sir he was constructing a frame narrative to keep writing books

How does this statement correspond with the artifacts below? Be more explicit about that connection; right now, this section intro and the artifacts seem to exist as separate entities.

Golding's children are isolated and makes it incorrectly appear their viciousness just came from them.

Absolutely. Whenever possible, students should be involved in the process of norm creation to enhance their sense of ownership and participation. Collaboratively negotiating what constitutes fair use and the “rules of the game” is a valuable exercise in itself.

.

Highlighted here is an very important piece. In order to truly abide to ethics being transparent is part of the game. Finding out information that does not help out and can even hinder is bound to happen. However, it would not be ethical to lie against the truth. People would lose **respect. **

briefing détaillé basé sur les sources que vous avez fournies, en mettant en évidence les thèmes principaux et les informations importantes.

Brève sur les Sources "Academia: School Simulator"

Thèmes Principaux :

Modding (Personnalisation) du Jeu : Le premier extrait est un tutoriel vidéo sur la création de mods visuels pour "Academia: School Simulator" via le Steam Workshop. L'accent est mis sur la modification des images du jeu, comme les personnages et les objets.

Guide de Démarrage du Jeu : Le second extrait est un guide de démarrage pour aider les nouveaux joueurs à établir une école prospère.

Il couvre des aspects tels que la planification, la construction, la gestion du personnel et des finances.

Idées et Faits Importants :

Source 1 : Tutoriel sur le Modding

• Objectif : Le tutoriel vise à simplifier le processus de création de mods visuels pour les artistes et les joueurs.
• Préparation :Créer un dossier dédié pour stocker les mods.
• Télécharger le dossier "Academia mod folder" depuis le wiki du jeu.
• Renommer le dossier avec le nom du mod souhaité (ex : "zombie mod").
• Localisation des Images :Accéder aux fichiers du jeu via Steam ("Propriétés" > "Fichiers locaux" > "Parcourir les fichiers locaux").
• Les images modifiables se trouvent dans "Academia data/streaming assets/base game".
• Exemples : "tiles/characters" pour les personnages, "objects" pour les objets, "sprites" pour les éléments tenus par les personnages.
• Modification des Images :Utiliser des logiciels d'édition d'image (ex : Photoshop).
• L'auteur utilise des fichiers PSD pour faciliter la modification des couleurs et des formes.
• Il est conseillé de s'inspirer de références visuelles.
• Intégration des Mods :Placer les images modifiées dans le dossier du mod.
• Modifier le fichier "tile sprite mapping.XML" pour indiquer au jeu où trouver les nouvelles images. Ce fichier contient des instructions pour le jeu sur l'emplacement des images à afficher.
• Copier les entrées du fichier XML original et les modifier dans la version du mod pour pointer vers les nouvelles images.
• Tester le mod en activant le "develop folder" dans le jeu et en sélectionnant le mod.
• Publication sur Steam Workshop :Renseigner le nom et la description du mod dans le jeu.
• Télécharger le mod sur Steam Workshop via le jeu.
• Citations :
• "the very first thing that you want to do before you make them on is first go to wiki academia game.com"
• "this is the folder where you can find all the images that that you can you can watch"
• "these entries are instructions for the game as to like where to find the images that it's going to display in the game"

Source 2 : Guide de Démarrage

• Difficulté : Il est recommandé de commencer en mode Facile ou Normal pour se familiariser avec le jeu.
• Revenus : La principale source de revenus est le nombre d'étudiants dans l'école.
• Grants : Utiliser efficacement les subventions pour financer la construction et le développement de l'école.
• Construction :Planifier l'aménagement de l'école à l'aide de l'outil de plan.
• Construire un bureau de direction pour débloquer la recherche.
• La taille optimale des salles de classe est de 9x6.
• Prévoir des toilettes en nombre suffisant pour éviter que les élèves n'urinent à l'extérieur.
• Aménager une cafétéria et une cuisine.
• Personnel :Engager des enseignants compétents avec des compétences d'au moins 30 dans leur matière et sans traits négatifs.
• Choisir des professeurs moins qualifiés au début pour réduire les coûts.
• Maintenir la propreté de l'école en engageant des concierges et en plaçant des poubelles.
• Fin d'année :L'examen de fin d'année évalue le taux de réussite, la propreté, la délinquance et la qualité des diplômés.
• Recherches utiles :Routes de travail (pour automatiser la réparation des objets).
• Prérogative du directeur (pour automatiser les punitions des délinquants).
• Suppression des brutes (pour que les surveillants retirent automatiquement les brutes de l'école).

Citations :

"Your main source of income will be for each student you have in your school." "At the start of every year you are put into the build stage." "Cleanliness is very important in running a successful school."

Again, another tradition that is carried out by royals overseas. Here, I feel as though there is a divide. Those who hunt for trophy that have disposable income to spend on exotic hunts versus those who hunt to provide meat for their families who tend to be in poorer economic statuses.

Very narc

There’s a fear of being invisible and forgotten and loosing admiration (aka loosing identity) if you don’t ensure it that others will admire you by exaggeration. It’s a trauma response. Your identity falls apart if the outside world doesn’t admire you so it feels like life or death to secure that admiration and if the false self doesn’t believe you by yourself will be enough it will have you exaggerate to feel ok or stable in your own body.

He’s projecting his shame onto the people in the world, and sees them as evil’s because they’re following him to remind him of his shame which he can’t escape by plunging into the game anymore.

Just added humiliation.

This EXACT pattern happened to me with fantasy. Reality became too difficult to control, too daunting, too confusing to feel safe in. So I lived for coming home from school just to go and live vicariously through my fantasy world. My characters were perfect god-like being, admired, powerful. It was the only identity I had, the only thing I cared about. I wasn’t interested in hobbies or the world, the only thing I cared about or had to share was my character characters. I definitely input my inner desires and wants and ideal self into those characters so when I dreamed of how someday I would become a famous filmmaker and everyone would love my characters, I vicariously felt seen and adored.

The reader have no context for this -include more set up.

don't be afraid to exaggerate on your bullets a little bit, you can probably add another bullet talking about streamlining data from csv files. even if it's just importing a csv as a game, really emphasize how useful this feature is

i recommend you keep the game jam project since hackathon projects check off a lot of benchmarks. collaboratively working on code, working in fast-paced environment, playing different roles in a team , etc...

This basically continues to illustrate the point that revisions are necessary and many professionals are forced to revise 10s or maybe even 100s of times.

Counters to bad behavior online like discipline could lower chance of behavior to continue.

Experiments that make "fake social societies " and creates different situations and records their reactions.

Mention this game and the group's impact on human behavior.

A Vancouver staff member, had his life saved by a fan, ,during the Seattle Kraken game. A fan noticed a concerning mole on the staff members neck and alerted him of it. A few days later he went to the doctors and discovered it was skin cancer and got it removed. He found the fan through social media as his story popularized and the Krakens gifted her 10,000 dollars towards her college tuition for her kindness.

Foldit is an online puzzle video game that engages players in folding protein structures to advance scientific research. The game allows users to contribute to scientific discoveries by solving complex puzzles related to protein folding. It combines gaming with real-world biochemistry, aiming to leverage the problem-solving abilities of gamers for scientific advancements. Launched in 2008, Foldit has had notable successes, including contributions to understanding HIV and other diseases.

reply to u/Pope_Shady at https://old.reddit.com/r/typewriters/comments/1iwrlij/highest_price_youd_spend/

Generally my cap for typewriter purchases is in the $20-35 range. Most of my favorite machines (the standards) were acquired for $5-10 and they're so much better than the portables. At these prices I'm not too worried about the level of work required. I regularly spend 3-4 times more money on a full reel of bulk typewriter ribbon than I do on a typical typewriter.

A few of my more expensive acquisitions: * I went as high as $100 on a machine (including shipping) to get a Royal Quiet De Luxe with a Vogue typeface that turned out to be in about as stunning a condition as one could hope for. * I went to $130 on an Olympia SM3 in part for it's Congress elite typeface as well as an uncommon set of mathematical characters. I'm sure I could have gotten it for significantly less, but wanted to help out the seller and it was in solid condition except for worn bushings. * I also went to around $150 for an (uncommon in the US) early 30's Orga Privat 5 that was in solid shape. I've yet to run into another Orga in the wild in the US since.

It also bears saying that I don't mind buying "barn machines" as a large portion of the fun in collecting for me is cleaning, adjusting, and restoring them to full functionality. I've been dissapointed once to have bought a Remington Quiet-Riter once for $10 only to discover it was in near mint condition and didn't need any work at all.

I am at the point where I'm going to need to start selling machines, work at a local shop, or start my own shop if I'm going to keep up with the "hobby" and maintain a sane spouse simultaneously. If I didn't enjoy wrenching on machines so much, I would definitely be buying them from local shops for significantly more money, and I'd probably have far fewer.

It's not talked about in great length in some typewriter collector spaces, but I think some of the general pricing "game", beyond just getting a "deal", is the answer to the questions: "What am I into this space for anyway? What makes it fun and interesting?" If you don't have the time, talent, tools, or inclination to do your own cleaning and restoration work, then paying $300-$600 for a nice machine in exceptional clean/restored condition from a shop is a totally valid choice and shouldn't be dismissed. Some are in it for the discussions of typewriters. Some are in it for the bargain hunt. Some just want to write. Some want rare gems. Some want common machines from famous writers. Others just want one "good" machine while others want all the machines. It's a multi-faceted space.

ur project sucks

I think this is a great aspect to include when testing a product or in this example a game. Being able to see someone's live reaction while they're interacting may reveal something that couldn't be seen through questions. Facial expressions or body language can say so much more than a few words. Additionally, this allows the designers and engineers see certain parts that may confuse people or doesn't seem super clear.

Author response:

The following is the authors’ response to the original reviews.

Public Reviews

Reviewer #1 (Public Review):

Summary:

The authors have created a system for designing and running experimental pipelines to control and coordinate different programs and devices during an experiment, called Heron. Heron is based around a graphical tool for creating a Knowledge Graph made up of nodes connected by edges, with each node representing a separate Python script, and each edge being a communication pathway connecting a specific output from one node to an iput on another. Each node also has parameters that can be set by the user during setup and runtime, and all of this behavior is concisely specified in the code that defines each node. This tool tries to marry the ease of use, clarity, and selfdocumentation of a purely graphical system like Bonsai with the flexibility and power of a purely code-based system like Robot Operating System (ROS).

Strengths:

The underlying idea behind Heron, of combining a graphical design and execution tool with nodes that are made as straightforward Python scripts seems like a great way to get the relative strengths of each approach. The graphical design side is clear, selfexplanatory, and self-documenting, as described in the paper. The underlying code for each node tends to also be relatively simple and straightforward, with a lot of the complex communication architecture successfully abstracted away from the user. This makes it easy to develop new nodes, without needing to understand the underlying communications between them. The authors also provide useful and well-documented templates for each type of node to further facilitate this process. Overall this seems like it could be a great tool for designing and running a wide variety of experiments, without requiring too much advanced technical knowledge from the users.

The system was relatively easy to download and get running, following the directions and already has a significant amount of documentation available to explain how to use it and expand its capabilities. Heron has also been built from the ground up to easily incorporate nodes stored in separate Git repositories and to thus become a large community-driven platform, with different nodes written and shared by different groups. This gives Heron a wide scope for future utility and usefulness, as more groups use it, write new nodes, and share them with the community. With any system of this sort, the overall strength of the system is thus somewhat dependent on how widely it is used and contributed to, but the authors did a good job of making this easy and accessible for people who are interested. I could certainly see Heron growing into a versatile and popular system for designing and running many types of experiments.

Weaknesses:

(1) The number one thing that was missing from the paper was any kind of quantification of the performance of Heron in different circumstances. Several useful and illustrative examples were discussed in depth to show the strengths and flexibility of Heron, but there was no discussion or quantification of performance, timing, or latency for any of these examples. These seem like very important metrics to measure and discuss when creating a new experimental system.

Heron is practically a thin layer of obfuscation of signal passing across processes. Given its design approach it is up to the code of each Node to deal with issues of timing, synching and latency and thus up to each user to make sure the Nodes they author fulfil their experimental requirements. Having said that, Heron provides a large number of tools to allow users to optimise the generated Knowledge Graphs for their use cases. To showcase these tools, we have expanded on the third experimental example in the paper with three extra sections, two of which relate to Heron’s performance and synching capabilities. One is focusing on Heron’s CPU load requirements (and existing Heron tools to keep those at acceptable limits) and another focusing on post experiment synchronisation of all the different data sets a multi Node experiment generates.   

(2) After downloading and running Heron with some basic test Nodes, I noticed that many of the nodes were each using a full CPU core on their own. Given that this basic test experiment was just waiting for a keypress, triggering a random number generator, and displaying the result, I was quite surprised to see over 50% of my 8-core CPU fully utilized. I don’t think that Heron needs to be perfectly efficient to accomplish its intended purpose, but I do think that some level of efficiency is required. Some optimization of the codebase should be done so that basic tests like this can run with minimal CPU utilization. This would then inspire confidence that Heron could deal with a real experiment that was significantly more complex without running out of CPU power and thus slowing down.

