Category Archive

I’ve been thinking that before leaving this region of the country I need to take six months off my life and hike the Appalachian Trail, which I could reasonably do ~2-3 years from now, after graduation. Talking with Ryan last week got me interested in a southbound hike:

Southbound thru-hikers start in June or July at Katahdin and finish in Georgia in November or December. A southbound hike will allow you much more solitude, but you will be “breaking in” on the most rugged part of the Trail. A Maine-to-Georgia hike also requires that you traverse long distances between resupply points in the early part of your trek. In many ways it’s a tougher hike than a northbound thru-hike. Fewer than 500 people have reported completion of the A.T. southbound.

Ryan mentioned that a friend who traveled southbound was treated differently by northbound hikers, from shouts of “You’re going the wrong way!” to near animosity at times. I’ll enjoy the near-solitude of southbound travel, but I’m still looking for a traveling companion…

2.5 oz Smirnoff Vanilla vodka
0.5 oz Ice 101 peppermint schnapps

Shake well and strain into a cocktail glass. (And yes, Cool as Ice was involved in the creation of this beverage.)

Once again, the traditional KarpAcrossAmerica gift exchange was a success. This year’s revisions didn’t seem to alter strategy too much, aside from a reduction in overall round times.

OVERVIEW

Each participant brings 5-6 gifts, totaling $15-$20.
Gifts should be properly wrapped (no plastic bags!).
At least one gift should be a “highly desirable” one you think people will fight over.

PROGRESSION

The gift exchange consists of several rounds (described below).
All gifts are placed in a central communal area.
The starting player is chosen randomly or by agreement.
Each turn, a player rolls a pair of 6-sided dice. If they roll doubles, they take an action.
After a player rolls the dice, they pass the dice to the left.
The round continues until the time expires.
When the time has expired, each player gets one additional roll of the dice.
Play continues for all rounds.

ROUNDS

Round 1: Gift distribution–upon rolling doubles, a player selects a gift from the communal area. [no time limit; play continues until all gifts have been distributed]

Round 2: Stealing round–upon rolling doubles, a player steals a gift from another player. [10 minutes]

Open gifts–unwrap all gifts and show them to all players.

Round 3: Stealing round–same as Round 2. [10 minutes]

Round 4: Trading round–upon rolling doubles, a player exchanges a single gift with another player. [10 minutes]

Cache one gift–each player may choose one gift in their possession and place it out of play; cached gifts cannot change ownership during the game.

Round 5: Trading round–same as Round 4 [10 minutes]

Round 6: Force Trade round–upon rolling doubles, a player dictates a trade between two other players. [15 minutes]

Cache one gift–same as the previous cache.

Blitz round setup: each player selects the person 17 places to their left and chooses one gift to remain in front of them.

Round 7: Blitz Force Trade round–same as Round 6, but with only the one selected gift for each player. [10 minutes]

ADDITIONAL RULES

Minimum Gift Requirement: Players must be in possession of at least four gifts after distribution. A player with three gifts may not be the subject of a steal. At the end of Round 1, the player with the most gifts gives away gifts (if necessary) so that every player has at least three gifts.

MULLIGAN: One time during the game, each person is allowed to make a Magical Unique LateraL Instantaneous Gift AgreemeNt (MULLIGAN). A MULLIGAN allows a player to substitute any one of their gifts when they are the subject of a steal/trade. Each player may only make one MULLIGAN during the entire game.

Gift of Burden: After opening gifts (between Rounds 2 and 3), select one gift to be the “Gift of Burden” (GoB). This gift should be the most undesirable gift out of all the gifts. To select the GoB, each person submits one of their gifts as a GoB candidate. All participants then vote to determine the GoB. In the event of indecision, the GoB is selected from the candidates using a stochastic device. The GoB enters play in the 3rd round and has the following function: whenever a player ends a round in possession of the GoB, they are permitted to exchange it for any gift from any player. In a round where a gift is cached at the end, the GoB exchange occurs before the cache. The GoB only has this function in round 7 if it is selected to remain in play.

Multi-Wrapping: Each player may choose to bring one gift wrapped multiple times. At the end of each round after the initial unwrapping (between Rounds 2 and 3), another layer is removed. There is no limit to how many layers of wrapping can be on the gift; it is possible that a gift may remain wrapped at the end of the game.

Polyhedra: A second set of dice is passed around, in addition to the 6-sided dice. These dice are 20-sided. A player who rolls doubles with the 20-sided dice takes two actions.

Conspiracy: Once per game each player may declare or participate in a conspiracy. A player may only declare a conspiracy immediately after receiving an action (i.e., rolling doubles). The conspiring player does not take their action immediately but instead saves it for a future turn. After a conspiracy has been declared other players may choose to join in (only by invitation of the original conspirer), assuming they also receive an action. A player participating in a conspiracy forgoes any future dice rolls (with that particular tray) until the conspiracy has been revealed. After one round has passed and play returns to the initial conspirer, said player may choose to either reveal the conspiracy or continue play. By continuing play, the conspirer forgoes their turn (only one action may be saved at a time, except in the case of polyhedra), continuing play for another full round (which provides opportunity for more players to join the conspiracy). When the conspiracy is revealed, each player (starting with the conspirer and proceeding in the direction of play) takes their saved action. A conspiracy must be revealed during the round in which it was initiated.

