Quote from: p91In 2007, Couchsurfing, a precursor site to Airbnb, [..] measured success in the "net positive hours that were created between two people's lives." [..] By Couchsurfing's calculus, the time two people initially spent searching profiles, sending messages, and setting up a stay on the Web site was factored as a negative, because "they didn't view that as a contribution to people's lives." That time was therefore subtracted from the original gains.

Quote"if you surrender to the default setting of the world, they are designed to take advantage of you. Everything requires vigilance..

Quotes from Tristan Harris

E02. Murder in DC

This was a miserable fucking episode. More than anything else it makes me hate self-aggrandizing liars.

Quote> You don't consider gaming a hobby?

> I see it as a secular activity that has little application elsewhere. The skills or connections you build end when you turn off the console. I'm looking for something more concrete.

> I disagree. If you played starcraft, you would learn coordination, resource management, time management, multitasking. If you played RPGs, it would teach you new words that you wouldn't otherwise see. But yeah judge them all you want. "Secular."

This is an interesting exchange. I feel lately like I can tell the difference between a thing I'm consuming for pleasure and a thing that helps me to grow. Why do I engage in an activity, or with a work? I'm really enjoying reading The Dispossessed right now, but certainly some of my interaction with it is 'unnecessary' in the way that grinding in an RPG is secular, is a thing that ends when you turn off the console.

I wonder how responsible decades of processing/analyzing gameplay is for making me a system nihilist.

Therapy is about getting better, right? Not just feeling better for a bit

E01. Death by SWAT

Quote from: Francis FinchI like [videogaming] because it takes me out of the world.
It takes me into my own mindset.
I have full control of everything that I do.
I can do whatever I want within the parameters of that game.
I can go beat the shit out of somebody, over and over and over again.
And then I'm not angry anymore.
I feel as if it's a therapy for me.
It's not something that I do just for fun.
It keeps me from thinking about the situation, pretty much.
[I forgot to write down the last bit - but he says he can't do anything about his situation. There's nothing he can do about it. But in games, he can do something about it, and "That's pretty cool"]

I don't like this. It's not... up to me to decide what people should do with their lives, and this is a goddamn tragic scenario. But is coping the same as therapy? I don't know.

p.s. this is, i think, my first time putting a film or show in 'close reading' but i really really just had to capture this one quote and my thoughts on it.

Quote from: p65, uncredited monks, nuns. via PangWhy is it that you think technologies are any more distracting than your own mind or anything else in the world?

Quote from: p62, Dr. Alex Soojung-Kim PangSmartphones behave like a four-year-old child. Their default is set to alert you to absolutely everything. [..] When they want your attention, they want it right now. They have no sense of social boundaries, that there are times when it's okay to interrupt you and there are times when it's not.

Quote from: p59, Sherry Turkleconversation is supposed to be with another person who can remember the previous conversation. Conversation happens because there is history and empathy.

I was playing a friend's (we'll call my friend "M") tabletop roleplaying game in which our characters are (mechanically) comprised of key words or phrases produced during character creation, which as players we get bonuses for displaying through our actions. That's not a great description, so I'll give some examples.

My character grew up in the "Science Bulkhead" of a space vessel, and so had the key word or phrase "Science Bulkhead." This type of system can be seen in many other games, for example FATE has aspects and tags, and to my knowledge Lancer has something similar, where each additional feature of your mech that you bring into a description gives you some type of accumulating +1 bonus.

I've always thought about this as kind of silly, like as a player you're narratively coming up with contrived ways to weave these keywords etc. into your descriptions of things in order to harvest that sweet sweet mechanical bonus. Some of the only examples I've really enjoyed are in Burning Wheel, where you give your character three Instincts that if you can trigger to get into trouble (the example given in the book is "I draw my sword at the first sign of danger", so if you draw your sword at an inappropriate time when perhaps the danger is social in nature rather than violent) you are rewarded with a bit of meta-currency. (The meta-currency might actually be called fate, which is funny in this context).

Anyway, back to M's game.

My friend "J" was playing with us, and J's character had the key word or phrase, "Dreamless." Now, when J gave their character this word, it was with the intent to figure it out as we went along. I didn't realize until we did our post-game debrief that it was an interesting challenge, which was a nice way to recontextualize my stodgy "oh boo this is a contrived narrative." The whole narrative is something we're inventing! So, ever since that game I've been thinking about how much of roleplaying can be contextualized as inventing creative limitations for the self, to challenge one's own, and each other's, ability to... well, roleplay. To tell a collaborative story.

Of course lately I have loved looking at everything through the lens of "Trying something impossible, failing, and appreciating what comes of failure," so you can see that this biases me towards a perspective like this!

My takeaway: When inventing a character for a roleplaying game, of course play something I think I can do, but sprinkle in some beautiful challenges for myself and for the others at the table. Can we together tell a story that contains a character who is dreamless?

It should go without saying that I am also thinking about this in the context of my artistic practice, if you'd allow me to refer to it as such.

Introduce an aspirational idea like "Dreamless" and work towards it.

Promise to resolve an idea that seems impossible right now -- don't try to deal with it right away, because if you can, you haven't chosen an idea impossible enough... and if you can't (and you shouldn't!), you'll only frustrate yourself. Wait for the moment to reveal itself.

Replaced 25% of sugar in dry mix w rice flour - worked fine
* Should try introducing sugar syrup more slowly for stiffer merengue
Pistachio flavour shells - try using pistachio flour instead of almond

Temperature: doing two racks at once is fine. Top rack needs to be left a couple minutes longer (2?) after the bottom has been taken out, also stagger their positioning for our oven specifically.

Preheat oven to 345 F

Put in two trays of macarons at once, staggered positioning - top rack to right, bottom rack to left

Set oven down to 320 F once macarons are in.

At 12 min, remove bottom tray only.
2 min later (at 14 min), remove top tray.

Quote from: p89-90He was alone, here, because he came from a self-exiled society. He had always been alone on his own world because he had exiled himself from his society. [..] And he had been fool enough to think that he might serve too bring together two worlds to which he did not belong.

Quote from: p73[Shevek said,] "I don't wish to give offense."
"Never fear, sir!" Pae said.
Oiie said, "I'm not sure you know how."

Oiie was not a likeable fellow, like Pae. Even talking physics he had an evasive, secretive style. And yet beneath the style, there was something, Shevek felt, to trust; whereas beneath Pae's charm, what was there?

Quote from: p76"But we haven't been sure whether or not you came with the approval of--" [Oiie] hesitated.

Shevek grinned. "Of my government?"

"We know that nominally there's no government on Anarres. However, obviously there's administration. And we gather the group that sent you, your Syndicate, is a kind of faction; perhaps a revolutionary faction."

"Everybody on Anarres is a revolutionary, Oiie. . . . The network of administration [does] not govern persons; they administer production. They have no authority either to support me or to prevent me. [..] Most people on Anarres don't want to learn about Urras. They fear it and want nothing to do with the propertarians. [..] I came to begin to change that."

"Entirely on your own initiative," said Oiie.

"It is the only initiative I acknowledge," Shevek said, smiling, in dead earnest.