The original Heron allowed the OS to choose how to manage resources over the required process. We were aware that this could lead to significant use of CPU time, as well as occasionally significant drop of packets (which was dependent on the OS and its configuration). This drop happened mainly when the Node was running a secondary process (like in the Unity game process in the 3rd example). To mitigate these problems, we have now implemented a feature allowing the user to choose the CPU that each Node’s worker function runs on as well as any extra processes the worker process initialises. This is accessible from the Saving secondary window of the node. This stops the OS from swapping processes between CPUs and eliminates the dropping of packages due to the OS behaviour. It also significantly reduces the utilised CPU time. To showcase this, we initially run the simple example mentioned by the reviewer. The computer running only background services was using 8% of CPU (8 cores). With Heron GUI running but with no active Graph, the CPU usage went to 15%. With the Graph running and Heron’s processes running on OS attributed CPU cores, the total CPU was at 65% (so very close to the reviewer’s 50%). By choosing a different CPU core for each of the three worker processes the CPU went down to 47% and finally when all processes were forced to run on the same CPU core the CPU load dropped to 30%.  So, Heron in its current implementation running its GUI and 3 Nodes takes 22% of CPU load. This is still not ideal but is a consequence of the overhead of running multiple processes vs multiple threads. We believe that, given Heron’s latest optimisation, offering more control of system management to the user, the benefits of multi process applications outweigh this hit in system resources. 

We have also increased the scope of the third example we provide in the paper and there we describe in detail how a full-scale experiment with 15 Nodes (which is the upper limit of number of Nodes usually required in most experiments) impacts CPU load. 

Finally, we have added on Heron’s roadmap projects extra tasks focusing only on optimisation (profiling and using Numba for the time critical parts of the Heron code).

(3) I was also surprised to see that, despite being meant specifically to run on and connect diverse types of computer operating systems and being written purely in Python, the Heron Editor and GUI must be run on Windows. This seems like an unfortunate and unnecessary restriction, and it would be great to see the codebase adjusted to make it fully crossplatform-compatible.

This point was also mentioned by reviewer 2. This was a mistake on our part and has now been corrected in the paper. Heron (GUI and underlying communication functionality) can run on any machine that the underlying python libraries run, which is Windows, Linux (both for x86 and Arm architectures) and MacOS. We have tested it on Windows (10 and 11, both x64), Linux PC (Ubuntu 20.04.6, x64) and Raspberry Pi 4 (Debian GNU/Linux 12 (bookworm), aarch64). The Windows and Linux versions of Heron have undergone extensive debugging and all of the available Nodes (that are not OS specific) run on those two systems. We are in the process of debugging the Nodes’ functionality for RasPi. The MacOS version, although functional requires further work to make sure all of the basic Nodes are functional (which is not the case at the moment). We have also updated our manuscript (Multiple machines, operating systems and environments) to include the above information. 

(4) Lastly, when I was running test experiments, sometimes one of the nodes, or part of the Heron editor itself would throw an exception or otherwise crash. Sometimes this left the Heron editor in a zombie state where some aspects of the GUI were responsive and others were not. It would be good to see a more graceful full shutdown of the program when part of it crashes or throws an exception, especially as this is likely to be common as people learn to use it. More problematically, in some of these cases, after closing or force quitting Heron, the TCP ports were not properly relinquished, and thus restarting Heron would run into an "address in use" error. Finding and killing the processes that were still using the ports is not something that is obvious, especially to a beginner, and it would be great to see Heron deal with this better. Ideally, code would be introduced to carefully avoid leaving ports occupied during a hard shutdown, and furthermore, when the address in use error comes up, it would be great to give the user some idea of what to do about it.

A lot of effort has been put into Heron to achieve graceful shut down of processes, especially when these run on different machines that do not know when the GUI process has closed. The code that is being suggested to avoid leaving ports open has been implemented and this works properly when processes do not crash (Heron is terminated by the user) and almost always when there is a bug in a process that forces it to crash. In the version of Heron available during the reviewing process there were bugs that caused the above behaviour (Node code hanging and leaving zombie processes) on MacOS systems. These have now been fixed. There are very seldom instances though, especially during Node development, that crashing processes will hang and need to be terminated manually. We have taken on board the reviewer’s comments that users should be made more aware of these issues and have also described this situation in the Debugging part of Heron’s documentation. There we explain the logging and other tools Heron provides to help users debug their own Nodes and how to deal with hanging processes.

Heron is still in alpha (usable but with bugs) and the best way to debug it and iron out all the bugs in all use cases is through usage from multiple users and error reporting (we would be grateful if the errors the reviewer mentions could be reported in Heron’s github Issues page). We are always addressing and closing any reported errors, since this is the only way for Heron to transition from alpha to beta and eventually to production code quality.

Overall I think that, with these improvements, this could be the beginning of a powerful and versatile new system that would enable flexible experiment design with a relatively low technical barrier to entry. I could see this system being useful to many different labs and fields. 

We thank the reviewer for positive and supportive words and for the constructive feedbacks. We believe we have now addressed all the raised concerns.  

Reviewer #2 (Public Review):

Summary:

The authors provide an open-source graphic user interface (GUI) called Heron, implemented in Python, that is designed to help experimentalists to

(1) design experimental pipelines and implement them in a way that is closely aligned with their mental schemata of the experiments,

(2) execute and control the experimental pipelines with numerous interconnected hardware and software on a network.

The former is achieved by representing an experimental pipeline using a Knowledge Graph and visually representing this graph in the GUI. The latter is accomplished by using an actor model to govern the interaction among interconnected nodes through messaging, implemented using ZeroMQ. The nodes themselves execute user-supplied code in, but not limited to, Python.

Using three showcases of behavioral experiments on rats, the authors highlighted three benefits of their software design:

(1) the knowledge graph serves as a self-documentation of the logic of the experiment, enhancing the readability and reproducibility of the experiment,

(2) the experiment can be executed in a distributed fashion across multiple machines that each has a different operating system or computing environment, such that the experiment can take advantage of hardware that sometimes can only work on a specific computer/OS, a commonly seen issue nowadays,

(3) he users supply their own Python code for node execution that is supposed to be more friendly to those who do not have a strong programming background.

Strengths:

(1) The software is light-weight and open-source, provides a clean and easy-to-use GUI,

(2) The software answers the need of experimentalists, particularly in the field of behavioral science, to deal with the diversity of hardware that becomes restricted to run on dedicated systems.

(3) The software has a solid design that seems to be functionally reliable and useful under many conditions, demonstrated by a number of sophisticated experimental setups.

(4) The software is well documented. The authors pay special attention to documenting the usage of the software and setting up experiments using this software.

Weaknesses:

(1) While the software implementation is solid and has proven effective in designing the experiment showcased in the paper, the novelty of the design is not made clear in the manuscript. Conceptually, both the use of graphs and visual experimental flow design have been key features in many widely used softwares as suggested in the background section of the manuscript. In particular, contrary to the authors’ claim that only pre-defined elements can be used in Simulink or LabView, Simulink introduced MATLAB Function Block back in 2011, and Python code can be used in LabView since 2018. Such customization of nodes is akin to what the authors presented.

In the Heron manuscript we have provided an extensive literature review of existing systems from which Heron has borrowed ideas. We never wished to say that graphs and visual code is what sets Heron apart since these are technologies predating Heron by many years and implemented by a large number of software. We do not believe also that we have mentioned that LabView or Simulink can utilise only predefined nodes. What we have said is that in such systems (like LabView, Simulink and Bonsai) the focus of the architecture is on prespecified low level elements while the ability for users to author their own is there but only as an afterthought. The difference with Heron is that in the latter the focus is on the users developing their own elements. One could think of LabView style software as node-based languages (with low level visual elements like loops and variables) that also allow extra scripting while Heron is a graphical wrapper around python where nodes are graphical representations of whole processes. To our knowledge there is no other software that allows the very fast generation of graphical elements representing whole processes whose communication can also be defined graphically. Apart from this distinction, Heron also allows a graphical approach to writing code for processes that span different machines which again to our knowledge is a novelty of our approach and one of its strongest points towards ease of experimental pipeline creation (without sacrificing expressivity). 

(2) The authors claim that the knowledge graph can be considered as a self-documentation of an experiment. I found it to be true to some extent. Conceptually it’s a welcoming feature and the fact that the same visualization of the knowledge graph can be used to run and control experiments is highly desirable (but see point 1 about novelty). However, I found it largely inadequate for a person to understand an experiment from the knowledge graph as visualized in the GUI alone. While the information flow is clear, and it seems easier to navigate a codebase for an experiment using this method, the design of the GUI does not make it a one-stop place to understand the experiment. Take the Knowledge Graph in Supplementary Figure 2B as an example, it is associated with the first showcase in the result section highlighting this self-documentation capability. I can see what the basic flow is through the disjoint graph where 1) one needs to press a key to start a trial, and 2) camera frames are saved into an avi file presumably using FFMPEG. Unfortunately, it is not clear what the parameters are and what each block is trying to accomplish without the explanation from the authors in the main text. Neither is it clear about what the experiment protocol is without the help of Supplementary Figure 2A.

In my opinion, text/figures are still key to documenting an experiment, including its goals and protocols, but the authors could take advantage of the fact that they are designing a GUI where this information, with properly designed API, could be easily displayed, perhaps through user interaction. For example, in Local Network -> Edit IPs/ports in the GUI configuration, there is a good tooltip displaying additional information for the "password" entry. The GUI for the knowledge graph nodes can very well utilize these tooltips to show additional information about the meaning of the parameters, what a node does, etc, if the API also enforces users to provide this information in the form of, e.g., Python docstrings in their node template. Similarly, this can be applied to edges to make it clear what messages/data are communicated between the nodes. This could greatly enhance the representation of the experiment from the Knowledge graph.

In the first showcase example in the paper “Probabilistic reversal learning.

Implementation as self-documentation” we go through the steps that one would follow in order to understand the functionality of an experiment through Heron’s Knowledge Graph. The Graph is not just the visual representation of the Nodes in the GUI but also their corresponding code bases. We mention that the way Heron’s API limits the way a Node’s code is constructed (through an Actor based paradigm) allows for experimenters to easily go to the code base of a specific Node and understand its 2 functions (initialisation and worker) without getting bogged down in the code base of the whole Graph (since these two functions never call code from any other Nodes). Newer versions of Heron facilitate this easy access to the appropriate code by also allowing users to attach to Heron their favourite IDE and open in it any Node’s two scripts (worker and com) when they double click on the Node in Heron’s GUI. On top of this, Heron now (in the versions developed as answers to the reviewers’ comments) allows Node creators to add extensive comments on a Node but also separate comments on the Node’s parameters and input and output ports. Those can be seen as tooltips when one hovers over the Node (a feature that can be turned off or on by the Info button on every Node).  

As Heron stands at the moment we have not made the claim that the Heron GUI is the full picture in the self-documentation of a Graph. We take note though the reviewer’s desire to have the GUI be the only tool a user would need to use to understand an experimental implementation. The solution to this is the same as the one described by the reviewer of using the GUI to show the user the parts of the code relevant to a specific Node without the user having to go to a separate IDE or code editor. The reason this has not been implemented yet is the lack of a text editor widget in the underlying gui library (DearPyGUI). This is in their roadmap for their next large release and when this exists we will use it to implement exactly the idea the reviewer is suggesting, but also with the capability to not only read comments and code but also directly edit a Node’s code (see Heron’s roadmap). Heron’s API at the moment is ideal for providing such a text editor straight from the GUI.

(3) The design of Heron was primarily with behavioral experiments in mind, in which highly accurate timing is not a strong requirement. Experiments in some other areas that this software is also hoping to expand to, for example, electrophysiology, may need very strong synchronization between apparatus, for example, the record timing and stimulus delivery should be synced. The communication mechanism implemented in Heron is asynchronous, as I understand it, and the code for each node is executed once upon receiving an event at one or more of its inputs. The paper, however, does not include a discussion, or example, about how Heron could be used to address issues that could arise in this type of communication. There is also a lack of information about, for example, how nodes handle inputs when their ability to execute their work function cannot keep up with the frequency of input events. Does the publication/subscription handle the queue intrinsically? Will it create problems in real-time experiments that make multiple nodes run out of sync? The reader could benefit from a discussion about this if they already exist, and if not, the software could benefit from implementing additional mechanisms such that it can meet the requirements from more types of experiments.

In order to address the above lack of explanation (that also the first reviewer pointed out) we expanded the third experimental example in the paper with three more sections. One focuses solely on explaining how in this example (which acquires and saves large amounts of data from separate Nodes running on different machines) one would be able to time align the different data packets generated in different Nodes to each other. The techniques described there are directly implementable on experiments where the requirements of synching are more stringent than the behavioural experiment we showcase (like in ephys experiments). 

Regarding what happens to packages when the worker function of a Node is too slow to handle its traffic, this is mentioned in the paper (Code architecture paragraph): “Heron is designed to have no message buffering, thus automatically dropping any messages that come into a Node’s inputs while the Node’s worker function is still running.” This is also explained in more detail in Heron’s documentation. The reasoning for a no buffer system (as described in the documentation) is that for the use cases Heron is designed to handle we believe there is no situation where a Node would receive large amounts of data in bursts while very little data during the rest of the time (in which case a buffer would make sense). Nodes in most experiments will either be data intensive but with a constant or near constant data receiving speed (e.g. input from a camera or ephys system) or will have variable data load reception but always with small data loads (e.g. buttons). The second case is not an issue and the first case cannot be dealt with a buffer but with the appropriate code design, since buffering data coming in a Node too slow for its input will just postpone the inevitable crash. Heron’s architecture principle in this case is to allow these ‘mistakes’ (i.e. package dropping) to happen so that the pipeline continues to run and transfer the responsibility of making Nodes fast enough to the author of each Node. At the same time Heron provides tools (see the Debugging section of the documentation and the time alignment paragraph of the “Rats playing computer games”  example in the manuscript) that make it easy to detect package drops and either correct them or allow them but also allow time alignment between incoming and outgoing packets. In the very rare case where a buffer is required Heron’s do-it-yourself logic makes it easy for a Node developer to implement their own Node specific buffer.

