Current Mood: tired
Current Location: Tokyo, Japan

Entry tags:

Sticky: Welcome to Dreamwidth!

Welcome to my Dreamwidth account!

As of 9:05 AM JST on Sunday, January 27, 2019, given the lack of any other clear-cut successor to Google+, this may eventually turn out to be the successor to my current Google+ account.

According to the related Wikipedia article (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dreamwidth),

"Dreamwidth is an online journal service based on the LiveJournal codebase. It is a code fork of the original service, set up by ex-LiveJournal staff Denise Paolucci and Mark Smith, born out of a desire for a new community based on open access, transparency, freedom and respect.

"Dreamwidth was announced on 11 June 2008 and went into open beta on 30 April 2009."
Because Dreamwidth refused to censor certain posts that did not violate its Terms of Service, but made PayPal uncomfortable, PayPal refuses to work with Dreamwidth; paradoxically, this later became the main reason that I decided to sign up for Dreamwidth with an optional Paid Account, with which I continue to subscribe.

Dreamwidth has a tendency to refuse to censor posts that other social media censor. For example, Tumblr recently censored certain types of posts that Dreamwidth refuses to censor. This is one reason that I support Dreamwidth as an alternative media platform.

Current Mood: surprised
Current Location: Tokyo, Japan

Entry tags:

Curious Phenomenon Regarding Player Maturity in Social Network Services

Just now, I discovered a rather curious phenomenon regarding player maturity for online role-playing games in social network services.

Specifically, heretofore, I had assumed that the key to finding fellow players who could write well on a social network service was to find the correct social network service, given an arbitrary gaming title.

Wrong.

Apparently, the key was to find a gaming title with users having the correct level of literacy, as opposed to finding a social network service for an arbitrary gaming title.

It seems that different gaming titles attract players with widely disparate levels of literacy, even for the same social network service.

Specifically, after failing with my original tactic for 8 years, I eventually gave up and decided to compare the level of maturity for differing gaming titles on Discord, which I had previously avoided, assuming that all servers on that social network service would share a similar level of semi-illiterate users.

To my surprise, the level of literacy differed greatly depending on the specific gaming title, even though all servers visited were on Discord. Discord servers for certain gaming titles were substantially populated by players who wrote using semi-illiterate English (sentence fragments, Internet slang, grammatically incorrect English, incorrect spellings, vulgar English, etc.), whereas servers for other titles were chiefly populated by players who apparently knew how to write at least semi-decently.

The most mature players seemed to exist on the server devoted to "EverQuest II."

Another server with relatively mature players was devoted to "Lord of the Rings Online."

However, "Elder Scrolls Online," to my surprise, seemed to feature mostly players who did not use full sentences or grammatically correct English.

Overall, among the servers that I investigated, the ranking for player maturity, as evidenced by writing style, was as follows (servers with more mature players are ranked higher):

"EverQuest II"
"Lord of the Rings Online"
"Secret World Legends"
"Final Fantasy XI"
"Final Fantasy XIV"
"Elder Scrolls Online"

Disappointingly, generally speaking, at least in my opinion, there seemed to be an inverse correlation between the degree that a given gaming title was interesting to play, and the degree that its players were mature.

I.e., overall, more interesting gaming titles seemed to attract players who were less mature.

Personally, I enjoy playing "Elder Scrolls Online" much more than "EverQuest II."

However, I enjoy chatting with fellow players in "EverQuest II" much more than in "Elder Scrolls Online."

In particular, there seemed to be a substantial gap between the overall level of maturity of fellow players in "EverQuest II" than in any of the other titles.

This phenomenon raises a rather curious question: How can I chat with mature players who write well in a gaming title that is fun to play?

Apparently, boring titles attract interesting players, and interesting titles attract rude, immature players who cannot write well.

Alas.

Current Mood: bored
Current Location: Tokyo, Japan

Entry tags:

Is Dreamwidth becoming a ghost town?

According to my profile, my Dreamwidth account was created on 2018-10-19 at 08:31:25.

Prior to joining Dreamwidth, I had 579 followers on Google+ at the point just prior to Google's scuttling of that social network service (I move that I seriously opposed).

On Twitter, I currently have 216 followers.

Prior to my becoming inactive on YouMe.social last month, after joining in April of last year, I had 9 followers there as well.

Here, however, currently, after posting 19 journal entries, I have a current grand total of 1 follower.

Since I tend to post similar entries to each of the social network services to which I subscribe, these statistics have led me to the following conclusion:

Either Dreamwidth is becoming a ghost town, or it already has become one.

The only other possible reason that I can conceive for this phenomenon is that the demography of Dreamwidth users seems to consist principally of non-geeks, and I happen to be a geek. In particular, I happen to be an otaku, and a game otaku at that.

On most other social network services to which I subscribe, I tend to contribute chiefly posts on general science, especially astronomy (even though that is not my main interest). However, here, because of the demography of user interests, I have never written any posts on science. Instead, I tend to write on such topics as epic poetry, fantasy, role-playing games, and social network services. My main interest is actually the solo-play of certain online role-playing games (Final Fantasy XI Online and The Elder Scrolls Online: Tamriel Unlimited, specifically); however, it is meta-discussion on scholarly aspects of the narratology/ludology of this topic, as opposed to mindless requests for fellow players to join dungeon raids (since I usually solo-play, I almost never participate in dungeon raids, and tend to focus on seasonal events).

