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| kirkjerkfirewerk |
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kirkjerkfirewerk - source - built with processing Just a little something I banged together for the fourth (that's supposed to be a 4 if it's not obvious...) You can either admire the 4s or use the mouse to draw and use it like a sparkler... Happy Fourth of July! |
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| wedding in chicago |
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Congratulations Lex and Michi! |
| let's make a deal |
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Boingboing linked to a new free eBook on probability...
in their writeup, the mention the Monty Hall problem. 3 doors... goats are behind 2 of them, and a new car behind the third. The player picks a door. Monty then opens one of the doors, revealing a goat. Should the player switch doors? (Assume an equal chance for the 3 doors to hold a car, and that Monty will pick one of the 2 goat doors at random if the player has already picked the car.)
The article mentioned that Marilyn vos Savant "encouraged her readers to simulate the game and draw their own conclusions"... Well, here's a simulation! You can modify the speed to run lots of simulations, "Wargames"-finale style. You can select always switch, never switch, or some probability of switching. |
| chicago photos - random |
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Some very random photos from a recent trip to Chicago: Chicago doesn't wait for the 4th to have fireworks: 
Carousel at the Navy Pier: 
Finally, a billboard from a "coming soon" storefront at that big Woodfield Mall in Schaumberg: 
Why is it here? Well...I've never liked cursive letters much. It's always so awkward, how every letter is supposed to end in a way that the next one can pick up without a break. And 'z' is one of the worst. It's like some guy was assigned the task of coming up with uppercase and lowercase cursive letters for the whole alphabet, had some that came out ok, a few flops (like G and Q especially) and is THIS close to being finished...one left to go...z...'gah, I have no idea,' he thinks, 'whatever....a little squiggle, a twist, a loop....DONE! I'm calling it a day.' |
| in the land of cleves (backlog flush #48) |
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| go fourth and multiply |
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Man, few things irritate me so much as a loss of 'Net connectivity at home. It strikes both my "technical things should just work" nerve as well as the frustration of losing access with the outside world. I mean, I had to dial "411" today from home, for cryin' out loud. Ramble and Article of the Moment I have so few celbratory plans today it's a little pathetic. Maybe I should hunt up a nice municiple display, or maybe I should brave going down to Cambridge for the big show? I dunno. But Slate.com had a piece on the military using 'virtual world' games to help figure the social dynamics of places like Iraq. So (though it's just a turn based wargame and not an online virtual world) by playing by new gameboy game Advanced Wars 2 I figure I'm doing my Fourthly patriotic duty. Quote of the Moment "The first rule of magic is simple. Don't waste your time waving your hands and hoping when a rock or a club will do." --McCloctnik the Lucid |
| go fourth |
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Go fourth and celebrate! Hope everyone has a happy and safe one... Games of the Moment 
Chronic Logic has two "real physics" games for download: "Triptych" (shown) is a variation on the Tetris-esque match the colors game, but with blocks that jiggle and rebound and have regular and rotational intertia. They also have "Pontifex", a difficult game where you try to build a bridge across various chasms, tough enough to survive 4 train crossings. I'm a pretty bad bridge maker, but it's pretty amusing watching those trains go in the drink. These games might require fairly high powered computers, I'm not sure.
Quote of the Moment "If you ask me, this country could do with a little less motivation. The people who are causing all the trouble seem highly motivated to me. Serial killers, stock swindlers, drug dealers, Christian Republicans. I'm not sure that motivation is always a good thing. You show me a lazy prick lying in bed all day watching TV, and I'll show you a guy who's not causing any trouble." --George Carlin |
| honeymoon filler day 3 |
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Dialogue of Soul & Stone I was talking to a rock and I said, "Stone"- I talk to them like that-I said, "what makes people feel extraneous?" To which the rock in its own idiom replied, "Extraneous's ass! You think you got it bad. Try igneous extrusion. Try a little freeze and thaw. Try glaciation. Stand out in the weather for ten thousand years. We'll talk extraneous." One thing about rocks: they cut you half an inch of slack but never. That's why guys like me idealize them. I said, "Sage"- I laid it on a little thick, this rock I'm talking to, it's not much bigger than a Chiclet, but I don't want to give offense- so I said, "Sage, what should the human species do?" To which the rock said nothing, but he got that look. You know: they're thinking to themselves, "Drop dead." --Brooks Haxton |