No Privacy

Bloggish, Tid-Bits

A post I read today reminded me of something my father told me as a kid. Basically: “never do anything you wouldn’t want to see on the front page of the newspaper.”

I know, how quaint, they had newspapers back in the olden days. I suppose in current vernacular it would be “never do anything you wouldn’t want to see on the home page of youtube.”

Admittedly a video clip of one sitting on the john in the midst of a cataclysmic flu episode is not something you (or anyone else) should want to see on youtube. Embarrassment is one thing, getting caught “cooking the books” or making heated remarks that include graphic details of bodily harm is another.

Posting anything to the internet is like getting a tattoo. It may be with you for a long long time, there is no guarantee that it can be removed ever, and there is no place you can put that tattoo that will be invisible to everyone — folks you’d rather not see it could easily end up with access.

Case in point, the post I mentioned at the start of this blog: “Privacy issue: Google Docs seems to not delete but only hide documents when the trash is emptied“.

In the post it was demonstrated that a deleted google document was still available — for anyone to read. Thing is: this document started life as a private document. It was deleted, trashed, and the trash dumped. Still the document is hanging around. That is the not so good news. But, the really bad news is: anyone (in spite of so called privacy issues) can see the so-called deleted document.

This is not a slam against google. It just serves as a wake up call. Anything that goes over the internet is at risk of being tucked away in dusty corners of the internet. Email drafts saved before you even hit the send button could be available. You could be put to task for an email you wrote that was not even sent, and was in fact later extensively revised. The internet is like one huge, massive cloud storage device. If you live in this world, and use any of the new technologies, you can’t escape it. But, you can learn to be more discreet.

Yes, fight for privacy anywhere you can. Use care when setting your account privacy rules. And, be aware that in spite of your best efforts you may not be able to protect your documents the way you wish. Thus, be careful what you allow onto the cloud. It could easily come back to haunt you.

 

AGC — A Dedication

Any Game Book

Imagine the world of a bug living its life between two sheets of plywood. This imaginary creature would be trapped in a world of forward, backward, left, and right. That’s it, just two dimensions of travel. Between sheets of plywood there would be no up or down—just left, right, forward, and backward.

Imagine that wonderful moment when our little bug friend makes its way to the edge of the plywood to emerge into a world with the new dimension of up-down. Back in the world of flat between the plywood up-down was only a myth. Up-down was something that philosophers may have guessed at. Now, much to our buggy friend’s surprise, it is smack dab face-to-face with this new dimension.

How our bug reacts to this newfound freedom of up and down will depend a great deal on its ability to move within this new dimension. If the bug has wings and can fly, life will be good as it flies for the first time free with sky above and ground below. If, on the other hand, the bug has no means of flight, then the sequence of events might be something like: emerge into a new dimension, experience a new-found freedom of movement, puzzle at the strange rushing sounds of wind whipping past one’s buggy ears, followed by a resounding splat on the ground below.

Most likely, our little friend would have appreciated this new-found freedom if it had some prior preparation—suddenly going splat is not the best introduction to a new dimension.

It is to this bug that I dedicate The Any Game Cookbook. These recipes for transforming otherwise ordinary games into spiritual adventures are designed to exercise extradimensional muscles of movement.

 

What Is Any Game?

Any Game Book

While working on the book Spiritual Gaming with the Classics, it became evident that many of the suggested rule modifications would work equally well on most any game. For example, the rules designed to turn Parcheesi into a spiritual game were found to work equally well on any game played with dice and markers. This became the inspiration for The Any Game Cookbook—a collection of rule modifications, exercises, mentations, and assorted activities designed to turn any game into a spiritual adventure.

But wait, before you head off to the toy store searching the aisles for a game called “any game”, let me share a bit of news: Any Game(tm) is in production and available for purchase. However, the game is only sold directly from the manufacturer. If you are interested in a copy of the game, contact Gateways Books and Tapes requesting a price list. I’m sure they will be happy to hook you up.

However, least you think it necessary to purchase a special game for use with this book, let me assure you that “any game” can mean literally any game—Monopoly, Canasta, Pinochle, Chess, Cribbage, Parcheesi, Domino, Ping Pong, etcetera, so forth, and so on.

 

Any Game Cookbook Introduction

Any Game Book, Gaming

In The Any Game Cookbook you’ll find a bountiful buffet of spiritual exercises; a veritable smörgåsbord of gaming recipes. Each recipe is designed to transform the playing of any game into a spiritual gaming experience.

