Rocket-boosted mechanical T-Rexes are possible; therefore, they are as “merely real” as anything else. The point of making life awesome is seeing the entire world as one vast game of Calvinball.
Think of the rocket-boosted mechanical T-Rex as a metaphor for indulging your inner child; you can replace it with anything you could imagine doing on a lark with infinite resources. The point of living in a Universe of Awesome is that you can wake up and say “dude, you know what would be awesome? A frikin metal T-Rex with rockets boosters!” And then you and your best friend spend 15 seconds air-guitaring before firing up the Maker and chunking out the parts and tools, then putting it together and flying it around. And then one of you turns to the other and says, “okay, that was awesome for like, five minutes. Now what?”
I’m thinking of it more like Minecraft in real life. I want a castle with a secret staircase because it would be awesome. What I did was spend a day of awesomeness building it myself instead of downloading it and only having five minutes of awesomeness.
right, hence the phrases “chunking out the parts and tools” and “putting it together”.
I find woodworking and carpentry fun. However, I buy my lumber at Home Depot, rather than hiking out to the woods and felling trees myself, then painstakingly hewing and sanding them into planks.
Part of making the world more awesome is automating things enough that when you have an insanely awesome idea for a project, your starting point is fun rather than tedious. Since this is different for different people, the best solution is to have a system that can do it all for you, but that lets you do as much for yourself as you want.
I’ve seen a suggestion that the reason cooking is a fairly common hobby these days is that a lot of the dreary parts (plucking chickens, hauling wood and drawing water, keeping an eye on your rice, pureeing, etc.) are handled by machines.
Don’t underestimate the importance of keeping a relatively constant temperature, also. Even simple dishes on an uneven flame require enormous attention to avoid burning.
Fair enough, but I still think the “universe as a vast game of Calvinball” description still stands in principle. (Or if you want a less coloquial descriptor, check out Finite and Infinite Games ).
I frankly think the Cambridge Center for the study of Awesome would become run of the mill in a few months, and that’s WITH the rest of the world being “ordinary” for comparison purposes.
So “awesome” now means making reality closer to fiction? What happened to your old posts about joy in the merely real, dragons vs zebras, and so on?
I don’t think that follows.
Rocket-boosted mechanical T-Rexes are possible; therefore, they are as “merely real” as anything else. The point of making life awesome is seeing the entire world as one vast game of Calvinball.
Think of the rocket-boosted mechanical T-Rex as a metaphor for indulging your inner child; you can replace it with anything you could imagine doing on a lark with infinite resources. The point of living in a Universe of Awesome is that you can wake up and say “dude, you know what would be awesome? A frikin metal T-Rex with rockets boosters!” And then you and your best friend spend 15 seconds air-guitaring before firing up the Maker and chunking out the parts and tools, then putting it together and flying it around. And then one of you turns to the other and says, “okay, that was awesome for like, five minutes. Now what?”
I’m thinking of it more like Minecraft in real life. I want a castle with a secret staircase because it would be awesome. What I did was spend a day of awesomeness building it myself instead of downloading it and only having five minutes of awesomeness.
right, hence the phrases “chunking out the parts and tools” and “putting it together”.
I find woodworking and carpentry fun. However, I buy my lumber at Home Depot, rather than hiking out to the woods and felling trees myself, then painstakingly hewing and sanding them into planks.
Part of making the world more awesome is automating things enough that when you have an insanely awesome idea for a project, your starting point is fun rather than tedious. Since this is different for different people, the best solution is to have a system that can do it all for you, but that lets you do as much for yourself as you want.
I’ve seen a suggestion that the reason cooking is a fairly common hobby these days is that a lot of the dreary parts (plucking chickens, hauling wood and drawing water, keeping an eye on your rice, pureeing, etc.) are handled by machines.
Don’t underestimate the importance of keeping a relatively constant temperature, also. Even simple dishes on an uneven flame require enormous attention to avoid burning.
Actually that last description sounds like it would plateau really fast.
Fair enough, but I still think the “universe as a vast game of Calvinball” description still stands in principle. (Or if you want a less coloquial descriptor, check out Finite and Infinite Games ).
I frankly think the Cambridge Center for the study of Awesome would become run of the mill in a few months, and that’s WITH the rest of the world being “ordinary” for comparison purposes.
Just because a literal flying t-rex gets old faster than they expected, doesn’t mean you couldn’t have a great deal of fun in a world like that.
Of course, presumably self imposed challenges (eg videogames that don’t just let you win) would be fairly commonplace.
Empirically, that general type of thing is good for at least a week worth of awesome. http://www.burningman.com/