However, for some reason, whenever I write about computer/console-based online role-playing games on almost any social network service, almost all, if not all, of the respondents tend to be people who do not seem to know how to use correct grammar, spelling, or punctuation, and who seem to have an extremely limited vocabulary.

For example, in a nutshell, I might write as follows:

Myself: Generally speaking, most Western online role-playing games seem to focus on a more open-ended play style than their Japanese counterparts; for example, in The Elder Scrolls Online: Tamriel Unlimited, the player principally essentially creates his/her own story, whereas in Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn, the player is forced to experience a linear main story designed by the creators.

However, in response, someone might reply as follows:

Respondent A: whassup lfg pst @BoredPlayer

No. That is not the type of response that I seek. Rather, I seek something similar to the following:

Hypothetical Respondent B (apparently non-existent): Really? I play some Japanese games, too, but I don't think so. When I play Phantasy Star Online 2 with my friends, we all just go raiding together on the same server, but we're never "forced" to play linearly. What makes you think so?

While I personally do not play Phantasy Star Online 2, and have no plans to do so in the future, either, at least the latter sort of response could potentially lead to a discussion, whereas the former could not.

In conclusion, since I prefer a scholarly writing style, to avoid having to interact with people who do not seem to know how to write, I need to restrict the content of my posts to meta-discussion, and to scholarly meta-discussion at that. Then nobody responds at all.

Therefore, I am forced to write about some other topic that tends to attract a sufficient number of the correct demography of users, and that topic, by elimination, usually winds up being general science, even though I am much more interested in certain geeky topics.

Such topics might include the above subject, pedantic (5-7-5 morae-meter) haiku, the Scheme programming language, the Haskell programming language, category theory, Gödel's incompleteness theorems, the logic of Gottlob Frege (in particular, Begriffsschrift, which I studied back in college), the analytical philosophy of Bertrand Russell, and generally speaking, any pedantic scholarly topic that does not concern the "real" world.

(One of my mathematics professors in college once said in class, "Mathematicians don't care about the real world."; while I do not consider myself to be a mathematician, I quite agree with this sentiment; also, one of my best friends in college was a sort of pedant who used to debate the fine details of the definition of the term "science" with me on certain newsgroups on USENET).

Alas.

Current Mood: pedantic
Current Location: Tokyo, Japan

Entry tags:

On Being Pedantic

Generally speaking, I am extremely pedantic, both in real life and on the Internet.

For example, in real life, I studiously avoid the split infinitive unless it is specifically required at work, and tend to look down upon anyone who doesn't.

And just now, on the Internet, a certain NPC (non-player character) in a certain online title offered me an informal quest to deliver an item to a nearby address for a reward, and even offered to warp me to near the destination. I accepted the quest, but unfortunately, MS Word crashed before I was able to save the deadline, which I had read visually but not saved in a file.

Therefore, I attempted to look up the deadline, but the details on the item delivery date were not listed on the item, and because the quest was informal, it was not listed in the quest log, either. Because the time was approximately 2:15 AM (Japan Standard Time--I live in Tokyo), none of the members of my guild were online, either.

At first, I attempted to discard the item and re-receive it, but the system did not allow me to do so.

Therefore, despite being only a few seconds away from the delivery destination, I deliberately warped back to the assigning NPC and cancelled the quest, forfeiting the reward.

This is also how I tend to behave in real life as well.

Generally speaking, if I can't save a record of an assignment, unless I am desperate for the reward, I would rather forfeit both the assignment and the reward than complete the assignment without saving the record. I need to have a complete record of everything that I do, or else I become extremely restless.

Also: I tend to abhor errors. For example, if I save a short text file and then wish to modify it before the minute changes but miss doing so, I will actually use a file date/time modification tool to change the modification date/time so that the record indicates that I made the modification before the minute had changed.

Incidentally, when I was growing up, my mother, who had been born and raised in an aristocratic Japanese samurai family, was intolerant of even the slightest mistake, too. She insisted that I earn 100% on every exam in elementary school, and required that I stay up until 2 AM every weekday to earn the highest possible scores on my grade report.

If I earned 100%, I was rewarded with the purchase of a new board game of my choice; if I earned anything less than 100%, I would not be given any reward, scolded, demanded to explain why I did not earn 100%, and ordered to study harder to earn 100% on the next exam.

Her perfectionism did not stop there.

When I once dropped chopsticks on the floor, she yelled at me for 3 hours.

When I once lost my umbrella during the rain, she yelled at me for 6 hours nonstop and did not allow me to sleep that night.

When I complained, she would call the police to the apartment and ask them to teach me to obey her.

On one occasion, I explained to those police that it was very difficult to do everything perfectly on the first try. When one of the police officers then said to my mother, "Isn't it unnecessary to get so angry?", my mother solemnly replied, "It is not necessary to make a mistake."

