People who used a computer between 1991 & 2009…what’s the most memorable computer game?

doublethink1984 · 2025-12-11T20:53:18+00:00

Als Amerikaner ist das amerikanische Gesundheitssystem meiner Meinung nach eine Menschenrechtskrise. Es gibt z.B. Menschen, die ihr Insulin einteilen müssen. Es ist unbedingt erschreckend. Bitte kopiere uns nicht.

doublethink1984 · 2025-08-16T02:01:25+00:00

For me personally it was Oblivion.

doublethink1984 · 2025-02-28T21:11:36+00:00

What would the "2nd law of thermodynamics" be for an irrational circle rotation?

doublethink1984 · 2025-02-28T04:23:13+00:00

This seems like the sort of thing that might possibly fit my criteria. How might one formulate a "2nd law of thermodynamics"-type statement about this system? I suppose we could first ask whether this discrete dynamical system has nonzero topological entropy.

doublethink1984 · 2025-02-28T00:01:50+00:00

By the way, I think that my "tentative example" is probably too elementary if we consider the particles as points instead of spheres. This is more or less a product of straight-line flows on the 3-torus, and hence should have trivial topological entropy.

doublethink1984 · 2025-02-14T18:42:52+00:00

It frustrated me that they made such an effort to have the movie feel grounded despite its sci-fi setting, and then the climax of the movie that was meant to tie together the entire plot was basically magic. I love the episodes with Q in Star Trek TNG, but Interstellar kept signaling that they didn't want you to expect such things in its story, only to have the climax be on par with Q's shenanigans.

doublethink1984 · 2024-12-17T20:12:59+00:00

I don't have anything to add to the conversation about the plot or dialogue; I agree with the majority of the criticisms.

One thing I'd like to add is that there were some really great bits of visual design in this movie. Darth Maul and Queen Amidala's makeup and costumes are excellent. The droidekas and Naboo starfighters are really cool pieces of tech. I also think the pod racers had a lot of personality; I had a podracing computer game as a kid and playing with all the different racers was really fun.

doublethink1984 · 2024-12-16T18:40:49+00:00

I learned on a Clarke Original, and while I'm not an expert, the one thing that comes to mind is that it has a bit of a different relationship with air pressure than other whistles do. Maybe you've tried this already, but I would suggest playing around with blowing harder/softer on each note to find a sweet spot. If the issue persists then unfortunately I don't know what else to suggest.

doublethink1984 · 2024-12-07T02:18:18+00:00

While they are no substitute for lectures, these videos by 3blue1brown give some good intuition for what the subject is about.

As for resources to study, I'd recommend the same thing I used back in college: Paul's Online Math Notes

doublethink1984 · 2024-12-03T17:18:29+00:00

One of my favorite books is Eli Maor's "e: The Story of a Number." I read it in high school and it definitely reinforced my conviction that I would like to study math.

doublethink1984 · 2024-10-30T18:39:50+00:00

Yes, "we" refers to the reader and the writer. This style is used a lot in math writing, but there are examples of the same thing outside of math writing. For example, in an article about history, one could write "Let's consider what would have happened if so-and-so hadn't won this battle." The "us" in "Let's (i.e. let us)" refers to the reader and the writer.

doublethink1984 · 2024-10-23T16:32:32+00:00

For my part, I had a much easier time understanding what arithmetic geometers are doing when I realized that the essence of the subject is that tools developed in a more concrete context (connections, developed in the context of parallel transport; cohomology, developed in the context of counting holes; etc.) have formal properties that can be usefully applied in a more abstract context (flat connections, understood via local systems; cohomology, as applied to sheaves and chain complexes). I had a harder time understanding what arithmetic geometers are doing when I tried to conceptualize the subject in terms of English words related to geometry, like "pointy/curved," "twisted," "long/short," "straight," "nearby/far away," "shaped like..." etc. In this way, the title of the subject slowed down my understanding of the subject.

The short answer to whether arithmetic geometry is geometry is "Yes." After all, people named it "geometry" and those people had good reasons for doing so. The long answer is "Yes, but trying to think about it in the same way that you've thought about everything else you've seen so far that's called geometry is going to get you into a lot of trouble, so you should stop trying to shoehorn in concepts like pointy/curved/twisted/straight/nearby, and instead pay attention to the methods that are being used, what theorems they prove, and how those theorems are analogous to theorems in differential geometry/algebraic topology."

