Categories
Fiction

The Red Shells

Premise: The slave trade, but the British are crabs, pre-Revolutionary Americans are snakes, and Africans are mice.

The Reds transported the Snakes of Europe to the shores of America. With their claw hands, they took £s as tax and exchanged for tea. The first snake Congress met.

“In our triangular trade of tea and mice for silver and cotton, we pay one tenth in tax to the Conch and one tenth in shipping fees to Barnacle Shipping a claw monopoly maintained by the Conch. A total of a fifth of our bounty.”

The mice holding snakes nodded in ascent. One of them spoke, “That’s one less field mouse for cotton, less one tenth the profit; and one tenth in trade for the necessary tools to cultivate the land; effects felt across all states and industries.”

“Although I find the practice of mice holding abominable, I am yoked to agreement,” a furnace dealer said: “I’ve shed not once this year for overwork.”

Meanwhile back in Britain, two crabs of the Conch court have tea. A painting from the Netherlands is hanged and various vases from the Orient are displayed.

Categories
Philosophy

Aphorisms

Favoritism – Just knowing another is enough to favor them.

Categories
Programming

Car Model: “Progress Bar Car”

# Car Model: "Progress Bar Car"
# Copyright (C) 2024 David Fan

from math import floor
from time import sleep

# f = fuel amount
# e = engine mass
# u = friction
# c = mechanical loss constant
# v = initial velocity
# x = initial position
# d = track length
# b = length of progress bar

f = 100
e = 1
u = .1
c = .1
v = 0
x = 0
d = 500
b = 40

# F = force
# m = mass of fuel tank
# a = acceleration

while(v > 0 or f > 0):

	if f > 0:
		F = 1
	else:
		F = 0

	m = .1 + .01*f

	a = F/(e + m) - u

	v = a + v - c*v
	x = v + x

	f = f - 1

	p = floor(b * x/d)

	print('a = {:+0.2f}, v = {:+1.1f}, x = {:=+7.2f} {}{}'.format(a,v,x, \
	 "_" * p, "-" * (b-p)))

	if x > d:
		print("Finish!")
		break

	sleep(.2)

if x < d:
	print("Did not finish")
Categories
Literature

Villiam’s Lapvona

Lapvona was an entertaining read.

Lapvona is a medieval village with rich dynamics. I’d even go so far as to say that the setting is a character in the story. This is illustrated through the actions of a lord and his priest. Yet the main character in the story is a deformed boy named Marek.

Villiam, lord of Lapvona, and Father Barnabas, the priest, rule over the serfs. There isn’t anything that makes Villiam a natural ruler in his appearance. The rule of his family goes back several generations. Villiam is defined by his greed; a body that consumes many times over a normal person. How does Villiam stay in power? He is completely amoral. He employs bandits to steal harvests, kill. This happens a lot in Lapvona. The serfs only see a powerful lord. They listen to Father Barnabas.

Why don’t the serfs rise up against Villiam? Villiam is able to defend himself. To the North is a strong military power. The Northerners are natural guards, tall and strong, yet subservient. Villiam employs them. Villiam is married to Dibra, a Northerner. It is a political marriage. Lapvonians are producers, they cultivate land, animals. Lapvona is a land of good soil. Northerners are muscle. There is trade.

The bandits are not developed quite as much as a people, but they are significant to Villiam’s line. Marek is the bastard of incestuous bandits and through a bizarre set of circumstances he becomes Villiam’s adopted son. I suspect abnormal family lines, secret children, drive other medieval or village narratives. I’ve read and seen other stories with unclear paternity in different village contexts. Sometimes it’s just a phrase or a suggestion of paternity. Other times it is the crux of the whole story. In Lapvona, paternity seems less important to the story. Villiam is more interested in having a line as a kind of possession, blood or not. In his house, he sees people more as playthings: a son is a role in a skit. A kind of seriousness about family lines is completely lacking in Villiam.

Just to clarify, children and animals, like baby lambs, are important to the story. There are patterns of care and neglect, and these are often shocking and barbarous to a modern sensibility. More normal characters are concerned about their kin, continuing a family line, like Jude, a shepherd.

Long ago, Jude loves Agata, but she is already pregnant and she bears a deformed son, Marek. Jude takes Marek as his adoptive son, but he resents him. Later, Marek becomes Villiam’s son.

Again through some rather bizarre circumstances, Jude becomes a father, but he is unable to be a normal father. It is about a decade since Jude and Agata were together and the baby is Agata’s and Jude’s this time around. Yet since Agata was a nun that fled to Villiam’s residence (and on the way is raped by Jude whose hut lies below the manor), Villiam claims that it is a divine birth in order to create religious tourism.

From this event also, like random raids from bandits discussed earlier, we see that secrecy and credulity are glue keeping the narrative of Lapvona together.