That police officer gave up on persuading my mother to stop becoming angry upon witnessing my slightest mistake. When my mother tried to call the police the next time for complaining to her, the police took much longer (approximately an hour, as opposed to approximately 15 minutes) to arrive.

Perhaps because I was raised to be so, I tend to think and behave very similarly to my mother concerning being a perfectionist.

And unlike my mother, I personally additionally tend to be extremely detail-oriented and pedantic.

Because of my pedantic perfectionist personality and short temper toward even the slightest mistake, at least 2 other players in online titles have nicknamed me "Darth Vader."

Current Mood: angry
Current Location: Tokyo, Japan

Entry tags:

Sachertorte

Just now, I was asked to identify my favorite confection in a questionnaire online.

Although I easily remembered its appearance, I was unable immediately to remember its name. After an extensive search lasting approximately 30 minutes, I eventually discovered that it was called "sachertorte" (chocolate cake filled with apricot jam and topped with chocolate icing). It is a staple confection available at certain Starbucks chain stores (especially in Tokyo, where I live) on or around Valentine's Day.

Then I tried to take a screenshot of the screen where the question was asked, but for some reason this time, Microsoft Word crashed, and I was unable to save the screenshot. This issue forced me to restart both MS Word and the online application where the question was asked, but when I tried to duplicate the sequence of screenshots leading up to and including that question, the application did not allow me to do so, and I was only able to save the question and my response to it (I usually save the complete sequence of screenshots including that question whenever it is asked in that application).

Then the application allowed me to view the responses of 40 other users of that application to that same question.

To my astonishment, nobody had responded to that question with my response!

To my even greater astonishment, nobody had responded to that question with my second choice, "baumkuchen" (a kind of layer cake, traditionally baked on a spit, in which the layers resemble concentric tree rings), either!

The closest approximation to my response by any other respondent was "macaron." The next closest approximation was "rare cheesecake." The third closest approximation was "chocolate parfait."

Unbelievable.

Now, what I would really like to eat someday would be an extremely expensive Japanese confection known as "nama choco" (literally, "raw chocolate," often translated as "fresh cream chocolate" (a special type of extremely soft chocolate made with a combination of chocolate, fresh cream, and foreign liquor, and sprinkled with cocoa power, originated in Japan)). I once saw a small piece (approximately 1.5 square inches in size) of this delicacy sold at a chocolate confectionery shop at a small store in a skyscraper, Tokyo Midtown, near Roppongi, Tokyo, for approximately 4,000 yen (approximately USD$40) in circa 2005, but was unable to afford it at the time (and am still unable to afford it).

The piece of "nama choco" that I saw at that store at that time looked almost identical to the piece in the following image:

_Nama_ choco

This type of chocolate is extremely soft (it is approximately as soft as cheesecake, with approximately the same texture) and rich, and is more of a combination of chocolate, fresh cream, and liquor, sprinkled with cocoa power, than mere chocolate.

One day, I hope to eat this type of confection (although I am somewhat hesitant because I am actually allergic to fresh cream, which usually causes a combination of an upset stomach and shivers, and am also lactose-intolerant).

For now, sachertorte will suffice. On the rare occasion when sachertorte is unavailable, I might eat baumkuchen.

Whereas I am not picky about what I eat regularly (I usually eat Japanese-style curry rice and imported sardines in extra virgin olive oil), I do happen to be extremely picky about confections in particular.

Current Mood: hopeful
Current Location: Tokyo, Japan

Entry tags:

wt social

WT Social

Just now, I joined WT Social (see https://wt.social/u/benjamin-russell3) (my profile is currently empty because I haven't written anything there yet), and found that it might be useful for writing posts about role-playing games without attracting hordes of people who don't know how to write or spell.

You see, I like solo-playing online role-playing games, and am an avid player of both "Final Fantasy XI Online" and "The Elder Scrolls Online: Tamriel Unlimited," but I also majored in computer science at Yale University, and work at an editor/proofreader of computer science research documents.

Apparently, posts over at WT Social are written similarly to Wikipedia articles.

Well, that's basically how I usually write most of my new-related posts anyway, including those related to games.

So if I write my posts over there, maybe that'll allow me to write the types of posts that I want to write while also attracting the types of readers that I want to attract.

Current Mood: angry
Current Location: Tokyo, Japan

Entry tags:

youme.social

Moving away from Youme.social.

Basically, I've had it with Youme.social.

They have repeatedly refused to provide basic functionality for hiding posts in public groups from my main profile, and this just won't work.

Apparently, the staff there lack an elementary understanding of social compatibility, and believe that everybody except for religious zealots gets along with everybody else.

Sorry, but that's just not how it works.

You see, I'm a hybrid scholar/gamer. Most scholars treat gamers as airheads, and most gamers treat scholars as eggheads. Frankly, I'm neither.

Personally, I majored in computer science at Yale University, and work as an editor/proofreader of computer science-related research documents.

However, I also play role-playing games. Specifically, I especially enjoy solo-playing "Final Fantasy XI Online" and "The Elder Scrolls Online: Tamriel Unlimited." I also solo-play 4 other online role-playing titles.

Now, I wanted to create public groups for both computer science and role-playing games, and to hide posts in those public groups from my main profile. However, the folks over at Youme.social keep saying that they can't provide this functionality.

