A reported advance in the game of predicting what mobs will decide about yobs who run riot in online games: “STFU NOOB! Predicting Crowdsourced Decisions on Toxic Behavior in Online Games,” Jeremy Blackburn and Haewoon Kwak, arXiv:1404.5905, epub April 23, 2014. (Thanks to investigator Evie Tsing for bringing this to our attention.) The authors, at […]
Tag: games
An Undo Thesis [Ctrl-Z]
Dr. Chuk Moran has recently completed his dissertation on the undo command (ctrl-z) and received his PhD in the Department of Communication at UC San Diego. Unfortunately, Improbable has not been able to track down an online copy of the dissertation, but we did find this short essay on the implications of ludological undoing. BONUS: […]
Shuttlecock aerodynamics : part 4 : an enigma
The 16 feathers traditionally used to construct traditional shuttlecocks are normally organised in an overlapping spiral arrangement. As a result, the shuttlecock tends to whirl in flight, adding spin-stability to what would otherwise be a more haphazard trajectory. But raising the question, in which direction should it rotate? The Badminton World Federation (which oversees international […]
Shuttlecock aerodynamics: part 3
“The shuttlecock soars upward In a parabola of whiteness, Turns, And sinks to a perfect arc.” This extract, from one of the few eminent poems to prominently feature shuttlecocks, is by Amy Lawrence Lowell, (Men, Women and Ghosts, A Roxbury Garden,1916) and is quoted in the latest research regarding the aerodynamics of shuttlecocks. A study by […]
Gamification and deGamification
The origin of the word ‘Gamification’ is not entirely certain, but some attribute it to professor Richard Bartle FRSA of the School of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering at the University of Essex, UK who was working on MUD circa 1980. The exact meaning of the word is slightly fuzzy around the edges too – […]
(Re)creating multiple masculinities: Crocket’s Ultimate Frisbee
Some say that over the past 10 years there has been an increasing focus on the complexity and diversity of masculinities produced in sporting contexts. Newly contributing to the literature on this subject is Dr. Hamish Crocket, who is a Sport and Leisure Studies Lecturer at the University of Waikato, New Zealand. In a forthcoming […]
For wound-flashcard enthusiasts
Anyone who enjoys learning descriptions of wounds, and also enjoys playing games, will perhaps enjoy and benefit from the wound flashcards on the Quizlets web site. Here are a few of the items on offer there: Necrotic Slough color is tan/yellow in the base of the wound bed, texture is soft and soggy, and is […]
The games and vodka of Michiel de Bondt
Scientists, most of them, do find enjoyments, even in the most serious moments. Witness evidence in the case of Michiel de Bondt, pictured here on the 7th of July 2009. Dr. de Bondt describes the occasion: On the 7th of July 2009, I, Michiel de Bondt, promoted to Ph.D. in mathematics. Thesis (electronic, without cover) The […]
Cat and Mouse – digitised
As anyone who has seen a stick thrown for a dog in the park will know, interspecies play is not that uncommon. But playing with another species via a computerised interface is considerably less prevalent. Strides, if not leaps and bounds towards such interaction have recently been made however . . . Researchers Frank Noz […]
How to gamble if you’re in a hurry, colorfully
The trio of Ekhad, Georgiadis and Zeilberger evidently had a good time writing this statistico-mathematical paper: “How to Gamble If You’re In a Hurry“ Shalosh B. Ekhad, Evangelos Georgiadis, Doron Zeilberger [pictured here] arXiv:1112.1645, Dec 7, 2011 “The beautiful theory of statistical gambling, started by Dubins and Savage (for subfair games) and continued by Kelly and Breiman (for superfair […]