tingilinde

crepusculus

It was Crepusculus in Los Angeles on Saturday while San Franciscans could celebrate today. Folks around NYC will see it on Tuesday the 7th.

It marks the earliest sunset of the year..  A day that, due to the Earth’s inclination, elliptical orbit and astronomical day length that isn’t 24 hours, varies depending on your latitude. One also celebrates the latest sunset in the Summer.

The name is homemade, but seems about right. So if you want another holidays - you’re welcome!

 

 

 

the old math behind a hot card game

The math behind Spot It!

a tip of the hat to Greg

a test of chinese control?

Setting limits on video games

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China has a new rule for the country’s hundreds of millions of young gamers: No videogames during the school week, and one hour a day on Fridays, weekends and public holidays.

China on Monday issued strict new measures aimed at curbing what authorities describe as youth videogame addiction, which they blame for a host of societal ills, including distracting young people from school and family responsibilities.

The new regulation, announced by the National Press and Publication Administration, will ban minors from playing videogames entirely between Monday and Thursday. On the other three days of the week, and on public holidays, they will be only permitted to play between 8 p.m. and 9 p.m.

The announcement didn’t offer a specific age for minors, but previous regulations targeting younger videogamers have drawn the line at 18 years old.

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wingspan

The board game has been around for awhile and is very popular - particularly with women.    Here's a piece on it.

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Crucially, it is difficult to play Wingspan in a way that brings you into direct conflict with others. Indeed, it’s possible to make plays in the game that help your opponents, and the game encourages such moves—playing a bird, for example, who not only collects food for you but for everyone. That’s why, in general, you tend to score more points when you’re playing with more people. Success, in Wingspan, is not a zero-sum game. When my family first started playing the game, I, a competitive dad, chose the variation in which only one player can maximize the end-of-round bonuses. But to my surprise I soon agreed with my kids that it was more fun to play the variation in which everyone has the opportunity to score the maximum bonus if they all succeed at the designated tasks. The game has really tamped down my competitive drive. I’ve found that during the hour or so it takes to play, I rarely have any sense whether I’m winning or losing. And at the end, I am curious to find out how I did, but my enjoyment does not necessarily correlate with my victory or defeat.

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cranky uncle

Dealing with misinformation - now a free game.

 

geoguessr record run

Geoguessr is a game with Google maps where you're dropped into a random location in the US and have to figure out where you are using clues from streetview and a map that doesn't show your position. 

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zork and beyond

West of House

You are standing in an open field west of a white house, with a boarded from door. 

There is a small mailbox here.

Some of you will love this - a project covering text based computer games.  A free subscription with payment support options.

a tip of the hat to Steve

 

 

a serious robotic pool stick

A remarkable project - a tip of hat to Greg

how fast are you?

courtesy xkcd

the great hunt

That treasure chest hidden in the West.  Here's the story.

The amount of time and money spent by treasure hunters completely dwarfs the treasure. Of course that's not the point.

snip

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Improbably, Fenn recovered from the cancer, but he decided to hide the treasure anyway, unaccompanied by his bones. Often, when Preston visited, Fenn would take him into his walk-in vault and show him the latest configuration of booty. “He took stuff out and put stuff in,” Preston remembers. “He was having a lot of fun thinking about what was going to be in that chest.” Early versions contained antique silver and gold watches and gemstones, including an amethyst, a topaz, and a star ruby. Fenn added a bunch of $1,000 bills. Then he removed them, realizing they would rot over time.

One of Fenn’s concerns was how he would know whether the treasure had been found, should that occur in his lifetime. He pondered various strategies, at one point including a document (a bearer bond or bank letter in an amount Preston recalls as $100,000) that a finder would need to present at a bank, triggering Fenn’s notification. Then Fenn removed that, too, figuring that banks might no longer be around to honor the obligation. He ended up putting something else in the chest, an unknown item he never revealed to anyone, which would somehow let him know when the treasure was discovered.

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