Each game should be finishable within an hour.
The Company of Myself
https://www.kongregate.com/games/2DArray/the-company-of-myself
Sad philosophical game about a loner.
Missed Message
https://zephyo.itch.io/missed-message
Interactive fiction. Depression, cyclic day, suicide, lesbianism... also 2018 memes.
Fixation
https://www.kongregate.com/games/2DArray/fixation
Prequel to The Company of Myself. Has comics as transitions. Even sadder.
Viricide
https://www.kongregate.com/games/2DArray/viricide
An AI talks about someone of their lifestory. The AI might be depressed just like their programmer.
Friday, June 28, 2019
Sunday, June 9, 2019
Geometry quickie: volume of a tetrahedron
I saw this formula on Wikipedia for the volume of tetrahedron and was intrigued.
(I write it as "wolog" and pronounce as "volog", as if it's a German adverb. So that I can write "We assume wolog that...", "... and thus wolog we have...")
How would a true geometer approach this problem? She would first do a dimension analysis. The volume has dimension $meter^3$, and the lengths have dimension $meter$, so it ought to look like
$$Volume = k \cdot AB \cdot CD \cdot h$$
where $h$ is the distance between the two skew lines of $AB$ and $CD$, and $k$ is some dimensionless number yet to be determined.
Any two opposite edges of a tetrahedron lie on two skew lines, and the distance between the edges is defined as the distance between the two skew lines. Let $d$ be the distance between the skew lines formed by opposite edges...then it gave a volume formula. I want to derive it. This post gives my thought process, where I keep using the trick of reducing a general problem to a good example. This is a general strategy for solving problems, often written as "wlog".
(I write it as "wolog" and pronounce as "volog", as if it's a German adverb. So that I can write "We assume wolog that...", "... and thus wolog we have...")
How would a true geometer approach this problem? She would first do a dimension analysis. The volume has dimension $meter^3$, and the lengths have dimension $meter$, so it ought to look like
$$Volume = k \cdot AB \cdot CD \cdot h$$
where $h$ is the distance between the two skew lines of $AB$ and $CD$, and $k$ is some dimensionless number yet to be determined.
Thursday, May 30, 2019
Let's Read: Jorge Luis Borges's Dreamtigers
In this post, we summarize every single entry in Dreamtigers (Borges, 1964). We also add commentaries on particularly obscure references.
Dreamtigers, first published in 1960 as El Hacedor ("The Maker"), is a collection of poems, short essays, and literary sketches by the Argentine author Jorge Luis Borges. Divided fairly evenly between prose and verse, the collection examines the limitations of creativity.
Let's Read: A Problem
In this post, we read through Borges's story A Problem, which is about Don Quixote, a story written by Cervantes:
The story follows the adventures of a nobleman named Alonso Quixano who reads so many knightly stories that he goes insane and decides to become a knight-errant, reviving chivalry and serving his country, under the name Don Quixote de la Mancha. He recruits a simple farmer, Sancho Panza, as his squire.His name means "Don Quixote, of la Mancha". La Mancha is a region in central Spain, where Don Quixote lived in.
A Problem
Jorge Luis Borges
Let's read: Dead Men's Dialogue
In this post we read through Borges's story Dead Men's Dialogue, which, other than the usual kind of maddening riddles that writers play, where they only say half of what is said, and I have to fill in the other half, is extra hard to read for me because it is full of references to South American history that I don't know.
So I'll fill in all the blanks here.
Dead Men’s Dialogue
Jorge Luis Borges
Tuesday, May 7, 2019
A story of an eusocial human species: Antman
This is a sketch of a eusocial human species modelled on ants. Let's call this species Antman.
The Antman has 3 castes: Workers, Soldiers, Researchers. Most of them are specialized, but a few are generalists who act as synthesizers and communicators between specialized areas.
Some of the generalists also act as temporary leaders, but there are no formally elected leaders.
An Antman society unit is a nest. The size of a nest depends on the local geography, but usually would grow up to that of a big modern city. The size is a balance between economy of scale, which favors bigness, and speed of moving things around inside, which favors smallness. Nearby nests usually cooperate very closely, more than a modern state.
The Antman has 3 castes: Workers, Soldiers, Researchers. Most of them are specialized, but a few are generalists who act as synthesizers and communicators between specialized areas.
Some of the generalists also act as temporary leaders, but there are no formally elected leaders.
An Antman society unit is a nest. The size of a nest depends on the local geography, but usually would grow up to that of a big modern city. The size is a balance between economy of scale, which favors bigness, and speed of moving things around inside, which favors smallness. Nearby nests usually cooperate very closely, more than a modern state.
Thursday, May 2, 2019
The binomial numbers, the Rule 60 celluar automata, and the Sierpinski triangle
Consider the pattern of the parity of the binomial numbers. Color the even numbers white and odd numbers black. You get a Sierpinski Triangle.
We will prove this using spacetime-geometric reasoning. It would help a lot if you have done some geometry of special relativity.
Define the parity function $f(t, n) = C(t, n) \mod 2$, defined on $\mathbb{N}\times\mathbb{Z}$.
We can consider $f(t, n)$ as encoding a 1-d celluar automata, with $t \ge 0, n \in \mathbb{Z}$. Then we have the evolution rule:
$$ f(t+1, n) = f(t, n) + f(t, n-1) \mod 2$$
This is just the Rule 60 celluar automata.
Then it's easy to prove the following:
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