(4) The authors mentioned in "Heron GUI’s multiple uses" that the GUI can be used as an experimental control panel where the user can update the parameters of the different Nodes on the fly. This is a very useful feature, but it was not demonstrated in the three showcases. A demonstration could greatly help to support this claim.

As the reviewer mentions, we have found Heron’s GUI double role also as an experimental on-line controller a very useful capability during our experiments. We have expanded the last experimental example to also showcase this by showing how on the “Rats playing computer games” experiment we used the parameters of two Nodes to change the arena’s behaviour while the experiment was running, depending on how the subject was behaving at the time (thus exploring a much larger set of parameter combinations, faster during exploratory periods of our shaping protocols construction). 

(5) The API for node scripts can benefit from having a better structure as well as having additional utilities to help users navigate the requirements, and provide more guidance to users in creating new nodes. A more standard practice in the field is to create three abstract Python classes, Source, Sink, and Transform that dictate the requirements for initialisation, work_function, and on_end_of_life, and provide additional utility methods to help users connect between their code and the communication mechanism. They can be properly docstringed, along with templates. In this way, the com and worker scripts can be merged into a single unified API. A simple example that can cause confusion in the worker script is the "worker_object", which is passed into the initialise function. It is unclear what this object this variable should be, and what attributes are available without looking into the source code. As the software is also targeting those who are less experienced in programming, setting up more guidance in the API can be really helpful. In addition, the self-documentation aspect of the GUI can also benefit from a better structured API as discussed in point 2 above.

The reviewer is right that using abstract classes to expose to users the required API would be a more standard practice. The reason we did not choose to do this was to keep Heron easily accessible to entry level Python programmers who do not have familiarity yet with object oriented programming ideas. So instead of providing abstract classes we expose only the implementation of three functions which are part of the worker classes but the classes themselves are not seen by the users of the API. The point about the users’ accessibility to more information regarding a few objects used in the API (the worker object for example) has been taken on board and we have now addressed this by type hinting all these objects both in the templates and more importantly in the automatically generated code that Heron now creates when a user chooses to create a Node graphically (a feature of Heron not present in the version available in the initial submission of this manuscript).  

(6) The authors should provide more pre-defined elements. Even though the ability for users to run arbitrary code is the main feature, the initial adoption of a codebase by a community, in which many members are not so experienced with programming, is the ability for them to use off-the-shelf components as much as possible. I believe the software could benefit from a suite of commonly used Nodes.

There are currently 12 Node repositories in the Heron-repositories project on Github with more than 30 Nodes, 20 of which are general use (not implementing a specific experiment’ logic). This list will continue to grow but we fully appreciate the truth of the reviewer’s comment that adoption will depend on the existence of a large number of commonly used Nodes (for example Numpy, and OpenCV Nodes) and are working towards this goal.

(7) It is not clear to me if there is any capability or utilities for testing individual nodes without invoking a full system execution. This would be critical when designing new experiments and testing out each component.

There is no capability to run the code of an individual Node outside Heron’s GUI. A user could potentially design and test parts of the Node before they get added into a Node but we have found this to be a highly inefficient way of developing new Nodes. In our hands the best approach for Node development was to quickly generate test inputs and/or outputs using the “User Defined Function 1I 1O” Node where one can quickly write a function and make it accessible from a Node. Those test outputs can then be pushed in the Node under development or its outputs can be pushed in the test function, to allow for incremental development without having to connect it to the Nodes it would be connected in an actual pipeline. For example, one can easily create a small function that if a user presses a key will generate the same output (if run from a “User Defined Function 1I 1O” Node) as an Arduino Node reading some buttons. This output can then be passed into an experiment logic Node under development that needs to do something with this input. In this way during a Node development Heron allows the generation of simulated hardware inputs and outputs without actually running the actual hardware. We have added this way of developing Nodes also in our manuscript (Creating a new Node).

Reviewer #3 (Public Review):

Summary:

The authors present a Python tool, Heron, that provides a framework for defining and running experiments in a lab setting (e.g. in behavioural neuroscience). It consists of a graphical editor for defining the pipeline (interconnected nodes with parameters that can pass data between them), an API for defining the nodes of these pipelines, and a framework based on ZeroMQ, responsible for the overall control and data exchange between nodes. Since nodes run independently and only communicate via network messages, an experiment can make use of nodes running on several machines and in separate environments, including on different operating systems.

Strengths:

As the authors correctly identify, lab experiments often require a hodgepodge of separate hardware and software tools working together. A single, unified interface for defining these connections and running/supervising the experiment, together with flexibility in defining the individual subtasks (nodes) is therefore a very welcome approach. The GUI editor seems fairly intuitive, and Python as an accessible programming environment is a very sensible choice. By basing the communication on the widely used ZeroMQ framework, they have a solid base for the required non-trivial coordination and communication. Potential users reading the paper will have a good idea of how to use the software and whether it would be helpful for their own work. The presented experiments convincingly demonstrate the usefulness of the tool for realistic scientific applications.

Weaknesses:

(1) In my opinion, the authors somewhat oversell the reproducibility and "selfdocumentation" aspect of their solution. While it is certainly true that the graph representation gives a useful high-level overview of an experiment, it can also suffer from the same shortcomings as a "pure code" description of a model - if a user gives their nodes and parameters generic/unhelpful names, reading the graph will not help much. 

This is a problem that to our understanding no software solution can possibly address. Yet having a visual representation of how different inputs and outputs connect to each other we argue would be a substantial benefit in contrast to the case of “pure code” especially when the developer of the experiment has used badly formatted variable names.

(2) Making the link between the nodes and the actual code is also not straightforward, since the code for the nodes is spread out over several directories (or potentially even machines), and not directly accessible from within the GUI. 

This is not accurate. The obligatory code of a Node always exists within a single folder and Heron’s API makes it rather cumbersome to spread scripts relating to a Node across separate folders. The Node folder structure can potentially be copied over different machines but this is why Heron is tightly integrated with git practices (and even politely asks the user with popup windows to create git repositories of any Nodes they create whilst using Heron’s automatic Node generator system). Heron’s documentation is also very clear on the folder structure of a Node which keeps the required code always in the same place across machines and more importantly across experiments and labs. Regarding the direct accessibility of the code from the GUI, we took on board the reviewers’ comments and have taken the first step towards correcting this. Now one can attach to Heron their favourite IDE and then they can double click on any Node to open its two main scripts (com and worker) in that IDE embedded in whatever code project they choose (also set in Heron’s settings windows). On top of this, Heron now allows the addition of notes both for a Node and for all its parameters, inputs and outputs which can be viewed by hovering the mouse over them on the Nodes’ GUIs. The final step towards GUI-code integration will be to have a Heron GUI code editor but this is something that has to wait for further development from Heron’s underlying GUI library DearPyGUI.

(3) The authors state that "[Heron’s approach] confers obvious benefits to the exchange and reproducibility of experiments", but the paper does not discuss how one would actually exchange an experiment and its parameters, given that the graph (and its json representation) contains user-specific absolute filenames, machine IP addresses, etc, and the parameter values that were used are stored in general data frames, potentially separate from the results. Neither does it address how a user could keep track of which versions of files were used (including Heron itself).

Heron’s Graphs, like any experimental implementation, must contain machine specific strings. These are accessible either from Heron’s GUI when a Graph json file is opened or from the json file itself. Heron in this regard does not do anything different to any other software, other than saving the graphs into human readable json files that users can easily manipulate directly.

Heron provides a method for users to save every change of the Node parameters that might happen during an experiment so that it can be fully reproduced. The dataframes generated are done so in the folders specified by the user in each of the Nodes (and all those paths are saved in the json file of the Graph). We understand that Heron offers a certain degree of freedom to the user (Heron’s main reason to exist is exactly this versatility) to generate data files wherever they want but makes sure every file path gets recorded for subsequent reproduction. So, Heron behaves pretty much exactly like any other open source software. What we wanted to focus on as the benefits of Heron on exchange and reproducibility was the ability of experimenters to take a Graph from another lab (with its machine specific file paths and IP addresses) and by examining the graphical interface of it to be able to quickly tweak it to make it run on their own systems. That is achievable through the fact that a Heron experiment will be constructed by a small amount of Nodes (5 to 15 usually) whose file paths can be trivially changed in the GUI or directly in the json file while the LAN setup of the machines used can be easily reconstructed from the information saved in the secondary GUIs.

Where Heron needs to improve (and this is a major point in Heron’s roadmap) is the need to better integrate the different saved experiments with the git versions of Heron and the Nodes that were used for that specific save. This, we appreciate is very important for full reproducibility of the experiment and it is a feature we will soon implement. More specifically users will save together with a graph the versions of all the used repositories and during load the code base utilised will come from the recorded versions and not from the current head of the different repositories. This is a feature that we are currently working on now and as our roadmap suggests will be implemented by the release of Heron 1.0. 

(4) Another limitation that in my opinion is not sufficiently addressed is the communication between the nodes, and the effect of passing all communications via the host machine and SSH. What does this mean for the resulting throughput and latency - in particular in comparison to software such as Bonsai or Autopilot? The paper also states that "Heron is designed to have no message buffering, thus automatically dropping any messages that come into a Node’s inputs while the Node’s worker function is still running."- it seems to be up to the user to debug and handle this manually?

There are a few points raised here that require addressing. The first is Heron’s requirement to pass all communication through the main (GUI) machine. We understand (and also state in the manuscript) that this is a limitation that needs to be addressed. We plan to do this is by adding to Heron the feature of running headless (see our roadmap). This will allow us to run whole Heron pipelines in a second machine which will communicate with the main pipeline (run on the GUI machine) with special Nodes. That will allow experimenters to define whole pipelines on secondary machines where the data between their Nodes stay on the machine running the pipeline. This is an important feature for Heron and it will be one of the first features to be implemented next (after the integration of the saving system with git). 

The second point is regarding Heron’s throughput latency. In our original manuscript we did not have any description of Heron’s capabilities in this respect and both other reviewers mentioned this as a limitation. As mentioned above, we have now addressed this by adding a section to our third experimental example that fully describes how much CPU is required to run a full experimental pipeline running on two machines and utilising also non python code executables (a Unity game). This gives an overview of how heavy pipelines can run on normal computers given adequate optimisation and utilising Heron’s feature of forcing some Nodes to run their Worker processes on a specific core. At the same time, Heron’s use of 0MQ protocol makes sure there are no other delays or speed limitations to message passing. So, message passing within the same machine is just an exchange of memory pointers while messages passing between different machines face the standard speed limitations of the Local Access Network’s ethernet card speeds. 

Finally, regarding the message dropping feature of Heron, as mentioned above this is an architectural decision given the use cases of message passing we expect Heron to come in contact with. For a full explanation of the logic here please see our answer to the 3rd comment by Reviewer 2.

(5) As a final comment, I have to admit that I was a bit confused by the use of the term "Knowledge Graph" in the title and elsewhere. In my opinion, the Heron software describes "pipelines" or "data workflows", not knowledge graphs - I’d understand a knowledge graph to be about entities and their relationships. As the authors state, it is usually meant to make it possible to "test propositions against the knowledge and also create novel propositions" - how would this apply here?

We have described Heron as a Knowledge Graph instead of a pipeline, data workflow or computation graph in order to emphasise Heron’s distinct operation in contrast to what one would consider a standard pipeline and data workflow generated by other visual based software (like LabView and Bonsai). This difference exists on what a user should think of as the base element of a graph, i.e. the Node. In all other visual programming paradigms, the Node is defined as a low-level computation, usually a language keyword, language flow control or some simple function. The logic in this case is generated by composing together the visual elements (Nodes). In Heron the Node is to be thought of as a process which can be of arbitrary complexity and the logic of the graph is composed by the user both within each Node and by the way the Nodes are combined together. This is an important distinction in Heron’s basic operation logic and it is we argue the main way Heron allows flexibility in what can be achieved while retaining ease of graph composition (by users defining their own level of complexity and functionality encompassed within each Node). We have found that calling this approach a computation graph (which it is) or a pipeline or data workflow would not accentuate this difference. The term Knowledge Graph was the most appropriate as it captures the essence of variable information complexity (even in terms of length of shortest string required) defined by a Node.

Recommendations for the authors:  

Reviewer #1 (Recommendations For The Authors):

-  No buffering implies dropped messages when a node is busy. It seems like this could be very problematic for some use cases... 

This is a design principle of Heron. We have now provided a detailed explanation of the reasoning behind it in our answer to Reviewer 2 (Paragraph 3) as well as in the manuscript. 

-  How are ssh passwords stored, and is it secure in some way or just in plain text?  

For now they are plain text in an unencrypted file that is not part of the repo (if one gets Heron from the repo). Eventually, we would like to go to private/public key pairs but this is not a priority due to the local nature of Heron’s use cases (all machines in an experiment are expected to connect in a LAN).  

Minor notes / copyedits:

-  Figure 2A: right and left seem to be reversed in the caption. 

They were. This is now fixed. 

-  Figure 2B: the text says that proof of life messages are sent to each worker process but in the figure, it looks like they are published by the workers? Also true in the online documentation.  

The Figure caption was wrong. This is now fixed.