Language is a construct, and because of this it is ultimately limited in its ability to express all ideas. Some ideas are well characterized linguistically, but this is not true of all ideas–in fact, many ideas and concepts cannot even be reasonably translated between languages! As a corollary to this, any derivative of a language system (such as logical manipulation of language symbols) is also a construct. Thus, if we limit our view of the world to only that which can be known through language (or logic, or mathematics) we risk minimizing our exposure to ideas that can only be expressed otherwise.

Fortunately, this type of worldview is almost impossible to maintain, at least for someone with even minimal exposure to the arts. In addition to music, visual art, and dance, poetry (including lyrics) provides an intermediary between the world of language and art. Poetic expression uses the same lexicon as spoken language, but the devices of metaphor and (somewhat) free reign on syntax and form create an art of language, in a sense. Powerful ideas captured in poetics have the ability to transcend the literality of words and convey an untranslatable message.

Musical and theatrical performances, then, strive to achieve this super-linguistic degree of communication (with varying degrees of success). But I think it is important to realize that a wordless song or dance can convey an idea just as real, true, and applicable as a book or speech. Ideas come from people, not from words.

I just discovered at Free Range Organic Human that November is National Novel Writing Month (or NaNoWriMo for short). The idea is to write a 50,000 word novel from the 1st to the 30th of November, motivated by the thousands of other participants, a hard and fast deadline, and sheer willpower.

I’ve decided to go for it; nothing ventured, nothing gained, right? My current working title is Inhabitants of Eternity (bonus points for getting the reference), although that may very well change. You can track my progress by viewing my NaNoWriMo profile. I’ll also post weekly updates on my success or failure here.

If drafts work for sports, then why not for music? I think this could be an interesting concept: an organized pop music association whose members shuffle around every few years–where pop music refers to the most cheezy, made-for-radio music that generates up to one memorable song per album.

Each band would be a franchise not owned by any of the musicians. The musicians would each sign contracts, and new musicians would be recruited through a draft system. Every year the lineup of each band would change by a small or large amount, thereby reducing the stagnancy of the pop music.

And, as an added bonus, the end of every band season could culminate with a national battle of the bands playoff series.

…otherwise known as the Order of the Science Scouts of Exemplary Repute and Above Average Physique. And, following the official guidelines, I am awarding myself the following badges:

		Talking science - If you’ve ever met me or read this blog, then you know it applies.
		I blog about science - Recursively: see this post.
		Has frozen stuff just to see what happens (level III) - Level III of this badge is for liquid nitrogen. I have never been overly fascinated with the kitchen freezer, but I have certainly used LN in recreation every chance I’ve had–I’ve frozen bananas, rubber bands, racquetballs, pencils, gloves, balloons, and chocolate, among other things.
		I bet I know more about computer languages than you, and I’m not afraid to talk about it - I know people who are better candidates for this badge than myself, but I think my posts on BrainF*** and Fugue help me qualify. (+++++++++[>++++++++++.+++++++.++.++++.—–.)
		Somewhat confused as to what scientific field I actually belong to - I did my undergrad work in astrophysics and computer science, and now I’m working on a PhD in meteorology and astrobiology. I may be confused, but at least I’m happy.
		I’m into telescopes astro (level I) - I even posed with the UMN Tate Laboratory telescope on graduation!
		Statistical linear regression - Do I like statistics? See Predictability in the Game of War to find out.
		I may look like a scientist, but I’m actually also a pirate - So far, I am one of few published authors in the field of paleopiracy.
Added 04-30-2007:
		The plant kingdom rules! - I like plants because they are a form of life on Earth that exist almost everywhere! (The image on this badge in no way condones any particular type of activity.)

Many times it is necessary to transform the content of a written document into a presentation. Wouldn’t it be nice if this process could be automated? After all, most of the work already went into writing the document–why perform any unnecessary work? There are a few possible approaches to this. Here’s an outline of one process that assumes Microsoft Office:

1) Use the auto-summarize in MS Word to condense the content of a document
2) Write a macro to create bulleted Powerpoint slides from the summary
3) Write a macro to import figures (if any) from the original Word document
4) Give the presentation

Anyone out there who loves writing macros?

More on tattoos.

I think I finally know the design I would use if I ever decided to get a tattoo: the phrase community of life written in Linear B. Of course, this does not mean I will be getting a tattoo, since there are at least two still unresolved issues:

1) Bodily location of the tattoo

2) Translation into Linear B

I chose Linear B since it is a dead language with only loose ties to the rest of the world’s writing systems, but this also has the disadvantage of making translation a difficult (or impossible) task.

