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Nonsense is nonsense. But the study of nonsense? That is a science. —Saul Lieberman Apophenia is when the human mind finds meaning in the meaningless. A specific well-known special case of apophenia is pareidolia: the seeing of human faces in things which do not contain human f…

I am not a professional at this, but I just wanted to list and discuss some well known protective factors for mental health. Answer this quick questionnaire: - Did you get a good night's sleep last night? - Do you see your friends often enough? - Do you have any enjoyable hobbi…

There's a wide range of apps and websites to help kids get into coding. The simplest apps all used a block-based approach, where you build a program by dragging and dropping blocks that snap together. Each block is an instruction. Games will start with very instructions availabl…

I can't explain how much I love this song, and I definitely can't explain why. There's a mystique and a power and something just so very odd about it. I feel like I enter a trance on every listen. Meanwhile, fans turned this album into a mystical treasure hunt. It's a code to be…

A group of Explorers are traversing a system of Caves when they find a Treasure. In accordance with an agreement that they signed before entering the cave, the Treasure must be divided fairly between them, in such a way that they are each satisfied that they will derive equivalen…

To begin programming, you can try this article: How to become a programmer There are online tutorials for just about every language, and you can see many of them in this list: - Try .net (C#, F#, VB.net) - Try Babylon.js - Try C# - Try CSS: Flexbox - Try CSS: FlexBox Froggy 🔥 -…

What is the connection between these three things? - A Chinese legend of an invisible cord tied around the ankle that connects those who are destined to meet. - Kabbalist belief that a thin scrap of woolen thread can be worn to ward off misfortune brought about by the evil eye. -…

*Because everyone has a theory about the broken state of education* Can the knowledge or skills in a field be broken down into discrete atoms of knowledge? If so, can we: - Learn those atoms of knowledge (or skills) - Assess our current abilities in those atoms - Assign depende…

These are excellent articles or resources that have taught me some things about the world: - You Should've Asked - The Bechdel Test - Interrupt Me One More Time - Aubrey Hirsch: Medicine's Women Problem - Gemma Hartley: Women Aren't Nags—We're Just Fed Up Here's a quote or image…

The flowsnake, also known as the 'Peano-Gosper' curve is a rather dashing space-filling curve. There is also a demonstration of it on the space-filling curves page. The following implementation uses 'mutual recursion' - i.e. two methods that call each other. The flowsnake has t…

This site is written by Leon Bambrick (leodo not show thisnbamdo not show thisbrickdo not show this@gdo not show thismail.com). It aims to be a complete, timeless, annotated repository of things I find sort of interesting. The original blog post launching the wiki is here. There…

Rules for writers, from writers. One of the first blog posts I wrote on secretGeek was "How to write a novel". This was an entirely tongue in cheek article with advice on what *not* to do. A lot of people read it, and it was linked from Wikipedia for a while. But eventually thei…

From the {{bubbling|broiling} lava of a {monster|dragon|beast}'s lair|mossy growth on a {discarded|dishevelled|cracked} stone idol|{scaly|flaking} {orange |}rust on the {iron |}bars of a prison|rough-hewn stone-floor of a {|despot's }{castle|dungeon}}, to the {ancient |weathered …

Anything that's covered here is almost definitely covered in a very well known webpage, The Sierspinski Triangle Page to End Most Sierspinski Triangle Pages but regardless, I must press on. Let's draw a triangle. to triangle :length fd :length lt 120 fd :length lt 120 fd :…

There are timeless pieces of culture - even though most timeless pieces are in themselves *of* a particular time. Stewart Lee - Content Provider. (Few things are as tragic as the youtube ads for Michael Mcintyre shown over this video. It's like you're driving a Bugatti Veyron, …

The so-called 'Game of Life' (or simply 'Life' as it is known by aficionados) is not the popular board game from the 1980's, but rather a simple set of rules that gives rise to a lot of curious and fascinating behaviour. ↑ Not this one, this one! ↓ The Game of Life is 'played' …