But that's nonsense, because such functionality used to exist at Googleplus (the Youme.social folks keep saying that they were never aware of it -- they should ask Dr. Edward Morbius), and it also exists here at Dreamwidth.

So now I'm just sick and tired of this crap at Youme.social, and want to move to somewhere where I can connect with both scholars and gamers at the same time without creating friction between the two.

Which brings me here.

Current Mood: frustrated
Current Location: Tokyo, Japan

Entry tags:

On Separating Community Posts from Private Posts Elsewhere

Certain users of a social network service seek to minimize their so-called signal-to-noise ratio within the service.

In particular, this aspect seems to be particularly noticeable for Haskellites and other computer scientists, mathematicians, and programmers.

According to the related Wikipedia article,

"Signal-to-noise ratio (abbreviated SNR or S/N) is a measure used in science and engineering that compares the level of a desired signal to the level of background noise. SNR is defined as the ratio of signal power to the noise power, often expressed in decibels. A ratio higher than 1:1 (greater than 0 dB) indicates more signal than noise.

"While SNR is commonly quoted for electrical signals, it can be applied to any form of signal, for example isotope levels in an ice core, biochemical signaling between cells, or financial trading signals. Signal-to-noise ratio is sometimes used metaphorically to refer to the ratio of useful information to false or irrelevant data in a conversation or exchange. For example, in online discussion forums and other online communities, off-topic posts and spam are regarded as 'noise' that interferes with the 'signal' of appropriate discussion."

Initially, I had wanted to migrate my Google+ "Haskell: The Haskell-Beginners Community" to Dreamwidth; however, the lack of functionality for categories in communities here caused me to migrate that group to PASHpost, instead.

However, upon inspection, I just discovered that although PASHpost supports categories, apparently, unlike Dreamwidth, it does not provide functionality for preventing posts and membership in a community from appearing in my main circle.

In certain situations, this aspect could post a problem.

Specifically, many Haskellites are not interested in online interactive digital entertainment (i.e., MMORPGs). For example, once, when I recommended a certain such title to one Haskellite who had professed an interest in "games," he replied, "I don't want to play with people I don't know," and subsequently ignored all further communication from me.

Although I also do not enjoy playing in a group (i.e., a so-called "party") with other players, I do occasionally enjoy exchanging hints for solo-play with other players. Therefore, I do occasionally solo-play certain online titles that have solo content that I find interesting.

In order to avoid similar treatment from other Haskellites, I try to prevent Haskellite followers who follow me on the basis of my being a founder of a Haskell-related community from seeing my posts on online interactive digital entertainment. This aspect requires preventing my posts in communities related to that topic from appearing in my main circle.

Unfortunately, this functionality seems to be missing from PASHpost; however, functionality for creating categories within a community is missing from Dreamwidth.

This situation creates the problem of being unable to create a community on either Dreamwidth or PASHpost related to online interactive digital entertainment in which I can do the following:

1) Create categories within the community, and
2) Prevent my membership and posts in that community from appearing in my main circle.

Creating such a community on Dreamwidth would not allow me to create categories within that community; creating such a community on PASHpost would not allow me to prevent my membership and posts in the community from appearing in my main circle, thus potentially opening my profile to being banned or ignored by other Haskellites as "signal noise."

As someone who is not interested in either Facebook or MeWe, and who has investigated many other alternative social network services, I am uncertain as to how to proceed in dealing with this issue.

The average Haskellite wishes to maximize his/her signal-to-noise ratio. To the average Haskellite, posts unrelated to Haskell, computer science, or mathematics count as "signal noise" to be filtered out....

Current Mood: pessimistic
Current Location: Tokyo, Japan

Entry tags:

Migration from Google+ Completed.

After migrating my former Google+ group, "Haskell: The Haskell-Beginners Community," from Google+ to another social network service with functionality for creating categories within groups, I wasn't certain if I had correctly used the Google Takeout export service to export the posts in my own stream.

Unfortunately, upon inspecting the Google Takeout zip file downloaded, I discovered that the file only seems to contain my posts from sometime in 2015.

However, I do have most of my original posts from when I first joined back in 2012 in JSON, WordPress 5.x, and Blogger format. These posts were downloaded prior to April 2 using Google+ Exporter.

This means that, in their current format (in which they will most likely stay, since, unlike some other former Google+ users, I am not a programmer and do not have the ability to reformat my posts from JSON format to Google Takeout format), my posts can be imported into either WordPress or Blogger (although I do not have a Blogger account, and my WordPress account cannot be used to import my posts because it is dedicated to topics involving functional programming), but not into LifeCloud (which I hardly use, anyway).

Ironically, they can be imported into MeWe (which only accepts JSON format), which I have no intention of using.

Now that the Google+ ship has been scuttled by Google itself and has sunk to the bottom of the proverbial sea, I must start upon the arduous task of rebuilding....

Back on Google+, I had a maximum follower count of 584, and a count of 578 at the last time that I checked before the social network service was taken offline. By contrast, here, I currently have a grand total of 1 follower.

