Skill, Tallent, Time & Motivation

A recent topic thread on Hypercritical with John Siracusa has been trying to answer the question “are video games an artform where its not possible for a large part of society to enjoy them fully because they lack the appropriate skill”. The example being a first person game where the player can’t enjoy the game because they lack the skill to simple move around the environment and understand the controls.

I only want to talk about a small part of this larger discussion. I agree with the premise that “a large number of people lack the skills to enjoy certain games fully.” Where I disagree with John is when we states that “it’s not possible for these people to gain the skills”.

First I want to define a few terms, so that we can be clear on them.

Skill: The ability to perform a given task to a sufficient level. An example of a skill would be the ability to write, to speak French, to talk, to dance, etc.

Talent: A natural ability that cannot be learned. An example of a talent is being 7 feet tall, being a musical savant, having a beautiful voice, etc.

I have three ideas to introduce that I don’t think were covered much in the discussion.

1. Skill can be learned by spending time working on it.

2. Talent affects how much time must be spent to learn a skill.

3. Motivation affects the probability that a given individual will spend the required time to learn a skill.

So in the context of games, it may require some people more time than others to gain sufficient skill to fully appreciate the it. Those with more tallent will spend less time that those with less talent, but given sufficient time, both individuals will end up with the same skill level. Now if the person with less talent is not motivated to acquire the skill, they will give up early and not get the skill.

However the main factor governing the number of people who have the required skill is not some innate thing, it is not talent. The governing factors are time and motivation. There are undoubtedly a group of people with so little talent that it is effectively impossible for them to acquire the skill. For gaming though, I think that most people do have the talents required to learn the skills. What keeps people from actually learning the skills is that A) they just don’t want to (lack of motivation) or B) they just don’t have the time.

The end effect is the same, but the proposition that “it’s not possible for these people to gain the skills” is false. A better proposition might be “it’s not probable for these people to gain the skills”.

Ready for adventure with grandparents

Ready for adventure with grandparents, originally uploaded by estranged42.

Kirin is off at my parent's house this week. The house is so quiet without her around! It's hard to see her grow up so fast!

PHP SoapServer, Objects, Arrays, and encoding

I ran into an bothersome problem with PHP’s SoapServer class this week. Here’s what I wanted as output from the server:

<SOAP-ENV:Envelope xmlns:SOAP-ENV="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/">
   <SOAP-ENV:Body>
      <locationCollection>
         <Location>
            <name>AME s438</name>
            <id>452</id>
            <latitude>32.236322</latitude>
            <longitude>-110.951614</longitude>
         </Location>
         <Location>
            <name>ECE 229</name>
            <id>45</id>
            <latitude>32.235069</latitude>
            <longitude>-110.953417</longitude>
         </Location>
      </locationCollection>
   </SOAP-ENV:Body>
</SOAP-ENV:Envelope>

However what I was getting instead was:

<SOAP-ENV:Envelope xmlns:SOAP-ENV="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/">
   <SOAP-ENV:Body>
      <locationCollection>
         <SOAP-ENC:Struct>
            <name>AME s438</name>
            <id>452</id>
            <latitude>32.236322</latitude>
            <longitude>-110.951614</longitude>
         </SOAP-ENC:Struct>
         <SOAP-ENC:Struct>
            <name>ECE 229</name>
            <id>45</id>
            <latitude>32.235069</latitude>
            <longitude>-110.953417</longitude>
         </SOAP-ENC:Struct>
      </locationCollection>
   </SOAP-ENV:Body>
</SOAP-ENV:Envelope>

Here was my original code for the server:

<?php
$wsdl = 'http://example.com/locations_service.wsdl';
$service = new SoapServer($wsdl);

$service->addFunction('getComputerLabs');
$service->handle();

function getComputerLabs($input) {
  $all_locations = resource::get_all(FALSE, 'location');

  $return_array = array();

  foreach ($all_locations as $l) {

    // Build a basic return object.
    $new_loc = new Location();
    $new_loc->name = $l->name;
    $new_loc->id = $l->resource_id;
    $new_loc->latitude = $l->getProperty('Latitude');
    $new_loc->longitude = $l->getProperty('Longitude');

    $return_array[] = $new_loc;
  }

  return $return_array;
}

class Location {
    public $name;
    public $id;
    public $description;
    public $url;
    public $buildingName;
    public $roomNumber;
    public $openStatus;
    public $latitude;
    public $longitude;
}
?>

Apparently the SOAP library really prefers that everything is an object. In php 5 they added an ArrayObject class. This coupled with a SoapVar call fixed my output for me.

