Dissecting edugames: iCivics.org
The Serious Games Market blog showcases a number of interesting edugames, and I thought that I should try some. One of the posts linked to an interesting-sounding site called iCivics.org, which has a number of educational games that are designed to teach kids about the way the US government works. Some of the games were relatively good. Others were dreadful enough that even with a designed...
Read MoreVideogames will revolutionize school (not necessarily the way you think)
A lot of the hype around educational games centers around "gamification", and using game techniques to make the boring drilling of facts into something more fun. Which would be a definite improvement, but I don't think that it's ambitious enough.
Read MoreBook review: What Video Games Have to Teach Us about Learning and Literacy
What Video Games Have to Teach Us about Learning and Literacy. James Paul Gee. Palgrave Macmillan. (This review is based on the first edition of the book.) This book was a very nice discussion about video games in light of various academic theories of learning. I particularly liked this point: “The fact that human learning is a practice effect can create a good deal of difficulty for...
Read MoreFan fiction libraries
Today’s analogy: a fan fiction writer sets their story in a world created by someone else, and thus has the opportunity to use both characters and world/story elements that were originally created by others. Especially for novice writers, this can be a boon, as they can focus on some sub-area of fiction writing without needing to create everything from scratch. That experience will help...
Read MoreWhy I’m considering a career in educational games
Given enough time, we could replace our whole educational system with almost nothing but games.
Read MoreBook review: A Mind Forever Voyaging: A History of Storytelling in Video Games
A Mind Forever Voyaging: A History of Storytelling in Video Games. Dylan Holmes. CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform. As a form of storytelling, what makes video games distinct from other forms of storytelling, such as movies or books? What are the strengths and weaknesses of this form, what techniques has it borrowed from other media, and what untapped potential does it still have? A...
Read MoreLiving books
Do you feel like your books are static, passive objects, just sitting on a shelf and waiting for you to turn them alive? Think again. As long as there is a light source in your room, then light is constantly being reflected off any exposed books in the room – from their covers if they’re closed, their pages if they’re open. That light hits the surface of the book, in a constant...
Read MoreBook review: Unfit for the Future
Unfit for the Future: The Need for Moral Enhancement. Ingmar Persson & Julian Savulescu. Oxford University Press. The core thesis of Unfit for the Future is that human morality evolved to allow cooperation and altruism in small groups, but that we today face challenges requiring extensive global coordination. Challenges such as weapons of mass destruction and climate change require both...
Read MoreIdea Stories
When it comes to “idea” fiction, I think there are three main types of stories: 1. Twist Idea Stories. These have a single idea, which may or may not be hinted at during the story. It’s finally revealed on the last page or so, making for a twist ending. (E.g. many classic sci-fi short stories, from authors such as Asimov and Clarke.) 2. Big Idea Stories. These take a single big...
Read MoreTechnology will destroy human nature
Human values, and human nature, are grounded in various constraints that keep us stuck in a relatively narrow space of possibilities. Once those constraints are relaxed, it seems likely that humanity will cease to exist.
Read MoreIntroduction to Connectionist Modelling of Cognitive Processes: a chapter by chapter review
This chapter by chapter review was inspired by Vaniver’s recent chapter by chapter review of Causality on Less Wrong. Like with that review, the intention is not so much to summarize but to help readers determine whether or not they should read the book. Reading the review is in no way a substitute for reading the book. I first read Introduction to Connectionist Modelling of Cognitive...
Read MorePolitical logic 101
Sometimes, seeing somebody you disagree with make both silly and insightful claims can help reduce your own biases.
Read MoreOn unhealthy relationships
Clarisse Thorn: How my life wasn’t always Happy Fun Boundaries Are Perfect Land. “Here is the strange part, for me, in remembering him: I don’t think he consciously wanted me to hurt myself like that. If he had been deliberately abusive, if he had really wanted to tear me apart, if he’d been physically abusive […] Maybe then I would never have gotten involved? Maybe then I would...
Read MoreAnticipation and meditation
Germund Hesslow’s paper Conscious thought as simulation of behaviour and perception, which I first read maybe three months back, has an interesting discussion about anticipations. I was previously familiar with the idea of conscious thought involving simulation of behavior. Briefly, the idea was that when you plan an action, you are simulating (imagining) various courses of action and...
Read MoreNew website opened, yay
I revamped my website and finally brought it a little more to the 21st century: no longer handmade HTML for each page! I’ll also be cross-posting my future LJ posts on the site’s blog section in the future, so I now finally have a Real Blog (TM) instead of just a LiveJournal account. Though everything will still be posted to LJ as well, don’t worry. I’ll also be...
Read MoreInfluences
Obviously, many things have had an influence on my thought. Here are some of the major ones. Unfortunately, the focus is on the most recent ones, since I’ve mostly forgotten many of the earlier works. I expect to add more as I remember them. Books Against Intellectual Monopoly (free online version), by Michele Boldrin and David K. Levine. This book completely changed my thinking on...
Read MoreThoughts on moral intuitions
Our moral reasoning is ultimately grounded in our moral intuitions: instinctive “black box” judgements of what is right and wrong. For example, most people would think that needlessly hurting somebody else is wrong, just because. The claim doesn’t need further elaboration, and in fact the reasons for it can’t be explained, though people can and do construct elaborate...
Read MoreA Date with Darin
“Look, I’m not really the best person to have a relationship with. I can be selfish as fuck, I break my promises more often than not, and I suck at making compromises.”
Read MoreMovie madness
A possibly entertaining pastime I just came up with, for a bunch of people who can think at their feet: Find a movie none of you has seen before, spoken in a language none of you knows. If it has subtitles in your language, turn them off. Each time when a character in the movie speaks, somebody improvises a “translation” of what they’re saying. Optionally, each character in the...
Read MoreOn fantasy and discount rates
“…some method for discounting future and distant consequences is necessary. It is possible, perhaps, that the degree of discounting would exactly correspond to the increasing degree of uncertainty that goes with predicting remote events. But there is no simple formula that relates time or distance to uncertainty—some events a year from now or 5,000 kilometers from here may be much...
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