-  psutil package is not included in the requirements for GitHub

We have now included psutil in the requirements.

-  GitHub readme says Python >=3.7 but Heron will not run as written without python >= 3.9 (which is alluded to in the paper)

The new Heron updates require Python 3.11. We have now updated GitHub and the documentation to reflect this.

-  The paper mentions that the Heron editor must be run on Windows, but this is not mentioned in the Github readme.  

This was an error in the manuscript that we have now corrected.

-  It’s unclear from the readme/manual how to remove a node from the editor once it’s been added.  

We have now added an X button on each Node to complement the Del button on the keyboard (for MacOS users that do not have this button most of the times).

-  The first example experiment is called the Probabilistic Reversal Learning experiment in text, but the uncertainty experiment in the supplemental and on GitHub.  

We have now used the correct name (Probabilistic Reversal Learning) in both the supplemental material and on GitHub

-  Since Python >=3.9 is required, consider using fstrings instead of str.format for clarity in the codebase  

Thank you for the suggestion. Latest Heron development has been using f strings and we will do a refactoring in the near future.

-  Grasshopper cameras can run on linux as well through the spinnaker SDK, not just Windows.  

Fixed in the manuscript. 

-  Figure 4: Square and star indicators are unclear.

Increased the size of the indicators to make them clear.

-  End of page 9: "an of the self" presumably a typo for "off the shelf"?  

Corrected.

-  Page 10 first paragraph. "second root" should be "second route"

Corrected.

-  When running Heron, the terminal constantly spams Blowfish encryption deprecation warnings, making it difficult to see the useful messages.  

The solution to this problem is to either update paramiko or install Heron through pip. This possible issue is mentioned in the documentation.

-  Node input /output hitboxes in the GUI are pretty small. If they could be bigger it would make it easier to connect nodes reliably without mis-clicks.

We have redone the Node GUI, also increasing the size of the In/Out points.

Reviewer #2 (Recommendations For The Authors):

(1) There are quite a few typos in the manuscript, for example: "one can accessess the code", "an of the self", etc.  

Thanks for the comment. We have now screened the manuscript for possible typos.

(2) Heron’s GUI can only run on Windows! This seems to be the opposite of the key argument about the portability of the experimental setup.  

As explained in the answers to Reviewer 1, Heron can run on most machines that the underlying python libraries run, i.e. Windows and Linux (both for x86 and Arm architectures). We have tested it on Windows (10 and 11, both x64), Linux PC (Ubuntu 20.04.6, x64) and Raspberry Pi 4 (Debian GNU/Linux 12 (bookworm), aarch64). We have now revised the manuscript and the GitHub repo to reflect this.

(3) Currently, the output is displayed along the left edge of the node, but the yellow dot connector is on the right. It would make more sense to have the text displayed next to the connectors.  

We have redesigned the Node GUI and have now placed the Out connectors on the right side of the Node.

(4) The edges are often occluded by the nodes in the GUI. Sometimes it leads to some confusion, particularly when the number of nodes is large, e.g., Fig 4.

This is something that is dependent on the capabilities of the DearPyGUI module. At the moment there is no way to control the way the edges are drawn.

Reviewer #3 (Recommendations For The Authors):

A few comments on the software and the documentation itself:

- From a software engineering point of view, the implementation seems to be rather immature. While I get the general appeal of "no installation necessary", I do not think that installing dependencies by hand and cloning a GitHub repository is easier than installing a standard package.

We have now added a pip install capability which also creates a Heron command line command to start Heron with. 

-The generous use of global variables to store state (minor point, given that all nodes run in different processes), boilerplate code that each node needs to repeat, and the absence of any kind of automatic testing do not give the impression of a very mature software (case in point: I had to delete a line from editor.py to be able to start it on a non-Windows system).  

As mentioned, the use of global variables in the worker scripts is fine partly due to the multi process nature of the development and we have found it is a friendly approach to Matlab users who are just starting with Python (a serious consideration for Heron). Also, the parts of the code that would require a singleton (the Editor for example) are treated as scripts with global variables while the parts that require the construction of objects are fully embedded in classes (the Node for example). A future refactoring might make also all the parts of the code not seen by the user fully object oriented but this is a decision with pros and cons needing to be weighted first. 

Absence of testing is an important issue we recognise but Heron is a GUI app and nontrivial unit tests would require some keystroke/mouse movement emulator (like QTest of pytest-qt for QT based GUIs). This will be dealt with in the near future (using more general solutions like PyAutoGUI) but it is something that needs a serious amount of effort (quite a bit more that writing unit tests for non GUI based software) and more importantly it is nowhere as robust as standard unit tests (due to the variable nature of the GUI through development) making automatic test authoring an almost as laborious a process as the one it is supposed to automate.

-  From looking at the examples, I did not quite see why it is necessary to write the ..._com.py scripts as Python files, since they only seem to consist of boilerplate code and variable definitions. Wouldn’t it be more convenient to represent this information in configuration files (e.g. yaml or toml)?  

The com is not a configuration file, it is a script that launches the communication process of the Node. We could remove the variable definitions to a separate toml file (which then the com script would have to read). The pros and cons of such a set up should be considered in a future refactoring.

Minor comments for the paper:

-  p.7 (top left): "through its return statement" - the worker loop is an infinite loop that forwards data with a return statement?  

This is now corrected. The worker loop is an infinite loop and does not return anything but at each iteration pushes data to the Nodes output.

-  p.9 (bottom right): "of the self" → "off-the-shelf"  

Corrected.

-  p.10 (bottom left): "second root" → "second route"  

Corrected.

-  Supplementary Figure 3: Green start and square seem to be swapped (the green star on top is a camera image and the green star on the bottom is value visualization - inversely for the green square).  

The star and square have been swapped around.

-  Caption Supplementary Figure 4 (end): "rashes to receive" → "rushes to receive"  

Corrected.

Richard got punished worse. Why?

This seems like a very unfair punishment for Richard if Laycoe didn't even get ejected from the game.

Such a determined and hard working person. Shows a lot of perseverance from his personality.

Many people probobly went to see fights not the actual game. Whey were they so angry?

Is this normal behavior in hockey? I have only been to one hockey game and never saw fists flying with blood.

Metaphor: Compares the relationship to a card game where the speaker has run out of moves to play

Metaphor:Comparing the relationships to a “game” suggests manipulation and strategy

I like how this interpretation of the addition of walking in a game serves two purposes One that is towards the navigation aspect, allowing for the general exploration of the digital environment surrounding the player, and another towards the actual story. The player can unravel aspects of the story on their own through exploring what is around them. By doing this the. Player can discover this about the plot outside of what is given to them directly by the game maker.

To many critics, “real games” require difficulty, interactivity, and are not meant to be deep and meaningful. In general, a game can be defined as an activity that incites emotions, bringing some sort of diversion or amusement, which is why its weird that some people have redefined games as something that requires “real” action, interactivity, and agency. Nowadays, I feel people are a lot more looser with their definition of a “game” as so many things follow on the category of games, from puzzle games to the typical action games and more.

I think the fact that Katie (who the user also plays) is such an observer in this game which is extremely interesting considering the fact that she is also Sam's older sister and they seem to have a close relationship. It seems obvious that the family dynamic isn't perfect and they aren't as close to each other as one would expect, the slow pace and finding out these bits of her family's lives is so interesting, especially since this is her own family and she is also finding out all this new information while not knowing where any of her family is. I think this should be a larger component spoken about as Katie seems like such an outside character.

I think this is one of the biggest areas of criticism that walking simulators receive. The way that walking simulators are designed creates a hard limit on the players agency, in some cases even more so than a Twine based game, as those at least allow the player to make decisions that alter the outcome of the story. Meanwhile in a game like Gone-Home, that player is nothing more than an observer, and they have no impact on the games story, they can only discover it. This can be seen as both positive and negative, as it is similar to something like a book, where the player simply digests the story. However it can also be seen as a limitation, as the players agency is severely reduced compared to a typical video.

I thought this was an interesting take on what removing violence from a game does. Since shooter games are so action based, the player doesn’t really have the time to sit down with the piece and uncover the deeper details of the game. Removing these violent actions/traits from the game completely transforms the game, allowing the player to experience an almost entirely new game.

This is definitely a real issue in shooter games, as there is generally a very negative environment if you listen to an Xbox voice chat. People are frequently degrading and questioning other people’s ability to play the game. In games that require less skill—such as walking games—the focus is less on the individual player and more on the meaning behind the game itself, fostering a more positive atmosphere in general.

In many games I have played in the past, there have been permadeath options, where if you die in a game, it sets the player back to the beginning (ex: "Dont Starve"). Yet, in the article, it is discussed that more liberal leaning individuals (especially ones who are a part of the lgbtq community) have created narratives with “permalife”. Unlike permadeath, these games place the user into inescapable real world issues. This approach to game design makes me wonder about how games can evolve from purely escapist experiences into tools for social commentary. It’s not just about surviving in the game world, but confronting the more darker realities that many face in real life.

While I was playing Gone Home, I definitely felt like by the end of the game, I was Katie uncovering all of the secrets of my family and discovering what had happened while I was away. I was hoping that at the end of the game, we would be able to find and speak with Sam, and when I realized that we wouldn't be able to, I felt disappointed. For me, that changed the meaning of the game from a mystery game to something even more thought-provoking. I wonder what the thought-process behind the creators' decision was and why they chose to end the game that way. What message were they trying to send to the players?

Speedrunning---the concept of completing a game as fast as possible---serves little purpose to the audience in walking simulators. Speedrunning shows proficiency of game mechanics, typically of someone who is familiar with the game but does not hold the same value when applied to a walking simulator.

I find this interesting because in the Steam achievements of Gone Home, there is an achievement for completing the game in less than a minute. I wonder why the creator of the game even created that achievement… Was it to foster a similar experience to an adventure game? Was it a joke, making fun of the modern speedrunning? Was the achievement created at first release, or was it added after player feedback?

Reed et al. seem to be arguing that walking sim/ slow games are designed to prevent players from having agency other than the ability to move slowly and to think about the story and its messages.

I'm intrigued by the idea that art and contemplation are linked here and wonder if considering Gone Home an "art" game changes my understanding of it.

Violence in these simulators is often present, it is typically stylized or remembered rather than directly experienced. The common mechanic of a violent death in traditional games, is often absent in walking simulators, replaced by "permalife," where players focus on enduring and existing rather than surviving. This mechanic, often associated with queer designers, challenges players to consider the consequences of living and the emotional weight of existence. In Gone Home, the game uses the dark and "scary" atmosphere to implement fear and push an instinct to keep surviving and existing

This is a very interesting point. Scientific studies seem to corroborate the idea that walking is beneficial, as it is proven that walking in nature can be crucial to maintaining one’s mental health. At the same time, slow paced walking games keep us in front of the screen longer, so are we truly reaping the same benefits of walking when playing a game that simulates it?

While walking games are considered as less mentally tedious because there may not be direct puzzles to solve or combat present, often times they can still spread a message and introduce an overarching theme which is not typically present in games where the soul focus is violence. For example, in "Gone Home" there are many different ideas present one of the largest ones being self-journey and self-identity where Sam decides to leave her family in order to be her true self. This kind of message may not be as present or direct in a game oriented towards violence or achieving some sort of goal.

In the beginning of Gone Home, the house is portrayed in a way that invokes the normal horror survival game. Players initially think that danger is behind them, but as the game goes on, it becomes clear that the true horror of the game is the family. This shift away from fear leads the player to play the game to understand the family.

I find it really interesting that the authors used this part of the quote to describe how shooter games eventually evolved into walking simulators. In walking simulators, it’s interesting to see how we can freely move around and explore things, and to see how something as nonviolent as “Gone Home” could have been derived from a violent game is really surprising. However, I think it is a smart way of shifting the narrative away from violence and more toward more exploratory games that allow people to look around while also thinking about what they’re doing; this kind of gets rid of the idea of a monotonous killing spree.

The original term of “walking simulators” was used as an insult against more passive and linear forms of media within gaming culture. It is argued that they are more akin to a book or a movie, where user interaction essentially does not change anything within the story being told. Although many reviewers criticize this due to the limited form of interaction, it makes it easier to truly step into the shoes of the protagonist. Instead of focusing on many plot points, one central and solidified story can be further developed, as multiple endings do not need to be computed.

It’s interesting how something as simple as waking can be analyzed as a “part of the human experience”. What about humans allows walking to become an experience? This ‘experience’ aspect of walking makes sense towards the creation of walking simulators, adding another depth of experience to the game.

Gone Home, introducing itself to the user as a horror game, leads the player to believe that they must “act quickly” to avoid any supernatural beings. As the game progresses, however, the user realizes that there is no longer any immediate fear, but a longing fear that they are reading a story that they can no longer act upon and have no choice but to observe.

After playing, I was wondering what the actual purpose of the horror aspect was. The argument that the game is meant to transition from external horror to internal horror is a strong interpretation of Gone Home. Playing as Katie brings more emotional meaning to the game rather than playing as Sam. If we would have played as Sam, we would experience more of the first-person shooter action, but playing as Katie really forces us to immerse ourselves into her shoes, as though we have a sibling that has ran away. As we play the game, this concept becomes stronger and stronger as we realize that there is nothing Katie (ourselves) can do at this point.

This portion of the text talks about the origins of the term "Walking Simulator." How, originally, the term was used as an insult to describe how dull the game was. I find it very interesting that prejudice was created towards walking simulators. This quote reflects the fact that a stigma towards walking simulators is ever present, and is even rooted in the game genre's origins. I feel this represents a symptom of the issue with the "gaming community" at large, as it is very common place to attack or belittle games/developers that makes video games that are different or not seen as video games in the traditional sense.