Categories
Anime

Isekai

Isekai operate on two levels. First, we have the experiences of a modern person. Second, new rules and experiences in the fantasy realm. The main character is nearly always rewarded from the new environment by experiences in the old world.

Isekais seem to argue that a competent Japanese office worker or student have the intelligence and drive (with a bonus) to make it in another world. These are worlds of adventure that lack today’s politics and bureaucratic structure.

Clearly, after some initial shock, main characters make the trade. It’s pretty rare that characters want to return to the old world, often it is not an option. Instead characters remake some part of the fantasy world in the image of the modern world; utopian politics; aesthetics. A dream world.

It is a world of remarkable freedom rather than imprisonment. There are exceptions to this rule and in those cases the main character does not get an overwhelming resurrection bonus: it is not complete fluff.

Categories
Fiction

The Monk Hit his Head

At the temple a monk retrieved something from a closet. As he went to replace it, the stool was positioned beneath the doorframe, and so with this arms reaching for a top shelf, and ascending the stool, he hit his head squarely on the frame.

He groaned. He walked the hard-wood floors as he rubbed the top of his head. It was that spot directly at the center.

Another monk walking the opposite direction asked him what was wrong. He said nothing was wrong while thinking bad thoughts. He said nothing was wrong but the pain was there.

He wandered outside and watched the monks sweep. Whereas before he felt serenity, now he felt agitation, a dizzy drop at the bottom of a bowl (he could not empty).

Categories
Fiction

Front Button

N was getting ready for a date. He matched with a girl next door type. In the pic that made him want, she wore a tank top and her hair short. Seemed like an old picture, but N didn’t care.

After taking a shower, N rooted around for a good shirt. He found on but it was missing a button. He decided against wearing it, but remembered that he saw the button the other day behind the dresser against the molding. He thought he didn’t have time to repair it as he had to drive downtown, but that he would find the button anyway just so he wouldn’t think about finding it.

He moved an end table and leaned down to retrieve the button but to his dismay the molding was slightly discolored and moist. In fact as he pulled the dresser away and used his phone, he could see that the damage was far more extensive.

Categories
Poetry

Poetry

In this day and age,
It is surprising poetry is not more popular
Due to our shortened attention
Spans
Categories
Games

Battle Royale Model

In a battle royale game like Tetris 99 or Fortnite, a player’s rank does not absolutely reflect their skill level. Just by chance, a strong player may encounter a stronger player early on in the match. Since ranking is by elimination and time, a skilled player may be eliminated early and thus rank low.

I thought it would be interesting to model this phenomenon with Python.

In the following code, a list, “s”, of 10 members, stands for 10 players. The numbers 0 to 9 give the skill levels of players, with 0 being the strongest and 9, the weakest.

Two numbers are pulled from the list randomly, then compared.

The larger number is added to the rank list, “r”. The smaller number is added back to the pool of players.

At the end, zero is appended to the rank list because zero always wins. The rank list, “r”, is reversed to give the ranks their proper placements.

#Battle Royale Model

from random import choice

r = []
s = list(range(10))

while len(s) > 1:
    x = choice(s)
    s.remove(x)
    y = choice(s)
    s.remove(y)
    if x < y:
        r.append(y)
        s.append(x)
    else:
        r.append(x)
        s.append(y)

r.append(0)
r.reverse()

print(r)

Here is some output:

[0, 2, 8, 7, 1, 6, 5, 9, 3, 4]

Notice, Player 1 is ranked in the upper half, but barely; yet Player 1 is better than 80% of the players.

Also, although Player 9 is worst in skill, he made 8th place, rather than 10th or last place. One interpretation of this is that in battle royale games, hiding is a good strategy.

Categories
Literature

Tell the Machine Goodnight

Tell the Machine Goodnight by Katie Williams is about a device that gives accurate recommendations to obtain happiness. The device, called Apricity, creates some unusual scenarios.

Although Apricity does what it is marketed to do, it is not a complete solution. First, users must follow these recommendations. Apricity is a black box, so users are not able to understand why these recommendations are made. Following recommendations is a leap of faith. The average user needs to apply the recommendations and sense within themselves any changes.

Yet, many people question the premise of Apricity, its benefits. Some believe that taking advice from a machine is a fool’s errand. Others believe change is not possible in themselves.

Apricity is also expensive. The Apricity Corporation has a monopoly: The procedure is expensive, but the procedure itself is not costly.

In our current society, we are faced with many pieces of advice that promote happiness, yet they are not followed, for example:

  • Do not use your phone in bed.
  • Smile (as in smiling makes you happy)
  • Eat well
  • Exercise

Williams gives an interesting example of this phenomenon. A manager of the Apricity Corporation has taken his Apricity reading multiple times. It is always the same and he never follows the advice. He rejects advice because as a self-identified self-made man, the act of rejection makes him feel powerful. Thus, for him, power is a stronger reason than happiness.