2012/1/16
Honolulu Magazine - Philosophy for the Kids
Hey look, it’s a story about Dr. J and P4C:
Also seated with them is the affable Thomas Jackson, Ph.D.—“Dr. J” to everyone at the school—who leads the group in its philosophical circle of inquiry. Jackson, through the Philosophy for Children (P4C) Hawaii program, has spent the past 27 years working on changing the impression of philosophy as an elitist, academic musing into something more accessible by bringing it to public school classrooms.
“Our understanding of philosophy has become much more user friendly,” explains Jackson. “We take issues that we care about and learn the skills to think more deeply, together, about these things. In a group activity, we realize the enormous richness of the people around us and what resources they are for helping us think more deeply.”
12:23
The Economist - Crowd dynamics
IMAGINE that you are French. You are walking along a busy pavement in Paris and another pedestrian is approaching from the opposite direction. A collision will occur unless you each move out of the other’s way. Which way do you step?
The answer is almost certainly to the right. Replay the same scene in many parts of Asia, however, and you would probably move to the left. It is not obvious why. There is no instruction to head in a specific direction (South Korea, where there is a campaign to get people to walk on the right, is an exception). There is no simple correlation with the side of the road on which people drive: Londoners funnel to the right on pavements, for example.
This was the hardest thing to adjust to about living in Japan for me. You’d look at the other person and try to signal which side you’d be crossing on, but it wouldn’t work at all.
12:22
Once again, a webcomic illustration that creativity is the Second Cartesian Test.
12:21
Mō‘ili‘ili Matters - Vanishing the Homeless: A Real Solution or Just an Illusion?
Driving down King Street now is so much nicer without the presence of tents lining King Street. The homeless people who lived there for months to more-than-a-year have all vanished. They’re all gone — like magic.
I read on the Honolulu Star-Advertiser.com that the police had finally been given the go ahead to clear the Old Stadium Park, so I made a point of walking down and checking it out. The photo is of them clearing out the last few possessions left in the park.
I used to live next to the park, and over the past year or so the situation has been evolving. First there were a lot of homeless living by the library, but they got chased off the land. Then they moved to the park and to skirt the law they ended up living on the sidewalk, which unlike the park didn’t close for the night, so they couldn’t be evicted. The city council took a while trying to figure out exactly what law they could pass to kick everyone out without setting off a civil rights lawsuit, but they eventually did. Now, everyone who was in the park has to live somewhere else.
I have pretty mixed feelings about this. A public park is a park and not a housing project. If people are living there, then where will the Pacific Islander women who wear beautiful, colorful Sunday dresses take their children after church? (That’s my favorite part of living in Honolulu.) And a sidewalk is a sidewalk. People need to be able to walk down it. But on the other hand, how terrible is it to kick people out instead of giving them a better choice of places to be? Living on the sidewalk is not a luxurious thing, but it was too much for them to ask of the city, it seems.
A sad situation all around.
12:21
Cato Unbound - License to Kill
The United States is increasing its commitment to drone warfare without regard for the risks these weapons pose to our security and moral standing in the world. Drone technology is spreading rapidly, with dozens of countries and even nonstate actors such as Hezbollah now developing or purchasing these systems. Military planners are developing autonomous drones that could make their own decisions on when to unleash lethal force. If other nations follow our example as they often do, we will soon face the prospect of a world in which terror can rain down from the sky at any moment without warning. There is no long-term benefit to the United States in the unchecked proliferation of drone weapons or in the absence of agreed standards for limiting their use.
I’ve said before for the United States government to invite Moore’s Law into the world of warfare is sheer, unblinking idiocy. We have more money than our enemies, so we’ve decided to make weapons cheaper so we’ll have someone to fight so we can keep spending money on making weapons cheaper.
The United States should work through the United Nations to convene an international conference for developing legal standards on the use of unmanned weapons. The goal should be to ensure that any military use of these systems complies fully with the laws of war, including international humanitarian law and human rights law. This would enhance our moral standing and strengthen U.S. and international security.
Didn’t we make a million movies in the ’80s about the US military funding robotic programs that then go berserk and take over the world? C’mon people, it’s not hard to see that these things are a nuisance. Let’s at least make SkyNet a rogue mission and not standard operating procedure.
12:20
Johnny Wander - kitten of a hundred names
Maria doesn’t get this as bad as Sakuragi from us. Maria is usually just “Teensie Marie” or “Marizzle” or just “Little Cat.” Sakuragi has to put up with being called “Sack of logs” pretty consistently, along with a few others like “Big Cat” or “Fluffy Cat.”
