world
Will Faught
October 2023
Things to avoid in modern games.
Design Lightweight RPG mechanics Loot Skill trees Monetization Battle passes Microtransactions Season passes Reviews High professional review scores and low customer review scores Reviewers couldn’t cover certain content under embargo Reviewers couldn’t show their own recordings under embargo Reviewers didn’t have access to all ports under embargo Reviewers didn’t have enough time under embargo Technology Day-one DLC DLC released within six months of game release DRM on PC that impacts performance On-disc DLC Unnecessary online connection is required Dark patterns Accidental purchases: It’s easy to accidentally spend money without confirmation or ability to undo or refund the action.
3 minutes
September 2023
The game that lets you play it only once.
Wikipedia: One Chance is a Flash game developed by Dean Moynihan and released on Newgrounds on December 2, 2010. It has been frequently cited in video games literature as an interesting and moving use of permadeath mechanic (permanent death). In the game, the player controls a scientist who has created a cancer-attacking “cure”; when it is released in a gas form it begins to cause the extinction of all life by unexpectedly targeting all living cells, rather than just cancer cells.
1 minute
July 2023
The numbers of how things affect the release of dopamine.
Matthew Vere summarizes the book Dopamine Nation by Anna Lembke: The neurotransmitter dopamine plays a crucial role in the brain’s reward processing, with studies showing that it contributes more to the motivation for rewards than to the pleasure of receiving them. For a rat in a box, chocolate increases the release of dopamine by 55%, sex by 100%, nicotine by 150%, cocaine by 225%, and amphetamines, the active ingredient in speed, meth, MDMA, and Adderall (used to treat ADHD and narcolepsy) by 1000%.
1 minute
Lots of things got worse.
The short answer: The end of the Bretton Woods system on August 15, 1971.
1 minute
January 2023
What they are, and how they work.
Robert Emmons on how gratitude benefits us: The social benefits are especially significant here because, after all, gratitude is a social emotion. I see it as a relationship-strengthening emotion because it requires us to see how we’ve been supported and affirmed by other people. Indeed, this cuts to very heart of my definition of gratitude, which has two components. First, it’s an affirmation of goodness. We affirm that there are good things in the world, gifts and benefits we’ve received.
gratitude health mind psychology world
2 minutes
September 2022
The Mythical Corset Oppression
It turns out that women know what they’re doing when they dress themselves.
Videos “I Grew Up in a Corset. Time to Bust Some Myths. (Ft. Actual Research)” “How Victorian Men Taught Us to Hate Corsets: The Biggest Lie in Fashion History” “how actresses talk about wearing corsets in movies” “if people in the future talked about bras the way we talk about corsets” “period drama costume designers these days” “curb your corset stereotypes” “Reacting to Vogue’s ‘Everything You Need to Know About the Corset’ cause we haven’t suffered enough.
1 minute
May 2020
Alicia Lee, writing for CNN: On top of ventilators, face masks and health care workers, you can now add COBOL programmers to the list of what several states urgently need as they battle the coronavirus pandemic. In New Jersey, Gov. Phil Murphy has put out a call for volunteers who know how to code the decades-old computer programming language called COBOL because many of the state’s systems still run on older mainframes.
cobol coronavirus technology world
3 minutes
June 2015
Neil Hepworth reviewed Ancillary Sword on Amazon: Downton Abbey…in SPAAAAAACE. No, it really is. The novel is filled with tea, and fine china. There’s polite meetings in polite society. There’s blushing in abundance at the smallest of social faux pas. There’s tears from the young ‘uns when their jobs are just a bit too overwhelming. There’s snooty-as-hell top of society landowners with brat children to match. There’s tea. There’s gossip amongst the servants, and resentment amongst the slaves.
ancillary sword science fiction world
2 minutes
June 2014
John Gruber: Apple, Google, and Microsoft each offer all three things: devices, services, and platforms. But each has a different starting point. With Apple it’s the device. With Microsoft it’s the platform. With Google it’s the services. And thus all three companies can brag about things that only they can achieve. What Cook is arguing, and which I would say last week’s WWDC exemplified more so than at any point since the original iPhone in 2007, is that there are more advantages to Apple’s approach.
apple daring fireball technology world
1 minute
April 2011
No-Brainer Pinboard Improvements
Some no-brainer improvements to Pinboard would be to fill in the URL title automatically like Delicious and display a large colored button to add new bookmarks so I don’t have to hunt for it in the links at the top of the page.