There are several games you can play on your AMSTRAD CPC (emulator) that have the title "Barbarian." But only one of these games is the brilliant game to end all games, the correct and wonderful " **BARBARIAN** " from my childhood. The "correct" version looks like this: The "c…

Writing a book and struggling to make either a good book or powerful characters? I have original and useful ideas. Possibly wrong, but definitely helpful. What are characters for? In the book "How to Write a Damn Good Novel", James Frey says: Characters are to a novelist what…

Please see Unbounded Recursion (Alternatively see Recursion where you can learn about applying bounds to your recursion, or detecting cycles in referential data structures) there is no general method to determine whether a given program will ever halt or will run forever; this …

The secret source of humor itself is not joy but sorrow. —Famous Smart Alec, Samuel Clemens Analyzing a joke is like dissecting a frog, in the end they both die. —Woody Allen I used to believe that jokes stopped being funny when they were analyzed. But since becoming a father I…

I don't want to belong to any club that will accept me as a member. —Groucho Marx What is a paradox? That of course depends on what you mean by "is". Some paradoxes are statements that are self-contradictory. Some paradoxes are statements that are simultaneously true and untrue…

Imagine you are sent back in time, to Western Europe during the "Middle Ages". You might think: with my modern knowledge, I will be able to invent marvelous things that make me the most rich, wise and powerful person around! But what would you actually "invent"? Most things t…

This article deals with writing, editing, proofreading, and self-publishing a book, in a variety of forms. Writing itself Before you can publish it you have to write it. There are two ways you can do this: write it yourself or have it ghostwritten by someone else. Generally, w…

Here's the list of books from my bookclub. If you're interested in joining, please be aware that membership is highly restricted, and you must be either a brother of mine, or a brother of a brother of mine. Rules are that the books must be critically acclaimed Sci-Fi, from rece…

It is hard to find practical guides to doing anything magical. Magicians don't like to reveal where to place the hinges or what to feed your pet dove. So I like it when an article gives away the secrets, like this one: Charles Finch: "Writing Great Mystery Plots" Here's the kern…

The "Bronze Orange Bug" is a large stink bug which is green when smaller, orange when juvenile, and dark brown when fully mature. At all stages of its development it is pure evil in concentrated form and must die a swift and painful death. It flourishes on citrus plants, particu…

Sierpinski didn't just mess around with triangles, he also wrote 50 books (all of them flip-books of Sierpinski triangles, I assume), created a curve and finally — the highlight of his storied career — he released this: his Sierpinski Signature Edition Carpet design. A short war…

A time-transmitter is usually bundled with a time-receiver, but time-receivers are so cheap that they are usually standalone units without a time-transmitter. The best place to locate a... wait a second. I really want to jump into the nitty-gritty about time devices, but I guess…

to half_sierpinski :size :level ifelse :level = 0 [ forward :size ] [ half_sierpinski :size :level - 1 left 45 forward :size * sqrt 2 left 45 half_sierpinski :size :level - 1 right 90 forward :size right 90 half_sierpinski :size :level - 1 left 45 forward :size * …

A Sierpinski triangle is the result of this line of thinking: To draw a Sierpinski triangle just draw three smaller Sierpinski triangles. (Unless the shape is too small... then just draw a regular triangle). What if we make the number 3 a parameter, :side, so that we create Sie…

A pair of methods are mutually recursive if: - The first method calls the second method, and, see also…

Girih Tiles are a set of five tiles that give rise to complex and beautiful geometric patterns. They originated in Islamic architecture. See Also - Penrose Tiles External Links - Wikipedia: Girih Tiles - Girih Editor…

A Koch curve is a well-known fractal, first described by a Swedish Mathematician, Helge Von Koch, in his paper "Sur une courbe continue sans tangente, obtenue par une construction géométrique élémentaire". Put three Koch curves together in a triangular configuration and you have…

