I <3 Nerds
This is so cool!
It's a map.
Once upon a time Aikido was fresh and new and all I ever wanted to do was train. I had this boyfriend who didn't train, and he was upset that I'd rather get up early and train than stay out all night drinking. "You care about Aikido more than you care about me," he accused.
He was right, of course. But we were even: he cared about alcohol more than he cared about me. So I have my training, and he has his booze, and if I ever see him again it will be brief and probably unpleasant.
So what does all this have to do with the map?
Once upon a now Scrabble is fresh and new and (mostly) all I ever want to do is study and play. I have this boyfriend who doesn't play, and he quizzes me on three letter words and sends me text messages that say SATINE + XO when he knows the tournament is about to start, and his brain is insatiable, and he's excited to see me happy rather than jealous that he's not my only source of joy. And he lets me clobber him once in a while.
Did I mention his brain is insatiable? I'm working on fours now, and we were discussing studying strategies, and he was thinking about prime numbers, how they're sparse and unpredictable, and how if you put every possible combination of four letters in alphabetical order and then highlighted just the ones that spell an acceptable play, it might have that same sparse, random look as a string of numbers with the primes highlighted. But the data set is unmanageably huge. So he did it with twos, to start. That's the map up there, on a 26x26 grid.
And while I was writing this, he just did the threes. In full color, with RGB values assigned to each letter. The first letter of the word is red. The second letter is green. The third letter is blue. The nearer a letter is to the end of the alphabet, the higher the value of its color component. Acceptable plays are black.
OK, so it's not useful as a study aid, but damn that's cool!
The downside of all this is that I meant to be studying tonight. Last night at club, my tiles and my playing were in fierce competition to see who could suck the most. I need to beat that out of myself before Sunday.
I've gotten as far as opening my notebook.
It's a map.
Once upon a time Aikido was fresh and new and all I ever wanted to do was train. I had this boyfriend who didn't train, and he was upset that I'd rather get up early and train than stay out all night drinking. "You care about Aikido more than you care about me," he accused.
He was right, of course. But we were even: he cared about alcohol more than he cared about me. So I have my training, and he has his booze, and if I ever see him again it will be brief and probably unpleasant.
So what does all this have to do with the map?
Once upon a now Scrabble is fresh and new and (mostly) all I ever want to do is study and play. I have this boyfriend who doesn't play, and he quizzes me on three letter words and sends me text messages that say SATINE + XO when he knows the tournament is about to start, and his brain is insatiable, and he's excited to see me happy rather than jealous that he's not my only source of joy. And he lets me clobber him once in a while.
Did I mention his brain is insatiable? I'm working on fours now, and we were discussing studying strategies, and he was thinking about prime numbers, how they're sparse and unpredictable, and how if you put every possible combination of four letters in alphabetical order and then highlighted just the ones that spell an acceptable play, it might have that same sparse, random look as a string of numbers with the primes highlighted. But the data set is unmanageably huge. So he did it with twos, to start. That's the map up there, on a 26x26 grid.
And while I was writing this, he just did the threes. In full color, with RGB values assigned to each letter. The first letter of the word is red. The second letter is green. The third letter is blue. The nearer a letter is to the end of the alphabet, the higher the value of its color component. Acceptable plays are black.
OK, so it's not useful as a study aid, but damn that's cool!
The downside of all this is that I meant to be studying tonight. Last night at club, my tiles and my playing were in fierce competition to see who could suck the most. I need to beat that out of myself before Sunday.
I've gotten as far as opening my notebook.