QOTE : 'It's super inspiring in general, but he also presents a game he made to teach programming without the players realizing until it's too late and they're already wizards' - cblgh
LINK : http://critical-gaming.com/blog/2008/8/5/folded-level-design.html
TYPE : article
DATE : 12018-07-03
TAGS : gamedev, inspiration
QOTE : 'I want to focus on a type of level design that is like climbing a tall tree to rescue a cat; going one way provides one kind of challenge (ie. climbing a tree), and getting back is a different challenge that builds upon the original challenge by adding a layer of depth/complexity (ie. climbing down a tree with a cat in one hand). I call this kind of level design folded level design.'
> Koan: 'A paradoxical anecdote or riddle without a solution, used in Zen Buddhism to demonstrate the inadequacy of logical reasoning and provoke enlightenment.'
> Anki: memory tool/app. Manually entered questions and answers. The app repeatedly asks you every question, every time you know the answer the duration it waits before asking that question again doubles. If you forget an answer then the wait duration resets to one day.
> Memex: external memory tool. 'Data storage and retrieval system'.
> The good quote is 'The proper exchange of ideas between free individuals keeps tyranny at bay.'
& ...however media centralization and widely popular material escapism distorts societal discourse.
> A the related quote is: '...the problem with hierarchies is that people stack up at the bottom and that they tilt toward tyranny across time'.
> Fuller context: 'If you're going to values some things more than others then hierarchies are inevitable. You have to value some things more than others or you don't have anything valuable." "Like beauty or strength or something." "Or competence. ...whatever it happens to be. The ability to play the flute. It doesn't matter what it is. Obviously if you value music you are going to value some musicians more than others because some are better. So you have to value things in order to more forward in life, and you have to value things in order to have something valuable to produce. But if you play out the value in a social landscape you produce a hierarchy. The problem with producing a hierarchy is that a small number of people are going to be more successful than the majority, and a very large number of people are not going to be successful at all - at that particular thing. It's inevitable.
& ...So you say "we have to put up with that because we need to pursue things of value". OK fine, so that is the right wing perspective - the hierarchies are justifiable and necessary.
& The left wing perspective is 'yeah but wait a minute, the problem with hierarchies is that people stack up at the bottom and that they tilt toward tyranny across time' and that's also true.
& You need that dialect in society between the right wing that says you know "we need the hierarchies and they are useful and you should be grateful for them, they structure you and give you form and provide value"
& and the left that says "yeah but they exclude people, people stack up at the bottom and that is dangerous to the hierarchy itself, it means that people might not have opportunity" and you have to say yes to that (too).
& The problem comes -and this is the situation we are in right now- where the radical left-ists (and this is mostly a problem that really permeates the Universities) say "Yeah but all hierarchies are just tyrannical power", it's like oh no their not. Hierarchies are based on competence in a functioning society and mostly our society functions... ...That doesn't mean that hierarchies don't tilt toward self interest and tyranny across time but that's a bad thing. Even a bad thing from a conservative perspective. There's room for the left because the poor will always be with us and the dispossessed need a voice, not least because there are talented people among the dispossessed and if they are stuck at zero everyone suffers because we don't have access to their talents. It's bad use of resources. On the right its like "no, we need the damn value hierarchies, we need to be grateful for our traditions and structures because they stop us from degenerating into chaos."'
> Circular economy: 'is a regenerative system in which resource input and waste, emission, and energy leakage are minimised by slowing, closing, and narrowing energy and material loops. This can be achieved through long-lasting design, maintenance, repair, reuse, remanufacturing, refurbishing, and recycling. This is in contrast to a linear economy which is a "take, make, dispose" model of production.'
> "The average person lives about 75 years. Now then, I multiplied 75 times 52 and came up with 3,900, which is the number of Saturdays that the average person has in his lifetime. It took me until I was 55 years old to think about this in any detail, and by that time I had lived through over 2,800 Saturdays."
& "Now let me tell you one last thought before I sign off and take my lovely wife out to breakfast. This morning, I took the very last marble out of the container. I figure if I make it until next Saturday, then I have been given a little extra time."
> Memory Palace: 'the subject memorizes the layout of some building, or the arrangement of shops on a street, or any geographical entity which is composed of a number of discrete loci. When desiring to remember a set of items the subject 'walks' through these loci in their imagination and commits an item to each one by forming an image between the item and any feature of that locus. Retrieval of items is achieved by 'walking' through the loci, allowing the latter to activate the desired items.'
