Tend the Fire


Abstractions are delightful,
but one must also breathe air and eat bread.

Academic Publishing

Academic publishing is an absurd mess


Gamification is Awesome and Terrifying

Whoever makes the game, wins?

A friend linked me Fun is the Future almost two weeks ago; I just, finally, watched it. It is fascinating. I’ve also read through Jane McGonigal’s Reality is Broken. I’ve been excited about the prospect of greater gamification of education for a long time, and it’s exciting to me that the field is getting serious study.

On the other hand, I’m really disturbed by the darker points that he was hinting at. Like, “internal motivation is over”, or “whoever makes the game wins”.


The Opponent Process

A parable


Short Notes

An old, sporadic log


Gifts are Tokens

An apology for gift-giving

The significance of a gift is greater than the utility of the gift-object. Basically everybody seems to know this implicitly, but I needed to work it out explicitly to understand why.