They got a bit antsy and restless after about 35-40 minutes, so we switched to a different nim variant (n piles, take any number of stones), and then played the function machine game for the last 10 minutes.
It went pretty well! The kids enjoyed nim (1 pile of 10 stones, take 1,2, or 3 stones), and I drew a moustache on my finger to hold up to my philtrum when I was playing the optimal strategy, to distinguish from when I was just playing for practice to learn the rules. They didn't quite solve it, but they were really close!
About to lead another math circle with the 6-year-old group. This time bringing a handful of ideas for nim-like games, Set, and a counting question: how many ways can you form N pebbles into rectangles? Not sure the order I'll do the activities or which subset we'll have time for...and they also loved the function machine game so we might try that again.
Using this awful power against conservative legislators and their families might help with abortion and privacy law at the same time: https://twitter.com/zeynep/status/1527258390434562048
The only way tech can help is by streamlining inconvenience for the rich and powerful on behalf of the people. Like FairShake is doing for forced arbitration https://twitter.com/doctorow/status/1536002045576105985
Some questions I keep having:
- How to sensibly organize crates
- Which of the many container & string options to choose from
- The finer points of borrowing
Does anyone know of a good book that covers the central results in algebraic lattices? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lattice_(group)
Something that would have nice proofs of LLL, nearest plane, various geometric/algorithmic results, etc., but I don't need the cryptosystems.
I facilitated a math circle for 6-year-olds yesterday. It went well! We spent most of the time counting the # of ways to stack colored blocks (3 black, 2 blue; later 3 black, 3 blue). One kid quickly got the idea of rotation to match two configs. There were a lot of nice conjectures in re how 8 black, 1 blue would compare to 3 black, 2 blue.
For the last ten minutes we played the functions game and one kid who was not invested for the previous 45 minutes suddenly went ape shit with excitement.
But this story has a happy ending because the change was not supposed to break ALL the tests, so I got a nice lead and I think it's going to finally get me out of this hellhole^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H wonderland
*Hovers hand over power cable*
"If you strike me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine"
Author of Math ∩ Programming and pimbook.org, currently optimizing supply chains @ Google. jeremykun.com