"This book is a critique of gamification by an actual game designer, games journalist, and former neuroscientist that 'goes far beyond the usual suspects like Fitbit and Duolingo to look at the historical roots of gamification'": Discussion of "You've Been Played: How Corporations, Governments, and Schools Use Games to Control Us All," by MetaFilter's own Adrian Hon.
spymaster, one-handed driving by Nata Luna (cc by-nc)
Bella Donna posted Hacking an ableist world about the ingenious everyday accessibility innovations disabled folks are creating and sharing among themselves as opposed to the less useful (or vaporware) "disability dongles [that] generate feel-good content for brands." Very interesting!
Recipes by pirate johnny (cc by-nc-nd)
"I have cookbooks. I have recipes printed out and shoved into cookbooks. I have recipes in Evernote. I have recipes pinned on Pinterest. How can I get all of my recipes in one spot and display them while I cook?"
Cooking & Eating by ☼☼Jo Zimny Photos☼☼ (cc by-nc-nd)
A digest of recent food culture posts on Mefi:
The Food Timeline, evolution of foods dating back to before 17,000BC ⏳; Maria Orosa, Filipina food technologist, chemist, humanitarian, war hero 👩🏽🔬; The D.C. Region Doesn’t Have Full-Time Food Critics of Color. Why That Matters 📰; Archeology of Taste is a project about childhood memories 🍭; Consider the potato: How do you prefer yours? 🥔; The Food Flow Model, a web of connections across the continental U.S. 🚚; What Makes Good Comfort Food? A LitHub conversation 🍝; The most taxing work in the kitchen is brain work 🧠Iceland’s last McDonald’s burger simply won’t rot, even after 10 years 🍔.
More in Metatalk: The Mefi Mall is open, and you can add your shop now; MeFites for the Holidays is the spot for members who want to make connections for some seasonal bonhomie; Thinking About a Post is a thread for people to talk about posts they'd like to see or collaborate on; and finally, the current Metatalktail Hour's topic asking what obsolete technology members are skilled in is a lot of fun, if you haven't checked it out.
"I Dream - Ice Cream" [front] by Boston Public Library (cc by)
Who's the model on this sewing pattern?
Do you remember a poster with a towering stack of ice cream scoops from the 1980s?
What were the white long-handled wands used for museum audio tours in the 1980s?
Did you have one of those tape recordings of a barking dog that you could play for home security?
Ain Manawir (VII) by isawnyu (cc by)
JoeZydeco on how a vending machine knows what coin you've put in (and why the Mars candy company spun off an electronics company)
seasparrow on ancient underground water-distribution systems called "qanats"... including diagrams
codacorolla on their academic research on Minecraft players
The evolution of thimble technology, as seen in artifacts found scattered across England
A nice discussion of the importance of the skills needed to maintain old systems
Projection Booth by limecools (cc by-nc-sa)
"I set Anchorman on fire": Tales from Mefite film projectionists.
To make that sparkly tv logo without computers, the artists "stayed up all night doing drugs." - How they made animated graphics for tv before CGI.
Betamax nostalgia here - Plus how videotape and adhesive tape are made on the same machines.
Remember those 1-800- commercials from late-night tv? - I made those ads, and I worked in a call center, and we could tell when the ads aired.
Stock trader tech - lots of love for the bottomless Bloomberg terminal (internal Craigslist! extra emoji!), history of some alternatives to Bloomberg in the early 1980s, and extra tough phone equipment to survive frustrated smashing by floor traders.
Electronic medical records - A harder problem than it seems, how it's a pain for doctors, and why a lot of medical info systems still rely on fax or modem.
Mikel vinyl by aspitos4kids (cc by-nc)
Fun question in Ask Me: You spin me right round baby right round like a what? "I need songs with specific lyrics which I can play for my daughter which represent antiquated technology that she has no real understanding of."
RSA Conference USA 2011 by Riebart (cc by)
In a recent thread discussing an introduction to cryptography, member Rhomboid explains why a seemingly simple problem at the root of all internet security, figuring out the two prime numbers multiplied by each other to get a 309-digit number (that would unlock the ultimate root certificate) is so incredibly difficult:
Actually doing this is quite another matter. By the prime number theorem, we have about 2512 / log(2512) ≈ 3.8 × 10151 prime divisors to test. Suppose we had a computer that can perform such a test division in a single clock cycle, and say that it runs at 100 GHz. Say that we have 100 billion such computers on the planet, and heck, say we have 100 billion such planets. You're still looking at ≈ 6 × 10110 years on average to find the answer; not even close to realistic.
Transmitter Array by Modern Relics (cc by)
You might have been watching TV before and heard an emergency alert interrupt your show with information on weather or news. A similar new text messaging system will soon be online to warn you of severe weather alerts (and a mysterious Presidential Alert). Turns out there are several levels of interruption including the most serious, a total takeover of the US airwaves by the President. MeFi member eriko explains it all:
Despite the fact that really the only message the President would send is "So this is it. We're all going to die," the capability remains, and by law, is required to remain. So, WEA may allow you to block advisories, like AMBER alerts (CAE -- Child Abduction Emergency, but sent with an Advisory/Statement flag) but you will not be able to block an EAN.
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