Ordinarily playing a game is… well… um, ordinary. However, with the application of a recipe from this book, you can transform playing any of those aging games gathering dust in the hall closet into a new gaming experience—a spiritual gaming adventure.

Under normal circumstances this would be an ideal time to define what is meant by spiritual and spiritual gaming. I agree, under normal circumstances that would make perfect sense, but, alas, this is not one of those normal circumstances.

This book is intended as a door opener, an invitation for you to explore your experience, an invitation for you to take a guided tour of your spiritual nature. I have no intention of limiting your potential horizons by definitions and head-brain explanations.

If you want to compare notes after you’ve made a few journeys of your own, let’s talk.

By What Measure

Bloggish

Reading the WSJ (Wall Street Journal) article about the game “Remission” was most enlightening. Maybe not for the reasons that most readers would have found.

Remission has been around since 2006. It is a serious game, aimed at players between 12 and 29 years old — that happen to be undergoing cancer treatment. It is a third-person shooter in which you guide a “nanobot” through your own body killing cancer cells.

The game (seven years later) still has good traction and is well accepted by the medical community as being of value. By what measure? How is it decided that the game is doing its job? Continue reading →

More Than A Clone

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Let’s take it as written that sometime earlier today you discovered plausible evidence that you are a clone. What will it mean if it’s true?  What if I am a clone?

As a clone your cells will not be your own — at least you will not be the original owner of the sacred DNA that dictates the construction of the physical you. That DNA will be borrowed from the real you — “You version 1.0”.

And if you are one of those scifi “pop into consciousness as a fully mature adult” type of clones, then all of your memories will be borrowed or manufactured. Since you are fresh out of the vat, those memories of running over grassy hills with your dog Rover have been injected from some source other than experience. Continue reading →

Map vs. Territory

Bloggish

When looking around the Grand Canyon with a gas station folded map in your hand it is plain to see that the map is not the territory. If the map is a good one, there will be scribbly-scrawly things indicating roads, mountains, canyons, rivers, and what not. But a little blue line wiggling across a cellulose sheet of paper is not the same thing as a river. The map will work for navigation purposes. But, for the real thing, you need to look to the territory.

Something that is not so obvious is the fact that as  you stand admiring the landscape you are also looking at a map — not the territory. Because of how our perceptions work, because of the mechanics of our brains, we are never looking at the territory. We are always looking at a map. Continue reading →

Your Voice Matters

Bloggish

The world seems so big, and there seem to be so many excellent voices saying exactly what you would be saying — if only you were saying it. And, they seem to say it so much better than you imagine you would say it. That’s not actually how it is.

You may have noticed that not everyone is the same. People have different tastes, different likes and dislikes, different perspectives, different ways of being in the world. We don’t all experience the world in the same way. Continue reading →

Serious Games Not Grim

Gaming

UrthGame’s Prosperity Path Games are built using cutting edge opengl 3d technology — similar to that you’d find in any modern 3d shooter. However, Prosperity Path Orbs (that’s what they call their games) have no shooting of the killing variety. In fact, there is no killing.

Not that I mind shooting or killing in video games. Heck, I think I’ve set the all time record for the most kills and personal deaths in Team Fortress during the same game. It’s all pixels. And Team Fortress happens to be a game that has managed to incorporate shooting without violence. You can search my blogs if you are wondering how the heck this is possible. Let’s just say that violence is not measured by red pixels on the screen. It is measured more by the intention and attitude of the developers and players. Continue reading →

Lessons From Walnut Picking

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“If you continue to do only what you are currently doing, then you will continue to see only from your current perspectives.”

The English walnut tree has a bumper crop of nuts this year. Yay! I was out and about the other day picking nuts from the lower limbs.

English walnuts on the tree are hidden away inside a green husk.  They look nice and big and round. The husks are sufficiently different from leaves that one would think it would be easy to distinguish a husk from a leave.

Something I quickly discovered was that in order to find all the nuts on the limb it was necessary to approach the limb from many different angles. Coming at the limb from different angles would reveal tons of nuts that were not visible from other views.

This simple walnut hide and seek served as a resounding reminder that no matter how apparently straightforward something is looking at it from different perspectives is sure to reveal previously missed aspects.