I remember a maths teacher saying to me, "It's amazing how clear it is, when you use Logo, that a circle is just a polygon with an infinite amount of sides" In that spirit, here's a simple formula for a polygon. Repeat {sides}: Forward {length}, Right Turn 360/{sides}. I tried …

Bubble sort is the first sorting algorithm that you learn in many algorithm classes. It's not a particularly fast technique, so it's never really used in practice. And generally if you're writing your own sorting algorithm instead of relying on one that your platform provides th…

In the article on Koch Curves we derived the famous koch-curve, by starting with a line, then a bumpy-line, then a self-similar recursive bumpy-line. The final result looked like this: to koch_curve :length :limit ifelse :limit = 0 [ fw :length ] [ koch_curve :length/3 :limit -…

A moment of silence for all of the fictional mothers that had to die in the name of tragic back story and character development. — @ *Snape* on Mother's Day 2015 This is something my daughters have noticed. It seems like every movie we show them: the mother is dead, sick or miss…

This page is an example of bound recursion. If you've already read this page, please stop reading now. Otherwise, please continue. To be useful, recursion needs to have boundary conditions, base cases, exits, limitations: things that stop it from running on forever and ever and…

Idea: The Stupid-ideas Powershell Slackathon. A 24 hr window to collaborate, globally, on dumb and fun PS ideas. — Leon Bambrick (@secretGeek) May 24, 2016 I've been kicking around the idea of a Powershell Hackathon focused on "Dumb and Fun" ideas. It's a hackathon — but global…

(I'm not claiming to be any particular authority at doing this, but since I've done it once, I ought to record and share what I've learnt so that it can be reused and improved upon by myself or others.) The idea for a stupid-ideas slackathon occurred to me while walking home fro…

A Quine is a program that produces, as output, its own source code. More formally: A Quine is a non-empty program, that takes no input, and produces, as its only output, a copy of its own source code. The name was coined by Douglas Hoftstader, and named after Willard Van Orman …

Perhaps the best known Space Filling Curve is the Hilbert Curve. to hilbert :count :size :angle if :count > 0 [ rt 90*:angle hilbert (:count - 1) :size (:angle * (0-1) ) fd :size rt 90*:angle * (0-1) hilbert (:count - 1) :size :angle fd :size hilbert (:count - 1) :size :…

Franz Kafka, pausing to sip a cup of coffee, discovering it has gone cold. Franz Kafka, getting on his best friend Brod's nerves over whether or not to keep the window open when they share a room at a hotel. Franz Kafka, at the end of his life, making hand shadow-puppets in the…

Of my ancestors, the earliest we know anything about is John Bambrick, born 1791 in Windsor, England. His parents were Valentine Bambrick (b1770, in the parish of Longford) and Frances Bambrick (b17__, nee Logan). I haven't been able to trace further details about his parents. W…

Rescued from Archive.org at the request of the author, Bruce Anthon. Original website, Revolution Rock, © Kelvin Johnston. Bands Bands Bands....no denying that along with "the punters", the conglomerations of "hungry-wanna-bes" formed the core of this particular avenue of Brisba…

The invisible hand is an imaginary force, invented (arguably 'discovered') by Adam Smith, to explain the way that markets, composed of selfish desires, can have non-selfish consequences. It is a classic case of "emergence", where a thing of one type leads to a thing of an entire…

Common terms used within Conway's Game of Life. - **Ash** : The debris left behind by a random **pattern** . Commonly composed of still life and simple oscillators. - **Breeder** : any **pattern** that exhibits unbounded quadratic growth. The first and most famous example is Gosp…

A "still life" (in Conway's Game of Life) is any pattern that does not change from one generation to the next. Here are depictions of some of the most common types of still life. (The 'Play' button below will not achieve anything in these cases.) Block (or buoy) 0000 0110 011…

