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Author Archives: Lopt
Wikipedia’s Meta-commentary on SOPA
So this is a little late for me to be jumping on the bandwagon. I thought this was kind of interesting at the time, but others responded with things like “what’s SOPA?”, “you’re overthinking this” and in one case, “what’s Wikipedia?”. So perhaps it was just a product of an altered state[1].
Regardless. Whether you’re for or against ruthless corporations… Read the rest
The Best Model to a First Approximation
I.
First an easy physics problem. Say you throw a ball into the air. Which part of the trip takes longer, the way up or the way down?
Did you account for the way the Earth’s gravitational field varies during the ball’s flight? How about its relativistic mass gain? The energy of rotation as the ball spins? Hopefully not,… Read the rest
Protest and Consensus
Whether you’re with, against, or completely disengaged from the protests on Wall Street, I hope I can get you to admit that people are, in fact, there. Further, whether or not you think they’re there for the right reasons, or even no reason at all, when you gauge the mood of the collective it can be summarized as frustration,… Read the rest
The Mechanism by Which Narratives are Promulgated
The above title is just a way more complicated way of addressing why we seem to get narratives that fit with or confirm certain ideas or narratives in the culture. Take for instance TLP’s post on how the evolution of action movies seems to parallel the diminishing range of ways in which narcissistic fantasies can be expressed: first there was… Read the rest
Game Theory and When to Kill Off a Character
Hello
Just to make things interesting, I’ve decided to number the points according to the chorus of a catchy song.
Hello.
Ever since people have been able to create works of fiction, they have sought to relate it to the external world in some way. Perhaps the story was actually about the real world, perhaps it was only loosely… Read the rest
The Problem of Trolling
Okay, so I’m operating on the assumption that you, savvy internet users, have come across the phenomenon of trolling at least once in your savvy internet using life. We’ve all seen it, some of us may do it, but I’ve always wondered why it works.
Let’s say that, hypothetically, you are crafting a blog comment which is deliberately packed… Read the rest
