The Economist: War Games as Pentagon Simulations

I played an excellent evening of board games not too long ago, and I was prompted to dig up this short but interesting article about wargaming:

http://www.economist.com/news/united-states/21599016-understand-war-american-officials-are-playing-board-games-war-games

This is a practice that hearkens back to the elite of ancient India, where the future military leaders of the Gupta Empire honed their skills on a recognizable predecessor of modern (Western) chess. The game was adopted by the Persians, the Islamic caliphate, and made its way into Europe. There were other, similar games, such as Chinese chess and the Scandinavian hnefatafl (sometimes called "Viking chess"), but none that achieved the international cachet that chess enjoys (the former is a more regional pastime, and the latter is practically extinct). "The sport of kings," as chess was often called, became a status symbol across many civilizations; skill at the game required not only a modicum of natural talent, but also much training, which was usually only accessible to those with the leisure to pursue it. It was only natural that most chess masters of old belonged to the military elite and ruling classes.

Modern wargaming adheres to much the same logic. It is a common pastime for ordinary citizens, to be sure, but it uses the same set of skills that chess was meant to hone in princes and generals. It stands to reason that the Pentagon would commission its own wargames -- now we have only to wait for them to appear in stores. One wonders: has military strategy been, like many other educational topics, been democratized?

Cover-a-Week #37: "Ivory Tower" from Tripod versus the Dragon

This is my favorite song from the musical comedy Tripod versus the Dragon, which I recently watched at the behest of my friend Deb:


http://youtu.be/e_vkU6ZOI9w

It's a clever musical about Dungeons and Dragons, and it has some great songs. What's not to love?

(Also, I look particularly bewildered in the still frame...)

Upgo.info, a Parody

Upgo is a project I did with some friends while in California last week. It was a Christmas present for a friend of ours who founded a startup, is an impressive Go player, and has an affinity for all things Japanese. The premise basically arose from someone's attempt to give me the quick-and-dirty description of this friend's startup -- I thought it sounded like The Hunger Games for software engineers. Ergo, we decided to film a parody startup video:


http://youtu.be/v_1Cj0jQ9IQ

We did it over the course of one night in Lucas's living room. The jokes are from all three of us, the video editing was Brett and Lucas, the bones of the script (and the Hunger Games references) was mostly me, the logo and font were Brett, and the website was Lucas.

We even made fake business cards as the physical souvenir (note: the friend for whom we were making the website/video is also named Lucas):

Definitely one of the most fun projects I've done in a while!

New York in Pictures

The past two weekends, I had two of my friends from college stay with me for a few days each. We explored the city, of course. It's always refreshing to experience one's hometown from a non-New Yorker's perspective. Much like how one gains a different understanding of one's native tongue in teaching it to a student of the language, there are certain aspects of place that are easily overlooked if one is immersed in it every day, that

Julie and I went for a bit of a hike in Central Park. We happened upon this interestingly-shaped copse of trees, and I couldn't resist a photograph:

Naturally (no pun intended), I was reminded of one of my favorite Robert Frost poems, "The Road Not Taken." (A pity it's not autumn; it would have been a beautiful picture with the thicket melting red and yellow around her.)

I also took her to see Alice, one of my favourite statues in the Park:

One of these days, I will sit by (on?) the Alice statue and reread Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. (It's somewhat fitting, methinks, that there's a little girl (wearing purple, Julie's favorite color) climbing on the sculpture in the background.)

There were a few highlights that I ended up visiting twice in as many weeks, but they were absolutely worth seeing more than once. The High Line is, for instance, one of my favorite places in New York. This is probably the cleverest billboard along the path:

And yes, it's situated above one of the few street-level car parks in Manhattan (which appears surprisingly empty).

Lucas and I also spotted this intriguing bit of text writ large on a dark wall across from the High Line:

It's ironically (or perhaps intentionally) located next to a tavern/restaurant called The Half King (its sign is partially visible in the lower left).

I also went to the Met twice in as many weeks, because if you have out-of-town visitors, they absolutely must see the Met. We ended up in the musical instruments section twice as well, and Lucas and I had the same thought about this sculpture:

Air guitar! Given the style of the statue and the position of the hands, there was probably a lyre or a harp at some point. A disappointment for all of the Guitar Hero players out there, I'm sure.

We spotted this on the subway, and my first thought was naturally, "it's a policy tub!" (A debate thing. I did LD, PF, and college parli, mind you -- not CX.):

Julie had a bit of a laugh at my expense. I don't mind at all. :-)

I love having friends in from out of town. Come visit me more often!

Baby Blanket (Knitting Project)

I should have posted this several months ago (when it occurred)...

My god-sister recently had a baby (as I mentioned in this video), and in anticipation, I knitted her a blanket:

Before:

After:

It was originally going to be 8x8 (the father is a chess player) but the squares ended up too rectangular, so I nixed the last row.

Also, the baby is a girl, but these were the nicest colors at the store. Pink is too hetero-normative!

NYTimes: Medieval Chess Sets at the Cloister

These look really awesome:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/18/arts/design/the-game-of-kings-medieval-ivory-chessmen-from-the-isle-of-lewis-at-the-cloisters.html?_r=1&src=dayp

I'm in New York for another week or so. Anyone want to go see them with me?