Now, my first post on Google+ was dated at 5:11 AM on September 29, 2011, and my last currently recorded post there was dated at 11:46 PM on March 29, 2019. The duration was approximately 8.5 years. This means that I now have 8.5 years to earn back another 583 (or 577, depending on the viewpoint) followers.

Somehow, I seriously doubt that I will earn back that many followers here on Dreamwidth, even given another 8.5 years. A more reasonable estimate is that I might be able to earn back approximately 34 followers within 2 years (that was the approximate number of followers that I was able to earn back on Facebook before switching jobs, after which the number of my followers stayed substantially the same until I eventually deleted my account). After 8.5 years, I would probably be very lucky to have even 99 followers.

Followers are extremely difficult to acquire unless the social network service has many users who share a large number of similar interests. Although Dreamwidth has some users who share my recreational interests, it has very few users who share my scholarly interests. Although most scholars write extremely well, many non-scholar role-playing gamers do not; this aspect forces me to be very selective in choosing which of the latter group with which to correspond if I wish to focus on any sort of intellectually interesting conversation.

This means that the number of my followers, grouped by interest, would probably be somewhat similar to the following after 8.5 years:

poetry: 15 users
Haskell: 2 users
Scheme: 1 user
category theory: 1 user
astronomy: 5 users
natural science: 5 users
computer science: 2 users
Final Fantasy XI Online (solo-play): 1 user
Final Fantasy XIV: A Ream Reborn (solo-play): 1 user
Dragon Quest X Online (solo-play): 0 users
Elder Scrolls Online (solo-play): 1 user
Lord of the Rings Online (solo-play): 1 user
Secret World Legends (solo-play): 0 users
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Total: 35 users

Alas.

Current Mood: tired
Current Location: Tokyo, Japan

Entry tags:

Why I Am Cut-out for Computer Science

This is a share of a post on Google+ regarding the reason that Professor Drew V. McDermott's claim, "I don't think that you're cut-out for computer science," was actually false.

===== quoted portion follows immediately after this line =====
After thinking about the issue for approximately 28 years and 2 months, I think that I have finally come up with a valid argument to refute the substance of Professor Drew V. McDermott's claim, "I don't think that you're cut-out for computer science."

McDermott apparently failed to take account of the aspect that computer science includes computer architecture, and that I actually apparently did quite well on an examination in computer architecture in Professor Stanley C. Eisenstat's "Computer Science 323a: Introduction to Systems Programming (in C)" course in fall of 1993.

Since I passed that examination and did not experience any significant difficulties with its subject matter, it follows that it must be the case that I am cut-out for computer architecture. Now, computer architecture is a part of computer science, and it is possible to earn a doctorate-by-thesis-only in computer science by writing 3 research papers on computer architecture. Therefore, I must also be cut-out for computer science as well. Therefore, the substance of McDermott's claim must be false.

What McDermott should have claimed instead was, "I don't think that you're cut-out for either programming or discrete mathematics."

That is most definitely true; I usually catch a cold from prolonged programming, and get a severe migraine headache from prolonged writing of proofs in discrete mathematics (especially in discrete probability theory).

However, computer architecture requires neither programming nor discrete mathematics, and I have never experienced any difficulties in computer architecture (aside from extreme boredom with the subject; however, that does not count as being "not cut-out" for computer architecture).

The next time that I see Professor McDermott, I should correct his claim. I should tell him, "Professor McDermott, you were wrong to think that I was not 'cut-out' for computer science. I actually do quite well in computer architecture, which is a part of computer science, and for which it is possible to earn a doctorate-by-thesis-only in computer science. You should have said that you thought that I was not 'cut-out' for either programming or discrete mathematics, not computer science as a whole. You forgot to notice that computer architecture, which counts as computer science, does not require either programming or discrete mathematics."

Whew.

Now I might finally be able to forget about that most despicable and nasty subject, computer science, and move on to something more pleasant and enjoyable, such as haiku composition, without feeling stupid in front of Professor McDermott anymore. If he still claims that I am stupid because I am "not 'cut-out' for computer science," I'll just earn a doctorate-by-thesis-only in computer architecture, and shove it in his face when I see him the next time.
===== quoted portion ends immediately before this line =====

Current Mood: tired
Current Location: Tokyo, Japan

Entry tags:

Different Reasons for Studying for Nerds vs. Geeks

This is a share of a previous post on Google+ describing the difference in respective reasons that a nerd and a geek study. It is based on article on Urban Dictionary entitled "Geek/Nerd Debate."

===== quoted portion follows immediately after this line =====
Just to set the record straight, there is a substantial difference between the respective reasons that a nerd and a geek studies.

A nerd studies because studying _per se_ is fun to that nerd.

A geek studies because the geek has an obsession with making other geeks who don't study look stupid, even if the studying itself may be painful.

The nerd usually winds up studying alone for several hours at a time until falling asleep.

The geek usually winds up studying somewhere where it is possible to communicate with other geeks for 15 minutes at a time, and then writing something to show off the knowledge gained to other geeks who don't know this knowledge for the express purpose of making those other geeks look and feel stupid, even if the studying itself may be painful.

A Haskellite nerd studies Haskell because studying Haskell itself is fun to that nerd.

