Fun is a tricky concept to nail down. It’s fleeting, inconsistent, subjective and thoroughly undefinable. It’s so abstract that it’s amazing we can even use it as a concept at all. Yet, we all know it quite well and can easily discern which activities are going to be fun and […]
Dr. Dehumanization or: How I learned to stop worrying and love Commodifying NPCs Games make use of abstractions to codify and standardize interactions between players and non-player characters. This exists in every capacity and level of articulation. From the greatly simplified children’s board game where your only power is a […]
Re-Epistemology, rewinding our own minds Alien Worlds – Alternate Dimensions: A series of brief what-ifs meant to hold up a mirror against our own experiences and expectations by exploring alternatives built on different assumptions and presuppositions. Epistemology, aside from my favorite word to bewilder coworkers, is the study of knowledge. […]
Xenomorality, Relativism on a Planetary Scale Alien Worlds – Alternate Dimensions: A series of brief what-ifs meant to hold up a mirror against our own experiences and expectations by exploring alternatives built on different assumptions and presuppositions. While there is a tremendous debate about Moral Relativism, I don’t have quite […]
No Pain, No…Problem? Alien Worlds – Alternate Dimensions: A series of brief what-ifs meant to hold up a mirror against our own experiences and expectations by exploring alternatives built on different assumptions and presuppositions. A common theme in many media is that of magical, supernatural or otherwise near-instant healing […]
Desensitizing to Death For today’s article, I’m starting with a quote from our inimitable bard in reference to the recent rash of celebrity deaths: As time goes on, the amount of celebrity deaths is going to seem to increase. That’s because our metric of recognizing famous people has significantly increased. […]
Extending Efficacy We, as physical beings, can interact with the world around us. The extent to which we can do so, our efficacy, is a product of our bodies, our tools, our circumstances and our cleverness in applying those things. One of the great, unending struggles in humanity is extending […]
Digital Beard Stroking Communication Conundrum Communication is always a fascinating topic. We often consider communication to be transferring or conveying a concept. But if we look a little deeper at the underlying constructs that we employ to do this, it isn’t so simple. The often exceedingly difficult challenge of bringing […]
Digital Beard Stroking Inertia – Overcoming the Inert The fundamental aspect of human motivation is that it is, by it’s nature, self-starting. If we’re not reacting to direct, threatening stimuli, we have to be able to generate this motivation to act from within. Granted, from a technical standpoint, it’s all […]
