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I agree. I think this will be changing my writing style subtly.
In response to
Consolidated link thread, September 2011
While I understand that this risks making the site more complicated, I suppose it's at least worth suggesting that we move the links to a separate section of the site altogether. It could be "Main, Discussion, Links" for example. Or maybe the Discussion menu could expand to "Posts, Comments, Links."
In response to
Consolidated link thread, September 2011
The trouble is that LW has no "bumping" and only minimal advertising of new comments - if you post something new in an old thread it's not easily available to people.
Would the bump happen because of a comment, because of karma, or because of both?
I would like to avoid the diseased Facebook sorting algorithm at all costs here. Some arbitrary assessment of posts and karma should not be used to bring topics to the top.
Perhaps we could make it possible to select from a list sorted by most recent comment, most recent karma and most recent post?
My plan is to make the first area a "playground" of game mechanics to make it feel like a "lived-in" place. You're essentially leaving your "home" to go on an adventure. Your example of Ender's Game is fascinating. Thanks for the advice.
I'm interested in analyzing a Google spreadsheet like this one is linked to. I use a form like this for a daily self-survey. Are there any tricks you know of to analyze the data on these things bit more effectively than just reading through them? The charts feature on Google Docs seems a little weak.
BTW, filled out the survey. It's nice but the last 'blank field' type question is a duplicate.
In response to
Gameplay Art
Is there any reason why someone might not follow the cat?
I concur.
The beginning of games typically have next to no worthwhile activities.
Wired's article on the making of Halo 3 describes the process of leading the player along a set path using 'no return' strategies exactly like the one displayed here. The motive for doing so in Bungie's case was to make it so the player did not get confused and wander around endlessly. In this case, the no return strategy is supposed to be symbolic of something, of an irrecoverable loss. However, if nothing is being lost, then it fails to symbolize in any meaningful way.
I would say in order to get the ledge to symbolize that loss meaningfully, you'll have to fill the beginning of the game with worthwhile and engaging activities. Mini-games if you will. That way, falling down the ledge will be a kind of 'Ender burrowing through the Giant's eye' sort of moment. It will move the game past the time-wasting distractions of the beginning and it can start to take on real meaning.
Now, I definitely don't want to introduce any elements of scope creep into your development, but I do think that if you want to tell the story you are trying to tell, then there has to be something for the player to give up.
It is commonplace to use the term "FAQ" to mean "list of frequently asked questions", in which "FAQ questions" means "questions for putting in a list of frequently asked questions". Which would be rather cumbersome and repetitious-sounding ... if it weren't for that convenient abbreviation "FAQ".
Alright. That makes sense.
Sort of like changing your name through common usage.
In response to
Questions for a Friendly AI FAQ
I hate to comment before reading the body of your post, but the title of the post quite literally says "Friendly Artificial Intelligence Frequently Asked Questions Questions."
I'm just pointing it out to get it out of the way, though... It doesn't really bug me that much.
Oh btw, I think there is a lot of stuff that was discovered by the LW community yet was already known by NLP. Take the concept of dissolving your intuitions. NLP would agree that intuitions are not atomic, and would try to look at the compontents from various angles:
Visual representation: mental images and movies
Auditory representation: linguistics/labels/associations/metaphors used to describe the intuition
Kinesthaetic representation: gut feelings, "uggghhh" fields
Chunk size: the level of abstractness, how many other concepts it subsumes
Ecology: how does this affect other parts of the person's psyche? Are there internal conflicts?
Secondary gain: ie the intuition might be harmful/counterproductive but the person gets some benefit from it, even if only a sense of certainty
They would probably go into more factors as well. I am still a neophyte to this. I just wanted to highlight an example of a similarity between NLP and LW. As I said, I think there are lots of these similarities.
Oh one more thing: if you've seen PJ Eby's "How to clean your desk video", then that's pretty much an NLP technique he uses. I think the term is "future-pacing".
The main thing I think folks are objecting to here is the idea of 'swallowing the NLP pill.'
You'll see plenty of self hacks and hacks that work on others (dark arts, etc) but none of it will be labeled NLP. I imagine plenty of the techniques we have here were even inspired in one way or another by NLP.
But here's my main point. We have kept our ideas' scope down for a reason. We DO NOT WANT lukeprog's How To Be Happy to sound authoritative. The reason for that is if it turns out to be 'more wrong' it will be that much easier to let go of.
Introducing the label NLP to our discussions will lend (for some of us) a certain amount of Argument from Authority to the supporters of whoever takes the NLP side, and we really do not want that.
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Okay, this discussion is very quickly degrading into complete nonsense. So, I'll try to correct and address the mistakes that I can spot.
First, to everyone that says that everyone should avoid videogames because of X (X = games are addicting / too much fun / whatever): typical mind fallacy. There is nothing inherently wrong with the concept of games. There are people that can play games in a reasonable manner, even with friends.
Which brings me to my second point: Zynga and Facebook. When I think 'games', those are the types of games that come last. Everyone who attacks them is attacking a straw-man. Consider real games like Dreamfall for those who love stories and adventure, Dance Dance Revolution for those who like active/physical games, and The Incredible Machine for those who like puzzles and lego-like games. And I am not even going into the more mainstream games that have a lot of positive features of their own. If you find that a game isn't fun/educational/interesting enough for you, don't play it.
Point three: if you pick a game that you want to play, then having a community and friends who play it too is very beneficial. If you want to play DDR to stay fit, then having other people who play DDR and compete/play with you is great.
Point four: games are a time-sink/Skinner box and don't offer anything in return. Again, not all games. Figure out what you want from games, and then find games that offer it. It's possible that what you want can't be fulfilled by games, and that's fine; then games are just not the right tool for the job. But if you want to relax, if you want to spend some time with friends, if you want to have a fun shared experience, games offer a pretty good way to do so. And the fact that they are virtual is not a detriment. People still read science fiction (or HP:MoR), see movies based on fiction, etc...
Point five: a thousand times more people can die from video games, and you are still astronomically more likely to die while driving your car. Stop this line of thought. "Those are rare, but they do happen" is rationalizing. People die from pretty much everything you can think of.
Seconded. As someone who plays a fair amount of First Person Shooter games, I can tell you that there are all types of games and all types of players. The popular Call of Duty games are pretty good examples of life-wasting time sinks. They require little skill and less strategy. However, the recently released Halo: Reach is a deep game with satisfying multiplayer combat that continues to surprise me as I progress in skill. Anyone who is interested in competition and outside the box thinking should definitely take up playing games online. They require speed, accuracy, strategy, teamwork and most of all creativity.