Culture

In the movie Pi, there are several scenes where the movie’s protagonist takes a break from his work to visit his teacher and mentor. During these visits, they play an ancient asian game called Go. Basically, the Go board has a grid and some black and white stones. The rules of Go are incredibly simple, yet mastering the game is a lifelong, and sometimes life-consuming, effort. Indeed, the game is much more than just a game to its devoted players. Some people kill themselves when they lose. Some do it for a living. Some people even believe that it could save our public education system. For others, it represents the Holy Grail of computing (as it is incredibly difficult to program). Pi was originally supposed to pit student and mentor against each other in a game of chess, but they changed it to Go, and the movie benefits greatly. For Go reflects the common themes of the movie; Go represents a certain synthesis between spiritual and rational life…[thanks alt-log]

In yesterday’s exercise, we saw that thinking outside the box was important, but that certainly doesn’t mean thinking inside the box isn’t important. It is often useful to quickly classify someone or something based on a small set of criteria which may or may not give an accurate description of said person. Its very similar to the information filtering Umberto Eco spoke about in that interview I posted a while back. In certain situations, we absolutely must revert to simple mental models just to filter all the information coming in to us. It doesn’t matter how imperfect that filter is, we just need something or else we won’t accomplish anything. I’m also fascinated by the ingenuity of people who are forced to think within a box (and the ways they work around it). My favourite example is Isaac Asimov’s 3 Laws of Robotics:

1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
2. A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where those orders would conflict with the First Law.
3. A robot must protect its own existence except where such protection would conflict with the First and Second Law.

In Asimov’s Robot Novels, he figured out all sorts of clever ways to work around those rules he created. In pushing the limits of the 3 Laws, Asimov was not only working within a box, but also making it an enjoyable experience for the reader. Of course, later in the series, Asimov begins to think outside the box and expands his scope a little, but that doesn’t make his 3 Laws obsolete, just more impressive.

A simple exercise:
The circle to the right represents a pie. Your goal is to cut this pie into 8 pieces using only three lines. Have at it!.

Solution (swipe text below):

The trick to figuring this out is thinking three-dimensionally. First, quarter the circle with two lines (or slices, if you will). Then remember that there is a third dimension that cannot be seen in the picture. If you were to cut along that axis, you would have 8 pieces of pie!

DyREnet has some useful tips for better living. Samæl’s extremely happy with his new Houseplant, while Spencer was let down by her Papermate-Comfort Mate, medium ball, black ink, click-action, writing pen after years of support. DyREnet also has some new and spiffy random taglines. Some of my favourites include: “Still legal in sixteen states.”, “no Subliminal mEssages eXistant here”, “We’re not quite the downfall of man, but we’re trying.”, and “The masses have spoken; we just didn’t listen.” Keep it up, DyRE, and I’ll have to kill you.

Uh, well, maybe not.

Theseus and the Minotaur, an addictive java applet game that is also quite difficult. Theres also a history of Theseus and the Minotaur Mazes and other (easier) mazes. [thanks to eatonweb]

Umberto Eco is a professor of semiotics, philosophy and literature at the University of Bologna in Italy, and he is well known for his academic publications as well as popular fiction such as The Name of the Rose and Foucault’s Pendulum (which I am currently reading). In this interview, Eco discusses the Internet, information overload and filtering, hypertext , hypermedia and virtual reality. He was very open minded and articulate in his descriptions and criticism of the internet and information filtering, especially given that the internet was not very developed at the time.

“I am not saying that Internet is, or will be a negative experience. I am saying on the contrary that it is a great chance. Once we have asserted this, I am trying to isolate the possible traps; the possible negative aspects.”

Much time is spent discussing information filtering, and why it is necessary to go about such things and how it becomes difficult on a system like the internet because the amount of options is often overwhelming (like going to google and typing Umberto Eco and getting back 61,200 results). Another topic is communities on the internet. He is enthusiastic at the possibilities but he adds that the information still must be filtered. You must choose which posts and authors you wish to read, and we often choose them randomly, but if we had a filter we could know which posts are important and which are crap. Regardless, he likes the idea of finding new ideas and perspectives through the internet community. “Is that a substitute for face-to-face contact and community? No, it isn’t!” Fascinating stuff.

Check out The Window, for role playing the way it should be (“simple, usable, and universal”). The Three Precepts on which it is based are solid and actually contribute to the storytelling aspects of RPGs (as evidenced in the third precept: “A good story is the central goal.” ) Check it out, I found it fascinating (and I don’t even play RPGs anymore). In fact, some of those ideas there have inspired me to perhaps create a different form of Tandem Story…

Yes, today is twelve eighteen. What, you may ask, is twelve eighteen? Well, its one two one eight. Before you ask, one two one eight is twelve eighteen. What the hell does this have to do with anything? Everything, of course. Chaos theorists have pondered those stories carefully (specifically the Yankee Stadium incident and the mathematics of 1218), and some believe them to be central in gaining the necessary understanding of the universe.

Ever wonder what the airlines do with your luggage? Sure, they claim 97% of lost luggage are returned to their rightful owners within 24 hours and another 1.5% within 2 days, but what about the remaining 1.5%? Well, after 6 weeks, they sell it (and going by the percentages, this works out to be somewhere around 435, 000 bags). Apparently most of the lost bags end up in a small Alabama town at the Unclaimed Baggage Center, where they, in turn, sell the contents of the lost bags at discount prices. In case you don’t feel like hopping on a plane to visit Alabama (what would you do with your luggage?), you can always visit their webpage and buy stuff online.

Pudding-Factory Disaster Brings Slow, Creamy Death to Town Below: This article ran a while ago, but I think its the funniest thing I have ever read over at The Onion. An exerpt: “Sweet, creamy death swept through this small Illinois town Monday… burying hundreds of residents in a rich, smooth tidal wave of horrifying pudding goodness.” Priceless descriptions of the tragic, tragic horror of the delectably Choco-Licious™ death-pudding.