<?php
function getComputerLabs($input) {
  $all_locations = resource::get_all(FALSE, 'location');

  /**
   * Use an ArrayObject instead of a plain array.
   */
  $return_array = new ArrayObject();

  foreach ($all_locations as $l) {

    // Build a basic return object.
    $new_loc = new Location();
    $new_loc->name = $l->name;
    $new_loc->id = $l->resource_id;
    $new_loc->latitude = $l->getProperty('Latitude');
    $new_loc->longitude = $l->getProperty('Longitude');

    /**
     * Encode each array element with SoapVar.  Parameter 5 is the name of the
     * XML element you want to use.  This only seems to work within
     * an ArrayObject.
     */
    $new_loc = new SoapVar($new_loc, SOAP_ENC_OBJECT, null, null, 'Location');

    $return_array->append($new_loc);
  }

  return $return_array;
}
?>

Note that with only the ArrayObject part, and before I figured out the SoapVar wrapper, I was getting this interesting BOGUS tag:

<SOAP-ENV:Envelope xmlns:SOAP-ENV="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/">
   <SOAP-ENV:Body>
      <locationCollection>
         <BOGUS>
            <name>AME s438</name>
            <id>452</id>
            <latitude>32.236322</latitude>
            <longitude>-110.951614</longitude>
         </BOGUS>
         <BOGUS>
            <name>ECE 229</name>
            <id>45</id>
            <latitude>32.235069</latitude>
            <longitude>-110.953417</longitude>
         </BOGUS>
      </locationCollection>
   </SOAP-ENV:Body>
</SOAP-ENV:Envelope>

Gingerbread House

GingerbreadHouse, originally uploaded by estranged42.

Tonight's Train Layout

Tonight's Train Layout, originally uploaded by estranged42.

Pumpkin!

Pumpkin!, originally uploaded by estranged42.

First pumpkin of the season!

My Girls

IMG_3204, originally uploaded by estranged42.

Darla

IMG_3194, originally uploaded by estranged42.

Guess what I got for Father's Day!

Reid Park

Reid Park, originally uploaded by estranged42.

Kirin and I wandered around Reid Park this Saturday. Couldn't pass up this shot!

Kirin Turns 3

IMG_3116, originally uploaded by estranged42.

Kirin had her 3rd birthday party up in Phoenix this past weekend. Much fun was had by all!

UITS Circuit People - It Works!

UITS Circuit People, originally uploaded by estranged42.

Well, I populated the circuit board tonight, soldered up all the components, tossed in some batteries, and flipped the switch!

And nothing happened.

After ten minutes or so poking at the traces with my multimeter, I discovered that I have one trace out of place leading into the power switch. Fortunately a simple jumper from one pin to another on the switch was able to fix the problem. And it worked!

I have to admit, this thing looks pretty damn good! Not too shabby for my first PCB layout and project. I think I started toying around with this design over a year ago, so it’s pretty cool to actually hold a real, physical, blinking thing in my hands.

UITS Circuit People EAGLE Schematic Files

First Printed Circuit Board!

Fitting Parts, originally uploaded by estranged42.

I got my first printed circuit board (PCB) design in the mail today. This is for a pretty simple blinking LED project.

When UITS got its new logo, the dancing circuit people just screamed out to be made into a real PCB somehow. This is what I came up with. I realize using a full Arduino ATMega168 is a bit overkill for driving some LEDs, but I decided that I’d rather get a prototype working this year instead of deciphering datasheets for the smaller ATtiny series for the next 6 months.

The basic idea is to just have the color changing LEDs fade between red and blue in various patterns. Pushing the button will cycle through a couple different blink patterns.

I got these boards printed at BatchPCB. If you’re only wanting 1 or 2 small boards, they’re hard to beat for price. $45 for two boards, and they ended up sending me 4! Took about 20 days for them to get here, but they look great!

UITS Circuit People EAGLE Schematic Files

Painting!

IMG_3062, originally uploaded by estranged42.

We had a grand time painting this past weekend!

Kirin in Snow

Kirin in Snow, originally uploaded by estranged42.

We drove up on top of the rim near Sedona and gave Kirin her first taste of snow. We built quite a fine snowman that many people enjoyed. More pictures to come. You can see a qik video of us playing in the snow: http://qik.com/video/4908018

Starfield

Starfield, originally uploaded by estranged42.

After nearly a year, I finally finished up putting LED ‘stars’ onto our bedroom ceiling. See this earlier post where I talk about getting it started.

After a lot of soldering and taping, I managed to tape 32 white LEDs to the ceiling of our bedroom, and get stars working.  I tried a bunch of different wiring ideas out before settling on simple bare buss wire.  I just put some white electrical tape to keep it in place, and tape over any place where the lines have to cross.  

The affect is really pretty awesome with the room dark.  There are just enough stars lit at any one time to barely light the room, but not so bright that you can’t fall asleep with them twinkling.

Nothing like blinking LEDs!

Code: View or Download