Zuggy's Thoughts

[zuggysthoughts]

Creating Truly Memorable Experiences

In a fit of insomnia, which isn’t uncommon, I decided to watch a documentary on Netflix called “The Institute” about an art project/alternate reality game that took place in San Francisco in 2009. While some of the people they interviewed, especially one particular person, really took it too far I found it fascinating towards something I obsess over, creating truly unique and memorable experiences.

I’m a facilitator. I get the most enjoyment, not by experiencing something myself, but facilitating someone else’s experience. I DJ, I’ve bar-tended, I ran a round of a fairly common ARG called Assassins and I’m interested in game design. The problem I run into though is how does one create a truly memorable experience? I think there’s a few elements we can find in truly memorable experiences and can apply them to how we facilitators go about designing those experiences.

First, it has to be interactive. Think of a memory of going to a museum. I’ve been lucky enough to have visited the large variety of museums in Washington DC. I have recollections of going and having a variety of emotions, mostly awe, at what I saw but it felt distant. It wasn’t awe of something I experienced, it was the awe of something someone else experienced. On the other hand, the RPG nerds out there will recognize the more realistic senses of awe, panic, fear and many other emotions from particularly tense moments in a well constructed campaign. Maybe that one time the dice rolled just right and you averted certain death for your party. I know for myself, at least, those moments in a fantasy land in my head feel more emotionally relevant simply because I was a part of them rather than simply admiring what someone else achieved.

Second, it has to be engrossing. When I ran Assassins, it was definitely a rough road, I lost a couple friends over it, I botched my target selection process (made the mistake of going random instead of round-robin which led to people not having targets) and some other problems I had to fix on the fly. I also ran into the problem where some of the participants didn’t take it very seriously. However, for a few people, they told me it was one of the best experiences they had in their entire lives. One participant who was in his mid-30s told me that. What a compliment, to have created an environment where someone in their 30s had an experience that they’ll never forget. 

The problem with modern society is we get up, we go to work, we come home. If we’re lucky, we have a few friends who are great to hang out with. We have plenty of distraction when we have the time, there’s movies, there’s TV, there’s games, both digital and physical, but for the most part they’re forgettable. By creating something engrossing, an experience the players can completely immerse themselves in, it not only breaks up the monotony of daily life but allows people to escape it.

Third, it has to be rare. My vacation every year is to go to Defcon. This last August was my 8th Defcon and what I’ve found is, while it’s my favorite weekend each year, my years are blurring together. The emotion and experience of each year just kind of blurs with the rest of the years. Talking about that with my friends who have been going just as long, or longer, agreed there are definitely things they remember from past Defcons but they can’t always pin down what year it happened.

Unique experiences are like almost like heroin. You’ll never have the same high as you did the first time. If the experience is recreated often, the veterans will enjoy it, but it won’t be like first time. Furthermore, the more they participate the less impact the current and past experiences will have.

As for what I personally will do, I won’t do Assassins again. The competitive nature of it is just too much for some people and in Salt Lake City, the potential participation is too high. I would be interested in working on an ARG, but I would probably want it within a limited population of some sort. There are other problems that would need to be solved as well, such as, how to weed out people who don’t want to participate on the minimum required level.

I’ve got a few basic ideas I keep in my head or in a notebook, but we’ll see what happens. The monotony of real life has been getting in the way.

[zuggysthoughts]

Emotional Appeals or The Problem with Most People Supporting Vaccines

I'm an avid supporter of vaccinating children. I don't just support vaccination, but I believe parents should be legally required to vaccinate their children. That's not what this post is about, but rather the issues I see with other people who support vaccination.

When I see people posting online or talking about those who are against vaccination they seem to fall under one of two categories. Those who think the numbers speak for themselves and think emotional appeals are useless or those preaching to the lowest common denominator of the choir and decide we should call those who are against vaccination names like "baby killers" or "pro-plaguers"

While I don't think coming up with negative terms is the right way to go about it emotional appeals are an important part of any debate. There have been studies showing people will hold more tightly to their own beliefs when faced with factual evidence their beliefs are wrong. This would suggest emotional tactics not only need to taken into account, but need to be an integral part of the debate.

A perfect example is the abortion debate. The mainstream terms for both sides of the debate are "pro-choice" and "pro-life." You notice in the debate there's no mainstream terms like "anti-choice" "anti-life" or "pro-murder" and both "pro-choice" and "pro-life" have a positive connotation. It's a purely emotional tactic because on the one side people generally don't want to be perceived as not letting people choose what they do with their life, but on the other side people don't want to be perceived as being for ending life.

Trying to come up with cheap potshots like "pro-plague" or "baby killers" will backfire, but emotional appeals are needed to change people's stances. There's a reason why Aristotle's Appeals, Ethos (Credibility), Pathos (Emotional) and Logos (Logical) are all used as the basis of proper debate. Even with all three there will still be people who won't change their stance, but if all three are represented well those who are the fence or are starting to lean towards not vaccinating their children but haven't quite made up their mind are more likely to move to the side of vaccination.

People won't change their minds simply because there are studies upon studies, statistics upon statistics showing vaccination is the healthiest option for their kids with the fewest risks. They need to see the people presenting that evidence are knowledgeable about the subject and they need to be shown personal, individual stories of the risks of not vaccinating. You can't just show increases in measles cases, you have to tell people about the infant who went blind because they weren't old enough to get vaccinated and they got measles from a kid who wasn't vaccinated. You have to tell the stories about children with leukemia who didn't die from that disease, but from contracting pertussis because they couldn't get the vaccine and the herd immunity of their neighborhood was compromised because the neighborhood parents were against vaccinating their kids. When you tell those stories people can relate to the argument much better than if you just show them numbers. While all anecdotal, parents can relate to stories of other parents struggles with trying to provide the best they can for their children much easier than they can relate to bunch of numbers showing an increase in the number of children who've gotten sick.

