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...)

io9: Clever Cosplayers Sued for Carpet Costumes

This seems like a hilarious take on camouflage/your usual Con cosplay:
http://io9.com/cosplayers-threatened-with-legal-action-for-hotel-carpe-1366152096

I can't say I'm terribly surprised that the cosplayers were hit with a cease-and-desist... I imagine that the hotel was, copyright infringement aside, probably afraid that the next DragonCon would see an entire regiment of cosplayers crawling about on the floor like that! (A shame it won't happen, though -- it would have been fun to see!)

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!

Write Your Own Academic Sentence (or, the Problem with Academic Prose)

Academic writing is notorious for its opaque (sometimes unreadable) prose. This contributes greatly to the common perception that academia is irrelevant to the concerns of the general population, who don't care to puzzle through the stylistic challenges of academic papers to get at the often interesting ideas within. It's a tragedy, because our society would be so much richer if everyone -- not just specialists, not just the people with advanced degrees -- were engaged in the culture of ideas and had access to the latest developments across a variety of disciplines.

I recently found this amusing little program that parodies academic writing:

http://writing-program.uchicago.edu/toys/randomsentence/write-sentence.htm

It's surprising how many of these randomly-generated declarative statements seem to make some semblance of sense. (Of course, the ones that don't are hilariously bad.) What's rather tragic is that a broad swath of society actually believes that all academic writing reads something like this -- and for the most part, they're not wrong.

Obviously, part of the opacity of any academic discipline is a product of the specialized vocabulary required to discuss said discipline -- they need words to describe concepts that might not even exist elsewhere. As the sum total of human knowledge has increased over the centuries, each discipline is now much more specialized than in the past. Newton, for example, could give public lectures about cutting-edge physics and expect to draw sizable crowds that included a diverse swath of of upper and middle class London, the vast majority without formal science training. Today, the equivalent would be a Brian Greene or Neil deGrasse Tyson lecture -- which seems to appeal to a more niche audience.

We're seeing something of a reversal of this trend with the online democratization of education (e.g. Coursera, Floating University, Crash Course, SciShow, &c.). So far, that hasn't gained much traction in the realm of written research (though who knows what academic journals will look like in a decade or two?). Given that the audience of said journals consists primarily of other academics, it's unlikely that they'll change drastically. Public outreach, on the other hand, has never looked more promising.

Cover-a-Week #33: "Creepy Doll" by Jonathan Coulton

It's Hallowe'en! Ergo, today's the day for a spooky song:


http://youtu.be/f1hddcJiGZ8

This was such a fun piece to cover! (Jonathan Coulton is an evil genius.)

I was tempted to make Coraline-style button eyes out of construction paper to really get in the spirit of "Creepy Doll," but I realized that I couldn't see very well out of the tiny buttonholes...

Cover-a-Week #32: "Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots, Pt. 1" by The Flaming Lips

Because it was recently Ada Lovelace Day:


http://youtu.be/K0Y8pf009yo

I have a lot of friends from college who were female computer scientists and engineers. I'm very proud of them -- of what they do, what they represent, and the hard work and extraordinary talent I know it took (I was there, after all). They might not be fighting pink robots, but they are, every day, combating the societal forces that created this unequal world. They're "destroying the status quo, because the status is not quo" -- and I love them for it. This one's for you, ladies.

BuzzFeed: Schrodinger and Heisenberg Walk into a Bar...

Because we need more quantum mechanics jokes in the world, even if they're really corny:

http://www.buzzfeed.com/billypeltzer/20-jokes-only-a-physics-nerd-will-appreciate-ecuv

That is all. (I am such a magpie, I know!)

Morley Walk!

This is what I did last Sunday (August 18th):
http://morleywalk.tumblr.com

Christopher Morley was a novelist, poet, and journalist -- and the founder of the eminent Sherlockian society the Baker Street Irregulars. However, he is perhaps most well-known as a tireless advocate for the book trade. One of his best-beloved novellas, The Haunted Bookshop, is set in a used-bookstore in Brooklyn, and is essentially an ode to bookselling, wrapped in a cute romance and a quaint mystery.

