Patreon Exclusive Prototype: PEEPS
Added 2017-09-30 16:39:21 +0000 UTCFinally, the first of a series of prototypes I'm making this+next month! This one's a Patreon exclusive, just for y'all~
...also because it's too embarrassingly unfinished for me to make it public yet. But hey, it's not a real prototype if it doesn't embarrass me just a little.
PEEPS: http://ncase.me/peeps-wip/
Let me know what you think! What did you like, or not like? What concerns do you have about this project? What would you like to do/make with this toy/tool? Thank you all so, so much again. :)
<3, Nicky
P.S: It's the end of the month, so for $5+/mo patrons, here's your Polygon Avatar reward! Will be emailing out the Custom Drawn Peep rewards soon.
Comments
If you find out, let me know! For now I'm attending local gaming stores and making liberal use of meetup.com. Churches can also be good for this, if you can find a good one.
James Harris
2017-10-08 23:11:15 +0000 UTCThanks Gerrit! Those are all great ideas. I especially like 3) being able to simulate how a system reacts to *external* shocks. Pretty much all my simulations so far only show "internal" dynamics, which are super cool, but still not the full story
Nicky Case
2017-10-08 14:19:54 +0000 UTCthis is interesting, and not embarassing at all. I'd like to play around with the following "twitches" in the simulation: 1) switching two peeps, and both sticking by a decreasing percentage to their current hat, and assimilating by a growing percentage to the surrounding fashion, 2) peeps changing their perception on social environment (puberty, growind old & weird, whatever) and doing the opposite of their friends, 3) sudden strong external impulses with "regional" effect (some rock star coming to town wearing the other kind of hat, with tenfold influence that regular friends, etc.
Gerrit Essmann
2017-10-06 22:58:46 +0000 UTCCongrats on the new job at Patreon, Cathy! :D And thanks for the link + suggestions. And yeah re-wiring the peeps is a big thing that I haven't figured out how to design a UI for yet -- maybe "draw" the connections between peeps?
Nicky Case
2017-10-06 12:37:26 +0000 UTCalso, some feedback (apologies for the lack of line breaks, b/c i don't know how to format these comments): 1. i love the simplicity, i think it's already very interesting without adding a lot of new features and dynamics. 2. what's the 'drag the peeps' instruction for? it's very visually prominent, but the peeps just bounce back. it'd potentially be cool to be able to rewire the peep relationships, but that could also get v complicated. 3. i was initially confused by the 'pops' and why they happened to one peep at a time - it seems like it represents individuals checking their friends and determining if they need a new hat, but it took me a while to figure that out. maybe some intuitive explanation would be nice. 4. when you launch, it'd be cool to have a couple interesting pre-set examples to go through, rather than completely relying on exploration. I just feel like there are so many interesting scenarios I'd probably never think to check myself!
Cathy Deng
2017-10-05 22:54:34 +0000 UTChi - first time commenter here. i'm pretty new to patreon (though I'll be working there soon eep) and wow i'm just marveling at how radical it is to share unpolished work and solicit feedback from fans. so cool. anyways, your work reminds me of a piece I just read, on points of leverage in a system (you've prob already seen it b/c it's totally up your alley, but sharing just in case): <a href="http://donellameadows.org/archives/leverage-points-places-to-intervene-in-a-system/" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">http://donellameadows.org/archives/leverage-points-places-to-intervene-in-a-system/</a> it talks about how the ability to write rules is so powerful, tl;dr i think it's very cool that you're building stuff that shows people how powerful rules are.
Cathy Deng
2017-10-05 22:38:17 +0000 UTCThanks! And ooh, visualizing real-world personal data, hm....
Nicky Case
2017-10-05 22:09:43 +0000 UTCThank you! Also yeah those are great ideas: I especially like the idea of peeps with various levels of influence/prestige, and using real-world data.
Nicky Case
2017-10-05 22:08:11 +0000 UTCOoh, I really like that idea of peeps with different levels of "prestige", or "influence"! Sandy Pentland from MIT's done some good empirical research on that, maybe I could borrow that. Also yeah whoops thanks for catching that mouse bug!
Nicky Case
2017-10-05 22:07:01 +0000 UTCAck, thanks for catching that problem! Yeah if you release the mouse outside of that inner frame, the simulation doesn't "hear" you releasing the mouse, so it thinks you're still holding on :/
Nicky Case
2017-10-05 22:06:02 +0000 UTCAlso as someone who's moved a bunch of times: how the hell does one make friends as an adult, in a new city? how do i adult help
Nicky Case
2017-10-05 22:04:44 +0000 UTCThanks! :)
Nicky Case
2017-10-05 22:03:46 +0000 UTCOh that's a super cool idea! Definitely will implement that. Thanks Nick! :)
Nicky Case
2017-10-05 22:03:42 +0000 UTC1) You're totally right: the *structure* of the network impacts the results dramatically! (maybe that would be interesting to show, directly: two different simulations with the *exact same rules*, but slightly different connections, resulting in totally different consequences) 2) Yeah it's pseudo-random!
