structures that may be used by writers in any way they see fit. Finally, and more recen...