"Each
contingency is an arrangement of time, activity, and reward, and there are an
infinite number of ways these elements can be combined to produce the pattern
of activity you want from your players."
His theories are based
around the work of BF Skinner, who discovered you could control behavior by
training subjects with simple stimulus and reward.
Braid creator Jonathan Blow said Skinnerian
game mechanics are a form of
"exploitation."
It's not that these games can't be fun. But they're designed to keep gamers
subscribing during the periods when it's not fun, locking them
into a repetitive slog using Skinner's manipulative system of carefully
scheduled rewards.
If you want to make
him press the lever as fast as possible, how would you do it? Not by giving him
a pellet with every press--he'll soon relax, knowing the pellets are there when
he needs them. No, the best way is to set up the machine so that it drops the
pellets at random intervals of lever pressing.
They call these
"Variable Ratio Rewards" in Skinner land and this is the reason many
enemies "drop" valuable items totally at random in WoW.
This is addictive in exactly the same way a slot machine is addictive.
BF Skinner knew. He
called that training process "shaping." Little rewards, step by step,
like links in a chain.
#2. Keeping You
Pressing It... Forever
Humans need a
long-term goal to keep us going, and the world of addictive gaming has got this
down to a science. Techniques include...
Easing Them In:
First, set up the
"pellets" so that they come fast at first, and then slower and slower
as time goes on.
Play It Or Lose It:
This is the real dick
move. Why reward the hamster for pressing the lever? Why not simply set it up
so that when he fails to press it, we punish him? Behaviorists call
this "avoidance." They set the cage up so that it gives the animal an
electric shock every 30 seconds unless it hits the lever.
Well, we humans play
games because there is a basic satisfaction in mastering a skill, even if it's
a pointless one in terms of our overall life goals. It helps us develop our
brains (especially as children) and to test ourselves without serious
consequences if we fail. This is why our brains reward us with the sensation we
call "fun" when we do it. Hell, even dolphins do it:
#1. Getting You To
Call the Skinner Box Home
Why do so many of us
have that void? Because according to everything expert
Malcolm Gladwell, to be
satisfied with your job you need three things, and I bet most of you don't even
have two of them:
> Autonomy (that
is, you have some say in what you do day to day);
> Complexity (so
it's not mind-numbing repetition);
> Connection
Between Effort and Reward (i.e. you actually see the awesome results of your
hard work).
It's less about
instant gratification and more about a freaking sense of accomplishment.
The terrible truth is
that a whole lot of us begged for a Skinner Box we could crawl into, because
the real world's system of rewards is so much more slow and cruel than
we expected it to be.
In that, gaming is no different from other forms of mental escape, from sports
fandom to moonshine.
Here's something more up to date, from Clip Converter:
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How to convert and download a YouTube video: 1. Paste your YouTube URL at 'Video URL' and press Continue. 2. Select the format (MP3, MP4, M4A) and the options for the conversion. The default options are for most videos a good setting. 3. Press the 'Start' button at the bottom to start the conversion. 4. This may take several minutes. After the conversion is finished you can download the converted file.
As part of the BBC LovetoRead campaign, Michael Rosen talks
about his first experience in reading, with Dr Laura Wright, and how and
what he reads now. They're joined by cognitive psychologist Professor
Kathy Rastle to
explain the amazing process by which we read, and to find out how fast
the average reader reads, and how many words they know..
There is already a languages skills shortage but currently the UK can rely on other EU nationals "to plug the gap", say the group.
Ministers say their reforms are already boosting language learning in schools.
Language checklist
Launching a checklist on Brexit and languages, the group say lack of language ability loses the UK an estimated 3.5% of economic performance.
The country currently relies on the EU to negotiate trade deals but this will no longer be possible once the UK has left the Union, they add.
APPG co-chair Baroness Coussins said: "Brexit must make the UK's language skills a top policy issue.
"Language skills are vital for our exports, education, public services and diplomacy."
Image copyrightTHINKSTOCKImage captionLanguage skills are crucial to trade, diplomacy and security, say the MPs and peers
Baroness Coussins called for "a national plan to ensure the UK produces the linguists we need to become a world leader in global free trade and on the international stage."
The group identify a need to boost skills in both European and non-European languages for the purposes of trade, international relations and security.
In particular, they fear the loss of European language skills if EU nationals already living in the UK are not guaranteed residency status post Brexit.
They also want the UK to continue full participation in the Erasmus+ scheme, where young people study, work volunteer and train abroad in Europe, some working as language assistants in schools.
The checklist includes calls to:
Guarantee residency status for EU nationals already living in the UK
Continue full participation in Erasmus+
Set up a national plan to boost language education from primary school through to post-graduate level
'Critical shortage'
"It is essential that schools continue to be able to recruit EU nationals post-Brexit," said Malcolm Trobe, interim general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders.
"There is already a critical shortage of language teachers and the last thing that we need is anything which makes this situation worse.
"We understand that Brexit means Brexit but it is vital that it does not also mean a full-blown crisis in language teaching."
Sara Davidson, head of modern languages at the private Oundle School and chairwoman of the Independent Schools Modern Languages Association, said she did not know of a language department that did not employ native speakers.
"Native speakers are helping us out amidst a major recruitment crisis in modern language teaching.
"We simply do not currently produce enough linguists in this country to fill the modern language teaching vacancies we have."
Ruth Sinclair-Jones, UK director of Erasmus+, said the value of the scheme to the UK "cannot be underestimated".
"Losing UK participation would limit the future prospects of young people and the country as a whole," she said.
And Mark Herbert, head of schools programmes at the British Council, said: "Learning a language isn't just a rewarding way to connect with another culture but boosts individual job prospects, as well as business and trade opportunities for the UK."
A Department for Education spokeswoman said government policies meant the number of students taking one language at GCSE was up from 40% in 2010 to 49% this year.
The spokeswoman added: "The UK's future access to the Erasmus+ programme will be part of wider discussions with the EU.
"Existing higher education UK students studying in the EU will continue to be subject to current arrangements."
Take care
that your verb and subject is in agreement.
A
preposition is a bad thing to end a sentence with.
Down with
categorical imperatives.
Avoid
those run-on sentences that just go on, and on, and on, they never stop, they
just keep rambling, and you really wish the person would just shut up, but no,
they just keep going, they're worse than the Energizer Bunny, they babble
incessantly, and these sentences, they just never stop, they go on forever...if
you get my drift...
The
passive voice should never be used.
When
dangling, watch your participles.
Never go
off on tangents, which are lines that intersect a curve at only one point and
were discovered by Euclid, who lived in the sixth century, which was an era
dominated by the Goths, who lived in what we now know as Poland...
Excessive
use of exclamation points can be disastrous!!!!!
Remember
to end each sentence with a period
Don't use
commas, which aren't necessary.
Don't use
question marks inappropriately?
Avoid
tumbling off the cliff of triteness into the black abyss of overused metaphors.
Keep your
ear to the grindstone, your nose to the ground, take the bull by the horns of a
dilemma, and stop mixing your metaphors.
Avoid
those abysmally horrible, outrageously repellent exaggerations.
Avoid any
awful anachronistic aggravating antediluvian alliterations.
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