Saturday Reading

I read a lot today.

My reading began yesterday evening. A familiar book about connecting games and real life. A book about why games are so good at what they do. Before in my past, I spent many hours reading this book when I felt numb. During these years, I was desperate to feel anything. I went through many self-help books, and gamification caught my interest. Was this a way to hack around my struggles? No. It didn't help me in the way I hoped. However the book gave me many ideas to dream about. A way to help people. I read another one of her books as well. That book covered about working through pain and using concepts of games to help heal. I feel motivated to one day design digital worlds to help circumvent trauma and begin the process of dealing with emotions. Skills I hope to obtain and utilize for wholesome endeavors. 

The ideas communicated in both books are incredible. It was yesterday that the thought occurred in my brain to read about gamification again. Then I remembered both of her books.

The author's name is Jane McGonigal.

Book #1: "Reality Is Broken: Why Games Make Us Better and How They Can Change the World"

Link:: Reality is Broken

Book #2: "SuperBetter: The Power of Living Gamefully"

Link:: SuperBetter: The Power of Living Gamefully

I am working step by step to build up my skills. I can't wait to get into game design. Games have potential to uplift and inspire. They even have the capabilities to help us grow. A latent potential rarely realized, but it is completely within our reach. Our digital tools have reservoirs untapped. Ideas unexplored. No digital technology is inherently evil. Our intents and decisions is what puts the mark on them.

It's fun to study these topics. I love what I do. I am grateful to live in our world at this time. There are so many opportunities. Knowledge is easily accessed. Online capabilities to open up choices. We make mistakes, but if we have a vision in mind, these digital tools can be used for good. We learn, we trip, but our progression can be stable. Our vision flown to meets end and begin each morning journey.

Note: These are not affiliate links. I will be transparent, up-front and honest. Rest assured that I will let you know every time the motivation behind links. For this particular post, I am simply sharing the books I am reading right now.

Then today I opened another book.

"Crafting Interperters" by Robert Nystrom. The link to his book website: https://www.craftinginterpreters.com/

I have deeply desired to create a coding language for a long time. A language that can shape reality itself through computers. 

I started having this obsession when I saw a 3D printer at a store.  These printers print objects from digital 3D models. You take 3D software, either cad or polygon modeling, transferred the object mesh to a machine that prints it out. Me, who has history with 3D modeling, got ecstatic at the encounter. Years later I finally obtained one. The price of 3D printers going down and becoming cheaper.

These printers just read text called g-code. It is a language. And that language is creating something physical. It is shaping reality. In all honesty, the material filament is just plastic, carbon fiber or potentially metal. However the process is universal. Writing shapes the world. You just need to create the language and a target to communicate with. Layer by layer your language and the platform interface together. A giant weaving integrating a intricate network. Refining until reality is beginning to be shaped by the language. The game of symbolic potency. Robotics or industrial design use language for every section and part.. Language is a industry standard. It is everywhere. Software is connecting like a root systems. Growing its neural network. Connecting all walks. Enabling and empowering human beings to create. Whatever is the possibility. Language has a huge part to play in technology and innovation. Software is words.

You don't need to be a language nerd like me to utilize its potency.

By turning a knob on the faucet, you are using language. Product designers and engineers spent hours working on a design. Maybe they used CAD to design blueprints. Images, 3D representation, are languages too. Its just visual. Each mechanical part is describe through recognized language. So when you turn the knob, words are activated through physics within that system. And out comes your H2O blasted tap water. 

Measurements in imperial or metrics are languages as well. When you measure a item in millimeters or inches, you are describing a distance in spatially aware context. It does not matter if you are vocalize measurements to a working buddy or simply writing it down for reference. Those measurements are decisive symbols. Potency in their clarity and meaning. These measurements could help a slide be at the right angle. No parent wants their kid rolling down a mountain. Or if you want to move a couch in your house you need these symbols to connect measurements together. They inform your decisions and give reassurance.

The crafter who folds material. Those repeating patterns within the cloth. Within the fiber itself. By altering the shape you are speaking a design. Your description of flowers and resin conveys style and meaning. I have watched my mother take petals and singe them with flames. The idea of using stinging flames to mimic the curl of a flower petal is amazing to watch. In her artistic mind, the symbol of flames, petal and process is there and activating. These thoughts are using materials and resources to shape personal worlds. In every mind there are steps that describes the action taken. You may be visual, auditory or tactile, but it is all words within your mind. They are understood by your valued soul. Your soul is a unique language that has a voice. Each of us vibrating and pulsing with energy. Undetectable and invisible to mortal eyes, yet it is there. Humanity's greatest asset is the gift of dynamic minds. Capable of commanding language. We grow by comprehensions. We learn to speak into the mic. We lean in and communicate with our hands.

Our records are the most powerful asset. We write down ideas. Symbols dominate the board of logic. Drawings mixing with sounds to communicate experience. Crying to shed off the past. Those tears containing a past experience as it slides down your face. It is a release that is desperately felt and desired. The touch of gentle and loving, but familiar hands somehow makes our personal burdens lighter. These tactile senses firing within nerves to communicate our bonds. A language for both individuals to connect together.

Symbols are everywhere. They are dynamic flows of cycles and into each other. Forming one whole. Every symbol has two halves. Connected together they form ideas. Like the rocket that integrates forces to get speed and altitude. Gravity is part of the process. It is not ignored. You cannot consider thrust without describing gravity or air resistance at the same time. These opposites are not separate but live together in one sphere. And the way they interact creates varieties and intricate symbols. A network of symbols. These networks communicate with every node describing the layers of reality. A communication is happening.

Records are the fundamental unit. They are snapshots of languages. Words. They become materials to build upon and see better lives. We talk through time. We walk through distance. Barriers are broken through to reach places. Words that may dance past walls are connecting individual spheres together. The network of languages.