Understanding others?

http://doublebuffered.com/2009/06/16/the-players-are-wrong-but-listen-anyway/

I believe that in any conversation, it is important to understand why the other party says what they say. In my experience, understanding why is the key to truly helping people. Otherwise, you just end up going in circles.

Started up CoH again...

While I find the new Mission Architect to overall be pretty brilliant, I also find the game as a whole feels buggier than I remember it being before. This might be partly due to my memory forgetting little annoyances, but I don't think that would account for all of it. The game just feels like it's not as well polished as it had been when I first started playing.

Felt a need to link this one.

http://www.sinfest.net/archive_page.php?comicID=3204

Scary Story

http://web.archive.org/web/20120309062036/http://skepticalob.blogspot.com/2009/06/yes-patient-might-die-but-im-not-going.html

Life size Gundam.

http://www.kenleewrites.com/2009/06/odaiba-gundam-at-night.html

Atheism as a Stealth Religion

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-sloan-wilson/atheism-as-a-stealth-reli_b_76901.html

Sometimes, the same patterns of thought will appear in seemingly opposite locations.

Neat pictures.

http://elenakalis.carbonmade.com/projects/2170790#1

Dealing with homeless.

http://www.furiousseasons.com/archives/2009/04/study_housing_homeless_drunks_and_letting_them_drink_saves_millions.html

Sometimes, generosity is cheaper.

Key Duplication.

http://www.jacobsschool.ucsd.edu/news/news_releases/release.sfe?id=791

Seems technology is making it easier than ever to duplicate someone else's keys.

The robot future:

http://www.tgsa-comic.com/view.php?page=2008-04-02

While I'm on the topic of Religion...

http://scienceblogs.com/grrlscientist/2009/05/god_only_seems_nonexistent.php

'tis for laughs. May it amuse.

Quotes from Bertrand Russell

http://talkingincircles.net/2008/06/17/quotes-from-bertrand-russel/

"There is no logical impossibility in the hypothesis that the world sprang into being five minutes ago, exactly as it then was, with a population that “remembered” a wholly unreal past. There is no logically necessary connection between events at different times; therefore nothing that is happening now or will happen in the future can disprove the hypothesis that the world began five minutes ago." - Bertrand Russell

This is why I see no contradiction between the idea of God creating the world 10k years ago, and the theories of Evolution and the Big Bang. The former is much like the idea of it forming five minutes ago. The latter would then be the "wholly unreal past". In life, whether or not the past is real doesn't matter, only whether or not the information gleaned is useful.

Brain Shivers?

http://www.howtodothings.com/health-and-fitness/a4391-how-to-understand-brain-shivers.html

That's a bit scary.

The downside of Romantic Comedies.

http://survivingtheworld.net/Lesson206.html

Solving an Impossible Puzzle: MMO Controls

http://doublebuffered.com/2009/05/11/solving-an-impossible-puzzle-mmo-controls/

Surprise Rewards

I think rewards in games are most effective when they are either surprising/unexpected, or earned (challenging to acquire). I think the idea of trying to surprise players with unexpected rewards is one game designers would benefit from embracing. Though I imagine it's a tactic that would get more difficult the more common it is.

Amusing little game.

http://kld.mybrute.com

The game will generate a "brute" from a name. Apparently KLDR is a guy, but KLD is a girl.

200903160351

The fantasies that I dream. The ideas dancing in my mind. The movements and connections deny my efforts to tame them. While I dream of becoming these things, in truth I wish to create them.

The fantasies of my mind, the ideas I fail to capture. They are not beyond reach, I merely lack the patience to build them. It is not that they cannot exist, but that I do not give them life.

The future of machines. A world of wonder, a world of games. The reason writings elude me, is I lack a story. A transhumanist world, where all options truely become available. What will humanity do? They fight, they play, they reason, they invent, and they continue to discover.
The natural mind is now well understood. Though few stay natural for long. Augmentation has yielded a race of cyborgs. It is not always easy to distinguish between reality and fiction, since so much of reality IS fiction. People live in worlds of their own making, with personalities and cultures constantly changing and complicating themselves faster than science can keep up with. New technologies arive every day, spread like wildfire, and just as swiftly, fade from view.

To create a story, requires an understanding of their minds, which I don't believe I can achieve. Their concepts and ideas would be so different from what we have now, that it is like trying to predict something which is unknowable. After all, even my description of it, is only given from our viewpoint. The views of those inside that world would be so different as to be beyond my ability to imagine. I have only the tiniest hint of what such an experience might be. Vague ideas and wild imaginings of concepts that would have no anchor within our own understandings.

The Mentality of an Abused Child

http://www.violentacres.com/archives/168/the-mentality-of-an-abused-child

That page contains a good question. Probably more than one.

Passive income?

http://geniustypes.com/passive_income_strategies/

Felt a need to link this. Though it's too bad my passive income amounts to only $10-15 a year with no opportunity for growth. I don't really have the interest/passion required to make something worth more. I always dream of easy money, but I know I'll never get it. I'm too lazy.