1 minute
March 2011
I tried out Minecraft today. All I did was mine blocks and build stuff. Didn’t see nighttime or zombies or spiders or anything else I’ve heard about. I was playing the free version, so maybe that stuff is paid only. The mining was surprisingly addictive, although it finally did get tiring after putting the finishing touches on my masterpiece. I ended up with a bridge and a staircase-turret-fire-pit thingy that was quite a lot of work to make.
1 minute
Web Video Ad Conspiracy Theory
Fox.com and other web sites that stream TV episodes purposely use buggy video software so that it will crash and I’ll have to reload the page and watch the ads all over again.
1 minute
A moving account of a Japanese Apple store sheltering people made homeless by the tsunami and helping them contact loved ones via their wifi network and computers.
1 minute
Dilbert: Teamwork means you can’t pick the side that’s right.
1 minute
Swim parallel to the shore until you’re out of the current, which is usually narrow. I’ve often heard how dangerous riptides are, but never how to save yourself from one.
1 minute
February 2011
I just started experimenting with builds in Keynote. I’m amazed at how simple it is to make fairly complex animations. Everything is attractive and slick. $20 on the Apple App Store is a steal. PowerPoint 2010 is $139. Microsoft: Where is the app store already?
apple keynote microsoft powerpoint technology world
1 minute
A stranger who leaves their dog in their car parks near me at work sometimes. I know this because I can hear it yapping incessantly in the morning as I get out of my car and walk past. What terribly boring and cramped days it must have. I hope it shits all over their back seat.
1 minute
Missed Blade Runner Opportunity
At one point Rachel (the replicant that Deckard hooks up with) asks Deckard if he’s ever taken the Voight-Kampff test (which determines whether someone is a replicant) himself. I’m surprised the story didn’t do more with this potential plot twist. Deckard’s character would have been more interesting had he wrestled with the suspicion that he too is a replicant.
1 minute
I’m surprised Facebook doesn’t offer a blog service. What better way to create a new source of information for advertisers and improve the attractiveness of the Facebook community? Ditch the notes, give us blogs.
1 minute
It’s been fascinating following the political unrest in Egypt the past couple weeks. I’m very excited for the Egyptian people and hope Mubarak will be ousted. I was struck when looking at pictures of the protests at how westernized their clothing was. I’d say that most of the people were dressed that way, although most of them are probably young. I hope this is all sorted out in time for me to tour there.
1 minute
I was given Quadrivium as a gift for Christmas and have been reading it on and off since then. It illustrates many of the ideas of the four classic liberal arts developed by Euclid, Archimedes, and many others: number, geometry, music, and cosmology. It’s not a particularly deep book, but it covers a wonderful array of topics, and has quite exquisite and detailed illustrations. When reading it, I was struck by the sheer lack of exposure I had had to a lot of these core ideas.
1 minute
It’s kinda crazy how high Apple’s stock is right now (currently $339). I wish I had invested more in it when it was only $90. I only considered buying their stock at the time because I believed in what they were doing, and didn’t really care about dividends or stock price fluctuations. I recently took stock of what I spend my money on and realized that Netflix is another company that I believe in, and would consider investing in without doing any research.
apple netflix nintendo stock technology world
2 minutes
What is the percentage of households with internet access in the United States? 75%, estimated as of 2008. Wolfram Alpha is really cool.
internet access technology wolfram alpha world
1 minute
November 2010
I haven’t much enjoyed playing Red Dead Redemption. Controls Despite using an analog stick to direct movement, your character, John, can only move on foot at four speeds. The two slowest are controlled alone by the analog stick. You hold a button to run and tap it to sprint. It’s mind boggling that you don’t have full analog control of John’s speed. Any speed slower than sprinting when on foot or riding a horse is intolerable.
games red dead redemption reviews rockstar world
7 minutes