Month: September 2016

I have never been a big appreciator of board games. For instance, I think Scrabble puts too much emphasis on word positioning as opposed to word length or sophistication. Many other games have outcomes which sometimes combine the sin of being largely random with the sin of being tedious in the execution.

Hive is nothing like that. It’s fast, and neither random chance nor hidden information have any relevance. Once they become familiar with the simple and intuitive moves, chess players will readily begin finding intriguing similarities between the two games. Tempo is critical to both, and the game tree of both becomes enormous in the mid game.

You can play Hive online for free, with no chance of accidentally making an illegal move or going more than a few hours without an opponent. I usually play as ‘sindark’.

I learned today that the Klein bottle which I received as a thoughtful and generous gift from Meghan Mathieson was the doing of Cliff Stoll: an interesting man with an unusual style of speaking. It may even have come from his unconventional warehouse.

Also on glassblowing and math, see: A Hole in a Hole in a Hole.

Also: The KGB, the Computer, and Me