It's interesting how something as developed as movement in a video game is viewed as boring. To me it seems like the rise of technology has caused our attention span to decrease rapidly.

The game Gone Home includes an example of a queer relationship, yet does not make it the main emphasis of the game, as it includes story lines of other characters in Katie’s family, too. The lack of concentration on the queer relationship has brought mixed opinions by critics, which some liking it, and others disliking it. I personally thought the presence of a variety of storylines of each member of the family helped the player be further immersed in the perspective of Katie as it felt a lot more real when each character in the story had their own story and journey they were going through. It also helped sell the separation the family was experiencing, which I felt was also an important part of the storyline of the game.

I found this quote interesting because it made me think more of what the "point" of a game really is and what defines a game. Does there need to be a winner to be a game? Is a game about skill or discovering a deeper message and theme? I feel like the definition of a game is loose- you don't have to discover a deeper message or heavily engage with a storyline in order for it to be a game (like Pacman, Tetris). However, I think that a game without a winner is still a game, even if it focuses more on the plot/storyline and less on skill/ a winner and loser.

Forza is a game that has implemented Fast Travel, which—in my opinion—takes away from the purpose of the game, which is to explore the map.

The notion of “perma-life” connects with Salter’s notion that taking away agency from a player allows a work to better explore the complexities of mental health. In games where dying is possible, there is inherently agency in that taking the “wrong” actions as the player will lead to death as a means of losing the game. But this agency also leads to the obvious fact that the player will be able to retry sections in which they die. Walking simulators, by taking away death, add severity and weight to each development made in the story. The character, and by extension the player, get no do-overs when something goes wrong. This setup accurately mirrors the nature of mental turmoil: things inevitably go wrong in life, which leads to distress, but the only thing that can be done is to face the situation directly. By not allowing players a chance to avoid bad things from happening via a death mechanic that promotes player mastery as a method of solving problems, walking simulators are able to focus fully on the idea of persisting in the face of trauma.

This is good to know and how it affects the present

I feel like as real world situations, drones in this case, become designed to be controlled more like video games, there is a potential for desensitization as combat operations begin to feel like a game. As a result, operators may become emotionally disengaged from the consequences of their actions.

you could rephrase slightly to fit this better into action statement format like 'Collaborated in a team of X developers to build ....'

The relationship that a fan has with their team has always been fascinating to me. It is like that person is on the team, even though they are not physically in the game.

Gabriel's google scholar profile https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=Mc00G90AAAAJ&view_op=list_works&sortby=pubdate

This reflects the early association of sports, specifically football, with broader cultural ideals like morality and capitalism. It shows how sports were being linked to national identity and societal values, framing the game as a tool for social and moral development.

I find myself revisiting now due to buggy behavior observed in jszip (discovered through Darius Kazemi's reliance on it for his Twitter archiver project).

The problem is that jszip when given a ZIP with Zip64 data in the end of central directory record handles it poorly (presumably jszip simply doesn't have support for Zip64 despite being advertised as such)—except that that's even really the problem.

The fundamental problem with jszip is that it doesn't support Zip64 (whether it says it does or not) and it makes an assumption that the last file header record in the central directory will be immediately followed by the end of central directory signature and when it encounters a file that violates this assumption its attempts to recover are odd. There's no good reason for jszip or any other software to make that assumption, though, since depending on it is in no way necessary to go ahead and successfully work with the files that are present.

From an earlier private note (from 2021 July 20):

A better way to phrase it: "What if there is some byte sequence that coincides with the sequence used for the local file header signature, but nonetheless does not comprise some part of a file record (i.e., one "referenced by the central directory")?

And the answer, of course, is right there; it is not UB—that isn't a file record.

Some block of data within the ZIP can only be considered to comprise a local file header iff it is referenced by the central directory. A byte sequence appearing elsewhere that collides with the file header signature is just noise.

What happened to the central directory offset not being allowed to be located there?

this is a great concept

may be useful in revising the Copyright Card Game to addresss AI

Exactly. WandaVision really feels like a game-changer for Marvel TV. It’s cool how it’s woven into the larger MCU narrative, making it feel more connected and impactful.

every work of art and artist works around money. While inspiration for film writing is there the old saying goes "money talks" if at the end of the day the consumer wanted sonic to look more like the nostalgia idea of what they remember it is up to the creator to deliver it.

"This passage shows how hit TV shows and movies, along with the rise of social media, have made fandom more mainstream, interactive, and influential."

"This passage shows how fans have been influencing the art they love for a long time, connecting historical examples with today's fandom culture."

This is exactly what I mean when say "positive audience involvement".

The fact that writers have been dealing with this shows how deep this issue does and how much of an effect it has on the entertainment industry over the years.

Inscryption: genuinely top-tier loop, but the weight of the game is in how weird it feels to go outside that loop structure

The one arcade game that's in my life is Killer Queen, because my work team goes to play it every now and again at Jupiter Bar. The arcade as actual competitive arena seems defunct, so this game is interesting in that it manufactures tiny moments of abnormal social interaction; when in our day-to-day does a junior engineer get to crow that she has sabotaged her senior's attempt at achieving something? Anthropologists: the temporary inversion of social norms.

En fait le e-sport est lié à la division genré dans le sport mais aussi dans le jeux vidéo. N'oublions pas par exemple qu'on parle de "Game Boy".

The Ink by Anand Giridharadas

The handing over of the keys to the American Republic by a mendacious president to a megalomaniacal oligarch. Elon Musk is a wealthy private citizen who, relatively late in the game, happened to become a Trump supporter when he saw which way the wind was blowing. Now he has burrowed his way into the bowels of the federal government and is waging what can only be called an anti-constitutional coup.

The Ink by Anand Giridharadas

The handing over of the keys to the American Republic by a mendacious president to a megalomaniacal oligarch. Elon Musk is a wealthy private citizen who, relatively late in the game, happened to become a Trump supporter when he saw which way the wind was blowing. Now he has burrowed his way into the bowels of the federal government and is waging what can only be called an anti-constitutional coup.

Annotation #1

Quote: "Institutions are the key to economic growth because they determine the incentives for savings, investment, and innovation."

Thoughts: This quote is saying that it isn't just the amount that you invest but also the institutions that govern these investments that contribute to economic growth. In other words, it adds another layer to the Solow model we discussed in class, which is how capital investments are managed in an economy. According to North (1990), who received the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics, institutions shape the rules of the game in society and significantly impact economic performance. While this aligns with our class discussion of the Solow growth model, which assumes that economies grow through capital accumulation and technological innovation, with each round of investment decreasing in value to economic growth, it supports the claim made in this article by suggesting that institutional frameworks govern how effectively these factors operate. Our discussion in class, working to answer the question of what are the sources of Singapore’s success also supports this idea. Based on the reasoning in this quote, one of the reasons for Singapore's economic growth is its pro-investment policies into education and medical institutions that prioritize long term benefits.

Citation: North, D. C. (1990). Institutions, institutional change, and economic performance. Cambridge University Press.

Annotation #2

Quote: "Capital deepening alone cannot sustain long-term growth; technological innovation and institutional improvements are equally critical."

Thoughts: This section elaborates on the idea that the Solow model doesn't account for the effectiveness of capital investments in economic growth, by suggesting that it's how this capital investment is used - to develop technology and invest in institutions that will provide long term benefits - that will ensure its effectiveness. This raises a question: How do institutions evolve to foster innovation in countries transitioning from low to high-income status? In class, we discussed a possible answer to the question about what are the sources of SGs economic development, with one possible answer being Singapore's investments into educational institutions that help to foster innovation. However, this led me to wonder if these strategies be applied in countries like Ghana, where institutional weaknesses impede economic progress, or does their success depend on specific historical and political contexts? Additionally, this also makes me want to understand if it might be impossible for some countries to have economic growth in the long term because of corruption that might prevent capital investments from being directed to institutions and technology. Would institutions be beneficial in prompting economic growth if the governing of the institution is corrupt?

Annotation #3:

Quote: "Geography is not destiny; countries with unfavorable geographic conditions can still achieve economic prosperity through sound policies and institutional reforms."

Thoughts: Despite what teh article suggested about all three factors - culture, institutions, and geography - playing an important role in a countries' economic growth, this quote suggests that they can be substituted/made up for by one another. I found this quote extremely interesting since based on the geography theory Singapore should be poorer than many temperature regions solely because it has a tropical climate; however, this isn't true with SG being one of the wealthiest nations in the world. This made me realize that Singapore was able to overcome geographic disadvantages (limited land, no natural resources) through integration into global trade networks and institutional reforms, which is what made them grow economically. In other words, even if their geographic location gave them a disadvantage, their cultural values and institutions enabled them to overcome this. This also supports our discussion in class relating to our inquiry question - What are the sources of Singapore's economic development? - about how Singapore was able to grow rapidly by suggesting that because of its smart capital investments that resulted in growth following the Solow Model. The argument in this article, shown in this quote, challenged my previous assumption that most tropical regions were poorer on average compared to temperate regions because a nation must have all three factors - cultural values, institutions, and geography- for them to succeed with no exceptions.

Blog post reflecting on how one contributed to cave pictograph/research done to make symbols.

Creative/innovative

Was Ad Correctly guessed by class

Quality of writing/argument/presentation

This doesn't just happen in the sports industry, it's literally everywhere. Think any female character in any movie between the 80s-10s. Or anyone popular on social media. If you really want proof, look up "female video game characters"

The first two paragraphs of the Discussion give an overview of the experiment, the most important findings, and their major interpretation.

"This is what we did, this is why we did it, this is what we found, this is what we think it means"

The movie in this web page- -Catch Me if You Can is a story about the hero who uses fake checks to cheat millions of dollars. The FBI is obsessed with chasing the hero, but the hero enjoys the chase game on the run. The film delves into the delicate relationship between identity, deception, and law enforcement. It implies the existence of advanced fraud and reminds the public to be careful about being defrauded.

Showing both graphs, then arguing (if the writer wants to) that zooming, the 2-miles-per-hour decrease from 2012 to 2013 is more significant to the game result (if it is, which would probably need to be supported by more data, such as comparing average knuckleball velocities across different players and different — especially opposing — teams) than it looks from afar.

I think people have high expectations for 'models' or 'tools' thinking they are all validated and rigorously tested, when in fact, few are.

available online as HTML

a game changer

from-youtube

Summary of DevTools FM Podcast with Juan Capa on Membrane.io

Introduction and Background

• Juan Capa is the creator of Membrane.io, a still-in-development platform for simplifying API automation and internal tooling.

"Juan is the creator of membrane.io, a still-on-development platform for simplifying API Automation and internal tooling."_

• He has a background in game development, having spent over a decade working on console, mobile, and web games.

"I have a background in game development. I spent about 10 years a little bit more than 10 years working in game development."_

• Worked at Vercel on the CDN team after being hired through Twitter, then briefly returned to Zynga before joining Mighty under a program that allowed him to work part-time on Membrane.

"I saw a tweet by Guillermo Rauch ... He hired me to work for Vercel ... I spent two years there as the lead in the CDN team."_

"Then I guess my last last thing I did was join Mighty ... working on my startup but also working three days for them."_

• Now focusing on Membrane full-time and looking to onboard users soon.

"So yeah now I'm a member in 100 and yeah hoping that I can show to the world and onboard some users in the coming week or two."_

Membrane: Concept and Vision

• Membrane was inspired by game engines, where every entity is programmable and data is universally accessible.

"In game development, you’re dealing with this Engine with this universe, and this universe is completely programmable."_

• Aimed at simplifying API automation and small-scale applications, particularly for personal automation.

"It’s a place to write programs to build personal automation ... optimized for personal automation programs."_

• Membrane provides an abstraction over APIs, allowing users to interact with data and automate workflows through a graph-based system.

"The key to Membrane is this whole concept of a graph that is the main thing that programs use to manipulate the world."_

• Designed to be highly accessible by integrating with Visual Studio Code and leveraging JavaScript/TypeScript.

"The entire thing is built inside of Visual Studio Code ... The most used IDE is Visual Studio Code and the most used language is JavaScript."_

Durability & Orthogonal Persistence

• Membrane implements "orthogonal persistence," ensuring program state is always durable.

"I decided to start building what is sometimes called orthogonal persistence, which is this concept of a durable program."_

• Every Membrane program is an SQLite database, meaning all messages, state, and execution history are stored persistently.

"Every member program is actually just one SQLite database."_

• Programs execute with an event-sourcing model, where all inputs and outputs are first logged in SQLite before execution.

"Every message that it receives, it first goes in the database and then it's processed."_

• Uses Linux’s soft dirty pages for memory tracking, making it highly efficient in persisting only changed memory states.

"I use quickjs ... and there’s a constant in the Linux kernel called Soft Dirty Pages ... only serialize the pages that actually change."_

• Future improvements include optimizing serialization using WebAssembly’s linear memory model.

"I’m saving more data than I should, so there’s even more optimizations I can do."_

Observability & Debugging

• Membrane prioritizes perfect observability, logging every event to enable full program introspection and debugging.

"If it’s not in the logs, it didn’t happen."_

• Allows time-travel debugging, replaying past states and executions.

"You can go back to when that message was received and then run the code that was available back then."_

• Aims to support snapshot-based time travel for enhanced debugging.