Edit: I didn't actually end up going (I'm coming home for spring break, though!), but I was reading the exhibit blog, which is fascinating.
http://metmuseum.org/exhibitions/listings/2011/the-game-of-kings-medieval-ivory-chessmen-from-the-isle-of-lewis/exhibition-blog

Angry Birds = High Fashion?

Something for all the techies:
http://fashion.telegraph.co.uk/columns/belinda-white/TMG8943600/Wife-of-Rovio-chief-wears-Angry-Birds-dress-to-the-Finnish-Palace.html

I don't claim to be in any way fashion savvy, but even I'd hesitate to wear that particular dress for any occasion other than Hallowe'en (let alone to the Palace!).

Rock-Paper-Scissors-Lizard-Spock

The classic game, new and updated for the 23rd century:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rock-paper-scissors-lizard-Spock

I am amused.

I found this not long ago on a Wikipedia crawl (you know, where you just keep clicking on interesting links until you look up half an hour later and find that you've ended up on a page completely unrelated to the one you started with). I think I was looking at cathedrals at one point.

Edit: I am told that I am completely behind the times, and that this game is old news in the nerd (and especially the Trek) community. I can't say I'm surprised.

DDR, Regency-Style

From HistoricLOL:

I am amused.

(DDR is the only video game I've really played and am any good at.)

All Roads Lead to Philosophy

 According to Wednesday's xkcd, if you click through the first non-italicized, non-parenthetical link on any Wikipedia page, and keep clicking through every subsequent page, you will eventually reach the article "Philosophy". Naturally, I had to try this:

Human Pac-Man

This is awesome:



After seeing the final result, I can understand how they might have persuaded that many people to spend hours playing musical chairs in an empty movie theater.

The New Adventures of Queen Victoria: Her Majesty on Angry Birds

There's this iPhone game called "Angry Birds" that seems to be all the rage right now. (It doesn't sound that interesting, but then, I've never played it. A lot of games/shows/songs with really inane premises seem to catch on spectacularly regardless.) Anyhow, here's Queen Victoria's (rather humorous) take on it:

http://www.gocomics.com/thenewadventuresofqueenvictoria/2011/01/24/

I was amused.

Sporcle

Maybe it's a testament to the nerdiness of my friends, but I have noticed phases of addictive Sporcle usage -- if it weren't preposterous, I would say they were linked to the phases of the moon, or the instructional dances of bees, or some other random natural phenomenon. Anyhow, I have found Sporcle to be eminently useful in real life.

For those of you unfamiliar with the website, Sporcle is a repository of interactive trivia quizzes. One of the most popular categories is geography.

I am taking a course this quarter on global human geography, and I have a midterm on our Europe unit in about seven hours. There's a map section. I'm playing a lot of Sporcle tonight.

NYTimes: Summer Share-House Squares

The classic American summer vacation, the board game:

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/08/13/opinion/20100813_opart_schottboardgame.html

We're not really the white picket fence type of family (you should see the brown patches in the backyard), but there's so much literature about that sort of lifestyle (very Mark Twain) that most Americans should find this at least somewhat amusing and somewhat apt.

The Guild, Bollywood-Style

I previously mentioned the web series The Guild in this post. The cast recently produced another hilarious music video (I think they have a different theme song every few seasons). I present The Guild, Bollywood-style:



If you've ever seen a Bollywood film, you probably recognize some of the extremely well-worn tropes.

Mario, the Violin Cover

A followup to the Mario on the Walls video:



I had a friend from nerd camp who would play things like the Star Wars theme on the flute. I played the flute as well, and we once attempted to duet something while I was sitting on his shoulders (it didn't turn out quite as well as we'd hoped). This is possibly even more awesome. He's in a tailcoat!

Mario on the Walls

I never really played video games (my father was rather restrictive about such frivolities), but I am passably acquainted with the more iconic ones, mostly because some of my friends, in recent years, have taken it upon themselves to introduce me to them. These include the series of games featuring the brothers Mario. They are immensely amusing and a tad nonsensical; this is therefore quite entertaining:



Somebody had way too much time on their hands. Stop-motion film is awesome, but extremely time-consuming.

NYTimes: A Supercomputer Plays (and Wins) Jeopardy!

Simultaneously exciting and really, really scary:

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/20/magazine/20Computer-t.html?hp

 

On the one hand, I'm secretly hoping that Marvin, my (aging, about to be retired) laptop will talk to me, and to that end, I have enabled his voice command function and occasionally ask for the time, just to hear him respond in that computery voice of his. On the other hand, we humans really aren't as smart as we think we are. Robots might take over the world someday, and we're just hastening our own doom here.

FreeRice.com: Alleviate World Hunger While Expanding Your Vocabulary

It's a great concept. Basically, you complete multiple choice vocabulary questions, and for each one you get right, ten grains of rice are donated. It doesn't seem like much, but if there are enough people playing, it adds up. It takes about 7000 grains of rice to fill a cup: get twenty people to complete a piddling 35 questions a day, and you've fed somebody in the world, and improved the usage of the English language -- everyone wins!

http://www.freerice.com

Pac-Man Optical Illusion

More Pacman:



They painted their walls! They actually painted their walls!

The mirror trick, methinks, was especially clever.