A Haskellite geek studies Haskell because most other geeks do not know Haskell, and the more that the geek demonstrates knowledge of Haskell to those other ignorant geeks, the more that the geek can show off that knowledge to those other geeks.

The most significant difference occurs when the nerd/geek is alone.

When a nerd is alone, the nerd keeps studying because the studying itself is fun to that nerd. The nerd usually has no motivation to talk with other nerds _per se_ because it is the studying itself that is fun, not showing off the knowledge gained to those other nerds, who are substantially irrelevant.

When a geek is alone, the geek usually pursues an obsession, which is usually not studying, but some form of recreation, such as watching _anime_ or playing some interactive form of entertainment. The geek is motivated to talk with other geeks because it is not the studying itself that is fun, but showing off the knowledge gained to those other geeks, who are substantially relevant: Those geeks must be made to look and feel as stupid as possible, and it is this process _per se_ that it fun.

Incidentally, I happen to be a geek.
===== quoted portion ends immediately before this line =====

Current Mood: curious
Current Location: Tokyo, Japan

Entry tags:

Limited-time (Today Only) Free Download of The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind

Apparently, in celebration of the 25th Anniversary of The Elder Scrolls franchise, Bethesda Softworks is temporarily giving away The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, free of charge, to anyone with a Bethesda account who enters the Redemption Code in time (i.e., today).

This is a one-day limited-time offer that is valid only for today.

To take advantage of this offer, please click on the link below and follow all instructions:

You Can Download The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind Free on PC Today Only

Current Mood: geeky
Current Location: Tokyo, Japan

Entry tags:

Denpa Kyōshi (Ultimate Otaku Teacher)

Denpa Kyōshi (Denpa is Japanese slang for "crazy" or "insane" in the sense of "extremely unorthodox" or "similar to an otaku") (Ultimate Otaku Teacher in English) is a 2011 Japanese manga (later released as anime), by Takeshi Azuma, about a genius-otaku-turned-teacher, Junichiro Kagami, who is simultaneously both gifted at physics and obsessed with otaku subculture.

He is forced to seek a job as a physics teacher substitute at the same high school from which he graduated. Eventually, he uses his seemingly useless knowledge of otaku subculture as a basis for motivating unorthodox methods in teaching his students to overcome various difficulties, and eventually creates a revolution in the basis of educational curricula.

Junichiro Kagami is a role-model of mine for creating a similar revolution based on otaku subculture in academia.

Current Mood: literary
Current Location: Tokyo, Japan

Entry tags:

High Fantasy

According to the related Wikipedia article, high fantasy differs from low fantasy in being set in a fictional world with rules that differ from those of the real world.

In other words, a high fantasy setting frees the creator to set whatever rules might be interesting without being constrained by the petty rules of reality; viz.:

"High fantasy is set in an alternative, fictional ('secondary') world, rather than the 'real' or 'primary' world. This secondary world is usually internally consistent, but its rules differ from those of the primary world. By contrast, low fantasy is characterized by being set in the primary or real world, or a rational and familiar fictional world with the inclusion of magical elements.

"The romances of William Morris, such as The Well at the World's End, set in an imaginary medieval world, are sometimes regarded as the first examples of high fantasy. The works of J. R. R. Tolkien — especially The Lord of the Rings — are regarded as archetypal works of high fantasy. Stephen R. Donaldson's The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant is another example of a high fantasy series."

[Spaces have been added before and after the em-dashes in the above cited text in order to allow italicization of one of the above works of fiction.]

The two aspects of high fantasy that make it fun are as follows:

1) It is completely useless because it is completely unrelated to reality, and therefore it is completely fun, because of the well-known rule that utility value and enjoyment value are inversely related; and

2) It frees the imagination of the creator and the reader/player from being bound by the laws of physics, and instead only requires logical consistency. This allows for very strange and unusual phenomena and for potentially strange new rules of logic. In particular, it allows the creator and the reader/player to role-play roles that would be impossible in reality. For example, a poet with mathematics phobia can become an arrogant professor of pure mathematics and computer science, or a physically frail NEET can become a fierce samurai or monk. Now that is fun.

Current Mood: poetic
Current Location: Tokyo, Japan

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The Faerie Queene

The Faerie Queene, by Edmund Spenser, is an example of a fun poem.

It is fun because its topic is fantasy: It has nothing whatsoever to do with reality.

Even in computer science, there was a common rule that there was an inverse relation between how interesting that a topic was and how useful that it was: Generally speaking, the more interesting the topic, the less useful that it was.

This rule also applies to poetry. The most fun poems, such as The Faerie Queene, and the most fun comedies, such as A Midsummer Night's Dream (by William Shakespeare), are almost always those that concerned high fantasy.

The Faerie Queene is a story featuring an evil wizard, an evil dragon, a young lady, and a knight. It is rich in poetic allegory. It forces the reader to understand symbolism. It is the epitome of high fantasy for poetry.