The ice cream truck is a classic symbol of childhood nostalgia, filling the hot summer air with ringing sounds of the Entertainer as children ran out of their homes clutching change and dollar bills. The ice cream truck had no permanent residency–and most children did not memorize the truck’s route. Instead, the novelty of the ice cream truck was its unexpectedness: on those hot, sticky summer days, the appearance of the ice cream truck was a joyous occasion for both the children and the truck driver. Fast-forwarding to the college scene, the ice cream truck is no more. Yet students still have social gatherings (sometimes more than children), and refreshments are a welcome addition to most festivities. Perhaps an ice cream truck would not have the same appeal in a college town; but what about a pizza truck?

Think about it: late at night while the frat parties are getting started, a bright red truck slowly drives past the houses with the sounds of Eye of the Tiger emitted into the night air. Everyone loves pizza, and partygoers would certainly love unexpected pizza. Operation of the pizza truck would not even require any cooking skills. The pizza itself can be provided by any local or chain business and sold by the slice. In the right environment (such as evenings in a college town), I think this would be a successful business. Of course, there is always the possibility that I am overlooking something obvious.

Just remember: if you get rich with this idea, you heard about it here.

Flying Spaghetti Monster

Huge Outsider (Native)
Hit Dice: 40d8+320 (500 hp)
Initiative: +5
Speed: 40 ft. (8 squares), fly 80 ft. (good)
Armor Class: 40 (-2 size, +5 Dex, +7 natural, +20 deflection), touch 33, flat-footed 35
Base Attack/Grapple: +40/+59
Attack: Noodly appendage +45 melee (1d8+10 plus energy drain)
Full Attack: 6 noodly appendages +45 (1d8+10 plus energy drain)
Space/Reach: 15ft./15ft.
Special Attacks: Constrict 2d6+10, improved grab, spiritual presence, touched by his noodly appendage, energy drain
Special Qualities: Damage resistance 50/-, darkvision 60 ft., fast healing 50, spell resistance 47, blindsight 100 ft., holy shield
Saves: Fort +53, Ref +50, Will +60
Abilities: Str 25, Dex 21, Con 27, Int 34, Wis 36, Cha 31
Skills: Bluff +53, Concentration +51, Diplomacy +57, Heal +56, Intimidate +61, Knowledge (arcana) +55, Knowledge (architecture) +55, Knowledge (dungeoneering) +55, Knowledge (geography) +55, Knowledge (history) +55, Knowledge (local) +55, Knowledge (nature) +55, Knowledge (nobility) +55, Knowledge (religion) +55, Knowledge (planes) +55, Listen +56, Search +55, Sense Motive +56, Spellcraft +57, Spot +56
Feats: Awesome Blow, Cleave, Combat Expertise, Combat Reflexes, Dodge, Flyby Attack, Hover, Improved Bull Rush, Improved Combat Expertise, Improved Grapple, Improved Trip, Iron Will, Mobility, Power Attack
Challenge Rating: 30
Alignment: Neutral

Constrict (Ex): The Flying Spaghetti Monster deals 2d6+10 damage with a successful grapple check.

Energy Drain (Su): A successful melee attack with a noodly appendage bestows a negative level upon the opponent. The Flying Spaghetti Monster gains 10 temporary hit points for each negative level bestowed.

Holy Shield (Sp): The Flying Spaghetti Monster’s divine charisma grants a permanent AC deflection bonus of +20 (10 + Cha modifier).

Improved Grab (Ex): To use this ability, the Flying Spaghetti Monster must hit a creature with his noodly appendage. He can then attempt to start a grapple as a free action without provoking an attack of opportunity. If he wins the grapple check, he establishes a hold and wraps his noodly appendage around the opponent’s body. The Flying Spaghetti Monster may grab an opponent with more than one noodly appendage.

Spiritual Presence (Su): Any creature within 100 ft. of the Flying Spaghetti Monster attempting to cast a divine spell must succeed on a DC 50 Will save or lose the spell. The save DC is Charisma based.

Touched By His Noodly Appendage (Sp): If the Flying Spaghetti Monster begins its turn with a noodly appendage wrapped around an opponent, he may make a grapple check. Upon a successful grapple check, the opponent shrinks by one size similar to a reduce person spell. This effect lasts for 2d4 hours. The Flying Spaghetti Monster may make this attack one time per noodly appendage. A fine-sized creature subject to this effect is killed.

Back in PA as of the 7th.

I don’t watch much TV, but when I do I can’t say I’m a huge fan of commercials. Occasionally there are funny ones, but mostly I find them a waste of time. I usually watch shows on DVD, which are wonderfully commercial-free.

If I had obscene amounts of money (or obscene amounts of friends with small amounts of money) I could put that commercial time to good use: buy all the time for a given show and feature another show! I think I’d enjoy watching a new episode of Family Guy, interrupted by commercial breaks of a Futurama rerun. I didn’t do a cost analysis, mostly because the numbers will be too big for me to think about this further. Any investors out there?