> Horseshit problem: a problem that seems existentially bad but is later solved trivially/indirectly by technology. The name refers to horse manue starting to be a major problem when horses were extensively used for transport, their manure ending up everywhere - poisoning water wells etc. When the car was invented and mass adopted it was suddenly no longer an issue.
> 111hz: '...Findings of MRI scans suggest that at exactly 111hz, the brain switches off the prefrontal cortex, deactivating the language center, and temporaryly switches from left to right-sided dominance, that is responsible for intuition, creativity, holistic processing, inducing a state of meditation or a trance. Further research directed by Prof. Robert Jahn has tested acoustic behaviour in megalithic sites in the UK, showing that they sustained a strong resonance at a sound frequency between 95 and 120 heartz.' ...can't find source of the 'MRI' studies. Prof. Robert Jahn seems controversial. None-the-less interesting.
> Zombie: 'in the philosophical usage of the term, is putatively a being that is exactly like you in every respect—identical behavior, identical speech, identical brain; every atom and quark in exactly the same position, moving according to the same causal laws of motion—except that your zombie is not conscious.'
QOTE : 'The most important thing you can do is to get into an iteration cycle where you can measure the impact of your work, have a hypothesis about how making changes will affect those variables, and ship changes regularly. It doesn't even matter that much what the content is - it's the iteration of hypothesis, changes, and measurement that will make you better at a faster rate than anything else we have seen.' - Gabe Newell
LINK : https://www.reddit.com/r/The_Gaben/comments/5olhj4/hi_im_gabe_newell_ama/
>'Child of divorce, professional who dealt with divorcing couples for many years, Adult who went through a divorce, remarried and volunteer counseling/mentoring for couples today.
& Here are the most common mistakes I've seen (my own as well as collectively) in the failed and struggling marriages I've seen:
& One or both spouses have unresolved childhood baggage issues that will rear its head in their adult relationships. Examples of these include (but not limited to) physical or emotional abuse/neglect in the home; sexual abuse; one or both parents had substance abuse/addiction issues; one or both partners came from a divorced or single parent household. Among the many reasons why this is such a significant factor is if you grow up in a dysfunctional environment, you have no idea how dysfunctional and unhealthy it really is. To you, its normal, it is all you've ever known. So if Mom and Dad resolved conflict by getting drunk, yelling at each other and then not speaking for days, guess what you have a chance of modeling as an adult in your own relationships?
& Understanding what "marriage as a priority" really means. When you get married, your marriage has to be the main priority in your life. Not your career, not your spouse (i.e. don't put them on a pedestal), not your kids, not your hobbies or your personal fitness. The fact is, when you get married, you no longer get to call all of the shots. Gotten used to staying up all night playing XBOX with your boys on weekends? Not going to work in a marriage for an extended period of time. You're going to have to accept the fact that if you want to have a healthy marriage, compromise is your new word of the day. In some cases you may have to give things up entirely, or learn to say "no for now." While this often tends to be more of a struggle for men, women can also struggle with this issue. I'm not saying that getting married means giving up you completely, or kiss all of your favorite activities goodbye. What I am saying is, if you want your marriage to be healthy, you now have someone else in your life who gets an equal (not dominant--equal) say in how you spend your free time.
& Poor communication skills. A shockingly high number of adults lack basic healthy communication skills and conflict resolution skills. Its heart breaking to have conversations with struggling couples who won't speak to each other with a kind word for any reason. Both spouses should feel that their marriage is the one safe place in the world for each other. Unfortunately, in many instances, it is the last place a spouse can go for emotional safety. If you don't feel your partner is your first friend, your best friend, your most trusted friend, then something is broken in your communications with each other.
& Vastly different backgrounds. Don't get me wrong. Anyone can be successfully married to someone else if both people are committed to it and willing to work on it. But most of the time, that's just not the case. Societal/familial pressures are real, and it is important to assess them if you find yourself in a relationship that is impacted by them. Are you dating a trust fund baby/very wealthy child and you are the Jack Dawson? Tread carefully. It makes a great movie, but statistically, Rose winds up marrying Cal far more often than running off with Jack, because she doesn't want to deal with the family pressure or get cut off financially. Sorry, that's reality, not the movies.
