Take efficiency, for example: It is common for new technologies in games to increase efficiency, which is almost always presented as unambiguously good. But while increased efficiency tends to either increase production or require less work, the practical downside is rarely modelled in games: the former increases the consumption of resources, the latter depresses wages.
Vice – Gabriel Soares: ‘Civilization’ and Strategy Games’ Progress Delusion
I want to see progress. I want change. I want state-of-the-art in software engineering to improve, not just stand still. I don’t want to reinvent the same stuff over and over, less performant and more bloated each time. I want something to believe in, a worthy end goal, a future better than what we have today, and I want a community of engineers who share that vision.
Nikina Tonsky: Software Disenchantment
Write a chapter of a book by hand – you know that’s not what will get published. Start designing a poster with a sharpie, instead of the latest high-tech illustrating program. Create a working prototype for your first product that you’d never ship to anyone else. When you know that you don’t have to make the greatest thing ever right from the start, it’s easier to start. And then it’s easier to continue.
deprocrastination.co: 3 tricks to start working despite not feeling like it
Next, you might ask yourself how the other side perceives your demands. What is standing in the way of them agreeing with you? Do they know your underlying interests? Do you know what your own underlying interests are? If you can figure out their interests as well as your own, you will be much more likely to find a solution that benefits both sides.
Jace Grebski: The Art of Bargaining, Positional vs Interest-Based Negotiation
Now, in addition to the perennial challenge, we face an immediate crisis. In the past week, COVID-19 has started to behave a lot like the once-in-a-century pathogen we’ve been worried about. I hope it’s not that bad, but we should assume that it will be until we know otherwise.
Bill Gates: How to respond to COVID-19
Morale is down. We are making plenty of money, but the office is teeming with salespeople: well-groomed social animals with good posture and dress shoes, men who chuckle and smooth their hair back when they can’t connect to our VPN.
Anna Wiener: Uncanny Valley
For more than a decade now, people have been spending fortunes building platforms and algorithms that rely on ever-increasing user ‘engagement’, often without really knowing what that is. As it turns out, conflict is the most engaging kind of engagement.
Hacker News: The Internet of Beefs
Kristin hopes she has designed the perfect environment. Most FTD patients aren’t so fortunate, if you can call it that, to wind down their lives on a personalized estate with a staff dedicated to keeping them safe and calm. Their families don’t always have a choice in how involved they want to be. Still, all the money in the world can’t answer the question of who, really, is living in that house.
Wired.com – Sandra Upson: What happened to Lee?
Rest assured that we only collected metadata on these people, and no actual conversations were recorded or meetings transcribed. All I know is whether someone was a member of an organization or not. Surely this is but a small encroachment on the freedom of the Crown’s subjects. I have been asked, on the basis of this poor information, to present some names for our field agents in the Colonies to work with.
Kieranhealy.org: Using Metadata to find Paul Revere