Some patterns in Conway's Game of Life appear to travel across the board, by performing oscillations that recreate the same shape, displaced in some direction. The three listed below all have a periodicity of 4. Glider The most famous, the first discovered, and by far the most…

Here are two famous **Methuselahs** : simple patterns that are long lived and grow quite large: Acorn and R-Pentomino. Acorn 000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 00000000000000000000000000000000000000…

A 'gun' (in the world of Cellular Automata) is a stationary pattern that emits moving patterns (i.e. spaceships). Note that a gun is a pattern which grows without limit. The first gun to be discovered was the Gosper Glider Gun. It is also the simplest known gun in Conway's Game…

Oscillators are patterns in Game of Life that cycle through a repeating set of states. The number of states in the cycle is called the "periodicity", e.g. "Period 2" means two states that alternate. Period 2 Blinker (period 2) 00000 00000 01110 00000 00000 Toad (Period 2) 00…

The Dragon Curve or Dragon Fractal is a nifty little shape! Here are the first 12 iterations. You see the dragon shape begin to emerge. I've put a red dot before each one, so you can see how it doesn't always go forward right away. ;export dragon to dragon :count :length :angle…

A simple self-similar fractal. Similar to a Tree -- in particular it's very similar to the Pine, but with a tilt before drawing the next segment. to fern :segment :curve :angle1 :angle2 :ratiobranch :ratiostem :limit penwidth :segment/4 ifelse :segment>:limit [ color [60 40 20…

Few spirals are as beautiful as the Harriss spiral. to curve :length pu lt 45 fd :length/2 * sqrt(2) rt 90 pd penwidth :length/15 arc :length/2 * sqrt(2) 90 pu fd :length/2 * sqrt(2) lt 90 lt 45 rt 90 pd end to harriss :length :limit if :length > :limit [ color [200…

A simple self-similar fractal. Similar to a Fern Here's one that bifurcates at every iteration. By altering the angle of the branches we get completely different shapes. Topologically identical, but visually very different. ;export tree to tree :length :branches :angle :ratio …

Space-filling curves! Amazing things. Peano sat around thinking and thinking, What was he thinking? He was thinking: I wonder, I wonder, I wonder! Can I draw a continuous line that touches every single point of the unit square, exactly once? (i.e. it never crosses itself!) No…

Swirls and spirals appear in nature in all kinds of places. In the seeds of a sunflower, in the vortex of a hurricane, in the horns of a goat, in the shell of a snail, in the curling fronds of a fern, in this guy's beard. . In this totally naturally occurring jetty: Spirals in…

Not much more to be said regarding Mango Fever. Mango fever On August 4, 1968, Mao was presented with some mangoes by the Pakistani foreign minister, Syed Sharifuddin Pirzada, in an apparent diplomatic gesture. Mao called the mangoes a "spiritual time bomb" and shortly afterwar…

**Name:** {{R|L|J|M|D}{i|oh|eo|ar|a}{n|k|{v|ch}{i|a|o|e}{r|}{d|n|k}}|{S|J|G|Sh}{a|e|i}{l|n|b|r}{y|i}} {Storm|Fire|Water|Ice|Dungeon|Rock|Gold|Mist|Thunder|Iron|Fist|Scar|Dagger|Blood|Jelly}{Breaker|Bringer|Eater|Taker|Shaker|Quaker|Smasher|Splitter|Maker|Pants|Flooder|Drinker|Lif…

Babies - When holding a baby, if you're calm they'll (possibly) be calm too. - When babies eat only milk it's not disgusting to change a diaper. By the time they are on solids you'll be used to it. Toddlers - Pick your battles - Get down on their level, make eye contact, use emp…

A cellular automata is a discrete mathematical model whereby a **grid** of cells is envisaged, where the next **state** of each cell is determined by a **set of rules** which use the current state of the cell and its **neighbors** as input. Each of the bolded words above can be …