The anti-vaccine movement is based on little credibility and the only evidence they have has been shown time and again to not just be false but falsified. What they have in droves are parents who claim their children were diagnosed as autistic after receiving their vaccines. Even though it's because autism spectrum disorders tend to start manifesting at the same time children start getting their vaccines, all those parents see is other parents who vaccinated their kids and then their kids were diagnosed with a severe mental disorder.

What we, as rational people who try to understand all the angles, have is doctors and researchers who support vaccination, we have a massive body of research discrediting the idea that vaccines cause autism and other mental disorders, and we have stories of children who have been crippled or killed because of parents who didn't vaccinate their kids. We have a strong argument on all three fronts, but we have to be willing to use all three to win the fight for vaccinating all children who are physically able to be vaccinated, and in turn better saving the lives of all children.

[zuggysthoughts]

21st Century Snake Oil

Over the past few months I've seen a variety of devices pop up across the internet claiming to protect you from Big Brother aka the NSA. Devices that claim to anonymize you by routing all your traffic through Tor, even though it's not as anonymous as most people might think, or this little device that will alert you and disconnect devices suspected of spying when on an open wireless connection.

These devices seem like little more than the 21st century equivalent of snake oil. They're devices that provide vague protection against a threat that most people have little understanding of, much like the cure all tinctures of the 18th and 19th centuries (and surprisingly still today).

I think the issue stems from a lack of understanding of technology and how it works. In decades past to engage with technology you had to have some level of understanding and some level of commitment to make it work. For most people computers, tablets, smartphones and the plethora of embedded systems we engage with are little more than magic boxes that do things we want to do. 

Fortunately there are projects out there that have the potential to provide actual security like the Dark Internet Mail Environment which would provide end to end encryption of email without requiring users how to use PGP.

What we really need are people curious enough to learn how to take the steps to protect themselves. Just because someone says they're against government surveillance and have the magic answer doesn't mean they do. At best they may be providing some actual security, but nothing that can't be bypassed. At worst they are opening you up to whole other set of vulnerabilities.

There are a few steps you can take to provide some security. The EFF has an extension for most browsers called HTTPS Everywhere. Basically, if a website provides some encryption through HTTPS it will connect to that by default. If you're super paranoid there are Virtual Private Network services for connecting from your home network to the internet over an encrypted connection (hopefully not one that's been compromised) or if you're only concerned about when you're out in public you can do like I'm doing and use a Raspberry Pi to build your own VPN at home.

There are two more points to keep in mind. Most of us aren't actually worth actively spying on and there are some small steps that can be taken to protect yourself. For the few that are worthy US intelligence agencies' full attention they have literally billions of dollars at their disposal to spend on project like trying to break commonly used encryption schemes or malware that is almost impossible to detect that will just sit there collecting data on everything you do and some $60 box isn't going to save you.

Just for clarification, I don't accept the fact we are all spied on. Lets face it, George Orwell was only about 30 years off with 1984. On the technical side there are people much smarter in these fields than you and I working on these issues. What we have is the ability to try and influence our elected representatives. It's definitely an uphill battle with billions of dollars and a large portion of the population not caring at play, but there are ways we can all participate in this fight. Educate yourself and try to fight back, just don't go from trusting the government to trusting a snake oil salesman.

[zuggysthoughts]

Reimagining the Library

For centuries libraries have been the backbone of human civilization. In more recent times they've given anyone with the ability to read access to knowledge on a vast array of topics. Every so often, as a thought experiment, I try to reimagine how the library may evolve to better meet the needs of our technological society.

On another note I have also been reading a lot about the Maker Movement. Advances in technology giving anyone the ability to build a wide range of electronic devices for cheap. We have hit a point in technology where those willing to take the time to learn the skills can build a limitless number of devices for a myriad of uses on the cheap. Prototypes for devices that would've cost tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars just 10 or 15 years ago can now be built hundreds of dollars, or less.

So how are the two events connected? What if we could build a digital ebook library where anyone could connect anytime, anywhere and download a book to read. If fully implemented it would eliminate not only the need to go to the library, but you could have a fully synchronized library meaning you no longer would have to seek out a library that has what you're looking for or put in for an inter-library loan and wait for the book to become available and be sent to your local library.

The technology exists. Using system on chip or SoC computers, like the Raspberry Pi or BeagleBone, and a combination of wireless networks we could create a city-wide, synchronized, library that could be accessed by anyone. I even believe it would be possible to use solar power to power the devices making them independent of a power grid.

In fact, the difficulty to this system wouldn't be technological, but would be legal. I'm of the firm belief that with the firm grip large corporations have with intellectual property if the library were a new concept today it would not come into existence. I seriously doubt my vision of a future library would be able to overcome the legal issues, but that's a discussion for another time.

Here in the near future I plan on trying to make the technology work, building a series of networked devices and place them around a high traffic area with the purpose of having a new form of library. To circumvent the legal issues they will start off with public domain books and creative commons books that have a compatible CC license. I also think I could come up with a system allowing people to add their own content to the library.

Will this future library ever become more than just a pipe dream and maybe a proof of concept? Probably not, but it seems worthwhile enough to give it a shot.