Tag: Internet

Jonathan Blow: Game design: the medium is the message

Jonathan Blow shares his insights into why free-to-play games are a step back in the evolution of entertainment. He basically talks about what constraints of the medium (structurally) influence film plots and game play respectively. He draws an interesting parallel between free-to-play games and the “commercials and syndication” based monetization model of 70s and 80s TV series.

Highly recommended! 😀

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AxFzf6yIfcc

Schizophrenics Were Right, Probably, Maybe, Hopefully Not …

An interesting article on how schizophrenics’ thoughts that they are controlled by an outside power or living in a world crafted for them has become a matter of possibility for all of us – or “how reality caught up with paranoid delusions.” Exploring advances in technology, its ubiquity and the way we consume it, we assume we perceive an altered *cough* enriched and augmented version of the world around us. We silently ignore that this allows us to be easily toyed with and manipulated without us necessarily noticing it.

This is an interesting phenomenon that is not widely known and mostly ignored. But the matter of the fact is that if you have two computers, side-by-side, open up your browser and search for the exact same thing, you won’t get the same list of results. The same happens on social networks: try looking for a non-person and compare the results and their order.
Search gurus will tell you this is the magic of “personalized results” and finding things “most interesting to you” … but what they don’t tell you is that this comes at the price of having  the possibility of doing a global and unbiased search.

Any search you do is biased, by the region you are accessing the internet from (continent, country, city), your internet history, your search history, your language preferences, time of day … basically anything quantifiably different will alter your search results. You can’t (even if you try) do a unfiltered, repeatable and global search on the internet. And anything you click in those already tailored results will only reinforce your perceived “interest.”
Eli Pariser also talks about this in his “Beware online filter bubbles” Ted Talk where he quotes Google’s Eric Schmidt:

It will be very hard for people to watch or consume something that has not in some sense been tailored for them.
— Eric Schmidt, Google

So, what would prevent any of those search providers from manipulating results deliberately? Actually, pretty much nothing. The amount of manipulation they would have to do e.g. to influence voter preferences in an already close election would probably be too little to be noticed and it wouldn’t even be illegal. So that’s why people like Bruce Schneier demand regulation for secret algorithms that have become part of our infrastructure.

One thing is clear: it can’t stay the way it is now.

OK … enough dystopic thoughts for today. 😛

Update 2013-12-08:
Seems like reality caught up already. Case in point: South Korea.

Interview with Bruce Schneier on Privacy, Security & the Future

Bruce Schneier talks about how the mechanics of privacy changed since the advent of social media, who holds control and power in the new arena, what are real issues and what are just generational differences in dealing with them. He has a lot of good analogies to make his points. 🙂

Behind the Scenes Look Into International Politics

There two interesting things I have seen and read with regard to international UN level conferences.

The first one was a documentary called The Island President. It’s about how the former president of the Maldives, Mohammed Nasheed, tried to make politicians of other states aware of the consequences of global warming, which in the case of the Maldives is quite dramatic. So it follows Mohammed Nasheed and his delegation meeting several foreign country representatives in preparation for and during the 2009 United Nations Climate Change Conference.

The second one is about a totally different topic: telecommunications and internet policy. ArsTechnica had an interesting piece about the World Conference on International Telecommunications (WCIT) 2012 in Dubai titled Behind closed doors at the UN’s attempted “takeover of the Internet”. It follows recounts of Eli Dourado as part of the US delegation participating in committee discussions drafting documents for regulating international telecommunications (and trying to get hold of the internet 😛 ).

Its interesting to see how politicians interact on the highest level. A common theme is the importance of choosing the right “words” both in negotiations and in drafting treaties/documents. Also interesting were where the front lines are and how the process of aligning interests, building alliances and persuasion works. From two very different standpoints, on two very different issues.

A note on the Maldives:
Being the lowest-lying country (1.5m above sea level, at the moment 😉 ) on the planet, it will be submerged under water within our lifetime with the current goal of limiting global warming to 2° at the end of the century (which looks like we we won’t be able to meet 🙁 ). Making its inhabitants the first nation of ecological refugees. 🙁

Update: ArsTechnica took a look at the IPCC’s climate predictions back from the 1990s … seems like they were mostly right with predicting the temperature rise and a little (too) conservative with the sea level rise.