especially programming, but this also applies to everything else
The thing I think a lot of people don’t understand about learning is that it’s actually just a process of “getting organized”. There’s not really much else to it. It’s a question of creating connections between your brain and the information you need to access to complete the task you want to accomplish in a given context. Memorization is not learning, doing projects is not necessarily learning either.
Learning is when you create links between your brain and the symbolic context of the topic you’re trying to understand, it’s about knowing what to look up when, and getting better at…
singularities, self-correlation, and why we have nothing to fear
There’s a book I read a while back which had quite the influence on me in its descriptions of the relationship between capitalism and the mind, in its discussions of the ways the commodification of life can have an effect on everything from our outlook, to our mental health, to our desires, to our deepest beliefs. That book was Capitalist Realism by the late Mark Fisher.
To quote from wikipedia, “Capitalist realism is loosely defined as the predominant conception that capitalism is the only viable economic system, and thus there can be no imaginable alternative.”
It’s the idea that under…
death stranding is a loaded gun that shoots packages
SPOILER WARNING: i will avoid story spoilers and unlockable item spoilers, sticking mostly to what was shown in early trailers and official announcements, but i will still be gesturing towards “progression dynamics” and certain story themes in the abstract so you know what you’re “in for”!
DEATH STRANDING is a video-game which dares to ask, “What if you were tasked with delivering the most important packages of all time, in multiple shipments across treacherous terrain!?” It is a video-game which contains many sheer cliff faces for you to tumble off of cartoonishly, and many mountains for you to bounce down…
the line goes up and also down
When I first started writing this article, I had no idea it would become The Money Machine or that I would come up with the concept of the money machine. I had originally started writing this because I was depressed and I wanted to write an article pinning the blame on capitalism, and exploring the relationship between depression, mania, and markets.
I do still explore these topics and I believe I reach some conclusions, however I also stumbled across a more provocative question which I am only beginning to answer….What is The Money Machine? I also explored the question, How…
on the application of cybernetics to video game and written magic systems
Cybernetics, at least as I understand it so far based on my reading of chapters 1–4 and part of 5 of The Cybernetic Brain: Sketches of Another Future by Andrew Pickering and some additional research online and through the General Intellect Unit podcast, is the study of how systems interact with the world and with each other.
There is also a core controversy within the field between developing a cybernetics of control, and one which resists control, with some in the field, those focused on “systems of control and regulation” focused on things like military applications or corporate structures, and…
Episode 1 of the new Yarnpoint Radio Podcast
you can listen to the audio narrative version here
By the time Christmas came to Christmas Town outside of Santa’s Palace in the North Pole, the famous Christmas Goose was getting ready for trouble. “I have had enough of all this christmas cheer,” said the Christmas goose with a honk, “It always ends with a goose getting cooked, and this year I cannot be the christmas goose who loses their life!” The goose said this in a complex language of honks and screeches while glaring up at Santa’s Palace.
Santa’s Palace was a large castle made of ice cubes with…
a look at the latest foray into the “wildlike” genre
Leading up to my downloading Immortals Fenyx Rising, I had seen quite a few people making dismissive comments about it on social media, about it just being a “Legend of Zelda Breath of the Wild” clone, like Genshin Impact was rumoured to be, and had barely followed any of the news about it during development. I knew very little! For all I knew this was a game I would never play or think about.
The only connection I really had to this was that I have recently been playing Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey and had found, much to my surprise, that…
in support of magic as a synthesis of art and science
smile points are only the beginning!
I have a big problem with video games. They are missing so many features, and honestly it makes me upset to think about what we’ve been missing out on all these years! Video games are not about winning or losing, they are about having fun. Knowing this, we must ask ourselves which features we would like to see in the perfect video game designs. It may interest you to know that I have been thinking about this problem since I was a baby, and I’m finally ready to tell you all about it!
Smile Points
My first big idea to make games…
The problem with René Descartes
Back in the 16th century somebody named Renè Descartes was going around saying things like “I think therefore I am” and acting like a pretty annoying bozo towards his friends and neighbors, going on and on about things like “facts and logic” and “I think therefore I am”. He thought he was smarter than everybody who ever lived, he considered himself to be such a genius that he was willing to throw out literally all the knowledge on-hand except the stuff he personally thought was true.
Specifically, he loved the idea that he was rational, and would never have been…