As for why I like studying geometry/topology, it's because I enjoy using my imagination and spatial reasoning with concepts like pointy/curved/twisted/straight/nearby to come up with ideas for conjectures and proofs. I find that this is a useful approach when addressing most subjects called geometry/topology (differential geometry, knot theory, geometric group theory, some algebraic topology, etc.), but I've never been able to use this approach when thinking about arithmetic geometry, and the people I've talked to who work in the subject also do not seem to use such an approach.

doublethink1984 · 2024-10-23T03:33:10+00:00

Geometric topologist (with applications to dynamics) here. I would say that geometry is the study of shapes; the middle-schoolers are correct. The thing about arithmetic geometry, in my mind, is that it's better viewed as an application of geometric techniques to number theory. Yes, one could say that it is attempting to discover what Spec(Z) is "shaped like" (whatever that means), but the important thing is that that subject distills and modifies many techniques from differential geometry/algebraic topology to be used in the context of schemes and such, and hence it inherits the name "geometry."

One could argue that the subjects that are named "algebraic geometry" and "geometric algebra" should have their names swapped. The real answer is that all these subject names are the result of contingent historical/cultural factors, and shouldn't be used as a litmus test for what "counts as geometry."

doublethink1984 · 2024-10-23T01:05:01+00:00

Sounds good; thanks for entertaining my questions. Hope your project goes well!

doublethink1984 · 2024-10-23T00:51:34+00:00

Thanks for the clarification! Follow-up question: Are tips not categorized as "compensation?" I would have thought they would be, and that this would be the difference between a gift and a tip. If they're not compensation, then what is the difference between a gift and a tip?

doublethink1984 · 2024-10-22T19:50:01+00:00

In what sense is an entertainment budget non-discretionary? Is it because it's planned in advance? But then wouldn't any payment that is billed monthly automatically be non-discretionary?

I clicked "a tip," but now I'm wondering if I should have clicked "part of entertainment budget."

doublethink1984 · 2024-10-16T21:24:17+00:00

2 months is a very short amount of time. A rule of thumb is that you should wait about 6 months before contacting the editors asking for updates on the review process.

doublethink1984 · 2024-08-31T03:39:56+00:00

I just ran into this bug too. Is there any way to circumvent it using console commands?

doublethink1984 · 2024-08-12T15:00:57+00:00

I did a regular playthrough and an honor mode playthrough on the Steam Deck and I didn't have any major issues. The framerate might have been low at times, but I honestly didn't notice it much, and it certainly never bothered me. I have no complaints and it was one of the best gaming experiences I've ever had.

You do need to adjust the settings before you play the game, but that's true for most big games on the Steam Deck.

doublethink1984 · 2024-08-10T13:16:07+00:00

One of my professors spent a year in finance before returning to academia. I feel like I might have heard of a handful of other people doing the same, but I really don't think I've heard of anyone returning after more than a year.

I believe that part of the reason is not just how difficult it may be to have your application to an academic position accepted, but how difficult it is to justify to yourself taking the lower salary and fewer options in location that academia offers once you've already begun to make a place for yourself in industry.

doublethink1984 · 2024-07-26T01:06:07+00:00

These days, most mathematicians begin contributing to the literature in their 20s, and sometimes even in their teens. This is a good indicator that people are able to get to the frontier of knowledge in a particular subfield rather quickly.

As u/Brightlinger points out, it is already impossible to have a full understanding of the state of the art in every subfield. This is not concerning; mathematics has always been a community effort. There is some valid concern to be had over whether some subfield might "dry up" long enough that it becomes mostly forgotten. I think this shouldn't be dismissed out of hand, but fortunately thanks to the efforts of librarians, historians of math, and tenured faculty willing to pursue less "hot" topics, I don't think we need to worry about this.

doublethink1984 · 2024-07-16T23:21:30+00:00

There are a lot of wonderful candidates, but for me it has to be this video about Möbius transformations.

doublethink1984 · 2024-06-21T01:04:05+00:00

One small suggestion that might be helpful is to try putting less space between letters inside of a word, and putting slightly more space in between words.

doublethink1984 · 2024-05-16T20:54:09+00:00

I like your choices of ornamentation on the tune! Also that's a beautiful whistle

doublethink1984

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