Phronk › Comments

"I was fearing (and yeah I admit, kinda hoping) that you'd somehow hurt yourself while standing in front of the camera. These vlogs are indeed awesome." - Phronk

"Great post! In that Cory Doctorow book I wrote about (For the Win), he talks about "fingerspitzengefuhl", which is kind of a gut, intuitive feeling of the overall direction that a complex system of data is going. He characterizes it as a kind of specialized ability for people immersed in a specific field (e.g. economics), but I think we all have it to some degree thanks to the web. Everyone has access to unlimited raw data now, but I think we've also developed skills to summarize, connect, and get a feeling for all that data. Like, when's the last time you used a brand new web service, or software, and needed to read the instructions before using it? If you've been immersed in technology for long enough, it's probably been a while. Rather, it's easy to immediately get a feel for it. These really are exciting times." - Phronk

"Here's the problem with your complaints: "(never read it, god forbid)" In the case of Little Brother, neither have I. But a book is more than the sum of its parts. I can't comment on, or write off, a book based on a few out-of-context poorly written sentences, or even a few bad ideas. Except Twilight. Sparkling vampires. Jesus fucking Christ." - Phronk

"Here's the problem with your complaints: "(never read it, god forbid)" In the case of Little Brother, neither have I. But a book is more than the sum of its parts. I can't comment on, or write off, a book based on a few out-of-context poorly written sentences, or even a few bad ideas. Except Twilight. Sparkling vampires. Jesus fucking Christ." - Phronk

"It's not the most elegant prose on the planet, I agree. The exposition is clumsy, it sounds like the author spends too much time on the internet, and like I said in the review, it can be one-sided (e.g., supporting his "technology fetish"). But you gotta remember, these books were written for KIDS. Kids who spend too much time on the internet. I think there are a lot of great ideas here, and he does a pretty good job of packaging them in an easily digestible story." - Phronk

"Assuming right side = after, you just proved the exact opposite of what you intended to. I hope I'm just too dense to see the intended [sarcasm] tag." - Phronk

"I haven't, but it looks interesting. Added to my to-read list. Thanks! Anyone read Killobyte by Piers Anthony? It's about MMOs in virtual reality, which people seemed to think were the future in the 90s. :) I loved it when I read it way back in 1993, but I have a feeling it would just be hilarious now." - Phronk

"I'm really only biased in the sense that I enjoyed the book. I agree that his ideas are stronger than his skills as an author, which is what I meant to imply here. I'd love to hear your awful snippets." - Phronk

"I'm all for negativity and shameless attention whoring, as long as it's genuine. This guy, however, fails at Twitter, and fails at life. He is a guru of failing." - Phronk

"Please don't hurt me." - Phronk

"(I'm not getting email notifications of your replies either... not sure if I'm supposed to but I think I used to)" - Phronk

"I hate to admit this, but I just started playing World of Warcraft again. In addition to the fun of it, I find it fascinating that the game captures and distills many of these principles of motivation. Autonomy, flow, exploration, striving for material (digital) goods, relatedness, competence, they're all represented, often in explicit numerical form. And they interact in a complex, emergent way that even the game developers can't anticipate. See also: Twitter. On an unrelated note, as the personality psychology guy, I have to point out (though this doesn't undermine anything you or the people you cite say) that there are large individual differences in motivation. Some people may be very motivated by competence (and these are the people that we, and most academics, have regular interaction with), while others may be the opposite, motivated to avoid any situations that would test or extend their competence. Ok, I'm off to have some orgasmic integration. (oops did I misread that?)" - Phronk

"Yes, I think the revised emphasis on what we should do is much more precise and accurate. You'd probably enjoy reading about (if you haven't already) the psychological concept of framing. The context that a question or principle is presented in can have a large effect on how it is perceived, even when it shouldn't. For example, a 10% discount for using cash and a 10% fee for using a credit card are exactly the same thing. But intuitively, people see them differently, and would probably spend less money at a place with the latter setup. This is one area where being self-aware of our intuition, as you suggest, should lead us to look closer at a more logical approach, to allow for the best decision. There are other situations where the opposite would be true. (Like, even here, from the store's perspective, they do need to be aware of peoples' intuitions about fees vs. discounts to avoid scaring them off, even if they logically shouldn't be scared off by one vs. the other!) Anyway, I'll..." - Phronk