& Similar to different backgrounds, different motivations in life. Do you know what your partner wants out of life? Do they aspire to be an artist who welds clown sculptures out of mufflers? That's great, but will it support the two of you, and if it won't, will you be okay supporting them while they're making Pennywise the Dual Exhaust Killer? Do they want to be a stay at home parent? Are you okay being the sole breadwinner? What if it is the reverse?
& One. Union. Combined. Together. This notion is one that I see a lot of guys--especially high wage earners who are the sole income for the family--stumble over. Whether you are religious or not, the fact is when you get married you are no longer two individuals. You're one. The law sees you that way, the tax code (at least in the US) sees you that way, and society sees you that way. There is no such thing as "mine and yours" in a marriage. There is only "ours." The faster you get that concept nailed down, the better off you'll be. I've seen many marriages collapse just over this issue alone.
& Marriage is not an event, its a journey. So many couples stop trying to pursue each other after the wedding day. Guys and girls do this. Stereotypically/historically, men tend to focus on their careers/making money; women tend to focus on raising the children and/or managing the household. (I realize not in every situation) Both spouses stop taking time to compliment each other, appreciate each other, go out on dates, weekend getaways, or generally just spending time chasing after each other. They take each other for granted and begin to drift apart. "We just fell out of love" is one of the most common phrases I hear in couples struggling, and the sad thing is, its one of the easiest traps to avoid.
& Friends and family around the marriage. This is especially hard for people who come from dysfunctional families. When you get married, your new spouse automatically gets moved to the front of the line. In front of your parents, siblings, lifelong besties, etc. They're great to have in your life, but all of them have to take a distant back seat to your new spouse. If you're a guy who has had a doting mother all your life and she's told you what to do, who to marry, where to go to college, etc, you have a tough job ahead of you. The Monster-In-Law stereotype exists for a reason. If your new wife turns pale when your Mom's number pops up on your cellphone, you need to talk to your wife and find out what boundaries she'd like to have installed. If you are Daddy's little girl and nobody has ever been good enough in your Dad's eyes, its time for you to tell Dad that you're so grateful for his love and support, but Jim is more than good enough in your eyes, so you need him to be in his eyes, too. And sadly, if you have friends or family members who are toxic to you or your marriage, you may be forced to make a very difficult decision in your life. Anyone who sits around bitching about how much they hate their life, their spouse, their kids or how you're going to eventually feel the same way about yours--put distance between you as fast as you possibly can. We tend to adopt the attitudes of the company we keep. So if you spend all your time with negative people...guess where you're going to be mentally?
& Date to establish trust. Time is actually your friend, not your enemy. Do not ignore ANY red flag you see in a relationship. Examine it for what it is, then determine if it is something you can work through with the other person, or is it something they refuse to acknowledge or deal with? If you're dating someone who is selfish and they refuse to see it, they will not magically become unselfish because you were kind enough to marry them. Red Flags ignored in dating will become the rocks upon which your marriage boat smashes in the coming storms. If there are multiple red flags and they won't talk to you about any of them, walk away. It doesn't matter if you've already moved in, share the bank account, the dog, and a car. Get out now. If they're not willing to work on things that impact the security of a relationship today, you can count on them not working on them after you get married.
& Marriage is not easy. It requires a lot of work sometimes, even when you are both on the same page, have great communication, great sex (which will happen very easily if the rest of the relationship is healthy by the way) and great chemistry. People get sick, they get laid off, their family members die, children get sick, get hurt in accidents, friends have affairs, get divorced...life is challenging and it impacts our relationships, sometimes in ways we're not expecting or prepared for. If you're not willing to value your marriage above everything else in your life, its going to be really hard for it to survive the day in and day out challenges of living.'
LINK : https://np.reddit.com/r/AskMen/comments/52h1h8/whats_the_most_common_mistake_people_make_when/d7kyny9?context=3
> MQTT: 'MQTT is a machine-to-machine (M2M)/"Internet of Things" connectivity protocol. It was designed as an extremely lightweight publish/subscribe messaging transport. It is useful for connections with remote locations where a small code footprint is required and/or network bandwidth is at a premium.'
CHART.JS
PERS : autophagy
SRCE : Merveilles
LINK : https://www.chartjs.org/
TYPE : tool
DATE : 12018-07-19
TAGS : code, web
CSS UTIL CLASSES
PERS : stephen
SRCE : Merveilles
LINK : https://adamwathan.me/css-utility-classes-and-separation-of-concerns/
> A long time ago there was a small, but prosperous town in the middle of a great plain. The town saw plenty of foreigners passing through with exotic wears, stopping on their way from the great cities that surely lay far beyond the horizon. As a prominent way-point, the town found itself never in want, not only of the necessities of life, but of many of the luxuries as well. So one can easily imagine their reaction to the unsightly old hag who strode into the town on a bright autumn afternoon carrying a sack full of a dozen dusty books.