Anyway, it basically doesn’t matter what you call your cat, because even if it knows exactly what you want, it will only do it if it feels like it.
12:22
Let's Play: Ancient Greek Punishment
I’m sure everyone has already seen this, but it’s a pretty amusing flash game. I feel like I could use this if I ever teach Intro to Philosophy again.
2012/1/09
Tim Rogers and Mr Raroo - 10 Stupid Things Terribly Wrong with The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword
In honor of my dream last night, which followed the plot of Invisible Monsters except with Tim Rogers as the protagonist and set in a Japanese hotel, I will critique this team up article he wrote with illustrations from Mr Raroo. I really loved his reviews of Phantom Hourglass and Super Mario 3D Land, so it’s interesting that most of his points here seem off to me.
He lists ten things wrong with the game:
1. I don’t like the Wii.
Hmm, I do remember when I first took the Wii back to the tiny room I was renting at the time and tried to play Wii Sports tennis on my makeshift computer-as-TV display thinking, “Wait, I suck at real tennis. Why do I want to play something that more closely simulates that?”
That said, as I got better at Wii tennis it became more fun (especially the Wii Sports Resort ping pong version). I think the Wii-style controls for Skyward Sword really do add a lot to the game. It’s fun to bowl a bomb or pilot your beetle drone camera or fly your bird. To say nothing of the sword fighting itself. I stank at the sword fighting in Skyward, and this made the final boss battle really challenging for me, which made the sense of accomplishment when I finally got passed it much greater. In that sense, it was a better game that it otherwise would have been.
2. Seriously, why isn’t there voice-acting?
Counter-point: Metroid: Other M.
3. The writing is pretty bad.
This is one reason why there shouldn’t be voice acting. The writing can be goofy and fun, but it usually doesn’t work when spoken by human beings.
4. Please, please, please stop talking to me.
Yeah, I have no idea why it won’t turn off the You-Got-a-Thingie notifications given that they added an “expert mode” to the display options. It makes no sense.
5. “It gets really good about six hours in.”
For me, the initial part of Skyward was great. I loved the interaction between Link and the other school kids and especially Zelda. Then getting to the first temple kind of dragged and once you get inside you keep having to go through the same four rooms over and over, which is boring. But then you get the dungeon item, and the pace picks up again. After that I got stuck in a couple of places, but for the most part once you make it past the first three temples the game is consistently good. So, I would say it does get better at six hours in, but there’s still plenty of good stuff in hour one as well and some decent stuff after that.
6. Please pick an art direction already.
It’s funny how reactionary Nintendo is. Twilight Princess was a whipsaw because of the fan angst about Wind Waker, and now Skyward is a reaction to the reaction. What can you say? Nintendo wants to be popular, but like a dorky Japanese teenager, doesn’t quite know how to do that.
7. The same old lock-and-key dance.
This is baffling to me as a criticism. If you don’t like the lock-and-key dance, then you don’t like playing Zelda, so uh maybe play something else instead?
My favorite Zelda game ever has always been Landstalker, by Climax (published by Sega) for the Sega Genesis.
Um, it’s cool that you like that game, but it’s not Zelda, so uh, it’s not super relevant? Maybe you just don’t like Zelda that much?
8. I just don’t care about the Motion Plus.
As I said above, I think it made the game more fun.
9. The default follow camera angle is too high.
Can’t say that I noticed. Look, the Wii is underpowered, and if angling the camera is what lets them deal with it, there you go. You see this effect pretty strongly with Super Mario 3D Land on the 3DS. There, the camera is always as tight in on Mario as possible. Why? Well, because if you look closely at the few long shots there’s a pretty bad pop-in problem. Nintendo is trying (successfully!) to cover it up by collaborating with the camera. You could ask them not to do this in Skyward, but it will only work if you can go back in time and make the Wii more powerful.
10. I hate the stamina meter.
OK, this is flat out insane. The stamina meter is the best part of the game. It lets you do fun parkour moves without just making you boringly powerful.
If you read the complaint more closely, it seems like Tim’s real problem is just with the beep of the stamina meter, but seriously dude, who plays games at full volume? I love chiptune music, but it’s impossible for a game that’s longer than one CD’s worth of play time to not drive you insane with repetition. You’ve gotta turn that junk down after the first hour, man.
So, I still don’t have very Definitive Thoughts on Skyward Sword, since I only played it the once, but I will say that I had fun. I also had horrible frustrating times. But I pushed through them for some reason and felt happy at the end, so it must have been worth something.