The Morley Walk, organized by Melville House (which publishes what is likely the most recognizable edition of The Haunted Bookshop and its prequel, Parnassus on Wheels), was splendid. It was a reading crossed with a walking tour of independent bookshops around Prospect Park. A small horde of bibliophiles descended upon the streets of Brooklyn, where we attempted not to get run over by passing cars, parents pushing baby strollers, and over-eager dogs as we migrated en masse from shop to shop, taking turns reading aloud from a copy of The Haunted Bookshop.

There were some people who thought we were a cult -- come to think of it, passersby mistaking Morley for Scripture in a mob of bookish people is actually rather fitting. I doubt I shall see most of the other participants again, but for an afternoon, we had found our tribe. And much like a novella, it was over far too soon.

Cover-a-Week #25: "Doctor Worm" by They Might Be Giants

A bit belatedly, for Geek Week:


http://youtu.be/odJD73piZdc

This was meant to be good, nerdy fun, but ended up a little more introspective than I'd intended... (It was fun nonetheless!)

My Totoros Have Multiplied!

I now have two Totoros!

I acquired the blue one in Japan five years ago; my sister got me the grey one for my birthday just a few days ago. (I promise I haven't put the latter through the wash; it's just the texture of its fur making it look particularly disheveled.)

"My Neighbor Totoro," despite having a rather thin plot, is one of my all-time favourite films (this is mostly due to its sheer cuteness). Miyazaki and his co-conspirators at Studio Ghibli are geniuses (genii?).

Cover-a-Week #23: "The Ballad of Serenity" from Firefly

More geek-tastic covers!


http://youtu.be/hmlDnPYzsq0

Firefly is one of the best television shows out there, and it's a shame that only fourteen were produced before it was cancelled. I've not seen all of them -- this will be remedied in due time!

BookExpo America, or, "Hey, Look, a Galley!"

Today was my first time attending BEA (BookExpo America), which is the largest publishing trade fair in North America (and possibly the world, though the ones in London, Frankfurt, and Bologna are probably bigger). It's held at the Javits Center, which might be one of the most inconveniently located spaces in New York. 

BEA was... huge. I was not expecting it to be quite so huge, even though, considering it's attended by all of trade publishing in the US, I really should have known. I saw some old friends from Algonquin, snagged a cupcake at an author signing, and of course, picked up a tote bag-full of ARCs:

(The tissue box is there for perspective. I lugged that pile from the West Side back to Queens in ninety-degree weather, and it's absolutely worth it.)

Advance reading copies -- and free finished books -- are one of the best perks in publishing (which, admittedly, is an industry without that many perks). I have fond memories from my college internship days of scouring the Penguin Classics overflow shelves for books on my autumn quarter syllabi. This time, the loot is mostly historical fiction, literary fiction, and women's fiction, with a random cookbook that I got from a friend at Workman in there (third from the bottom).

Other things seen at BEA:

I think they're Pokemon? (How many sales assistants does it take to assemble a five-foot Lego statue?)

This, too, might have looked more normal at Comic Con... :-P

Themed cupcakes!

(The post title is an inside joke, for those of you who are really confused.)

Cover-a-Week #15: "Scarborough Fair" (traditional)

For May Day (a week ago, yes), I thought I'd dial a few centuries back in time and play a seasonally appropriate song from 1600s England:


http://youtu.be/O8BnL41eN08

It was originally written as a duet, consisting of two lovers making impossible demands of each other (in the true spirit of courtly love!). Since it would probably sound a bit schizophrenic with a single vocalist -- not to mention, that version is twice as long -- I've cut a few verses.

This would be a great song to waltz to, I think.

English Major Armadillo, or, Memes I Wish Would Catch On

I started reading this tumblr recently...

http://fyeahenglishmajorarmadillo.tumblr.com

I am so very amused. Now, should the question arise, I can tell non-bibliophiles that I am an armadillo (not this kind of armadillo, mind you). If not a separate species, certainly we're a tribe unto ourselves, at least on the internet(s). Exhibit A: Geoffrey Chaucer Hath a Blog.