Some AMSTRAD CPC computer games I remember from the 1980s. Better titles marked with a 🔥 - 1942 - Arkanoid 🔥 - Barbarian 🔥 - Barry McGuigan boxing - Batty - Beachhead - Biggles ? - Bomb Jack 🔥 - Bomber - Boulder Dash 🔥 - Bruce Lee 🔥 - Budokan - Breakout - California games? …

In a darkened room there is a man flipping a coin. In a darkened room there is a man flipping a coin and he cannot see the coin. In a darkened room there is a man flipping a coin, he cannot see the coin. He flips the coin once every 5 seconds.…

Palindromes are achiral words, such as: - nun - madam - pop Or achiral phrases (once spaces and punctuation are removed, by convention) such as these famous examples: - Nurses, run! - Madam, I'm Adam! - A man, a plan, a canal: Panama! Or achiral sequences, such as a palindromic…

Chirality, pronounced as if the "ch" is a "k"... where was I, chirality. Your nose is not chiral. Your hands are chiral. Each of your feet is chiral. But taken as a pair, they are no longer chiral. A donut is not chiral. A threaded screw is chiral. A water molecule is not chira…

- A Brief, Incomplete, and Mostly Wrong History of Programming Languages (James Iry) - Always Bet On Text (graydon2) - Cool Uris Don't Change (Tim Berners-Lee) - Dongly Things (Douglas Adams) - Go To Statement Considered Harmful (Edsger W. Dijkstra) - How To Be A Programmer: A Sh…

"The Great AI Panic" was a time when journalists everywhere began to sweat in fear of their jobs and, turning as one, driven as if by some kind of deeply buried instinct, like a salmon heading upstream (or a moth chasing after a flame), hoping, perhaps, to delight us, astound us,…

The finger that points to the moon is not the moon The German word Istigkeit translates as "Isness" What "is" isness? I'll get to that in a moment. Let's talk for a moment about Relational Frame Theory, and the unique characteristics of human intelligence. Humans, us, we k…

Nonsense is nonsense. But the study of nonsense? That is a science. —Saul Lieberman | _) _ \ __| _ \ __| _ \ __| | __| _` | __/ \__ \ ( | | __/ | | ( ( | \___| ____/ \___/ \__| \___| _| _| \___| \__,_| From ἐσωτερικός — esōterikós — "belonging to an inner circle".... —(B…

From the Latin "somnis," sleep, and the Latin prefix "in," not, the word means an inability to sleep, specifically difficulty getting to sleep and difficulty staying asleep. Insomnia, and poor sleep patterns can bring down your entire life. Sleep deprivation is a terrible thing.…

Analyzing a joke is like dissecting a frog, in the end they both die. —Woody Allen Writing about music is like dancing about architecture. —Martin Mull Against all good advice, I plan to dissect every lyric in Custard's 2015 album, "Come Back, All Is Forgiven". I don't intend t…

- Jugband Blues (Pink Floyd) - You're So Vain (Carly Simon) - Hit Song (Custard) - Your Song (Elton John) - 1999 (Prince) - Weeping Song (Nick Cave) - The Fear (Pulp) - Tribute (Tenacious D) - The Song that Doesn't End (Lambchop) - Get On Your Nerves Jugband Blues And I'm wonde…

**warning Once you learn about the Reuleaux Triangle you may start to see it everwhere! In buildings, in coffee tables, in kids playground equipment, in beer logos... Reuleaux Rules Our World!** Ever wanted to drill a square-hole? Is it possible to build a drillbit that would p…

There Are No Official Channels for Whistle Blowers. I'm not a whistle blower, and I never intend to become one. But I want to state something very obvious about the nature of whistle blowing. This is a whistle. When you blow into it, sound is blasted in every direction. It isn…

"Something Happened" is Joseph Heller's second book. His first book was "Catch 22" which has often been called the greatest book of the 20th Century, while "Something Happened" is a much less likeable book, a thoroughly unenjoyable book, a well-crafted work of art, hard to put do…

