25 MAR 2022 by ideonexus
How Games Influence Strategic Culture
Rules define many of the ways a player or team can achieve the primary goal in a given game. For example, because American football requires teams to advance the ball a certain distance over a series of downs or give up the initiative, the game evolves as a series of set-piece plays. Soccer, in contrast, is far more fluid, with virtually continuous activity throughout the game. Soccer and American football do share one common rule in that both last a standardized period (albeit with opportuni...17 OCT 2021 by ideonexus
Know Then Thyself
Know then thyself, presume not God to scan,
The proper study of mankind is Man.
Placed on this isthmus of a middle state,
A being darkly wise and rudely great:
With too much knowledge for the Sceptic side,
With too much weakness for the Stoic’s pride,
He hangs between, in doubt to act or rest;
In doubt to deem himself a God or Beast;
In doubt his mind or body to prefer;
Born but to die, and reas’ning but to err;
Alike in ignorance, his reason such,
Whether he thinks too little or too much...Folksonomies: empiricism understanding
Folksonomies: empiricism understanding
16 OCT 2021 by ideonexus
Sports are Minimaxed to the Point of Boredom and Predicta...
Outcome maximalization across sports has created "smarter" games with less variety and more all-or-nothing play. The fixation with quantifiable success can lead to a collective flattening of the human experience. Perhaps we need to include more randomness in the game. Each home field or home court should have distinctive features, different playing surfaces, or outdoor elements. Think of how fun the wrigley field ivy is, or the boston green wall. Maybe put a dog or cat on the playing field.
...Basketball players only take 3-point and slamdunk shots based on science. Baseball players no longer steal bases. Science has made sports boring.
14 OCT 2021 by ideonexus
Temple of Reason 2/2
At the foot of the mountain, pure water flowed from a spring, falling by various cascades; twelve men dressed as mountaineers, armed with pikes and with civic crowns on their heads, were hidden in caverns in the mountain; as the procession arrived, singing the last couplet of the Marseillaise, the mountaineers quietly came out of their caverns without fully revealing themselves, and when “Aux armes, citoyens” was sung, they ran to get axes to defend their retreat, posted themselves on di...27 JAN 2021 by ideonexus
Japanese Thumb Game
In this game, all players start by holding out both fists. One player starts the action by yelling “1, 2” (to get the other players ready) and then another number, which is his guess. Right after he yells “2” each player sticks up either 1 thumb, 2 thumbs, or no thumbs. The active player is trying to guess how many total thumbs (including his own) will be up. If he is wrong, the next player takes his turn. If he is right, he removes one of his hands from the game and takes another tur...Folksonomies: games
Folksonomies: games
19 DEC 2020 by ideonexus
Chess as Recursive Evaluative Hunting
In chess, concentration usually unfolds in quick succession through perceiving, desiring and searching. But it’s recursive, so I often find something I didn’t expect in a way that leads me to see my position differently and want something else from it. My perception is pre-patterned through years of experience, so I don’t see one square or piece at a time. Instead, I see the whole position as a situation featuring relationships between pieces in familiar strategic contexts; a castled ki...09 NOV 2019 by ideonexus
Variable Ratio Schedule for Getting Kids Addicted to Boar...
In light of the above, here’s a solid Variable Ratio Schedule for playing board games with your kid:
the first time you play a particular game, let the kid win.
thereafter, let the kid win some of the time. 60% of the time is good to start (you can dial it down slowly as the kid improves if you want).
make the sequence of wins and losses as random as possible.
critically, make the outcome as close as you can every time, especially when the kid loses. She should always feel like she bare...10 MAR 2019 by ideonexus
AI Can't Tell You Why It Did Something
The problem comes when the database and the engine go from )ach to oracle. It happens quite often that I will ask one of the students about a move from one of their games, and why he made it. If the move comes early on, the answer is almost always, "Because that's the nain line." That is, that's the theoretical move in the database, likely 5layed by many Grandmasters before. Sometimes the move isn't thery, but the student prepared it with the help of an engine, so the anwer is similar: "It's ...Folksonomies: artificial intelligence
Folksonomies: artificial intelligence
10 MAR 2019 by ideonexus
Outboard Brain
Following in the grand tradition of nearly every new technology, nobody started to panic about the potential downsides of cognitive outsourcing until kids starting doing it, and doing it in ways that their parents didn't understand. They type with their thumbs in ugly slang and funny symbols. They have short attention spans. They can't remember their own phone numbers. They spend more time on social media than they did with their friends irl (that's "in real life," my daughter tells me). They...10 MAR 2019 by ideonexus