alexclerc

i've noticed a particular quasisynaesthetic thing i do with math where i subconsciously map abstract ideas not to color nor shape but rather size. i notice this primarily when i'm trying to think of some kind of math in terms of some other math, and suddenly a thing that used to be very small is now big, or vice versa. only once i get used to working with the tools at the "bigger" level do the things they work over become "small" and easy to think about abstractly. like for example, when i first learned about functors, they were HUGE, because i mean, come on, they go from a whole category to another freakin' category. but then i remind myself, oh, they're just morphisms really, which are these little spindly arrows, and they go between little pebble-sized objects that just happen to be categories. (i used to think sets were big!) it still blows my mind a little that initial algebras are these big clunky things, but the natural numbers are one o' those, and the natural numbers are tiny.

i suppose it's about time to repost this from last year:

The Twelf Days of Christmas

have a lovely day!

yesterday i went to an awesome three-stage party.

first stage: bouncystilts! (sound warning) by the end of a few hours i was walking on them without support or spotters and even doing a little bouncing/skipping, which is way better than the only previous time i had tried them (but, um, don't buy the website's "jump six feet effortlessly!" nonsense -- there were people there with years of experience who were doing pretty crazy things, but getting about two feet of air at most). has a much higher learning curve and injury risk than bouncycastle, but is in some ways more rewarding, for those reasons, when you do manage to start bouncing around.

second stage: food! i brought over the apple-cranberry crisp i had purchased ingredients for before thanksgiving, but never got around to making, and there was a great bounty of other things in a kind of hilariously bimodal spread -- most of it was vegetarian sides or desserts (some vegan), and a vegan soup, and then there was the big slab o' ham (provided by the hosts).

third stage: games! i learned three new games:

• Bang!, a western-shootout-themed card game with mafia- (or happyville-) style character roles and some clever mechanics involving distance from players based on your position in the circle.
  
• Antike, a resource-based strategy game with a deceptive surface similarity to risk. deceptive because if you actually attack people a lot, particularly early on, you will not do very well; it's a lot more about trying to set up the most effective feedback loops to get you lots and lots of resources (and tangentially expand your domain, but that's also largely to generate more resources). winning is based on reaching a certain number of goals which include "have a lot of boats", "research something before anyone else", "have a lot of land", and "have a lot of temples".
  
• Drunter & Drüber, a silly game of mercilessly building roads over buildings, except for the particular ones you care about, which are secret, oh and except for outhouses, which are important and must be voted upon.