10 MAR 2019 by ideonexus
Outboard Brain
Following in the grand tradition of nearly every new technology, nobody started to panic about the potential downsides of cognitive outsourcing until kids starting doing it, and doing it in ways that their parents didn't understand. They type with their thumbs in ugly slang and funny symbols. They have short attention spans. They can't remember their own phone numbers. They spend more time on social media than they did with their friends irl (that's "in real life," my daughter tells me). They... 1 
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notes25 OCT 2017 by ideonexus
The Web Enslaves Us With Convenience
In The Matrix, Neo learns that humanity is enslaved by machines. The populace “lives” in a virtual world, unaware that their body heat is being used as an energy source. I see a sort of low-fi parallel of this in our relationship with Facebook. Every member operates in that “free” forum, largely unaware that they’re powering the thing by relinquishing their user data.
This scenario is in stark contrast to what we once hoped the web to be. We imagined it as a means of liberating people. It’d ... 1 notes
notes15 AUG 2014 by ideonexus
The Truth Religion
The Truth was the presumptuous name of the religion, the faith that lay behind the Shrievalty, the Cessoria, in a sense behind the Mercatoria itself. It arose from the belief that what appeared to be real life must in fact - according to some piously invoked statistical certitudes - be a simulation being run within some prodigious computational substrate in a greater and more encompassing reality beyond. This was a thought that had, in some form, crossed the minds of most people and all civil...Folksonomies: religion virtual reality
Folksonomies: religion virtual reality
1 notes
notes21 JUN 2014 by ideonexus
Entertaining Work is a Moral Issue
I’m not the first person to notice that reality is broken compared with games,
especially when it comes to giving us good, hard work. In fact, the science
of happiness was first born thirty-five years ago, when an American psychologist
by the name of Mihály Csíkszentmihályi observed the very same
thing. In 1975, Csíkszentmihályi published a groundbreaking scientific study
called Beyond Boredom and Anxiety. The focus of the study was a specific kind
of happiness that Csíkszentmihályi named flo...Folksonomies: gamification
Folksonomies: gamification
1 notes
notesIsn't this also a matter of perspective? Don't we need to look at life like a game?
The problem is that real-life isn't like a game. A really tough programming problem doesn't match my skills, they can go far beyond them.
Education is ENGINEERED, so it can be like a game.
24 JAN 2014 by ideonexus
Computer Simulations Allow for Mistakes
. . in real life mistakes are likely to be irrevocable. Computer simulation, however, makes it economically practical to make mistakes on purpose. If you are astute, therefore, you can leam much more than they cost. Further¬ more, if you are at all discreet, no one but you need ever know you made a mistake. 1 notes
notesWhere mistakes in the real world don't allow do-overs.
29 NOV 2013 by ideonexus
The Actuarial Math of Altruism
I have talked in elemental
terms of suicidal genes for saving the lives of particular numbers of kin
of exactly known relatedness. Obviously, in real life, animals cannot be
expected to count exactly how many relatives they are saving, nor to
perform Hamilton's calculations in their heads even if they had some way
of knowing exactly who their brothers and cousins were. In real life,
certain suicide and absolute 'saving' of life must be replaced by statistical
risks of death, one's own and oth... 1 notes
notesIt's not just intra-species, but the closer the relative the more altruism. Also the potential to reproduce affects the relationship as well.
16 NOV 2013 by ideonexus
Rule #1 Expand
Well, first thing’s first: we need to expand. We need to create a second base, and a third, and a fourth. We need to use our resources to build more resource-gathers, and fast. The enemy scouts are likely approaching already.
How might we do that? Well, there are only so many ways to make money in this world. We already have a day-job, which will act kind of like our home base, so now we need to expand to other types of revenue-producing activities that will serve as our satellite bases. The...
2 This is sort of the strategy I take to my online persona, publishing blog posts, guest articles, CC books, etc, etc, creating an expansion of content to improve my online presence and reputation.
16 NOV 2013 by ideonexus
"Real Life" General Game Play
The first thing you'll notice about Real-life is that it about 9 months to start a new character, mainly because two other players have to "register" for a new player to enter the game, fortunately now-a-days "registering" is happening more and more frequently, unfortunately this means that the "sever" getting overcrowd. But back to starting a new character, after waiting 9 months, you enter the game (in a pretty graphic way) but after the tutorial begins, with learning about the breathing an...It takes nine months to spawn and everything is a mini-game.
16 NOV 2013 by ideonexus
A Harsh Death Penalty Affects the Game "Real Life"
While certainly realistic, the harsh death penalty makes players think twice before trying anything adventurous. Risk avoidance then leads to long stretches of the game where nothing much happens, which can be a bit boring. As a consequence Real Life is one of the few games where the crafting and tradeskill part of the game is more popular than the combat part of the game. Well, truth be told, combat in Real Life isn't much fun anyway. But in consequence many players spend a lot of time in RL...As a result, crafting is more popular than combat.
16 NOV 2013 by ideonexus
Leveling Up in the Game "Real Life"
The gameplay itself is extremely open-ended, though it's structured in such a way that you'll have a fairly clear path to follow when you're just starting out. Real life features a great system whereby newbie players will automatically be guided along through the early levels by one or more "parent" characters who elect to take newbie characters under their wing. This is a great system, as these older, more-experienced characters reap their own benefits from doing a good job of guiding the ne...Open-ended, a grind, but ultimately very rewarding.
