Meta-games

There is a community, connected and reinforced online, of video game players. Despite their division into factions (by gaming console, by game preference, by the quality of being distinguishable from an angry 12-year-old boy in forums), they share more similarities than they do differences. One notable similarity being: the obsession with video games. As a pastime. As entertainment. As a lifestyle choice.

Like any community, the community of video gamers occasionally discusses itself. (Witness Penny Arcade, a venue devoted exclusively to discussions of video games and of Penny Arcade.) Thus arises a genre: the video game which is, itself, a commentary on another video game. I just came across this list of meta-games and find them delightful; I had heard of Desert Bus, Tetris HD, the hilarious Cow Clicker, and others. I am delighted to find out about Progress Quest, a RPG which requires no participation to play -- your character stats simply increase the longer you run the game. Progress Wars is similar but even simpler. Achievement Unlocked is delightful.

And of course there are games which parody other meta-games. Huzzah.


This post's theme word is jocoserious, "half-jesting, half-serious." Jonathan Coulton's sorrowful nerd anthems are jocoserious. Just consider JoCo's jocoserious song "Still Alive," the theme of the popular video game Portal.
This post written like Cory Doctorow. (I wonder if that's because of the many links.)

The Tipping Point

I have read 71 pages of Malcolm Gladwell's "The Tipping Point," and I can read no further. The book is dangerously written. The prose is conversational, anecdotal, clearly written and convincing -- but only at first glance. The danger, of course, is that readers will consume shallowly, unthinkingly, mistaking the simple writing for simple truth. A closer inspection reveals that Gladwell's grand system of "How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference" is a set of Capitalized Words of Importance supported by anecdotes. Badly supported by anecdotes! Some of the anecdotes can be interpreted as the opposite of what Gladwell intends; it is only his particular interpretation that makes them support his theory.

A. pointed out that this book taught one thing: how to write a bestselling pop-soft-science book. Capitalize some words (Gladwell choses: maven, connector, salesman, etc. -- words that lose their Magical Significance when uncapitalized) and fill in 200-300 pages of thinly supportive stories from history, personal experience, and the summaries of summaries of popular science articles.

Seems relatively harmless, right? Just popular writing. But as I read, I feel his tone permeate my brain. I often find myself thinking in the diction and sentence structure of whatever I'm reading at the moment. And I simply do not want to think like this book. I'll go cleanse my mental palate with some David Foster Wallace now.


This post's theme word is dipsomania, "insatiable, periodic craving for alcohol." Reading the works of Malcolm Gladwell has been shown to cause dipsomania.
This post written like H. P. Lovecraft.