These are the rules for the KarpAcrossAmerica gift exchange, which will take place on December 30, 2006.

OVERVIEW

Each participant brings 5-6 gifts, totaling $15-$20.
Gifts should be properly wrapped (no plastic bags!).
At least one gift should be a “highly desirable” one you think people will fight over.

PROGRESSION

The gift exchange consists of several rounds (described below).
All gifts are placed in a central communal area.
The starting player is chosen randomly or by agreement.
Each turn, a player rolls a pair of 6-sided dice. If they roll doubles, they take an action.
After a player rolls the dice, they pass the dice to the left.
The round continues until the time expires.
When the time has expired, each player gets one additional roll of the dice.
Play continues for all rounds.

ROUNDS

Round 1: Gift distribution–upon rolling doubles, a player selects a gift from the communal area. [no time limit; play continues until all gifts have been distributed]

Round 2: Stealing round–upon rolling doubles, a player steals a gift from another player. [10 minutes]

Open gifts–unwrap all gifts and show them to all players.

Round 3: Stealing round–same as Round 2. [15 minutes]

Round 4: Trading round–upon rolling doubles, a player exchanges a single gift with another player. [20 minutes]

Cache one gift–each player may choose one gift in their possession and place it out of play; cached gifts cannot change ownership during the game.

Round 5: Trading round–same as Round 4 [15 minutes]

Round 6: Force Trade round–upon rolling doubles, a player dictates a trade between two other players. [25 minutes]

Cache one gift–same as the previous cache.

Blitz round setup: each player selects the person 17 places to their left and chooses one gift to remain in front of them.

Round 7: Blitz Force Trade round–same as Round 6, but with only the one selected gift for each player. [10 minutes]

ADDITIONAL RULES

Minimum Gift Requirement: Players must always be in possession of at least three gifts. A player with three gifts may not be the subject of a steal. At the end of Round 1, the player with the most gifts gives away gifts (if necessary) so that every player has at least three gifts.

MULLIGAN: One time during the game, each person is allowed to make a Magical Unique LateraL Instantaneous Gift AgreemeNt (MULLIGAN). A MULLIGAN allows a player to substitute any one of their gifts when they are the subject of a steal/trade. Each player may only make one MULLIGAN during the entire game.

Gift of Burden: After opening gifts (between Rounds 2 and 3), select one gift to be the “Gift of Burden” (GoB). This gift should be the most undesirable gift out of all the gifts. To select the GoB, each person submits one of their gifts as a GoB candidate. All participants then vote to determine the GoB. In the event of indecision, the GoB is selected from the candidates using a stochastic device. The GoB enters play in the 3rd round and has the following function: whenever a player ends a round in possession of the GoB, they are permitted to exchange it for any gift from any player. In a round where a gift is cached at the end, the GoB exchange occurs before the cache. The GoB only has this function in round 7 if it is selected to remain in play.

Multi-Wrapping: Each player may choose to bring one gift wrapped multiple times. At the end of each round after the initial unwrapping (between Rounds 2 and 3), another layer is removed. There is no limit to how many layers of wrapping can be on the gift; it is possible that a gift may remain wrapped at the end of the game.

Polyhedra: A second set of dice is passed around, in addition to the 6-sided dice. These dice are 20-sided. A player who rolls doubles with the 20-sided dice takes two actions.

Thanks to Chris Allen for pointing out the SignMaker Java applet. As you can see, I’ve put it to good use.

During playoff baseball the thought occurred to me: why not have a major league baseball team composed entirely of little people (hereafter known as “midgets”)? Granted, midgets would not be very fast or heavy hitters, but they would have the distinct advantage of very small strike zones. The strategy of the team would be based on the assumption that the opposing pitcher would walk in most of the runs, as it would be difficult to throw strikes.

Of course, the idea has a number of problems. First of all, at some point the pitcher will adjust. After this, the advantage is gone, and the midget team’s inability to hit as well as the other team will be magnified. Additionally, at some point the midgets will need to take the field. Given their relative slowness, the midget offensive strategy would have to rest entirely upon having an amazing bullpen that essentially pitches consistent no-hitters. Okay, bad idea.

Idea #2: enlist a midget as a pinch hitter on a MLB team. Most of the time, the midget would happily sit on the bench observing the game. But in the event of a close situation, a strategic pinch-hitter could be invaluable–in this case, a pinch-walker. If a team is down by one in the 9th, for instance, they could send in a power-hitter to score a home run and tie up the game. But what if the midget went in before the power hitter? The opposing pitcher would almost certainly walk the midget, as he would not have had any time to adjust his throwing technique, allowing the power hitter to bring in the winning run.

It never hurts to be prepared.

Time zones are quantized in our world, generally in zone differing by an hour and with convenient borders that work around state/national borders and island groups. This provides the convenience of not worrying about time changes until you migrate across some artificial political boundary. What is gained in convenience, however, is lost in the unification of time perception. That is, not all observers will see the Sun at the same angle in the sky at the same time.