"The first version I’m gonna have of that type of time travel is going to be with a snapshot that is taken every hour."_

Membrane’s Graph Model

• Membrane’s "graph" serves as a type-safe, unified interface for APIs.

"Everything is a node, which you can think of as an object or a scalar (string, number, JSON type)."_

• Drivers enable API connectivity, converting external APIs into Membrane’s schema and providing a consistent interface.

"The GitHub driver has a schema ... basically it mirrors the GitHub API as a Membrane schema."_

• Pagination is abstracted away, making API traversal seamless.

"With Membrane, you have this object that’s a one-page, and a page has a reference to the next page."_

• Users can mount different programs' graphs into their own, dynamically expanding their automation environment.

"Your graph is basically the combination of all the graphs of all your programs."_

Chrome Extension & API Interfacing

• Membrane includes a Chrome extension that recognizes API entities on webpages.

"What it does is it asks Membrane, ‘Hey, do any of the programs under Juan’s account recognize anything on this page?’"_

• Future improvements will allow automatic driver installation when encountering unrecognized APIs.

"Eventually, I can just offer you the option to install that driver with a click from the Chrome extension."_

• Currently requires users to provide their own API keys, but OAuth-based authentication is planned.

"Right now, you have to bring your own keys."_

Cron & Automation Features

• Membrane features built-in cron-like timers, which are stored in SQLite and visualized in the UI.

"The SQLite database has a table called timers, and that table holds all scheduled actions."_

• Users can visually track when timers will execute and manually trigger actions for testing.

"From Visual Studio Code, you can just hover on each timer and see how long until it fires."_

• Logs every timer execution, ensuring full transparency in automation workflows.

"If it’s not in the logs, it didn’t happen."_

Potential for Expansion & Future Vision

• Membrane’s approach is inspired by game development tooling, where objects and behaviors are always inspectable.

"In game engines, you’re dealing with objects where you can see all their properties and control them."_

• Aims to provide a seamless developer experience, where APIs become interactable entities without custom adapters.

"If you wanted to automate something with Twitter, you shouldn’t have to pre-install a driver."_

• Exploring self-hosting and open-source models to improve privacy and decentralization.

"Self-hosting membrane is going to be a thing ... I think I want to make it open-source."_

• Could enable mobile implementations, particularly for interacting with on-device automation.

"You could just access your Membrane graph from your phone."_

• Possibility of auto-generating API drivers from HAR files or OpenAPI specs.

"There are ways to generate API specs from network traffic ... from that API spec, you can generate the driver."_

Conclusion

• Membrane is a powerful tool aimed at making personal automation and API interaction seamless, leveraging game engine principles for maximum programmability.
• It provides persistent execution, deep observability, and a graph-based API abstraction layer that simplifies working with external services.
• With a focus on usability, it integrates tightly with VS Code and JavaScript while also offering innovative features like event sourcing, time travel debugging, and drag-and-drop API connections.
• The future of Membrane includes open-source possibilities, mobile integrations, and potentially eliminating the need for manually defining API adapters.
• It represents a new paradigm in developer tooling, where programs are durable, transparent, and universally programmable.

Useful quote "corporations don’t want to make money, they want to make all the money".

I completely agree with the article’s perspective that criticizing is often easier than creating. Our society places more emphasis on analysis and judgment rather than encouraging people to innovate, making it harder to come up with new ideas. I’ve experienced this while playing games—during post-game reviews, it's easy for us to point out each person's mistakes and what they should have done differently. However, when someone asks how we could have won the game, everyone suddenly falls silent.

The function of visitadoras as community organizer is discussed in this section, especially in rural Pernambuco, where Paulo Freire's literacy-based approach to conscientização (critical consciousness) was a pioneering paradigm prior to military intrusion encroaching on social life. in the course of establishing the União para o Progresso do Alto do Cruzeiro (UPAC), a grassroots organization that addresses local needs the authority describes evenings spent in cultural circles which are an important part of Freire's teaching and where Alto inhabitants and squatters learnt to read. As an orientadora politica and founder member the author contributed to the creation of UPAC's headquarters, a multipurpose venue that serves as an Afro-Brazilian spiritist home, gaming room, dance hall, adult literacy school, child care center, and gathering spot for the associations vibrant general meetings.

This is so incredibly embedded in ideas of colonial domination of Indigenous people–as a game. The presentation of black and indigenous athletes using language that conjures up imagines of them as animals, or primal, as less human. Incredibly sad to think how long lasting these perceptions are in society still today.

This expert is really powerful. Considering the imposition of sport as evidence or celebration of conquest marks just how powerful sport is. A display of victory by asserting sport also invokes the ideas of the "civilizing mission" that the American imperialists brought proper sports to the places they colonized. Also interesting to consider how colonists imported cultural products into their colonies to make themselves feel more comfortable.

I often hear men who discuss women's sports talk about them in 2 ways. First, if they are around other women, by underscoring that their act of watching women's sports made them more feminist and second by highlighting physically attractive features about certain players or moments of a game. Of course there is also a very overt use of "masculine" adjectives to describe female athletes perceived as acting more competitive such as (beast, monster, or demon).

amazing justification in this paragraph

I'm excited for this but also a bit worried due to the high stakes of the assignment!

Wow, I never knew that this was a thing, who knew we were using Celtic numbers without us realizing it? Like it said in the text it sounds like a game to us but everything comes from the root of a language or word, so i think its amazing how words like that evolve into a different meaning overtime.

7.4

This mirrors the way I immersed in fantasy when I was growing up- a world where I could live vicariously through powerful, perfect, adored characters with full identities and exciting lives, while reality felt confusing, scary, and humiliating. I feel like Elliot and I had a similar problem understanding how to navigate the world enough to get an outcome that made us feel seen or adored- so the NPD manifested through fantasy.

I am looking forward to doing this project. It seems like something I have never done in class before so I am looking forward to it.

I annotated this as a whole for quantitative observations. Lets say I go down the path of social media and game attendance, I could observe by keep a tally sheet or check list for social media posts. A check list could be helpful for likes, comments, shares, ect. Keep track to see if the post are getting the attention they need and driving people to the event.

I chose this section to reflect on what type of methods and strategies I have been brainstorming throughout my reading. If I were to go forward with the question of why do students attend the events they do and what is bringing them in? If I were to study this right now, I could potentially go to a basketball game and a baseball game. I'm unsure if that would be entirely accurate considering the time of year, but it is an idea. The students at the games already would be the participants. To get data I could ask resources around me who potentially keep track of data.

I'm a very passionate person, but I'm only passionate of certain things. Football is one of them, if is not the most important thing then I would've never tried to be the best at it. Beside not only I'll find an issue in my game I would help other be the best at theirs. What I mean is anyone that is passionate about something would always try to find issue and perfect them.

I have experienced this in online gaming where I or a teammate is not as good as other advanced players, so other teams or players among us decide to only attack the weaker player repeatedly. This often leads me to be frustrated, to get off the game, or to restart with other players. This also happens over the microphone with other players who are intentionally rude to try and provoke me or other players.

set your code free

This is an interesting bit of insight as to an English perspective on their changing state in trade influence, and by extension, degree in power and wealth. It was stated earlier that England was late to the game when it comes to pushing out into the west; without context, one could infer that it was largely in response to these effects that Britain decided to take action and establish colonies in the Americas.

This paragraph about interaction model of communication is very interesting how interactions with people can be completely different. I can point to one of my children where the dirty plates needs to go but I would need to explain to another where it needs to go. Also I can have a conversation to my oldest child about a video game we both play and he would understand what I'm trying to explain . How ever my father wouldn't have a clue. It goes to show you how interactions with people about the same thing can be very different.

I’ve been exploring OLG's website, and one standout feature is its straightforward and consistent navigation menu. This design choice makes it easy for users to find what they’re looking for, no matter which page they’re on. For users with cognitive disabilities, this consistency is especially helpful, as it provides a predictable structure that reduces confusion and makes the browsing experience smoother. It’s a great example of how accessible design can enhance user experience for everyone.

I noticed that OLG’s website does a great job with its forms. Each input field is clearly labeled and associated with its corresponding label, which is essential for a smooth user experience. This design choice is especially helpful for users with cognitive disabilities and those who rely on assistive technologies. By ensuring that forms are easy to navigate, OLG makes it much more accessible for everyone to interact with their site. It's a thoughtful detail that improves usability across the board.

Bad Practice: Overuse of Complex Language

While the language might be appropriate for a general audience, using simpler language or providing context for terms like "political calculus" could improve accessibility for readers with cognitive disabilities or those whose first language is not English. I'd recommend a syllabus at the bottom of the page.

It's interesting how a maze-based story game requires the reader/player to follow a specific order of events to progress through the story/game; if not, they must retrace their steps to see what details they may have missed.

[C] This makes me think about the game we played where it took towards the last two bonus rounds for player to realize that they might have wanted to build trust in an earlier round so that they could decieve them later and gain more points.

Something that my friends and i started doing is whenever we are together playing a game or doing somehting we put our phones on the table and whoever touched their phone first lost

The comparison of this quote to a game of chess helps bring a better understanding of what John Searle's construction of social reality and how we are different than animals. A set of rules must be established in order to show that we are different than animals and that we can use this to create self-control.

Reviewer #3 (Public review):

In this paper, the authors use a three-phase economic game to examine the tendency to engage in prosocial versus competitive exchanges with three anonymous partners. In particular, they consider individual differences in the tendency to infer about others' tendencies based on one's preferences and to update one's preferences based on observations of others' behavior. The study includes a sample of individuals diagnosed with borderline personality disorder and a matched sample of psychiatrically healthy control participants.

On the whole, the experimental design is well-suited to the questions and the computational model analyses are thorough, including modern model-fitting procedures. I particularly appreciated the clear exposition regarding model parameterization and the descriptive Table 2 for qualitative model comparison. My broad question about the experiment (in terms of its clinical and cognitive process relevance): Does the task encourage competition or give participants a reason to take advantage of others? I don't think it does, so it would be useful to clarify the normative account for prosociality in the introduction (e.g., some of Robin Dunbar's work).

The finding that individuals with BPD do not engage in self-other generalization on this task of social intentions is novel and potentially clinically relevant. The authors find that BPD participants' tendency to be prosocial when splitting points with a partner does not transfer into their expectations of how a partner will treat them in a task where they are the passive recipient of points chosen by the partner. In the discussion, the authors reasonably focus on model differences between groups (Bayesian model comparison), yet I thought this finding -- BPD participants not assuming prosocial tendencies in phase 2 while CON participant did -- merited greater attention. Although the BPD group was close to 0 on the \beta prior in Phase 2, their difference from CON is still in the direction of being more mistrustful (or at least not assuming prosociality). This may line up with broader clinical literature on mistrustfulness and attributions of malevolence in the BPD literature (e.g., a 1992 paper by Nigg et al. in Journal of Abnormal Psychology). My broad point is to consider further the Phase 2 findings in terms of the clinical interpretation of the shift in \beta relative to controls.

On the conceptual level, I had two additional concerns. First, the authors note that they have "proposed a theory with testable predictions" (p. 4 but also elsewhere) but they do not state any clear predictions in the introduction, nor do they consider what sort of patterns will be observed in the BPD group in view of extant clinical and computational literature. Rather, the paper seems to be somewhat exploratory, largely looking at group differences (BPD vs. CON) on all of the shared computational parameters and additional indices such as belief updating and reaction times. Given this, I would suggest that the authors make stronger connections between extant research on intention representation in BPD and their framework (model and paradigm). In particular, the authors do not address related findings from Ereira (2020) and Story (2024) finding that in a false belief task that BPD participants *overgeneralize* from self to other. A critical comparison of this work to the present study, including an examination of the two tasks differ in the processes they measure, is important.

In addition, perhaps it is fairer to note more explicitly the exploratory nature of this work. Although the analyses are thorough, many of them are not argued for a priori (e.g., rate of belief updating in Figure 2C) and the reader amasses many individual findings that need to by synthesized.

Second, in the discussion, the authors are too quick to generalize to broad clinical phenomena in BPD that are not directly connected to the task at hand. For example, on p. 22: "Those with a diagnosis of BPD also show reduced permeability in generalising from other to self. While prior research has predominantly focused on how those with BPD use information to form impressions, it has not typically examined whether these impressions affect the self." Here, it's not self-representation per se (typically, identity or one's view of oneself), but instead cooperation and prosocial tendencies in an economic context. It is important to clarify what clinical phenomena may be closely related to the task and which are more distal and perhaps should not be approached here.

On a more technical level, I had two primary concerns. First, although the authors consider alternative models within a hierarchical Bayesian framework, some challenges arise when one analyzes parameter estimates fit separately to two groups, particularly when the best-fitting model is not shared. In particular, although the authors conduct a model confusion analysis, they do not as far I could tell (and apologies if I missed it) demonstrate that the dynamics of one model are nested within the other. Given that M4 has free parameters governing the expectations on the absolute and relative reward preferences in Phase 2, is it necessarily the case that the shared parameters between M1 and M4 can be interpreted on the same scale? Relatedly, group-specific model fitting has virtues when believes there to be two distinct populations, but there is also a risk of overfitting potentially irrelevant sample characteristics when parameters are fit group by group.

