04 NOV 2018 by ideonexus
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... 1 
notes
notes04 NOV 2018 by ideonexus
Dice Rolls are Suspect
It is true that every aspect of the role of dice may be suspect: the dice themselves, the form and texture of the
surface, the person throwing them. If we push the analysis to its extreme, we may even wonder what chance
has to do with it at all. Neither the course of the dice nor their rebounds rely on chance; they are governed by
the strict determinism of rational mechanics. Billiards is based on the same principles, and it has never been
considered a game of chance. So in the final analysis...Folksonomies: games randomness
Folksonomies: games randomness
1 notes
notes27 JUL 2018 by ideonexus
Social Class in Online Gaming
...in the “freemium” economy, one’s expendable income really does determine whether one can join certain “Clash” clans, because many only accept members who have advanced to a level that can only be achieved through the in-app purchase of “gems.” On Twitch, income divides social communities into haves and have-nots who must constantly hustle for the former’s patronage. And in an AI-driven setting – as on social media – one can never be too sure where the fun stops and the ...Folksonomies: gaming economics game economics
Folksonomies: gaming economics game economics
1 notes
notesWe see this in collectible card and dice games as well.
27 JUL 2018 by ideonexus
Rules are the Persistent Identity of a Game Across Cultur...
There are at least two senses in which the RULES schemas offer a "formal" way of looking at games. First, the term formal is used in the sense of "form": rules constitute the inner form or organization of games. In other words, rules are the inner, essential structures that constitute the real-world objects known as games. For example, consider two games of Go that differ in a variety of ways. They might differ in terms of:
Material: one version is played with stones on a wooden board; the o... 1 notes
notes08 MAY 2015 by ideonexus
China to Rate Online Behaviour in Social Credit System
Chinese internet firms are definitely interested, as Ant Financial, a subsidiary of ecommercegiant Alibaba, recently showed. To its popular app Alipay it added a new service which rated a person's credit worthiness on a scale of 350 to 950 points. This score is not only determined by one's lending behavior, but also by hobbies and friends. If friends have a poor lending reputation, this reflects badly on the person, just as prolonged playing of video games. Buying diapers indicates responsibi...Folksonomies: socialism social ratings
Folksonomies: socialism social ratings
1 03 MAR 2014 by ideonexus
The Religious Disquiet Concerning Extraterrestrial Life
These two articles reflect some religious disquiet at the prospect of contact with ETI.
When faced with an alien civilization of enormous powers and the likelihood that they are not even approximately human, the differences that divide us on Earth are likely to seem increasingly trivial and irrelevant. At least for many people, Aere should be a real decline in ethnocentrism and xenophobia and a major upsurgence of an identification with the human species and the planet Earth. Warring tribes ... 1 notes
notesReligious difference will seem trivial when faced with non-human intelligence.
09 JUL 2013 by ideonexus
Fun Computer Science Tasks
C is a big language with a lot of features, and it’s easy to get lost in how fun it is. But you can’t really appreciate a feature without knowing what it’s like to do without. So do things with limited resources. Make a binary adder using falling dominoes. Make a functional digital clock with neon bulbs, resistors, capacitors, diodes, wires, and a wall plug. Make a Turing machine with LEGO blocks. (Use a crank to run it.) If you’re really ambitious, make some logic using fluidics wi...Folksonomies: education computer science
Folksonomies: education computer science
1 Projects to learn CS and appreciate its underlying structures.
18 MAR 2012 by ideonexus
Society Needs People Who Are Concerned With Ideas, Not Th...
Humanity certainly needs practical men, who get the most out of their work, and, without forgetting the general good, safeguard their own interests. But humanity also needs dreamers, for whom the disinterested development of an enterprise is so captivating that it becomes impossible for them to devote their care to their own material profit. Without the slightest doubt, these dreamers do not deserve wealth, because they do not desire it. Even so, a well-organised society should assure to such... 1 notes
notesQuoting Marie Curie on a class of people who are not materialist, but society should support them so they need not be concerned with materialism.
01 JAN 2012 by ideonexus
We Only Notice Certain Statistical Events
Sometimes we can literally count the number of ways you can reshuffle a series of bits - as with a pack of cards, for instance, where the 'bits' are the individual cards.
Suppose the dealer shuffles the pack and deals them out to four players, so that they each have 13 cards. I pick up my hand and gasp in astonishment. I have a complete hand of 13 spades! All the spades.
I am too startled to go on with the game, and I show my hand to the other three players, mowing they will be as amazed ... 1 notes
notesUsing the example of a remarkable card-dealing hand, Dawkins explains how every hand of cards is statistically improbable, but we only notice and awe at combinations that are significant to us in some way.
03 JAN 2011 by ideonexus
The Consumer is Not King
Marketers glibly say that the consumer is king, but in practice he's not. In the real world, experienced marketing and consumer-affairs hands will tell you, consumers aren't very good at protecting their own interests. They're too busy consuming, or working, or just living regular lives. The groups that claim to protect their interests often end up with their own agendas, which may have more to do with Washington power battles and fund-raising than with genuine consumer interests.Folksonomies: capitalism
Folksonomies: capitalism
1 notes
notesThis is a common-wisdom that is not true in practice, consumers are too busy too look out for their own interests.