"That book looks great! Thanks Brian. An official metre stick seems kinda like the equivalent of an atomic clock that sets the official time (which is itself just an update to the church bells). We do need to be careful not to stuff ancient philosophers into modern understanding, but still, I doubt the human understanding of time has fundamentally changed much due purely to cultural changes, even if how we talk about it changes." - Phronk

"Interesting metaphor; I hadn't heard this comparison made before. It's certainly true that there needs to be a trade-off between gut judgments and hard facts. However, I also think one feeds the other. A person with more raw knowledge will make better intuitive decisions than one with little knowledge. And a person who hones their intuition will be better able to acquire and use raw knowledge effectively. This is even more true in a broader scientific sense. The more that is known about how an organization or market works, the more we can derive about its social side (and vice versa), and the more we can predict its future progress. As an aside, yeah, there is a lot of uncertainty about how the mind works so well, especially when it comes to intuition. That's one of the things that I'm working on in my studies. :)" - Phronk

W.T.F. - Haggis (Sean Loyless)

I just watched this again. It's insanely brilliant. I love it to death. - josh neff, geek at large

wait, is that Mulan in the middle? - Joe Silence is ashes

i think i'll opt for the pre-zombification Mulan. - Joe Silence is ashes

"Would time exist if things didn't happen? Seriously, does the existence of time necessarily imply change? Thinking in spatial metaphors, as we're designed to do, you can think of time as the distance between two things that happen in the same place. In that sense (and ignoring quantum properties), time can flow on just fine without any change, instability, or ambiguity except in the linear flow of time itself. Of course, in the real world, everything has been set in spatial motion and allowed to bounce around thanks to time, so your point holds true." - Phronk

"Oops, should've included that! http://downloads.pitchforkmedia.com/Weezer%......" - Phronk

"Woohoo! I'm already thinking of a few best-of lists. In addition to tagging, I like that you have the Friendfeed page set up. We might have to manually add posts/tweets that fit the category over there. I've found that Google's blog search can miss a lot (for example, this post doesn't even show up when searching for "ldnfavs09" yet), and last time I checked Twitter's search has trouble going back more than a week or two." - Phronk

"I'm damn proud of London's gaming connection. Like Derek, I couldn't believe it when I started to hear that games I'd played were developed down the street. And since gaming is quickly becoming (if it's not already) the dominant form of entertainment, that puts London in a great position. I agree about focusing on stuff like this, rather than transportation. Transportation is boring." - Phronk

"Hahaha YES, I'm so glad you found this. :)" - Phronk

"Very true. Social media has certainly allowed me to connect with a lot of local people. Still no Foursquare in London though eh? I'm interested to see what it's like (and if it can top Gowalla)." - Phronk

"I dunno if they can go wrong imitating Saved by the Bell. Television at its best, that was. And so is your face. P.S. I've barely turned my heat on here in Canada. I'm freezing most of the time, but heat costs money." - Phronk

"I'm totally going to take on this tag thingy, but I haven't thought of anything to write about yet. I'm pretty boring; no ass dimples to speak of (though I guess my belly button does smell if I dig my finger in there deep enough). This series of pictures is one of the greatest moments ever captured on film." - Phronk

"TEST!" - Phronk

"Holy crap! This is the funniest story I've ever heard in my entire life! I kinda thought that the whole "dumb asshole" act was just their image that they faked for the stage and interviews. But wow, I guess it's all real. I still get hundreds of hits to my blog from people searching for "Nickelback sucks", because I wrote this: http://phronko.blogspot.com/2007......" - Phronk

I'm glad you LIKE my misfortune, Lindsay. :) - Phronk

"Congrats on getting some of the recognition you deserve. I don't know how it can be accomplished, but I think the education system needs to catch up with the rapidly changing world. With easy access to almost limitless information, education is becoming more and more about how to learn rather than what to learn. Grad school reflects this more than many rote-learning undergrad programs, so it's a shame you can't skip to that level given you've already got the skills to handle it. And yeah, I'm right there with you in the "still figuring out what to do as a Renaissance person" stage. We just need to figure out how to monetize indecision. :)" - Phronk

"Oh. Wow. See, this is why I don't fart. P.S. In the part where we had to read between the lines, all I saw was hours of hot lesbian action. Leaving things up to our imagination is not always the best idea." - Phronk

She took the doe-y look that today's gentle electic singer have way too far - Caroline from iPhone

Yeah, it's a little affected. I like their take on the song though. - Phronk