Thinking Chaos, Thinking Fences

05 September 2002

What's with the Greeks? In an effort to curtail online gambling (a foolhardy effort akin to the War on Drugs), the Greek government has seen fit to ban all video games. According to an English language newspaper, the Greek government is 'incapable of distinguishing innocuous video games from illegal gambling machines.' What the hell? When did Greece stop being a first-world democracy? I don't even know where to begin on this one. Forget about the human rights issue--consider the economic impact. In the US, the video game industry recently surpassed the film industry in terms of gross annual revenue. Clearly this will cost the Greek economy a big chunk of change (never mind the revenue from grey-to-black market online gambling). Regardless, be careful what you bring on your laptop should you be visiting Greece. That innocent game of Minesweeper could cost you dearly. 8:36:30 PM    comment []

Meta-information on the Internet The New York Times maintains a page describing which stories their users most often emailed (you may have to register/log in to see this page--hey, it's free, and I've been impressed by the NY Times's site). This sort of meta-information is fascinating to me, and one of the unique aspects of publishing information on the Internet. Another good example of this is over at AltaVista, which shows what people are currently searching for. This a powerful part of search engine development, as companies build up a database that maps search terms to the results that people search for. A mere two minutes on the latter site provided these gems that people had recently searched the Web for: mad scientist network gatling gun history hydroquinone vintage fruit labels dancing bush laser sighted pool cue Also good are images that people search for: "area 51" OR "groom lake" agamemnon galapagos birds ethan hawke rustic decorations 8:29:51 PM    comment []

Prime Numbers and Pi Prime Island is an imaginary place rendered based on large prime numbers. One Adrian J.F. Leatherland really likes messing about with "graphical investigations into the prime series". He's made some amazing looking virtual vistas. Here's an explanation of how he's done it and here's something on why he's done it. He's got a good quote on his Web site: 'Upon looking at these numbers, one has the feeling of being in the presence of the inexplicable secrets of creation. I've been interested in the inherit beauty in numbers for some time. Pi, is of course, the most popular choice. A while back I wrote a play, eerily similar to David Aronofsky's great movie (though my writing preceded it), that was concerned with pi. Here's a bit where the protagonist talks to Charles Babbage and Archimedes, two mathematicians from history. It was a bit wack, this play: BEN: Pi is a transcendental number.  It transcends algebra.  It doesn't matter if we've got ten digits or ten million...all we're doing is converging on pi.  It's like...bowling and never getting the head pin. BABBAGE: Why do you suppose man has been struggling with pi for so long? BEN: Well-- ARCH.: "And he made a molten sea.  Ten cubits from the one brim to the other.  It was round all about, and his height was five cubits.  And a line of thirty cubits did compass it about."  Kings, chapter seven, verse twenty-three. BABBAGE: That was about building the great temple of Solomon.  About 950 B.C.  Three thousand years ago.  You've seen graphs of pi... tables...comparative studies.  Did you ever notice anything odd? BEN: Sometimes... BABBAGE: Go on? BEN: Sometimes...it seems peaks for too long, a group of high numbers in a row.  At around the three hundred millionth decimal place, there's eight eights in a row.  Later, around half a billion, it goes one two three four five six seven eight nine.  I don't know what it is... BABBAGE: But it's irrational...random. BEN: It seems too perfectly random...like the number was designed to look random.  Because we have no true notion of what random is, we never have a yard stick against which to check it.  It's like someone planned it that if we figured out a few billion numbers, it would appear to be such...perfect nonsense that we'd look no further. 8:08:54 PM    comment []