What are you working on? February 2012

David_Gerard

This is the bimonthly 'What are you working On?' thread. Previous threads are here. So here's the question:

What are you working on?

Here are some guidelines:

Focus on projects that you have recently made progress on, not projects that you're thinking about doing but haven't started.
Why this project and not others? Mention reasons why you're doing the project and/or why others should contribute to your project (if applicable).
Talk about your goals for the project.
Any kind of project is fair game: personal improvement, research project, art project, whatever.
Link to your work if it's linkable.

This is the bimonthly 'What are you working On?' thread. Previous threads are here. So here's the question:

What are you working on?

Here are some guidelines:

Focus on projects that you have recently made progress on, not projects that you're thinking about doing but haven't started.
Why this project and not others? Mention reasons why you're doing the project and/or why others should contribute to your project (if applicable).
Talk about your goals for the project.
Any kind of project is fair game: personal improvement, research project, art project, whatever.
Link to your work if it's linkable.

Consuming media and playing games is very passive; I thought the emphasis of the 'working on' pages were about stuff that was in some way creative or productive. If you just want to discuss what media you plan to consume, well, isn't that what http://lesswrong.com/r/discussion/lw/9t4/february_2012_media_thread/ is for?

I dunno. I've just finished reading through Actually (the last collection of essays and reviews) by Christopher Hitchens, and it's inspiring me to go out and read some of this stuff he's going on about. The one I'm on right now is Black Lamb and Grey Falcon by Rebecca West, the 2007 Penguin edition with a lengthy intro by Hitchens. The book is a doorstop-sized travelogue of Yugoslavia in the 1930s, a subject I have little interest in; I'm bothering only because a literature fan like Hitchens raved about it. And so far it's page-turningly good. So yeah, att... (read more)

6RobertLumley14y

Would you say the same thing about playing chess, with the goal to reach a certain ELO rating? I agree about the former, but not about the latter. Many (video) games require a tremendous amount of memory, decision making, modeling of others, that make them arguably productive. I wouldn't describe playing Starcraft (or really any game) as "consuming" media at all, it's a very active process. In some cases, Starcraft is actually replacing Chess as the model system for cognitive science. It's always really bothered me that video games are considered to be very low brow, while certain other games (chess, go, bridge) are (rather arbitrarily) considered very high brow. I love chess, I love bridge, and I've never really tried Go. But I also love Starcraft, for many of the same reasons. Not every video game is like chess, certainly; there are many that are more analogous to checkers. But many are just as good at cultivating the same skills chess does - and some do it better. Edit: I will say though, (I think) the OP was about World of Warcraft, which, while I have never played it, I don't particularly think very highly of it. It seems much more like an addiction machine. But, like I said, I haven't played it.