Nicky Case
2017-10-05 22:03:21 +0000 UTCYeah, I think you need multiple rules to do what you want to do (Parable of the Polygons needed multiple rules to create a "balancing" population). Coming up with a non-programmer way to "program" this will be the really hard part!
Nicky Case
2017-10-05 22:01:24 +0000 UTCDefinitely! In the full PEEPS, one should be able to lay out the network *as well as* "program" it :)
Nicky Case
2017-10-05 22:00:17 +0000 UTC"Cycles" would actually be really interesting to model! They're a staple of ecological models (e.g. predator-prey models). Having a "maverick" element could be a simple way to show how we get cycles, emerging from the bottom up, in both politics and fashion. (maybe this hints, sadly, that politics is becoming more like fashion) Hm... food for thought!
Nicky Case
2017-10-05 21:59:25 +0000 UTCThanks Kevin! And yeah, thanks for noticing, this basically *is* the inverse of Schelling's model! (Schelling's mechanism was social SELECTION, while this model is social INFLUENCE) also +1 hat-hipster modeling. the ecological dynamics of things becoming too mainstream
Nicky Case
2017-10-05 21:56:22 +0000 UTCMuch of my thinking is covered above, and I'm not sure what the actual mathematical implementation of this would be; political and social discourse is pushed by inertia, and counter-inertia, which is what your simulation facets. But the simulation involves a sort of micro-inertia, or localized, or short-time-frame or however one wants to put it, and it would be interesting, I think, to add a longer cyclical nature to it. Fez come in every 30 years, after all. Likewise, populations get older, become more conservative, but the number of people in the population varies, and thus there is a cyclical nature to politics even though it doesn't look that way from cursory glance. I guess, to some extent, the simple addition of a "maverick" element would do this the same way that mistakes made the game of reciprocity so interesting in your earlier simulation. By default, 99.9% of people wouldn't wear a fez until they saw *somebody* do it, and then, a year later, they're everywhere again. But this is super-dashed off. So I apologize for leaving a thought that is useless practically speaking.
Daniel
2017-10-04 12:42:06 +0000 UTCNice! :) I wish I could choose myself the initial quantity of cowboy hats and Fez hats and also their location. For example if they are in the center or at the edge.
Dina Dreams
2017-10-03 15:30:23 +0000 UTCNicky - Wonderful, as always. You're doing great work. Honestly, this would be great to release as it is. But here are some thoughts that you should feel free to take or leave. This is basically the inverse of the Schelling segregation model where people can change their social location but not their type. That's awesome! It might be too much, but you might imagine this is a option, where you could have people either change their "hat" or their friends. Or, even more radically, both but with different probabilities. Second, in the Schelling model, things get really interesting when you have people with the following types of preferences: "I don't want a homogeneous neighborhood." So, if they are in a completely homogeneous neighborhood, you switch to the other type. If you included that it might be interesting, but obviously would get completely different results. Personally, I think this later model is a nice example of fads or fashion, where you get some benefit from being different. It's the hat-hipster game!
Kevin Zollman
2017-10-02 14:43:13 +0000 UTCNice idea, and I had fun playing with it. I tried to create a "society of fair people", for example, who wanted to rebalance the local hat population (too many of type X, I switch to a not-X instead). Couldn't quite manage it, I'd need multiple rules I think. I like the ideas you have - a more sophisticated visual rules editor, for example. As I was trying it out a couple of things occurred: (1) some things only seem to happen slowly, so a speed up/down bar might be useful, and (2) some effects might happen cyclically (numbers of hat type X vs Y cycle up and down over time) so it might be cool to have a strip chart showing how the numbers are evolving over time.
Clive Freeman
2017-10-02 12:41:32 +0000 UTCYou make stuff look so nice
Yeow Wei
2017-10-02 05:53:07 +0000 UTCCrazy idea: Log in with your Facebook account, PEEPS analyses your Facebook interactions to build a network. Then run the hat swapping simulation on it.
Yeow Wei
2017-10-02 05:52:48 +0000 UTCyeah i have the same issue with the dragging thing too. Chrome latest version, Windows 10.