Someone please make one for history majors. How about History Major Kangaroo? Or History Major Hippopotamus (which has a nice alliterative ring to it)? (If there already is one, please do send it my way! One can never have too many nerdy web-humor sites bookmarked.)

Edit: There is one! It's called History Major Heraldic Beast, which is much cleverer than either kangaroo or hippopotamus.

Cover-a-Week #10: "Finite Simple Group (of Order Two)" by Klein Four

For Pi Day (slightly belated), I decided to cover a math-themed song, by the extremely nerdy a cappella group Klein Four...


http://youtu.be/d1TzNJhrM98

The shirt was one of the more useful nerdy gifts I've received. The armwarmers are my own handiwork; they have separate little sleeve-like protrusions for the thumbs. One trick for knitting armwarmers: if you don't want to decrease and increase the circumference (as the wrist is thinner than the elbow and the hand), knit vertical ribs, which naturally scrunch up.

Discover: How Would Time Travel Actually Work (or, something for all the Whovians)?

A good, cogent article on the physics of time travel:
http://discovermagazine.com/2010/mar/02-the-real-rules-for-time-travelers/

I first encountered this explanation of time travel in Harry Potter and the Prizoner of Azkaban, where Harry and Hermione use a Time-Turner to save Sirus and Buckbeak. (I trust that I didn't spoil the book for anyone -- and if I did, you're way behind the times!) The detail of the Time Turner chapter that I found most memorable was the thud of the executioner's axe: Harry and Hermione heard it fall in real time and assumed that Buckbeak had been beheaded; however, when they went back in time to rescue the hippogryff, they realized that the sound they'd thought was Buckbeak's decapitation was actually the executioner swinging the axe into a hunk of wood in frustration upon discovering that Buckbeak had escaped. Harry and Hermione, therefore, did not change the timeline using the Time Turner; rather, events incorporated all nonlinear parts and intersections of the timeline.

The concept of free will, as the above article notes, becomes problematic if this framework of time is true. Nature, it would seem, is more like a Greek tragedy than we Americans would like to believe. We are uncomfortable with the idea of external limits on our free will, and time is too nebulous to most of us to think its laws as insurmountable as, say, those of Newtonian physics. If we were told that our free will is limited by gravity (no matter how much we might wish to levitate through the air, we cannot), we do not find it unjust. Told that Oedipus had no choice but to kill his father and marry his mother, despite all of his attempts to escape his fate, we find his situation grossly unfair. The above description of time travel suggests that our universe operates more like Oedipus's than we'd imagined.

I believe in free will. I do. But I'd love to try time travelling -- it sounds fascinating.

Queen Victoria on Tom Lehrer

Among the great accomplishments of Tom Lehrer, mathematician and musician:
http://www.gocomics.com/thenewadventuresofqueenvictoria/2012/04/09

(Wikipedia says that the above is actually untrue. Yes, I did look up "Jell-o Shot" on Wikipedia.)

BBC: V (for Vendetta) as a Cultural Symbol

In light of the Occupy movement's and Anonymous's adoption of the Guy Fawkes mask as a rallying image, Alan Moore, the creator of the original comic V for Vendetta writes for the BBC on the cultural cachet that the vigilante V holds in the collective consciousness:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-16968689

The tagline should be V's quotation about how he's not a man, but an idea -- and ideas never die. One of the problems that the Occupy movement, at least, will have to confront, is precisely that it's an idea, an exercise of populist sentiment. Its lack of leadership and a practical agenda might well deflate the movement. The advantage that V had is that his idea was embodied in a single person, with his own goals and vision, his own coherent plan of action. He was the figurehead, if not the de facto leader of his own revolution. Occupy doesn't have that single person, than coherency. It has the mask -- many such masks -- but not the single visionary behind it.

What Computer Problems Would Look Like if They Were Literally Real

Something funny that Russell sent out:


The stories about the etymologies of some tech terms are quite interesting. A "bug" used to mean, literally, that an insect had gotten stuck in the huge, room-sized computer machinery, back in the 80s or so. Even though the enactments are rather over-the-top, you can still see where a lot of the idioms arose.