& "All the knowledge and wisdom of the world," She said, "Only one sack of gold!" The men and women at the marketplace chuckled at the old woman. A whole sack of gold for twelve dusty books? It didn't matter what was in them, that was an outrageous price! Their own books usually sold for a gold piece each, at best, and that only for the highest quality binding and printing. A trading village was no place to sell books, besides, considering how busy everyone is with commerce all the time; most books were bought for show.
& The woman tried to peddle her goods all day, but found it impossible to attract the attention of even the most credulous buyer. "Leave me alone," one would say. "I have plenty of books already," said another. "Obviously you don't know everything, or you would have left already" the more snarky in the town would opine.
& Finally, as the sun was setting, the woman approached one of the other vendors and bought a bit of firewood. She dug a small pit, placed six of the books in, along with the wood, and started a fire right in the middle of the marketplace. This attracted the Mayor, who scrammed the woman out of the village, but not before the books had burned to ashes.
& Winter came, and the town was hit hard by blizzards lasting well into March. They were a frugal lot, however, and always planned for such a contingency, and so they braved the winter well. Summer brought the normal volume of trade, and the town was back to normal by the next autumn, when the old woman returned again.
& "Not you again," the Mayor said as she entered the town. "Are you still selling the same nonsense?"
& "If by 'nonsense' you mean all the knowledge and wisdom of the world," she replied, "No. I now only have half of it remaining. I have changed the price, however." At this the townspeople nodded at each other sarcastically. Of course she's changed the price, they thought, because she only has six dusty old books left. "The remaining books are only two sacks of gold!" The woman sat down among the merchants and laid the books out in front of her, waiting for any takers.
& "You must be joking," A man said, "You can't charge twice as much for half the merchandise! We are a trading town, well-versed in business and exchange. You can't expect us to buy books of such low quality for a price so high!" The woman merely sat there, and when the day ended without any takers - but with considerably more jeering than in the previous year - she repeated her ritual and burned half the books. The morning after the woman left, a few young people from the town ruffled through the dying embers of the fire, searching for an odd page, but all was ashes once again.
& Another year passed, and this was a hard one. Again the winter was long, and harvests around the countryside were poor. The summer trading caravans were less frequent than they had been in decades. In the end, the city managed, as it always had, but there were whispers that another hard winter would spell serious trouble.
& When the old woman arrived in autumn, she was expected. The Mayor greeted her personally, "Madame, we would like to look at your books. We will not be able to offer you two sacks of gold right away, but we are ready to form a committee to investigate the worth, and, in a few weeks, we will be able to make a suitable offer."
& The old woman looked back at him. "These three remaining books contain a quarter of all the knowledge and wisdom in the world, and I cannot part with them for anything less than four sacks of gold."
& "Four sacks of gold is out of the question, madame, but if you would consider our offer..."
& The old woman simply shook her head, and proceeded to burn two of the three remaining books, leaving the town to fend for itself for another winter.
& When she returned again the following year the town was desperate. Trade had all but ceased, and the granaries were less than half full. The winter was just around the corner, and already it was cold and windy, though the summer had only just ended. The whole town anxiously awaited the old woman, ready to swallow their pride and purchase her remaining book.
& The woman entered the town cautiously, holding the book in front of her. "Are you now ready to buy my book. It contains one-twelfth of the knowledge and wisdom of the world, and it is exceedingly valuable. I can only part with it for twelve sacks of gold."
& The Mayor looked back, "We had only budgeted for six." The woman started digging her fire-pit. "Now hold on," the Mayor said, "We can give you ten, but we need something to get us through next summer's trading season." The woman kept digging. As she placed the book into the pit, along with a little kindling, the Mayor finally gave in. "You win," he said, "We'll give you twelve. It better be worth it."
& "It is," the woman replied. "You should have seen the rest of it."
NOTE : Douglas Adam’s Last Chance To See. The story of the aquisition of the Sibylline Books
ETIDORHPA
PERS : neauoire
SRCE : Merveilles
LINK : http://www.sacred-texts.com/earth/eti/index.htm