Instead of these discrete time zones, perhaps we should switch to a continuum time zone configuration. Every watch and clock would be have access to high-resolution GPS coordinates. As a watch-wearer moved along a line of latitude, the clock would adjust in real-time so that the exact same time is recorded globally for observations of the Sun at a given angle. Of course, this has the disadvantage of adding difficulty to scheduling (unless of course you restrict movement to along lines of longitude). But this is really a small price to pay so that people at opposite sides of “conventional” time zones can experience the Sun at the same angle and same time as each other.

Genetic algorithms are an interesting and powerful problem-solving tool. They can be used for some of the same applications as Monte-Carlo simulation, but the fundamental operating mechanism between the two is different: a Monte-Carlo method throws random values at a problem and arrives at a solution via the law of large numbers; a genetic algorithm, although also reliant upon multiple iterations, seeks out a solution through random mutation and selection–modeled after biological genetics. In other words, a genetic algorithm is a more structured and directed way of using a stochastic method to arrive at a solution. A pseudo-code algorithm (courtesy of Wikipedia) can be written as:

Choose initial population
Evaluate the individual fitnesses of a certain proportion of the population
Repeat
Select best-ranking individuals to reproduce
Breed new generation through crossover and mutation (genetic operations) and give birth to children
Evaluate the individual fitnesses of the children population
Replace best-ranking individuals
Until terminating condition

This works surprisingly well for many science and engineering applications. But what about music? The “fitness” criterion is generally expressed mathematically, but a subjective human opinion of good/bad music could also determine fitness. My preliminary idea is as follows:

1) Randomly generate a set of music clips (probably just one voice to begin with, such as a bassline)
2) Listen to the clips, and vote on which ones are good (”fit”) and which ones are not
3) Keep the good clips, and produce children via crossover and random mutations
4) Repeat the process until a desirable musical progression is produced
5) Repeat to allow for multiple voices (bass, melody, rhythm, etc.)

I think this could produce some interesting results. I’m going to play around with this idea in my head some more, and then maybe develop the idea. If I do, the listening/voting process will likely be through a web interface so anyone can contribute to the selection process.

It was brought to my attention that I seem to have invented the term “paleopiracy”. Just to be formal about these things, I present an official definition:

pa‧le‧o‧pi‧ra‧cy / “pey-lee-oh-PAHY-ruh-see” / noun
: the piratic activity of some former period of geologic time; especially : the study of our pirate ancestors created by the Flying Spaghetti Monster
- pa‧le‧o‧pi‧rat‧ist / “pey-lee-oh-PAHY-ruh-tist” / noun
- pa‧le‧o‧pi‧ra‧tol‧o‧gy / “pey-lee-oh-pahy-ruh-TOL-uh-jee” / noun
- pa‧le‧o‧pi‧ra‧tol‧o‧gist / “pey-lee-oh-pahy-ruh-TOL-uh-jist” / noun
- pa‧le‧o‧pi‧rat‧ic / “pey-lee-oh-pahy-RAT-ik” / adjective
- pa‧le‧o‧pi‧rat‧i‧cal‧ly / “pey-lee-oh-payh-RAT-ik-uh-lee” / adverb

Here’s a 7-card stud variant I came up with. I gave it a political name for no reason in particular.

The ace of spades is Osama and therefore wild. Deal out two down and one up to each player, as in 7-card stud. Betting always begins with the highest visible hand.

After each round of betting, the highest visible hand is given a choice for their next card: they can choose to take the top card from the deck face-up, or they can steal any face-up or face-down card from any other player. Stolen cards remain face-up or face-down, depending on their initial condition. If a player just had one of their cards stolen, they are immediately dealt a replacement (face-up or face-down, depending on the condition of the stolen card). Continue clockwise until all players have obtained another card. Betting takes place between each round of dealing, always beginning with the highest visible hand. As in 7-card stud, this continues until all players have seven cards.

There is a lot of interesting strategy to this game. One strategy is to act covertly and hide all your cards, but that is not a safeguard against having your cards stolen. This is a good variant when playing a low-stakes dealer calls game.

No data encryption technique is perfect. Some may be better than others, but they are all breakable on some level. This doesn’t mean you should automatically worry about your bank account security, as your particular bank probably has excellent security. Then again, maybe not.

Ultimately, security is about reducing the likelihood that someone will be able to easily access the protected information. In the event that I need to secure some important data I have devised a scheme to do so.

1) Encrypt the data (RSA or some other robust algorithm)
2) Format a 5.25″ floppy disk with some Linux filesystem (XFS, ext2, etc.)
3) Copy the data to the floppy disk
4) Lock the disk in a safe

Of course, this hinges on the fact that I have a working 5.25″ floppy drive in my main computer (as the A: drive, no less) running Linux. But it has its security benefits:

Step 4) is a physical barrier that transcends most computer hacking techniques.
Step 3) creates the problem of locating a functional 5.25″ drive.
Step 2) assumes that in all likelihood, a functional 5.25″ drive will be in a DOS (or Windows) machine incapable of easily reading the filesystem
Step 1) relies on conventional data encryption algorithms.