To resolve these issues, I saw one straightforward solution (though in modeling, my experience is that what seems straightforward on first glance may not be so upon further investigation). M1 assumes that participants' own preferences (posterior central tendency) in Phase 1 directly transfer to priors in Phase 2, but presumably the degree of transfer could vary somewhat without meriting an entirely new model (i.e., the authors currently place this question in terms of model selection, not within-model parameter variation). I would suggest that the authors consider a model parameterization fit to the full dataset (both groups) that contains free parameters capturing the *deviations* in the priors relative to the preceding phase's posterior. That is, the free parameters $\bar{\alpha}_{par}^m$ and $\bar{\beta}_{par}^m$ govern the central tendency of the Phase 2 prior parameter distributions directly, but could be reparametrized as deviations from Phase 1 $\theta^m_{ppt}$ parameters in an additive form. This allows for a single model to be fit all participants that encompasses the dynamics of interest such that between-group parameter comparisons are not biased by the strong assumptions imposed by M1 (that phase 1 preferences and phase 2 observations directly transfer to priors). In the case of controls, we would expect these deviation parameters to be centred on 0 insofar as the current M1 fit them best, whereas for BPD participants should have significant deviations from earlier-phase posteriors (e.g., the shift in \beta toward prior neutrality in phase 2 compared to one's own prosociality in phase 1). I think it's still valid for the authors to argue for stronger model constraints for Bayesian model comparison, as they do now, but inferences regarding parameter estimates should ideally be based on a model that can encompass the full dynamics of the entire sample, with simpler dynamics (like posterior -> prior transfer) being captured by near-zero parameter estimates.

My second concern pertains to the psychometric individual difference analyses. These were not clearly justified in the introduction, though I agree that they could offer potentially meaningful insight into which scales may be most related to model parameters of interest. So, perhaps these should be earmarked as exploratory and/or more clearly argued for. Crucially, however, these analyses appear to have been conducted on the full sample without considering the group structure. Indeed, many of the scales on which there are sizable group differences are also those that show correlations with psychometric scales. So, in essence, it is unclear whether most of these analyses are simply recapitulating the between-group tests reported earlier in the paper or offer additional insights. I think it's hard to have one's cake and eat it, too, in this regard and would suggest the authors review Preacher et al. 2005, Psychological Methods for additional detail. One solution might be to always include group as a binary covariate in the symptom dimension-parameter analyses, essentially partialing the correlations for group status. I remain skeptical regarding whether there is additional signal in these analyses, but such controls could convince the reader. Nevertheless, without such adjustments, I would caution against any transdiagnostic interpretations such as this one in the Highlights: "Higher reported childhood trauma, paranoia, and poorer trait mentalizing all diminish other-to-self information transfer irrespective of diagnosis." Since many of these analyses relate to scales on which the groups differ, the transdiagnostic relevance remains to be demonstrated.

this is a brilliant idea

Lyrics Love, love, love Love, love, love Love, love, love There's nothing you can do that can't be done Nothing you can sing that can't be sung Nothing you can say, but you can learn How to play the game It's easy Nothing you can make that can't be made No one you can save that can't be saved Nothing you can do, but you can learn How to be you in time It's easy All you need is love All you need is love All you need is love, love Love is all you need Love, love, love Love, love, love Love, love, love All you need is love All you need is love All you need is love, love Love is all you need Nothing you can know that isn't known Nothing you can see that isn't shown There's nowhere you can be that isn't where You're meant to be It's easy All you need is love All you need is love All you need is love, love Love is all you need All you need is love (all together now!) All you need is love (everybody!) All you need is love, love Love is all you need Love is all you need (love is all you need) Love is all you need (love is all you need) Love is all you need (love is all you need) Love is all you need (love is all you need) Love is all you need (love is all you need) Love is all you need (love is all you need) Love is all you need (love is all you need) Love is all you need (love is all you need) Love is all you need (love is all you need) Love is all you need (love is all you need) Love is all you need (love is all you need) (Love is all you need) Love is all you need (love is all you need) Yesterday (love is all you need) Oh (love is all you need) (Love is all you need) (Love is all you need) Source: Musixmatch Songwriters: Paul Mccartney / John Lennon All You Need Is Love lyrics © Sony/atv Tunes Llc, Shapiro Bernstein & Co Inc, Mpl Communications Inc

"Windlasses" is an apparatus for moving heavy weights. And 'assays of bias" is a metaphor from the game of bowls where the bowl, by a circular movement, is made to reach the "queen," instead of by a direct line. So this line seems to be communicating some alternate form of achieving or an indirect route to ones desired goal.

i agree with this because no matter where you go someone is talking about last night's game with a stranger while they wait in line. Its a easy way for people to connect to each other

sports are important because they bring people together

While anything needs funding, not everything, especially football, needs millions, it's a little excessive. With everything going on around us, one would think we would have more compassion and empathy for those who are, for example, homeless or hungry. Instead lets sponsor a football team whose players make thousands if not millions of dollars for one game. Football teams don't have to have top of the line equipment or spend on things that they don't need. Not everything needs replaced every game or every year.

I personally relate to this. Knowing that their is a good football game helps me get through the week. When I watch the games it gives me a feeling of joy and happiness almost like a kid on their birthday.

A sense of community that is often sought out

High-context example

Reviewer #1 (Public review):

Summary:

Bowler et al. present a thoroughly tested system for modularized behavioral control of navigation-based experiments, particularly suited for pairing with 2-photon imaging but applicable to a variety of techniques. This system, which they name behaviorMate, represents an important methodological contribution to the field of behavioral and systems neuroscience. As the authors note, behavioral control paradigms vary widely across laboratories in terms of hardware and software utilized and often require specialized technical knowledge to make changes to these systems. Having a standardized, easy to implement, and flexible system that can be used by many groups is therefore highly desirable.

Strengths:

The present manuscript provides compelling evidence of the functionality and applicability of behaviorMate. The authors report benchmark tests for high-fidelity, real-time update speed between the animal's movement and the behavioral control, on both the treadmill-based and virtual reality (VR) setups. The VR system relies on Unity, a common game development engine, but implements all scene generation and customizability in the authors' behaviorMate and VRMate software, which circumvents the need for users to program task logic in C# in Unity. Further, the authors nicely demonstrate and quantify reliable hippocampal place cell coding in both setups, using synchronized 2-photon imaging. This place cell characterization also provides a concrete comparison between the place cell properties observed in treadmill-based navigation vs. visual VR in a single study, which itself is a valuable contribution to the field.

Weaknesses: None noted.

Documentation for installing and operating behaviorMate is available via the authors' lab website and Github, linked in the manuscript.

The authors have addressed all of my requests for clarification from the previous round of review. This work will be of great interest to systems neuroscientists looking to integrate flexible head-fixed behavioral control with neural data acquisition.

I feel like the classroom lends itself to a team game/competition of some sorts but I don't know what that would look like specifically

Another game I think that you could possibly add to this lesson is charades where the students or teacher can act out the actions and the other students can try to guess what they are doing. This game will encourage active participation it will help students learn the new language through motion and action.

The social media platform X (Twitter), claimed that there were record breaking traffic numbers for the 2024 super bowl game. However, with further cybersecurity research they found that 75% of the traffic X had posted about was fake and other social media platforms showed much lower rates. CHEQ's data had also shown that 32% of X's visitors were bots. Elon Musk now faces advertisement concerns over recent comments and poses as future challenges.

The leader-arbiter mechanism in Russia helped with the reforms but hindered how democratic institutions could develop. Relying on "shadow rules" led to informal networks rather than policy. This undermined democratic progress and instead enforced authoritarian practices. This segment tells us that political reform was difficult but for a number of reasons. One of which is the informal networking but another was the internal divisions that this caused within the elite.

Finding out everything about the world... no thats not right. The artist makes art in order to understand their own exsisatnce, not to rack up points. Maybe i should follow this way. This clever analogy from C. Thu Nguyen.

I've had my experiences with antagonistic bots. In high school, a few of my friends would use Kahoot bots to overflow the number of students who joined the Kahoot game. There was this website where you would give the Kahoot game code and the bots would join by themselves.

game state

MDA in gaming

COMMON TERMS FOUND IN GAME DESIGN FOUND HERE

what is a video game

What keeps people playing a game

What is the mapping between the Game World and the Real world?

So, would all autonomous game characters have the same strategies and personalities that arise from NVIDIA implementation, regardless of the game or platform? Interesting.

I am excited to learn how to tape because before every soccer practice and game I have to get my ankle taped.

To prepare you for your next trivia game night. Who started the American Red Cross, and what is its purpose?

This concept reminds me of an interesting plot in《Three Body Problem》, where, in the three-body-problem visual game, a simplified "human computer" is described: assuming there are three people facing to each other, holding either red or white light, if a person see both the others hold white light, he would hold the white light as well; otherwise he would hold the red light. This game happens to represent the binary system in computer.

I think some games could also be regarded as social media. For instance, I used to play Game for Peace, which is a mobile shooting game in China. In this application, players need to team up and work together to survive in the last. Therefore, discussions and communications are very frequent in this game. Sometimes, the interpersonal relationship is beyond teammates. Some people use this game to find a girlfriend or a boyfriend, and some players could make money by selling their services to other players. So I think some gaming platforms should also be included as a kind of social media.

Failure in video games not only brings a challenge to make videogame's more fun but difficulty can also teach people to make new strategies or make important decisions in said video game that can also improve real life skills.

"The Oregon Trail" was a massive success in both education and entertainment. in addition, several other edutainment games have been made for ages 3-8, most being very popular

intertextual (esp wrt code); marginalia; SKAM — transmedia emergent storytelling

in what ways do you understand / come to learn a system, a world, an infrastructure? cf. position/where one is situated across an AI tech stack

cf Travess Smalley: https://www.are.na/editorial/where-boundary-breaks

Author response:

The following is the authors’ response to the previous reviews.

Reviewer #1 (Public review):

As a starting point, the authors discuss the so-called "additive partitioning" (AP) method proposed by Loreau & Hector in 2001. The AP is the result of a mathematical rearrangement of the definition of overyielding, written in terms of relative yields (RY) of species in mixtures relative to monocultures. One term, the so-called complementarity effect (CE), is proportional to the average RY deviations from the null expectations that plants of both species "do the same" in monocultures and mixtures. The other term, the selection effect (SE), captures how these RY deviations are related to monoculture productivity. Overall, CE measures whether relative biomass gains differ from zero when averaged across all community members, and SE, whether the "relative advantage" species have in the mixture, is related to their productivity. In extreme cases, when all species benefit, CE becomes positive.

This is not true; positive CE does not require positive RY deviations of all species. CE is positive as long as average RY deviation is greater than 0. In a 2-species mixture, for example, if the RY deviation of one species is -0.2 and that of the other species is +0.3, CE would be still positive. Positive CE can be associated with negative NE (net biodiversity effects) when more productivity species have smaller negative RY deviation compared to positive RY deviation of less productive species. Therefore, the suggestion by the reviewer “This is intuitively compatible with the idea that niche complementarity mitigates competition (CE>0)” is not correct.   

When large species have large relative productivity increases, SE becomes positive. This is intuitively compatible with the idea that niche complementarity mitigates competition (CE>0), or that competitively superior species dominate mixtures and thereby driver overyielding (SE>0).

The use of word “mitigate” indicates that the effects of niche complementarity and competition are in opposite directions, which is not true with biodiversity experiments based on replacement design. We have explained this in detail in our first responses to reviewers.    

However, it is very important to understand that CE and SE capture the "statistical structure" of RY that underlies overyielding. Specifically, CE and SE are not the ultimate biological mechanisms that drive overyielding, and never were meant to be. CE also does not describe niche complementarity. Interpreting CE and SE as directly quantifying niche complementarity or resource competition, is simply wrong, although it sometimes is done. The criticism of the AP method thus in large part seems unwarranted. The alternative methods the authors discuss (lines 108-123) are based on very similar principles.

Agree. However, If CE and SE are not meant to be biological mechanisms, as suggested by the reviewer, the argument “This is intuitively compatible with the idea that niche complementarity mitigates competition (CE>0), or that competitively superior species dominate mixtures and thereby driver overyielding (SE>0)” would be invalid.  

Lines 108-123 are not on our method.   

The authors now set out to develop a method that aims at linking response patterns to "more true" biological mechanisms.

Assuming that "competitive dominance" is key to understanding mixture productivity, because "competitive interactions are the predominant type of interspecific relationships in plants", the authors introduce "partial density" monocultures, i.e. monocultures that have the same planting density for a species as in a mixture. The idea is that using these partial density monocultures as a reference would allow for isolating the effect of competition by the surrounding "species matrix".

The authors argue that "To separate effects of competitive interactions from those of other species interactions, we would need the hypothesis that constituent species share an identical niche but differ in growth and competitive ability (i.e., absence of positive/negative interactions)." - I think the term interaction is not correctly used here, because clearly competition is an interaction, but the point made here is that this would be a zero-sum game.

We did not say that competition is not an interaction.

The authors use the ratio of productivity of partial density and full-density monocultures, divided by planting density, as a measure of "competitive growth response" (abbreviated as MG). This is the extra growth a plant individual produces when intraspecific competition is reduced.

Here, I see two issues: first, this rests on the assumption that there is only "one mode" of competition if two species use the same resources, which may not be true, because intraspecific and interspecific competition may differ. Of course, one can argue that then somehow "niches" are different, but such a niche definition would be very broad and go beyond the "resource set" perspective the authors adopt. Second, this value will heavily depend on timing and the relationship between maximum initial growth rates and competitive abilities at high stand densities.

True. Research findings indicate that biodiversity effect detected with AP is not constant.    

The authors then progress to define relative competitive ability (RC), and this time simply uses monoculture biomass as a measure of competitive ability. To express this biomass in a standardized way, they express it as different from the mean of the other species and then divide by the maximum monoculture biomass of all species.