Error and falsification have radically distorted the {official|historical|"official"} record. The most difficult challenge to historians lies in trusting trust, or trusting 'trust', or 'trusting' trust, or 'trusting' 'trust'. Consider the incontrovertible put forward here: Ther…

Being able to understand software, able to read, modify it, create it and share it, is a very powerful skill to have in the age we live in. But where do you get this skill? Does it seem like some people "just get it" and others feel hopeless and incapable of ever "getting it"? …

Also known as: The Freemason's Cipher. A substitution cipher that has particularly distinctive looking characters. The encryption/decryption key can be quickly re-created by hand, once you know the basic idea. Give anyone twenty seconds with a pencil and paper, and they can r…

Steganography is about *smuggling* information. It is the process of hiding one message inside another in such a way that a person finding the outer message will not realise that a second message is hidden within. Consider a prisoner who needs to receive a secret message. They k…

The floating world was originally a Buddhist idiom It saw all of human existence as a foamy illusion and a fraud to be outgrown. With typical irreverance the townspeople took the term embraced it transformed it and turned it into a glowing paean to the passing plea…

The simplest cipher (and one of the oldest) the Caesar shift is named after Julius Caesar. The month of July is named after Julius, and he also has his own salad, his own method of having been delivered as a baby (which makes no sense as his mother and the surgeons deserve credi…

- Make a fucking list. - Do the shit on the list. - Set a fucking deadline. - Meet the fucking deadline. - Don't fuck around. My speaking tour starts in April.…

"Universal" ran a competition, hosted by Unity, to see who could come up with an original idea for a computer game based on one of these iconic stories: - Battlestar Galactica (2004 tv series) - Voltron The Legendary Defender (2016 tv series) - Back to the Future film trilogy - J…

I've worked out a proper grand unified theory of story telling, and it's much simpler than all the old theories. The Search for the Grand Unified Theory of Story Telling Some people analyze stories and say things like: There's a plot, and there's a story. The plot is just what…

"Cognitive Behavioral Therapy" is the major school of thought for assisting with Mental Health and Fitness in the world today. It arose out of the work of Aaron T Beck and, in terms of ancient philosophy it has some connection to the Stoics. The block-buster mega hit New York T…

You know what they say. When you're tired of procedurally generated dungeons, you're tired of life. Beginning with the game 'Rogue' in 1980, there is a long tradition of games which automatically generate their levels, in real-time, as the player enters each level. *Rogue* set t…

This page is for those who already believe in climate change and want to find practical things to do about it. (In other words, it's written for me, and hopefully for you too!) The list is broken into four parts: - energy - waste - other - education   energy - install solar pa…

Some oddities you don't find on just any bookshelf. If you take a wrong turn in L-space, you may stumble upon these. - The Celestial Emporium of Benevolent Knowledge - Principia Discordia - Codex Seraphinianus - The Magic Unfinished Spellbook (that could fly) - Tobin's Spirit Gu…

I have no special talent. I am only passionately curious. —Albert Einstein Benefits of Curiosity The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds the most discoveries, is not 'Eureka!' but 'That's funny…' —Isaac Asimov If some rich investor back in the day wa…

This article might not look like much. But it's a list of what I've found to be some of the most interesting little rabbit holes to go down. From these entry points you can explore all sorts of weird and wonderful things that our strange species has seen or done on or off this w…

Ethics Man Did What Had To Be Done —Darkside A dilemma (Di - Lemma, meaning "two" lemmas) is a choice between two lemmas. Which lemma do you prefer? This lemma or that lemma? To understand dilemma then, we have to understand "lemma." What precisely is a lemma? It's not quite …

Some online people or purposes I urge you to consider supporting People with Creative or Interesting ideas - Nicky Case - Vi Hart - mathigon - Gwern Branwen - Dani Donovan - ADHD Alien Vital Services - the internet archive - wikipedia - EFF - ACLU - open library (from internet …