The Third Bit

I should be writing a lecture on ethics and professional responsibility for CSC301, or catching up on book reviews, or plowing through some of the 80+ papers that have piled up on my desk. But it’s New Year’s Day, and my family is napping, so what better time to dream about what I’d do if I had some spare cycles? Why not spend some time doodling and musing about the video game I’d write if I was young and reckless and could stand to listen to the thumpa-thumpa noise kids call “music” these days.

So: the aim of the game is to get your bug from one end of the map to the other. The bug (shown in red below) rides on the surface of bubbles, which drift in the current:

The green arrows show where bubbles (shown in blue) and current enter and exit the map cell; the gray circles are fixed obstacles. Bubbles bounce off each other, and off obstacles, deforming as they do so.  Your bug can only move from one bubble to another during collision; to do so, it simply crawls along the surface. Oh, but you have to be careful: if your bug is caught between two bubbles, or between a bubble and an obstacle, it’s crushed.

Those basic mechanics can be enhanced in a lot of ways:

• Your bug can kick its wee feet to push the bubble it’s currently riding on in a particular direction. It won’t have much effect (it’s just a wee bug, after all), but it’s enough to change the angle of attack for collisions.
• There are Other Things crawling around on the bubbles as well that will eat your bug if they can catch it.
• You have two bugs, each controlled by a different hand. I think this makes the game several times more difficult and interesting.
• Two-player version: you have two bugs, and so does your opponent. If you can trap one of her bugs between yours on the surface of a bubble, it’s crushed, and you win.

McGugan’s Beginning Game Development With Python and PyGame is sitting on my shelf, whispering to me.  I… must… be… strong…

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Inspired by Jorge’s list (but sadly, no games):

Sandra Boynton: Your Personal Penguin. Workman Publishing, 2006, 0761143726. Now, lots of other penguins seem to be fine // In a universe of nothing but ice. // But if I could be yours, and you could be mine, // Our cozy little world would be twice as nice. // I want to be Your Personal Penguin.

Stephen J. Ceci and Wendy M. Williams (eds): Why Aren’t More Women in Science? American Psychological Association, 2006, 159147485X. Chapters written by leading researchers on both sides of the nature vs. nurture debate. Dense and dry, but fascinating.

Frances Hardinge: Fly By Night. Harper-Collins, 2006, 0060876271. An orphan named Mosca and her not-really-very-tame attack goose get caught up in a revolutionary plot; delivers the heft and page-turning pleasure Pullman’s Dark Materials trilogy eventually failed to.
Margo Lanagan: Black Juice. Eos, 2006, 0060743921. The setting of these graceful, disturbing stories is never quite our world, but never quite not.

Scott Lynch: The Lies of Locke Lamora. Spectra, 2007, 055358894X. An orphan becomes a criminal mastermind, but at a price—pure swashbuckling fun.

Michael Nygard: Release It! Pragmatic Bookshelf, 2007, 0978739213. It could equally well have been called, “how to make enterprise-scale applications work in the real world.”

Ellen Ullman: Close to the Machine. City Lights, 1997, 0872863328. As the dot-com wave swelled towards crest and collapse, Ullman had to decide whether to ride it or let it slip by. An engaging phase-of-life memoir.

Books

The Edge Annual Question — 2008

When thinking changes your mind, that’s philosophy.
When God changes your mind, that’s faith.
When facts change your mind, that’s science.

What have you changed your mind about? Why?

Science is based on evidence. What happens when the data change? How have scientific findings or arguments changed your mind?

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