For example, here is a summary of Book I of the epic poem from the related Wikipedia article:

> Book I is centred on the virtue of Holiness as embodied in the
> Redcrosse Knight. He and his lady Una travel together as he fights the
> dragon Errour, then separate as the wizard Archimago tricks the
> Redcrosse Knight in a dream to think that Una is unchaste. After he
> leaves, the Redcrosse Knight meets Duessa, who feigns distress in order
> to entrap him. Duessa leads the Redcrosse Knight to captivity by the
> giant Orgoglio. Meanwhile, Una overcomes peril, meets Arthur, and
> finally finds the Redcrosse Knight and rescues him from his capture,
> from Duessa, and from Despair. Una and Arthur help the Redcrosse
> Knight recover in the House of Holiness, with the House's ruler Caelia
> and her three daughters joining them; there the Redcrosse Knight sees a
> vision of his future. He then returns Una to her parents' castle and
> rescues them from a dragon, and the two are betrothed after resisting
> Archimago one last time.

The Faerie Queene was one of my favorite poems in college, and the only poem that I actually found to be fun to read. It reminded me of the plot of one fantasy-based role-playing game that had captivated my interest in my teenage years: Dragon Quest III (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragon_Quest_III), created by Yuuji Horii (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yuji_Horii).

Both plots featured either a wizard or wizards, a dragon or dragons, a young lady or ladies, and a knight or a knight-like person of courage. Both plots depicted the protagonist in an epic struggle. And both plots had a protracted series of quest-like events.

Most importantly, both plots were immersive: They had the quality of being able to cast the reader (or the player) into a high fantasy universe devoid of any relation whatsoever to reality. That was precisely the reason that they were both fun.

Current Mood: creative
Current Location: Tokyo, Japan

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Narratology in Academia?

Now what I would really like to do would be to find some way to leverage high fantasy fiction and poetry to elevate high fantasy interactive entertainment to the same academic stature as the former.

What I find annoying about academia--and especially about academia at such schools as my alma mater--is an implicit but persistent insistence to allow high fantasy fiction and poetry, such as A Midsummer Night's Dream and The Faerie Queene, but not high fantasy interactive entertainment, such as Skyrim, The Elder Scrolls Online, or The Lord of the Rings Online.

One of my dreams in college (back at Yale) was to find some way to convince the college president to allow creation of a Department of Narratology and a corresponding Department of Ludology--the former to study plots in high fantasy interactive entertainment, and the latter to study the mechanics of high fantasy interactive entertainment.

However, in order to achieve this, it is essential to raise to overall quality of high fantasy interactive entertainment from being focused on gore and violence to being focused on beauty, intricacy, and subtlety in plots and settings. In other words, less DOOM and Quake, and more Myst and Skyrim.

Fortunately, finally, some recent titles do seem somewhat promising: Alan Wake, Skyrim, The Elder Scrolls Online, and The Lord of the Rings Online all seem to offer deep, intricate plots with abstract symbolism.

Now, when most titles in the entire field of high fantasy interactive entertainment become similar to such titles, the ground becomes ripe for creating a Department of Narratology at some accredited university.

That Department of Narratology can then serve as a stepping-stone for other Departments of Narratology at other universities, and eventually, at schools of the caliber of my alma mater across the world.

That is when a Department of Narratology at Yale University (my alma mater) might finally be realized.

Current Mood: optimistic
Current Location: Tokyo, Japan

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Guiding Principles

According to the Dreamwidth FAQ entry "Guiding Principles," some of which eventually convinced me to sign up for Dreamwidth,

Guiding Principles

We are committed to:

Open access. We will never make it hard for you to get your data back from us or move to a different service if you want to. We will provide you with tools to facilitate backing up your data, and we will never try to lock you into using our service in any way.
Interoperability. We will seek to integrate our service with other services on the Internet, following open standards, to allow you to work with other sites as much as you want to.
Open source. We will release every code change we make under a generally-accepted open source license, aside from internal configuration files and anything we are contractually obligated not to publish. We will provide details on what code we don't publish, and let you know why. We will work with a community of volunteer developers, and encourage and nurture the volunteer development process. We are committed to making it easy for others to install and maintain their own instances of our server code.
Community review. We will make our development process and our business decisions as transparent as possible, and look for community feedback at all stages. While we know we can't please everyone all the time, we know that our users are incredibly diverse, and the ways they use the site are just as diverse. We will strive to take your feedback into account as much as we can.
Respecting privacy. We will provide you with tools to make choices about your privacy, and respect those choices at all times. We will never sell or trade your private data. We as a company are committed to maintaining your privacy and making it easy for you to show your journal and its contents to as many -- or as few -- people as you'd like.

We operate our service under the principles of:

Transparency: We believe that you should know why we make the decisions we make. We will explain our reasoning as much as possible. We will make it easy for you to know as much as you want to about what we're doing. We will always err on the side of providing more information, rather than less, whenever possible. At any point, you should feel comfortable that you understand why we're making the choices we're making.
Freedom: We believe in free expression. We will not place limits on your expression, except as required by United States law or to protect the quality and long-term viability of the service (such as removing spam). We will provide you with tools that make creativity and free expression easy. If, at any point, we have to place restrictions on your expression, we will tell you why, and work to find the best solutions possible.
Respect: We believe in the inherent dignity of all human beings. We will never discriminate against any group of people. We will work hard to maintain inclusive attitudes, use inclusive language, and promote inclusiveness at all times. Our Diversity Statement isn't just there so we can pat ourselves on the back. It's there because we believe that our diversity is our greatest strength.

