Right now, in the United States the presidential campaign season is hitting its stride, and all the big news organizations that are still alive have an abundance of reporters on that beat. Frankly I’m far too lazy to do any real research into this, but I’m confident in saying that every majors new organization has […]

It’s worth establishing right off the bat that (A) gamification is a stupid ugly word; that it (B) is misused and abused to mean shallow vague things of very limited value; and (C) neither of those things diminish the power of that idea. Before I explain to you the immense power behind the incorporation of […]

I’ve been thinking a fair amount lately about the idea of “gamification”—yes, it’s an atrocious word but a useful concept. I’m sure there’s value in thinking about how we can bring the most successful aspects of games into the concrete world of physical people and objects. I know there are many activities I should be […]

In response to some poor writing, Ben Brooks was trying to come up with a good analogy for how computers are like cars. Specifically, how we can use the analogy to understand the difference between Macs and Windows PC. In response, I sent him an email which adds drivers (chauffeurs) into the mix. The crux […]

Friendship—whatever we are to understand that to mean in the age of “friending”—and relationships generally can take place on the internet as well as offline. No one denies that. But few people seem to understand the advantage of internet-originating relationships against the physical-world-originating kind. To grasp the distinction in a deep way, it helps to […]