Hey, I wrote a thing about AI in astrophysics
ergosphere.blog/posts/the-ma...

I thought I was „good at travelling.“ Now with kid and older parents, I realise I was just playing on Easy.

To say nothing, of course, of long COVID and all the other damages that will stay with us.

As an #HE educator, if you wonder, “when will COVID start to end?”, it is 2038: that’s when the first cohort enters uni whose development was not impacted by locked down nurseries, schools, and unis. #UKHE

The thing is the *entire internet* is different now than it was a decade ago (and, largely, not for the better). All of this is interrelated and there's no going *backwards* only forward. So work for a better future, don't angle for a return to an idealized past.

High-tech anti-modernism: When the people who make and sell high-tech embrace anti-modernist postures – beard, bible, biceps. (Out of ... masculine self-loathing?)

As a German, this call-out just strikes me as so weird since in German/Swiss/Austrian HE, they are known as simply a major edu research funder like MacArthur in the US (and Jacobs as a chocolate/coffee co, which is still their main investment focus).

Helios - Jacobs Capital Leading full-service healthcare communications group

Curious: What do you perceive as the vested industry interest of the Jacobs Foundation? If I check the underpinning Jacobs Holding portfolio, there’s 0 social media/smartphone investment? jacobscap.com/companies/

God I've become that ye olde Internet grump haven't I

A simple radio button web form from craigslist with 6 options

Meanwhile, on craigslist

Eventbrite has turned the simple 3 minute act of filling a web form into a 30 minute rage-quit session of having to wait for and undo useless AI-pregen "work saving magic" to then struggle and fail to get "responsive" JavaScript from hell to register and save an image and text description.

Unsolicited PI advice: never put a student on the critical path of any software development project that others will rely on.*

*Unless they were a software developer in their previous career.

@guyintheblackhat.bsky.social say, to brush up on my knowledge about the (women‘s) parlour game etc prehistory of TTRPGs, what should I read? Quick public access resources preferred

On Saturday at 3 PM ET I'm going to be streaming a game I haven't thoroughly played since the mid-90s -- Cosmology of Kyoto, the early game that blew Roger Ebert's mind with the possibilities of an "open world." Also you can get molten metal poured into your ass and out of your mouth! Be there.

THE DICE THAT CHANGED THE WORLD Dungeons & Dragons and the Role Playing Revolution : A Celebration of the History and Legacy of RPGs

Fancy diving into the cultural impact of pen-and-paper RPGs? Then join James Bennison, @adders.blog, Esther MacCallum-Stewart and myself for a chat in Brighton's Wagner Hall on April 21. Details 👇

www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/the-dice-t...

🎓 PhD Studentship: 3.5years, fully funded:

Come build engaging multi-platform data collection tools for digital wellbeing interventions with me, @nballou.bsky.social, @martidisi.bsky.social at Imperial College.

Application deadline Feb 26, full details here:
bit.ly/phd-digital-...

Jobs! The Autotelic Interaction Research Group is looking for (1) creative practitioners and (2) theory researchers to work on "Autotelic Creative Artificial Intelligence" (ACAI):

(1) PhD in Creative Practices (2+2 years): lnkd.in/dPBG47rM

(2) Postdoctoral Researcher (2 years): lnkd.in/dMisM_bf

3/3 rejected research bids in the last weeks, aka there goes last year’s summer. Not bitter, just reflecting on the reviews: the funding system seems to have quite the limited appetite for uncertainty from novelty and ambition — or I have too large an appetite for them.

Then why is it not our daily moral and emotional baseline?

I am not talking about a saccharine denial of suffering, sickness, ageing, and death. Pick up any children’s book about these topics, and their world is suffused with an unconditional wise love for every creature in it. We instantly recognise and yearn for and find ourselves at home in that quality.

We create emotional worlds for children we seem to universally value and embrace. When and why do we decide these are not worlds worth aspiring to and realising in our adult lives?

🎓 PhD Studentship: 3.5years, fully funded:

Come build engaging multi-platform data collection tools for digital wellbeing interventions with me, @nballou.bsky.social, @martidisi.bsky.social at Imperial College.

Application deadline Feb 26, full details here:
bit.ly/phd-digital-...

Very up for helping to change that situation, by the way! I’m moving more into interactive play (eg museum interactive) and am motivated to build/collect/consolidate design know how around that domain.

Strangely or not, the same seems to hold for board games.
Maybe also industry size? Googling suggests video games US$ ~180bn, toys ~115bn, tabletop ~15-20bn?

3) Toys are rooted in physical manufacturing. High sunk cost risks, more patenting possibility/necessity = more traditional IP culture.

I def think there’s something to hacker vibes/games as shareware. Some more ideas:
1) This is very history/people/path dependent. No Chris Crawford, no GDC. Toy industry needed just one CC in its history.
2) Even greater stigma/less perceived cultural value around toys than digital games.

I basically bottom out in your casual creator patterns and Mads Hobye’s Designing for Homo Explorers (which has some good strong concepts)

But I’ve gone down the same question recently and came out just as frustrated: toy/play interaction design seems v much all practitioners/studios know-how, v little if any reflective discourse, academic or alt-ac

There’s also some stuff on playground design by people like Helen Little.

More on adult aesthetics, but if there is stuff on interaction design, she would know where to look :)