I have two concerns here: first, if competitive ability is the capability of a species to preempt resources from a pool also accessed by another species, as the authors argued before, then this seems wrong because one would expect that a species can simply be more productive because it has a broader niche space that it exploits. This contradicts the very narrow perspective on competitive ability the authors have adopted. This also is difficult to reconcile with the idea that specialist species with a narrow niche would outcompete generalist species with a broad niche.

Competitive ability is not necessarily associated with species niche space. Both generalist and specialist species can be more productive at a particular study site, as long as they are more capable of obtaining resources from a local pool. Remember, biodiversity experiments are conducted at a site of particular conditions, not across a range of species niche space at landscape level.

Second, I am concerned by the mathematical form. Standardizing by the maximum makes the scaling dependent on a single value.

As explained in lines 370-376, the mathematical form is a linear approximation as the relationship between competitive growth responses and species relative competitive ability is generally unknow but would be likely nonlinear. Once the relationship is determined in future research, the scaling factor is not needed.    

As a final step, the authors calculate a "competitive expectation" for a species' biomass in the mixture, by scaling deviations from the expected yield by the product MG ⨯ RC. This would mean a species does better in a mixture when (1) it benefits most from a conspecific density reduction, and (2) has a relatively high biomass.

Put simply, the assumption would be that if a species is productive in monoculture (high RC), it effectively does not "see" the competitors and then grows like it would be the sole species in the community, i.e. like in the partial density monoculture.

Overall, I am not very convinced by the proposed method.

Comments on revised version:

Only minimal changes were made to the manuscript, and they do not address the main points that were raised.

Reviewer #2 (Public review):

This manuscript by Tao et al. reports on an effort to better specify the underlying interactions driving the effects of biodiversity on productivity in biodiversity experiments. The authors are especially concerned with the potential for competitive interactions to drive positive biodiversity-ecosystem functioning relationships by driving down the biomass of subdominant species. The authors suggest a new partitioning schema that utilizes a suite of partial density treatments to capture so-called competitive ability. While I agree with the authors that understanding the underlying drivers of biodiversity-ecosystem functioning relationships is valuable - I am unsure of the added value of this specific approach for several reasons.

No responses.

Comments on revised version:

The authors changed only one minor detail in response to the last round of reviews.

Reviewer #3 (Public review):

Summary:

This manuscript claims to provide a new null hypothesis for testing the effects of biodiversity on ecosystem functioning. It reports that the strength of biodiversity effects changes when this different null hypothesis is used. This main result is rather inevitable. That is, one expects a different answer when using a different approach. The question then becomes whether the manuscript's null hypothesis is both new and an improvement on the null hypothesis that has been in use in recent decades.

Our approach adopts two hypotheses, null hypothesis that is also with the additive partitioning model and competitive hypothesis that is new. Null hypothesis assumes that inter- and intra-specie interactions are the same, while competitive hypothesis assumes that species differ in competitive ability and growth rate. Therefore, our approach is an extension of current approach. Our approach separates effects of competitive interactions from those of other species interactions, while the current approach does not.      

Strengths:

In general, I appreciate studies like this that question whether we have been doing it all wrong and I encourage consideration of new approaches.

Weaknesses:

Despite many sweeping critiques of previous studies and bold claims of novelty made throughout the manuscript, I was unable to find new insights. The manuscript fails to place the study in the context of the long history of literature on competition and biodiversity and ecosystem functioning.

We have explained in our first responses that competition and biodiversity effects are studied in different experimental approaches, i.e., additive and replacement designs. Results from one approach are not compatible with those from the other. For example, competition effect with additive design is negative but generally positive with replacement design that is used extensively in biodiversity experiments. We have considered species competitive ability, density-growth relationship, and different effects of competitive interactions between additive and replacement design, while the current method does not reflect any of those.        

The Introduction claims the new approach will address deficiencies of previous approaches, but after reading further I see no evidence that it addresses the limitations of previous approaches noted in the Introduction. Furthermore, the manuscript does not reproducibly describe the methods used to produce the results (e.g., in Table 1) and relies on simulations, claiming experimental data are not available when many experiments have already tested these ideas and not found support for them.

We used simulation data, as partial density monocultures are generally not available in previous biodiversity experiments.

Finally, it is unclear to me whether rejecting the 'new' null hypothesis presented in the manuscript would be of interest to ecologists, agronomists, conservationists, or others.

Our null hypothesis is the same as the null hypothesis with the additive partitioning assuming that inter- and intra-species interactions are the same, while our competitive hypothesis assumes that species differ in competitive ability and growth rate. Rejecting null hypothesis means that inter- and intra-species interactions are different, whereas rejecting competitive hypothesis indicates existence of positive/negative species interactions. This would be interesting to everyone.       

Comments on revised version:

Please see review comments on the previous version of this manuscript. The authors have not revised their manuscript to address most of the issues previously raised by reviewers.

No responses.

Recommendations for the authors:

Reviewer #1 (Recommendations for the authors):

Do take reviews seriously. Even if you think the reviewers all are wrong and did not understand your work, then this seems to indicate that it was not clearly presented.

Reviewer #2 (Recommendations for the authors):

I can understand that the authors are perhaps frustrated with what they perceive as a basic misunderstanding of their goals and approach. This misunderstanding however, provides with it an opportunity to clarify. I believe that the authors have tried to clarify in rebutting our statements but would do better to clarify in the manuscript itself. If we reviewers, who are deeply invested in this field, don't understand the approach and its value, then it is likely that many readers will not as well.

The additive partitioning has been publicly questioned at least for serval times since the conception of the method in 2001. Our work provides an alternative.

Briefing Doc: Exploration des Techniques de Facilitation

Ce document synthétise les concepts clés et les méthodes de facilitation présentées dans le "Kit de Facilitation" (https://www.atelier-collaboratif.com/telechargements/kit-de-facilitation.pdf).

Thèmes Principaux:

Importance de la préparation:

Avant chaque atelier, une phase de réflexion est essentielle pour définir l'objectif, identifier les participants et les livrables attendus.

Il faut également anticiper les risques et les solutions possibles. Le "Kit" propose un plateau "ORGANISATION" pour structurer cette préparation (p.4).

Diversité des pratiques:

Le kit présente un éventail de "cartes pratiques" (p.5) classées selon leur niveau de difficulté (S'améliorer, Prioriser/Décider, Briser la glace, Générer des idées, etc.) et proposant des techniques variées pour chaque étape d'un atelier collaboratif.

Importance de l'intelligence collective: La plupart des techniques présentées visent à stimuler la participation active de tous, à encourager le partage d'idées, et à favoriser la co-construction de solutions. Idées et Faits Marquants:

Le rôle du facilitateur:

Le facilitateur joue un rôle central dans la réussite d'un atelier. Il guide le groupe, assure le bon déroulement des activités, et veille à créer un environnement propice à la collaboration.

L'utilisation d'outils visuels:

Des outils comme les post-it, les tableaux, les cartes, etc. sont fréquemment utilisés pour faciliter la visualisation des idées, la structuration des discussions, et la prise de décisions collective.

L'importance du feedback:

Plusieurs techniques (ex: ROTI Agile, Perfection Game) permettent de recueillir du feedback des participants, ce qui est crucial pour l'amélioration continue des ateliers. Exemples de Techniques et Citations:

La Rétrospective 4L (p. 6):

Permet de faire le bilan d'une activité en utilisant l'analogie d'une voiture. Les participants identifient sur des cartes "ce qui freine" (le vent) et "ce qui pousse" (le moteur).

Gommettocratie (p. 9):

Technique de priorisation simple et visuelle.

Les participants votent pour les idées qui les séduisent le plus en collant des gommettes.

Le Réseau Social en Papier (p. 11):

Un jeu ludique pour briser la glace et permettre aux participants de se connaître. World Café (p. 18): "Inventé en 2009 par Jim Benson et Jeremy Lightsmith".

Cette technique favorise le dialogue et l'échange d'idées sur plusieurs sujets en petits groupes.

Impact Mapping (p. 24):

Permet de "représenter visuellement les impacts et hypothèses de développement d'un produit".

Méthode du Point de Vue (POV) (p. 25):

"Le point de vue est la perception du problème vue par l'utilisateur." Cette méthode permet de se centrer sur les besoins des utilisateurs.

Conclusion:

Le "Kit de Facilitation" est une ressource précieuse pour tous ceux qui souhaitent animer des ateliers collaboratifs efficaces.

Il propose une grande variété de techniques et d'outils pour chaque étape du processus, de la préparation à la mise en œuvre des décisions.

Seductive analogy. Reminds me of Daniel Schmatchtenberger's Game A (civilizational problems of competition) and Game B (beyond competition) that creates a simple US vs. THEM for convening the like-minded activists, but not sure it accurately describes the virtual landscape well-enough for implementers seeking to develop and deploy new type(s) of competence.

Reviewer #1 (Public review):

Summary:

Zhang et al. addressed the question of whether advantageous and disadvantageous inequality aversion can be vicariously learned and generalized. Using an adapted version of the ultimatum game (UG), in three phases, participants first gave their own preference (baseline phase), then interacted with a "teacher" to learn their preference (learning phase), and finally were tested again on their own (transfer phase). The key measure is whether participants exhibited similar choice preferences (i.e., rejection rate and fairness rating) influenced by the learning phase, by contrasting their transfer phase and baseline phase. Through a series of statistical modeling and computational modeling, the authors reported that both advantageous and disadvantageous inequality aversion can indeed be learned (Study 1), and even be generalised (Study 2).

Strengths:

This study is very interesting, it directly adapted the lab's previous work on the observational learning effect on disadvantageous inequality aversion, to test both advantageous and disadvantageous inequality aversion in the current study. Social transmission of action, emotion, and attitude have started to be looked at recently, hence this research is timely. The use of computational modeling is mostly appropriate and motivated. Study 2, which examined the vicarious inequality aversion in conditions where feedback was never provided, is interesting and important to strengthen the reported effects. Both studies have proper justifications to determine the sample size.

Weaknesses:

Despite the strengths, a few conceptual aspects and analytical decisions have to be explained, justified, or clarified.

INTRODUCTION/CONCEPTUALIZATION<br /> (1) Two terms seem to be interchangeable, which should not, in this work: vicarious/observational learning vs preference learning. For vicarious learning, individuals observe others' actions (and optionally also the corresponding consequence resulting directly from their own actions), whereas, for preference learning, individuals predict, or act on behalf of, the others' actions, and then receive feedback if that prediction is correct or not. For the current work, it seems that the experiment is more about preference learning and prediction, and less so about vicarious learning. The intro and set are heavily around vicarious learning, and later the use of vicarious learning and preference learning is rather mixed in the text. I think either tone down the focus on vicarious learning, or discuss how they are different. Some of the references here may be helpful: Charpentier et al., Neuron, 2020; Olsson et al., Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 2020; Zhang & Glascher, Science Advances, 2020

EXPERIMENTAL DESIGN<br /> (2) For each offer type, the experiment "added a uniformly distributed noise in the range of (-10 ,10)". I wonder what this looks like? With only integers such as 25:75, or even with decimal points? More importantly, is it possible to have either 70:30 or 90:10 option, after adding the noise, to have generated an 80:20 split shown to the participants? If so, for the analyses later, when participants saw the 80:20 split, which condition did this trial belong to? 70:30 or 90:10? And is such noise added only to the learning phase, or also to the baseline/transfer phases? This requires some clarification.

(3) For the offer conditions (90:10, 70:30, 50:50, 30:70, 10:90) - are they randomized? If so, how is it done? Is it randomized within each participant, and/or also across participants (such that each participant experienced different trial sequences)? This is important, as the order especially for the learning phase can largely impact the preference learning of the participants.

STATISTICAL ANALYSIS & COMPUTATIONAL MODELING<br /> (4) In Study 1 DI offer types (90:10, 70:30), the rejection rate for DI-AI averse looks consistently higher than that for DI averse (ie, the blue line is above the yellow line). Is this significant? If so, how come? Since this is a between-subject design, I would not anticipate such a result (especially for the baseline). Also, for the LME results (eg, Table S3), only interactions were reported but not the main results.

(5) I do not particularly find this analysis appealing: "we examined whether participants' changes in rejection rates between Transfer and Baseline, could be explained by the degree to which they vicariously learned, defined as the change in punishment rates between the first and last 5 trials of the Learning phase." Naturally, the participants' behavior in the first 5 trials in the learning phase will be similar to those in the baseline; and their behavior in the last 5 trials in the learning phase would echo those at the transfer phase. I think it would be stronger to link the preference learning results to the change between the baseline and transfer phase, eg, by looking at the difference between alpha (beta) at the end of the learning phase and the initial alpha (beta).

(6) I wonder if data from the baseline and transfer phases can also be modeled, using a simple Fehr-Schimdt model. This way, the change in alpha/beta can also be examined between the baseline and transfer phase.

(7) I quite liked Study 2 which tests the generalization effect, and I expected to see an adapted computational modeling to directly reflect this idea. Indeed, the authors wrote, "[...] given that this model [...] assumes the sort of generalization of preferences between offer types [...]". But where exactly did the preference learning model assume the generalization? In the methods, the modeling seems to be only about Study 1; did the authors advise their model to accommodate Study 2? The authors also ran simulation for the learning phase in Study 2 (Figure 6), and how did the preference update (if at all) for offers (90:10 and 10:90) where feedback was not given? Extending/Unpacking the computational modeling results for Study 2 will be very helpful for the paper.