Joshua R. Taylor > Recent Status Updates

I flatly refuse to believe that this is a real diary, it is so overdramatized.

Not to mention the story is boring:
"oh I've taken drugs, everything is bad"
"oh I've stopped drugs, things are getting better, I hope I don't take drugs again!"

Oh boy... we're off to a painfully cringey and teenagery start

I can see why this book is so popular, it really highlights how irrational the best of people can be when racism gets involved

Past the first part, really falling for the setting and character Atticus who seems to hold tons of secrets.

Currently in the section "Pragmatic Paranoia" where design by contract is introduced and other defensive programming techniques are shown.

Welcome to the deep south

Michael Faraday sounds awesome!

Really making me want to do some experiments!

This book has done the astounding feat of making me understand Newtons laws in a way that my GCSE and A-level physics never could. Instead of teaching F=ma and teaching me how to use formulas, Lederman walked through the entire logic of how Newton unified many theories of mechanical motion into one and how he got there.

The story has had a massive change in tone these past few chapters, going from a very dark and grim part of the story to the introduction of a very comedic character.

Some pretty useful and relevant tips provided (Doubly impressive since this book was written in 2000). I'll definitely be putting some of these up on the wall in the next office I work at.

The written dialogue between the author and Democritus is quite funny and easy to digest (for a section about philosophy—which is often a chore to read)

The setting and some satire jabs at the second world war make parts of this book similar to Catch-22.

The last chapter "Saving the Real World together" is another blatant plug of the author's work and seems to even take the focus away from games. The "games" described in this chapter seem to have few of the defining point of games that the author introduced in the initial chapters—they seem closer to community media projects, with lots of people trying to propose ideas to solve large scale humanitarian issues.

Looking forward to particle physics and (apparently) quirky jokes :)

Reached a quote from the Urban Dictionary for "Epic Win"... my confidence in this book decreases.

There's a section about Wikipedia and how it's collaboration process is gamified. I found the article about "what Wikipedians say!" which is heavily referenced by the author, however it was marked as a "humorous essay" by the Wikipedia editors.

So I'm not not as trustworthy of the sources in this book.

Really insightful so far, lots of interesting content about what games are and why they make tasks so easy. Gives me the urge to go out and gamify all of my work!

Have had to skip the chapter about "Happiness Hacking" since it seemed to be more promoting the author's achievements than exploring gamification. Hopefully the later chapters about real-life gamification don't fall victim to this.

Really charming! Jumps around a different character each chapter and reveals quirky personal characteristics.