And maybe I should put an explosive trigger on the safe, just for good measure.

Beer comes in all shapes, sizes, flavors, textures, and aromas. At a typical bar you might find a selection of cheap brews on tap for the crafty consumer; this usually consists of beers such as Miller Lite, Bud Lite, Coors Lite, Natural Lite, etc. But are these beverages really so bad? Obviously there are plenty of drinks far superior to these, but surely Miller Lite is not the epitome of foul-tasting American brews!

To better explore the sample space of bad beers in America, a group of us graduate students organized an event: the Bad American Swill Festival (BASF). This was the second annual BASF, the first of which occurred last year with only four participants–more of a preliminary event. This year, there were eleven beers exhibited with twelve unfortunate participants.

The blind taste test was grouped into three categories for each beer: cold taste (weighted 65%), aroma (10%), and warm shot (25%). The weights are reflective of the fact that most beers are enjoyed cold. However, smell certainly affects the enjoyment of the beverage; and beers tend to warm up for all but the most voracious drinkers. Beers were rated in each category on a scale of 0 (completely undrinkable) to 10 (not too bad).

And now, the contenders and results of the second BASF. (Note the custom designed pint glasses on either side of the lineup.) Weighted mean scores are shown in brackets.

11) Schlitz [5.77]
10) Jacob Best Ice [5.25]
9) Genesee Cream Ale [5.03]
8) Old German [5.00]
7) Stite Lite [4.48] (my entry)
6) Black Label [4.35]
5) Southpaw Lite [4.32]
4) Utica Club [4.17]
3) Koch’s Golden Anniversary [4.13] (defending champion)
2) Old Vienna [3.98]
1) LaCrosse Lager [3.30]

If I learned anything from participating in the BASF, perhaps it really is a good thing that “in Heaven there is no beer…”

This is the last of my chess variant posts, at least for awhile. Here, one side plays with the atomic chess rules while the other uses the borg chess rules. This can be assigned to the players by chance or by agreement, and either white or black can assume either of the variant rulesets.

Setup is the same as borg chess, except that the queen pawns are advanced two spaces instead of one–in order to prevent the atomic side from achieving a one-move checkmate.

Both sides have uniquely powerful pieces, with the borg side having the advantage of potentially powerful pawns in the early- to mid-game. However, once their pawns have been reduced, the borg side is left with standard orthodox chess pieces. The atomic side, however, becomes stronger toward the endgame when borg’s pawn supply has been depleted.

The really weird thing is that the atomic king can checkmate the borg king (but not the other way around).

Note: this is not an original variant. I learned this in high school, although I do not know the original source of these rules.

The board is set up as a normal chess game. Both rooks in the A column are turned upside down; these are the “nukes”. The right-side-up rooks are the “pushers”. Each of the pieces moves as follows:

- Pawns move as orthodox pawns, but capture as orthodox knights (but still only in the forward direction).
- Knights move double (must move two orthodox knight moves).
- Bishops move along diagonals, but can bounce off walls provided a path exists.
- Nukes move as orthodox rooks. When a nuke captures a piece it detonates, destroying itself and everything adjacent to it.
- Pushers move as orthodox rooks. They cannot directly capture pieces, but instead can move until they meet a piece, whereupon they “push” everything in that direction by one square. If a piece is pushed off the board, it is considered captured.
- Queens move as orthodox queens.
- Kings move as queens, but with a maximum range of three squares in a direction.

The board is set up similar to regular chess with the following changes: both rook pawns are advanced two squares, and the queen pawns are each advanced one square.

All back rank pieces move normally; this is a pawn variation game. Each pawn moves with the rules of the friendly piece behind it. This does not necessarily mean adjacent; the two pieces must share a column, and the pawn must be in a more advanced row.

For example, at the beginning of the game, the pawn at b2 moves and captures as a knight, while the pawn at d2 moves and captures as a queen. If there are two pieces behind the pawn, the pawn assumes the properties of the nearest piece. If the closest piece is a pawn, or if there is nothing at all behind, then the pawn moves and captures as a conventional pawn.

Thus, the function of a pawn can change every turn. The function of the pawn assumes its new role (if any) once movement and capturing has ended. For example, a pawn with a friendly bishop behind it may move across the board and capture as a bishop. Upon completion of the movement and capture, the pawn may now be in the same column as a friendly knight, and so it threatens as a knight. So it is possible that a pawn could move and capture as a bishop but end its turn by putting the opponent’s king in check as a knight.

Warning: this actually can make your mind hurt.

Once again, thanks to my U of MN physics & astronomy friends for ideas and playtesting.

