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Tuesday, 2005 July 12, 12:15 — mathematics

time-sink of the week

Planarity, a Flash puzzle: rearrange the vertices so that no edges cross. (Cited by Joshua Burton.)

When a solution is near, the program gets very slow, which seems backward. (Thursday: It has been changed to test only on the player’s request.)

How is the graph generated? Perhaps it starts with a Delaunay triangulation of a random set of vertices, and deletes edges until each vertex has degree 4, 3 or 2.

Monday, 2005 July 11, 23:09 — me!me!me!, psychology

they can’t always be wrong


You are elegant, withdrawn, and brilliant. Your mind is a weapon, able to solve any puzzle. You are also great at poking holes in arguments and common beliefs.

For you, comfort and calm are very important. You tend to thrive on your own and shrug off most affection. You prefer to protect your emotions and stay strong.

The World’s Shortest Personality Test
Monday, 2005 July 11, 15:39 — politics

That all you got, punk?

Dean Ing’s first novel Soft Targets (1979) suggested that against terrorists the most effective weapon is mockery. Since the London bombs I’ve seen hints of such an approach.

Arthur Silber (2006: that link is gone bad, here’s another) gets in a dig at another faction that favors indiscriminate violence:

. . . one has the sense that this kind of hawk (which is most of them now) can’t grasp the nature of a convincing argument. It is as if they believe that by shouting, over and over again, “But terrorists are really, really, really, REALLY evil!,” they will finally convince everyone who doubts or criticizes Bush’s foreign adventures that Bush is entirely right about everything. . . .

Monday, 2005 July 11, 14:39 — prose

blowing up a star, and afterward

(This post was previously part of another one, severed for what now seems to me greater convenience.)

Charlie Stross‘s recent novel Iron Sunrise has a surprising number of minor errors. The distance between Moscow Prime and Old Newfie is stated as 1393 light-days, one parsec (1191 d·c, close enough), one light-year (365 d·c). Someone mentioned in conversation is “he” then “she” then “Otto”. A garment is white when bought and black when worn.

Iron Sunrise is a sequel to, but plotwise independent of, Singularity Sky. It’s generally more coherent and less whizbang.

I’ve spotted two personal references in the first half. An empress is named Ayse, presumably after Ayse Sercan who, like Charlie, is or was a regular in alt.peeves. One of the quotations from which another Edinburgh writer takes the title of his blog is, er, quoted.

Sunday, 2005 July 10, 21:01 — prose

scifi

The last book I finished was Charlie Stross’s The Family Trade. Spoilers: ( . . more . . )

Thursday, 2005 July 7, 21:12 — language

language peeve of the day

A set comprises its members; a set consists of its members; a set is composed of its members — but a set is not comprised of anything.

“Thank you for observing all safety precautions.”

Wednesday, 2005 July 6, 22:07 — California, me!me!me!

protecting the public

Argh! No traffic tickets for twenty years, and now two in 16 months – both from BART police. Two more months and I could have cleared both by the curious device of “traffic school”.

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