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Last night, while reading the book Reality Is Broken: Why Games Make Us Better and How They Can Change the World by Jane McGonigal Kindle eBooks @ Amazon.com.[^]
I stumbled upon this great quote:
Games make us happy because they are hard work we choose for ourselves, and it turns out that most nothing makes us happier than hard work. A little further down the author adds to this...
If only hard work in the real world had the same effect. In our real lives, hard work is too often something we do because we have to do it--to make a living, to get ahead to meet someone else's expectations, or simply because we have a job to do. We resent tht kind of work.
I think this helps to explain why software development (the real stuff) often doesn't feel like work.
Have you read the book? It's really fantastic take on games, gaming and how you can apply game mentality to your work. Very interesting.
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In other words, everyone wants to be useful. But in reality, most people aren't and have to live in a fantasy world to accomplish that.
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Bassam Abdul-Baki wrote: In other words, everyone wants to be useful. But in reality, most people aren't and have to live in a fantasy world to accomplish that.
That's a great summary of it and it made me LOL (for real).
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Doesn't look like she has figured out how to win life though.
The search continues.
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Why? Turn your life into a game...
Skipper: We'll fix it.
Alex: Fix it? How you gonna fix this?
Skipper: Grit, spit and a whole lotta duct tape.
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I have tried that but I keep dying at the end.
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Respawn to your last save point quickly! 
Bad command or file name. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaaay...
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Alas, she unfortunately hasn't written the guide to winning every time. 
harold aptroot wrote: The search continues.
Well, make sure you game the system, then you'll have a better chance.
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harold aptroot wrote: Doesn't look like she has figured out how to win life though.
There ain't no winning.
People who proudly declare themselves to be "competitive" leave me aghast -- dogs are "competitive" over scraps of meat, but there's nothing to win, in the human world.
Being competitive and/or being determined to "win" doesn't add a millisecond to your life, but probably reduces your lifespan by quite a lot, because stress does terrible things to your mortal shell.
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
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That's what all the losers say 
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Becoming immortal would be a good first step. Maybe winning life = defeating death, has a nice symmetry to it.
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Didn't I already address this in an earlier thread?
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
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Alcohol makes alcoholics happy. Heroin makes junkies happy. Methamphetamine makes speed-freaks happy.
Do I need to elaborate the analogy further ?
cheers, Bill (programming addict)
«There is a spectrum, from "clearly desirable behaviour," to "possibly dodgy behavior that still makes some sense," to "clearly undesirable behavior." We try to make the latter into warnings or, better, errors. But stuff that is in the middle category you don’t want to restrict unless there is a clear way to work around it.» Eric Lippert, May 14, 2008
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Yes, happiness is dependent upon dopamine release and many things will release dopamine -- even false things. This is why happiness is a paradox. Yet, as Blaise Pascal said,
“All men seek happiness. This is without exception. Whatever different means they employ, they all tend to this end. The cause of some going to war, and of others avoiding it, is the same desire in both, attended with different views. The will never takes the least step but to this object. This is the motive of every action of every man, even of those who hang themselves.”
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raddevus wrote: Yes, happiness is dependent upon dopamine release and many things will release dopamine -- even false things.
Emotion is not a side-effect of chemistry, nor is (that useless term) "happiness" necessarily associated with just a few emotions.
Some human beings make intense sacrifices of what most people would assume is pleasure, or happiness, as part of their striving to find meaning. In fact, I propose to you that often people who find great meaning in such (comparatively abstract) exotic pursuits as attaining a high-level of mastery of a programming language ... are often people whose "trade-off" of "common pleasures" for intense intellectual efforts is a quest for meaning.
fyi: Pascal described g-o-d as "a fearful sphere whose center is everywhere and circumference is nowhere." He used the word effroyable (for "fearful") which was mistranslated into English as "infinite," until Jorge Borges brought the error to light many years ago.
It is an all too common error in human perceptions to mistake the chaos and fragmentation of our own mental states as somehow revealing the topology and geology of the "external" world ... where (praise be !) trees keep growing like they've done since the end of the Devonian Period 365 million years ago, and little larval human beings demonstrate the most astounding mastery of language in a short window of time in their development.
«There is a spectrum, from "clearly desirable behaviour," to "possibly dodgy behavior that still makes some sense," to "clearly undesirable behavior." We try to make the latter into warnings or, better, errors. But stuff that is in the middle category you don’t want to restrict unless there is a clear way to work around it.» Eric Lippert, May 14, 2008
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Is the one sock left in the washer just seeking its sole mate?
Bad command or file name. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaaay...
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No, just the right sock.
... such stuff as dreams are made on
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The jokes stink when left to you.
There are only 10 types of people in the world, those who understand binary and those who don't.
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You certainly do not lace your compliments.
... such stuff as dreams are made on
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Yet another hole comment needling about those darn socks
| "The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." - Albert Einstein | | "As far as we know, our computer has never had an undetected error." - Weisert | | "If you are searching for perfection in others, then you seek disappointment. If you are seek perfection in yourself, then you will find failure." - Balboos HaGadol Mar 2010 |
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You're a heel!
veni bibi saltavi
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Another mystery afoot!
This time, however, we'll toe the line or heel post another pun.
| "The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." - Albert Einstein | | "As far as we know, our computer has never had an undetected error." - Weisert | | "If you are searching for perfection in others, then you seek disappointment. If you are seek perfection in yourself, then you will find failure." - Balboos HaGadol Mar 2010 |
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It's just fed up of hanging about with hose!
I am not a number. I am a ... no, wait!
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