Yeow Wei
2017-10-02 05:51:20 +0000 UTCAs in, <a href="http://ncase.me/loopy/v2/" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">http://ncase.me/loopy/v2/</a> -> 404 makes me weep every day. Is there a middle road between supergluing Nicky to a Tier 3 workstation at the Loopy Legacy Support Hotline and vainly wishing for the GitGods to GitGoin'?
jim tobias
2017-10-01 11:16:46 +0000 UTCFinally, the meta-meta level! I'd like a way to authoritatively, accountably influence development. That sounds creepy but it could be fun, and even profitable. I guess a bounty system with voting and price tags would work. And there could be a jeopardy: "I offer $50 for this feature, but if it's not implemented in 6 weeks I'm cutting my Patreon support by 50%." Plutocracy effect: Patron X can foot the bill for a feature out of pocket; Patron Y has to find/convince 9 others to cover the cost. (Real-world dynamics, yo!)
jim tobias
2017-10-01 11:07:02 +0000 UTCMoving on to the meta-features. I'd like to be able to import a spreadsheet of peeps, with their characteristics and relationships. I'd like to be able to tweak more variables. I'd like peeps to accumulate experiences before changing: 'the 3rd time you bump into X, become X'. I'd like things that show a contrast/tension between the 'inner peep' and the 'outer peep', and offer ways to address that tension. (OK, maybe getting too deep here...?)
jim tobias
2017-10-01 10:56:28 +0000 UTCHow about media effects? It's not only personal contacts that change attitudes/behavior. What would a fez manufacturer do (aside from installing fez dispensers everywhere)?
jim tobias
2017-10-01 10:40:51 +0000 UTCI'd like to see something that reflects opinion leadership; we don't evaluate everyone's hat choices equivalently. This could be a static quality, or reflect some kind of multi-run reputational dynamic -- peeps who 'get things right' more often become leaders and affect their their neighbors' behavior more.
jim tobias
2017-10-01 10:38:47 +0000 UTCBig e-fan-gelist, esp. among my cohort of older folks, long-time users of Logo and other simulation tools. So please keep it up!
jim tobias
2017-10-01 10:29:23 +0000 UTCGood job, this has a lot of potential!! Some tips: 1. The evaluation seems a bit random at this moment, as you're taking the peeps one by one. Maybe you could evaluate them in the form of a sweeping, so it makes more sense to the user? Or allow the user to change the speed of the evaluation. 2. It would make sense to me if peeps would tend to change their friendships once they are dragged into another place. This occurs in real life too: when you change the environment, you make new friends, but you interact less with your old friend. Also, at this moment, when you drag a peep from one place to the other, the entire group seems to be dragged after him. This kind of migrations rarely happen in real life. 3. It would be interesting if peeps would have a popularity level. In real life, a famous actor would influence more people that a farmer, right? But you can only influence your friends... and an popular person is not really one that has many friends, but one that is in the center of attention. So maybe another option would be to replace the "friend" concept (which is a bidirectional arc between two individuals) with the "follower" concept (an unidirectional arc between two individuals). So one can influence those that follow him, but he may not be necessarily influenced by them. Also having problems with the drag %, since it would release if it goes past the inner frame. And I cannot change with more than ~12% in a single drag, so if I want to change it by more than that, I have to make multiple drags . Firefox, latest version, Window 10
AndrewRS
2017-10-01 09:14:12 +0000 UTCThe click and drag % selectors won't release. I click and drag and then when I release, it stays synced to my mouse. Chrome, latest version, macOS.
Joshua Dance
2017-09-30 22:50:26 +0000 UTCAs someone who's moved a bunch of times, I think it would be great if dragging a peep away from his old friends and into a new group of people would result in his friendships changing a little. :-)
James Harris
2017-09-30 21:47:34 +0000 UTCThis may be too complex, but it would be interesting to have conditions for when connections are created and severed. Like shunning a former peer for sending the wrong signal and making new connections through existing connections and random chance. Already very cool as is though!
Nick
2017-09-30 20:00:48 +0000 UTCLooks like a good start. Looking forward to seeing this fleshed out more.
Nickolai Belakovski
2017-09-30 18:44:54 +0000 UTCI think that‘s a great idea to demonstrate these networking effects of people and how they behave in somehow connected groups. My two initial reactions are: 1 I somehow thought I would be able to draw the network myself. Maybe that‘s something that would be interesting? My gut reaction is that the structure of the network has a big impact on how this plays out. So any conclusion should have this in mind. But I might as well be wrong. That would be interesting for me to play with. 2 I didn’t get if there was a specific order on how these peeps evaluate their neighbors. Was that random? Is this intended? Does it have specific effects if the order is different?
Erikmitk
2017-09-30 18:00:12 +0000 UTCThank you! :)
Nicky Case
2017-09-30 16:52:01 +0000 UTCLove your efforts to create an accessible way to make these vignettes -- inspirational.
Justin
2017-09-30 16:51:29 +0000 UTC