The board is set up exactly as regular chess. Assign the following numerical ranks to each of the pieces:

Pawn = 1
Knight & Bishop = 2
Rook = 3
Queen & King = 4

Whenever an attempt at a capture is made, compare the relative values of the piece ranks. If a higher ranking piece attempts to capture a lower ranking piece, the capture always succeeds. Between equally ranked pieces, the capture succeeds with a 0.50 probability. If the attacker is one rank less than the defender, the probability of success is 0.25, two ranks is 0.125, and so on. Formally, if P(A,D) is the probability of a successful capture, where A and D are the respective ranks of the attacker and defender, then:

P(A, D) = 0.50^{D - A + 1}, for A ≤ D
P(A, D) = 1.00, for A > D

If a capture attempt fails, the player’s turn is ended and the pieces remain in the original position. The only exception to this rule is if the king is in check. If a capture fails to remove the king from check, the player is given an opportunity to make another non-capturing move to remove the threat from their king. If no alternative moves exist, then the king has been checkmated. A king is still prohibited from moving into a threatened square.

It is helpful to have a coin, deck of cards, d20, or other stochastic device available when playing this variant.

/tips his hat to his U of MN physics & astronomy friends for contributions and playtesting

Whenever I see a globe, I enjoy spinning it around and stopping it randomly with my finger. The place at which my finger lands is then my next travel destination (fictitiously, at least). Without any nearby globes, I decided to script a computerized version of the globe-spin. Below is the resulting destination from my random globe-spin. If you want to make your own globe spins, I have included the Matlab script below. The script requires the M_Map package as well.

rand(’twister’,sum(100*clock));
rlon = -180 + 360.*rand(1,1);
rlat = -90 + 180.*rand(1,1);
lonwidth = 50;
latwidth = 25;
lonmin = rlon-lonwidth;
lonmax = rlon+lonwidth;
latmin = max(rlat-latwidth,-90);
latmax = min(rlat+latwidth,90);

figure
m_proj(’Albers Equal-Area Conic’,'long’,[lonmin lonmax],’lat’,[latmin latmax]);
m_coast(’patch’,[1 .85 .7]);
m_grid(’box’,'fancy’,'tickdir’,'in’);
hold on;
m_plot(rlon,rlat,’or’,'MarkerSize’,8,’MarkerFaceColor’,[1 0 0]);

The metric system is great. Here are some of my favorite units:

Femtoparsec [fpc] = 30.86 m
My walk to work is about 40 femtoparsecs.

Zeptomole [zmol] = 602.2
The conference had an attendance of nearly two zeptomoles.

Yottaproton-mass [Ym_P] = 1.673 g
These paperclips are just over a yottaproton-mass.

Microyear [μyr] = 31.56 s
Oh, you just missed the bus by a microyear!

Pirates and Ninjas–the ultimate duo–share a common genetic ancestor. But what evolutionary pressures caused the divergence of these two groups? Here I present a possible natural history consistent with observed history and behavior.

The pre-ninja-pirate (PNP) group exhibited a combination of hunting-and-gathering and agrarian lifestyles. Farming consisted of whatever tropical/sub-tropical fruits and produce were available (notably sugarcane), while hunting-and-gathering was more akin to scavenging. Meat was ascertained in this way, as the PNP’s had no capacity for herding.

At some point after a sizable PNP population was reached, a catastrophic flood (perhaps the swelling of a river to enormous proportions) caused a division, effectively isolating two PHP populations. One PNP group was closer to tropical latitudes and continued farming sugarcane, eventually concocting a beverage known as “rum”. As the river division also isolated this group from the rest of the continent, these PNP’s developed seafaring vessels in order to further their hunting-and-gathering. (Why this group choose to use their vessels on the open sea, instead of as a means of reuniting the PNP populations, remains a mystery.)

The subtropical group found it was difficult to grow their old crops, but the recent flood made their land suitable for the cultivation of rice patties. As population densities increased, hunting-and-gathering techniques became more stealthy and cunning. While this PHP group was reproductively isolated from other humanoids, they did interact with other species as a means of gathering food and supplies.

Beginning with their diet, and continuing on in their hunting styles, the divergence between the two groups eventually gave way to cultural differences: the open sea was a natural venue for song, battles, and treasure, while the denser land-dwelling PNP’s relied on subtlety and art to achieve their goals. And thus, the Pirates and the Ninjas came to be.

It’s like data mining, but the data is your music collection. I have roughly 3000 songs in my collection (legal, believe it or not), and I finally joined the iTunes bandwagon. A lot of my music came from a one-year subscription I had to the eMusic downloading service (which was $10/month for unlimited downloads at the time). I got a bunch of jazz this way, as well as some other random stuff that looked interesting–but I didn’t necessarily listen to all of it very much. Now with iTunes shuffling through my entire music collection, I am stochastically discovering interesting music that I might not have come across otherwise. A few of my favorites from the last few days:

Echo and the Bunnymen - Hide & Seek
The Future Sound of London - Divinity
John Cougar - Thundering Hearts
They Might Be Giants - XTC vs. Adam Ant
Arab Strap - Autumnal
Alphaville - Control
Heaven 17 - Dive

Now all we need is a sophisticated music mining algorithm to be developed to wade through those million song databases. The stochastic method is certainly fun, but it’s not terribly efficient.

