This is something I’ve been thinking about for a while, brought to the fore by Ken Lui’s story The Caretaker recently on Escape Pod. Go listen. It’s worth it. I’ll wait. If someone wants to write programs today that make use of strong-AI, there’s literally nothing stopping them–they can write to the Mechanical Turk API (to [...]
This is a FAQ I’ll be pointing people at in the future, and updating as needed. EPUB is the name of a format for electronic books and other publications. It works pretty well, it has small file sizes, it’s compatible with business models that both require or don’t require DRM, and it’s actively maintained and [...]
One thing I’ve picked up from acquiring editors and slush readers is that some view Standard Manuscript Format as a kind of IQ test. If a potential author can’t even follow simple, straightforward instructions, it’s easy and justified to simply toss out that submission and move on to the next. I wholly support this notion. [...]
Writer writes story. Writer submits story to market. Market requires submissions in Standard Manuscript Format. Market requires submissions as DOC or RTF. This narrative plays itself out every day. But it’s a problem for users like me that don’t rely on Microsoft tools. I get notes back from editors kindly mentioning that the story didn’t [...]
Another batch of bappir, with more authentic ingredients. In most cases, when a cuneiform text says “honey” it’s referring to date honey. So I took 16 oz of dates, pitted them, and pureed them with 16 oz of water, making a delicious and aromatic spread. (Not quite a syrup.). Half of that went into this [...]
If you live in a large swath of northern Cali you can electronically check out books from the NCDL, most of which are Protected PDF, and read them on devices such as an iPad. It’s simple, just follow these 7 easy steps 0. Completely disregard anything the site says about software. In particular, don’t bother [...]
This posting may take more explanation than usual. Undum is a great open source hypertext (or interactive fiction, if you will) engine for creating stories that allow reader choices and unfold over time. A bit like a web-optimized Choose Your Own Adventure(tm). Guard fields are a feature from the Eastgate StorySpace engine, which allow a [...]
This doesn’t count as research…more like stashing a link where I can find it later. A quite remarkable graphic representation of Sumerian timekeeping. (one more browser tab freed…)-m
The biggest pitfall in studying ancient mathematics is subconsciously superimposing anachronistic views on the ancient way of thought. For example, the Sumerians had two different concepts that would both today be called ‘addition’, and for different concepts that we would lump as multiplication. Here’s an example of a mathematical problem and solution, given in “conform” translation: The [...]
I found a reference to the preceding problem in the book A Remarkable Collection of Babylonian Mathematical Texts, in appendix 6 on page 405. This problem statement is referred to as tablet DPA 37. It states: There is a curious error in DPA 37. The area mentioned in the answer exceeds the correctly computed area of the square by [...]