We will remain advertising-free.

We won't accept or display third-party advertising on our service, whether text-based or banner ads. We are personally and ideologically against displaying advertising on a community-based service. Advertising dilutes the community experience. It also changes the site's focus from "pleasing the userbase" to "pleasing the advertisers". We believe that our users are our customers, not unpaid content-generators who exist only to provide content for others to advertise on. We are committed to remaining advertising-free for as long as the site exists.
By "third-party advertising", we mean anything where a company pays us to show their banners, graphics, or text advertisement to our users. We may make partnerships with other sites in order to add features that we don't have the resources for ourselves. If we do this, we will clearly indicate any such features, and we will include information in our Privacy Policy.

Current Mood: curious
Current Location: Tokyo, Japan

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How do I make an entry sticky, so it's always at the top of my journal?

Just now, I found a useful Dreamwidth Journal Entry FAQ entry on imparting sticky status to journal entries so that they stay at the top of one's journal.

According to the Dreamwidth Journal Entry FAQ entry "How do I make an entry sticky, so it's always at the top of my journal?",

If you have an entry or entries with information you want everyone to read as soon as they visit your journal, like an introduction or a journal policy, you can make the entry "sticky". This will make the entry always appear as the first entry on the front page of your journal, no matter when it was posted or how many other entries you've posted since posting it.

To do this, first find the URL of an entry you want to make sticky by viewing the entry and then copying the URL from your browser's address bar. This will look something like this, only with a different number:

https://benjamin-russell.dreamwidth.org/12345.html

Then go to the Display tab of the My Account Settings page, and find the option "IDs or URLs of Sticky Entries" towards the bottom of the page. Copy the URL for the entry into the first available box box and select "Save" at the bottom of the page.

This will make the entry sticky, so it will show as the top entry whenever anyone visits your journal. This has no effect on how the entry appears on other people's Reading Pages.

You can also set a sticky entry for a community that you administer. Make sure that the entry that you would like to make sticky is in the community and not your personal journal. On the Display tab of Account Settings, select your community from the "Work As" menu and select the 'Switch' button. Then enter the URL and save, just like you'd do for a personal account.

The number of sticky entries you can have in your account depends on your account type. If you need more sticky entries than your account type allows, you can use the Date Out of Order option to make entries appear at the top of your journal by giving the entry a date in the far future. You could also write an "index" post that links to all the entries you want to make sticky, then make the index post into your sticky entry.

Current Mood: busy
Current Location: Tokyo, Japan

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LiveJournal: About the site, business, features, and commmunity

Joerg Fliege has submitted the following post on Google+ (see https://plus.google.com/104092656004159577193/posts/8Utg5o3otfj):

"Ode to LiveJournal. A site brought down, perhaps, by its hardcore old-style user base.

The inertia of user expectations could become almost impossible to overcome. [..] “We were always saying that we were fighting for the users, that we would run everything by the community before we did anything,” says Mark Smith, a software engineer who worked on LiveJournal and became the co-creator of Dreamwidth. “Well, as it turns out, when you do that, you end up with the community telling you that they want everything to stay the same, forever.

Paolucci sums it up best: “Back in 2007, at the height of the burnout phase, when we were all going for the gallows humor, we joked that we would post in the news journal that we were giving everybody $100, a pony, and a latte, and the first five comments would be people objecting that they couldn’t have caffeine, somebody saying they were allergic to ponies, and somebody going to a screed about how free money is the root of all evil in society,” she recalls.

Current Mood: geeky

Entry tags:

geek,
nerd

"Geek" vs. "Nerd"

Apparently, there is a difference between the definitions of "geek" and "nerd."

According to the article,

Geek/Nerd Debate

There is a difference between geeks and nerds.

Nerds are smart, people who lack much of a social life. They often have very few friends. Nerds don't talk much, and don't expect others to talk much to them. They are usually nice people, but don't have the social skills to go out and meet new friends.

Geeks are different from nerds in the fact that they have social lives. However, these social lives are often spent pursuing some passion that the geek is obsessed with (i.e. Yu-Gi-Oh!). They spend all their time thinking about their one obsession, and play it in all of their free time. Geeks are usually only friends with other geeks, and attempts to converse with geeks is futile, unless, of course, you want to talk about Star Trek or whatever the certain geek is obsessed with.

Examples of geek obsessions are Star Trek, Yu-Gi-Oh!, Magic the Gathering, StarCraft, and basically any other RPG.

Nerds are often very shy, while geeks are more outgoing.

Nerds spend most of their free time studying, while geeks make free time so they can play Dungeons and Dragons.

Nerds care what others think of them, but geeks are almost oblivious to the existence of those outside of their geek clan.

Based on all this, I would have to conclude that it is easier to befriend a nerd than a geek, but a geek would probably be a more interesting person.

by Rodney Basil April 30, 2004

By the aforementioned definition, I am most definitely a geek, and not a nerd. The only caveat to this claim is that I am only outgoing on online fora, and not elsewhere.