I just now got back from work, as I’ve been working on finishing up a term paper that’s due tomorrow. Being that it is a term paper, you might think that I should have spent time during the term writing it. But to be honest, I woudn’t even say that I procrastinated this paper. Procrastination is when you think about doing something but then put it off. In my case, I had planned to do this paper on the last two days of the semester. Why? Well, working under this kind of a deadline builds certain skills that can be used in all facets of life. Anyone can write a good term paper over the course of the term. But it takes real skill to wait until the last possible moment, pound something out, and end up with a product that’s almost as good. In order to become a master, follow this simple set of coupled optimizations:

1) Minimize the amount of time between when you start the project and the due date.
2) Maximize the quality of your work.

At first, these goals might seem at odds, but with enough practice you’ll be able to start and finish a project in a day, with little regard to the project magnitude. Criteria #1 is slightly more important than #2; however, there is one additional rule that must be followed at all costs: the quality of your work should never look like you started it the night before. This is the key to success. This is what distinguishes a master from an amateur procrastinator.

There’s not enough fasting going on. Whether motivated by religion or something else, we really could stand to have fewer eating days. For the mathematically inclined, I propose to only consume food on days of the month that are prime or perfect squares. For your convenience, the fasting days would be: 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, 15, 18, 20, 21, 22, 24, 26, 27, 28, 30.

If someone asks you why you’re fasting, simply stare blankly into space and reply, “…the numbers.”

One proposed method for reducing carbon dioxide emissions is the implementation of a carbon tax. This would provide industry with a financial incentive to move toward alternative, “clean” energy sources. I say we extend the same concept in an effort to reduce bureaucracy: establish a paper tax.

Now, a paper tax would not need to be as drastic in magnitude as a carbon tax, since we do not want to eliminate the use of paper entirely. There are certainly several legitimate uses of paper that should not fall into the taxable category. But in matter of pure bureaucracy, I cannot help but think that a moderate tax on paper use would help eliminate some of the unproductive and duplicative tasks that are circulated, often with no obvious outcome. Perhaps Washington would function more efficiently? Of course, the tax would have to be local, based on the nature of the organization (e.g., company-wide, university-wide, etc.). But I, for one, could certainly stand to see less paperwork.

Back in my Sunday School days, it turned out that almost any spiritual question could be answered with “read your Bible and pray”. It didn’t matter what the question was; in all likelihood you still had a valid answer.

The same trick works for the physical sciences (on a macroscopic level): when in doubt, the answer is “the Sun”. Try it. Weather systems and the general circulation? Differential solar heating. The food chain? Photoautotrophs that are consumed obtain their energy from solar photons. Chemical abundances on Earth? The solar nebula. Water on Mars? Skin cancer? Starvation in Africa? Turmoil in the Middle East? I think you get the hang of it.

Of course, the Sun is a third-generation star, so if we move outside the bounds of our Solar System, the default answer becomes “the Big Bang”, in which case we can also apply this same principle to some quantum phenomenon. Don’t let anyone tell you that you can’t have all the answers!

The tent revival era is over, so where do people go to discuss religion? Many people go to specific houses or worship on one or more specified days of the week, but what about the less-devout? Well, a lot of them go to bars. Two of the most popular alcohol-induced bar topics are religion and politics. This is true even if the person generally has no strong opinions about either of these topics. Furthermore, in the bar setting these conversations can (and do) take place between complete strangers.

Suggestion: Evangelicals, Mormons, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Pastafarians, and the like should forget about door-to-door, pamphlets, and revivals. The action is at the local watering hole! I have no guarantees on information retention, but at least people are more receptive when under the influence. Of course, it only works if both parties are drinking–and I have to admit that altering the bar scene by introducing tipsy missionaries is an amusing prospect.

I was recently told that horses in a riding barn are not locked up. This is to protect the horses in case, for instance, the building caught on fire. If the doors were barred shut, then we’d get a nice horse barbeque, but that wouldn’t be very helpful for the riders. But what about theft? Apparently horses don’t like to be handled by just anyone, and random hoodlums trying to steal a horse would not have much luck keeping it calm and getting it into a trailer. But what about professional horse thievery?

Here’s what you do: train with horses, all sorts of horses, to become the best horse-handler you can be. Once you get to the point at which you trust horses and horses trust you, then buy a big trailer, drive to a barn late at night, and load ‘em up! I’m no horse expert, but I do know that horses are expensive. You’d have to be good at covering your tracks, but let’s face it: you didn’t go into horse thievery for the glamour.

Okay, so it’s not get-rich-quick, but more get-rich-at-the-expense-of-others. Then again, isn’t that how all getting rich occurs?