02 MAR 2019 by ideonexus
The Anthropic Principle
As an example of the power of the Anthropic Principle, consider the number of directions in space. It is a matter of common experience that we live in three-dimensional space. That is to say, we can represent the position of a point in space by three numbers. For example, latitude. longitude and height above sea level. But why is space three-dimensional? Why isn't it two, or four, or some other number of dimensions, hke in science fiction? In fact, in M-theory space has ten dimensions (as wel...Folksonomies: anthropic principle
Folksonomies: anthropic principle
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notes31 OCT 2018 by ideonexus
Kayfabe
Although the etymology of the word is a matter of debate, for at least 50 years “kayfabe” has referred to the unspoken contract between wrestlers and spectators: We’ll present you something clearly fake under the insistence that it’s real, and you will experience genuine emotion. Neither party acknowledges the bargain, or else the magic is ruined.
[...]
The aesthetic of World Wrestling Entertainment seems to be spreading from the ring to the world stage. Ask an average Trump support... 1 notes
notes27 JUL 2018 by ideonexus
All Play Takes Place in Temporary Worlds
All play moves and has its being within a play-ground marked off beforehand either materially or ideally, deliberately or as a matter of course…. The arena, the card-table, the magic circle, the temple, the stage, the screen, the tennis court, the court of justice, etc., are all in form and function play-grounds, i.e., forbidden spots, isolated, hedged round, hallowed, within which special rules obtain. All are temporary worlds within the ordinary world, dedicated to the performance of an a... 1 notes
notes27 JUL 2018 by ideonexus
Break the Rules of a Game to Improve it
In The Well-Played Game, Bernard DeKoven advocates a fundamental adjustment in players' attitudes towards the rules of a game:
You're not changing the game for the sake of changing it. You're changing it for the sake of finding a game that works.
Once this freedom is established, once we have established why we want to change a game and how we go about it, a remarkable thing happens to us: We become the authorities.
No matter what game we create, no matter how well we are able to play it,...Folksonomies: gameplay
Folksonomies: gameplay
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notesLike adding a push-your-luck component to Candyland or how SFR took Dragon Dice and refactored the rules to make it work.
27 JUL 2018 by ideonexus
The Information Age has Increased Abstract Intelligence
Most dramatically, an increase in one kind of abstract intelligence is visible all over the world: mastery of digital technology. Cyberspace is the ultimate abstract realm, in which goals are achieved not by pushing matter around in space but by manipulating intangible symbols and patterns. When people were first confronted with digital interfaces in the 1970s, like videocassette recorders and ticket machines in new subway systems, they were baffled. It was a running joke of the 1980s that mo...Folksonomies: intelligence iq
Folksonomies: intelligence iq
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notes10 FEB 2018 by ideonexus
Principles of Adult Behavior by John Perry Barlow
Be patient. No matter what.
Don’t badmouth: Assign responsibility, not blame. Say nothing of another you wouldn’t say to him.
Never assume the motives of others are, to them, less noble than yours are to you.
Expand your sense of the possible.
Don’t trouble yourself with matters you truly cannot change.
Expect no more of anyone than you can deliver yourself.
Tolerate ambiguity.
Laugh at yourself frequently.
Concern yourself with what is right rather than who is right.
Never forget that,... 1 notes
notes12 DEC 2017 by ideonexus
Summary of Human Evolution
ABOUT 13.5 BILLION YEARS AGO, MATTER, energy, time and space came into being in what is known as the Big Bang. The story of these fundamental features of our universe is called physics.
About 300,000 years after their appearance, matter and energy started to coalesce into complex structures, called atoms, which then combined into molecules. The story of atoms, molecules and their interactions is called chemistry.
About 3.8 billion years ago, on a planet called Earth, certain molecules combi...Folksonomies: epic history
Folksonomies: epic history
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notes22 SEP 2017 by ideonexus
The Role of the Educator In Regards to the Future
The world is changing -- it is getting both smaller and bigger at the same time. Our world shrinks as technologies now allow us to communicate both synchronously and asynchronously with peers around the world. Conversely, the explosion of information now available to us expands our view of the world. As a result of the ability to communicate globally and the information explosion, education must change. Most educators might not want to change, but the change is coming -- it is a matter of whe... 1 notes
notes21 APR 2017 by ideonexus
Code is Not Literature
Code is not literature and we are not readers. Rather, interesting pieces of code are specimens and we are naturalists. So instead of trying to pick out a piece of code and reading it and then discussing it like a bunch of Comp Lit. grad students, I think a better model is for one of us to play the role of a 19th century naturalist returning from a trip to some exotic island to present to the local scientific society a discussion of the crazy beetles they found: “Look at the antenna on this... 1 notes
notesSeibel's observation that reading code is less like literature and more like science is dead on. No matter how readable the code is, when I'm confronted with 10,000 lines of it spread across numerous encapsulated functions, I must tackle it very differently from how I read prose. With a complex literary text, I can just read it in linear fashion with occasional segueing to look up words and concepts, with well-engineered code I must follow numerous cases into different flows of logic. These aren't the same at all.
I appreciate that he's trying to dispel the idea that we "read" code as we read for pleasure, I learn from code by experimenting with it. I open up the debugger and step through it, watch the variables change and see where it goes when I execute it. Most of all, I learn by changing that code and trying to build on it. I have enhanced my javascript skills immensely in recent years by cloning various projects on github and trying to expand on them or adopt them to my own purposes. I don't recommend opening up a code base and just reading it, actively engage it, break it, and enhance it.
29 DEC 2016 by ideonexus
Science Fiction Gave Literature New Frontiers
The shift in subject matter from westerns to science fiction was probably already underway when Burroughs began writing. The frontier, which had been such a key feature of American popular fiction, was rapidly disappearing, and writers had begun looking for new frontiers—hence, the increasing number of stories about lost civilizations in unexplored parts of the world. But even the unexplored parts of the world were shrinking rapidly, and as new technologies, such as aircraft and rocketry, b...Folksonomies: history science fiction
Folksonomies: history science fiction
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notesBurroughs "Princess of Mars" even has the protagonist go from the Western frontier to a Martian desert. Wastelands are frontiers as well.
