randform

The past 6 months I was involved in a student software project at the Hochschule für Technik und Wirtschaft (University of the applied sciences). The project is called MIMIRIX. It is going to be presented today at the school in building G Room 007 around 1.30 pm. As you may know there is currently the filmfestival Berlinale in Berlin, hence there are many wellknown actors in Berlin. So actually the latest gossip here was that Angelina Jolie comes together with Shah Rukh Khan to the MIMIRIX presentation. But these are of course blatant lies. More about MIMIRIX later.

supplement 11.2.12:
Short comment to the above logo:
The term MIMIRIX was coined by Martin Bilsing,
the logo was designed by Igne Degutyte
using the font Petita by Manfred Klein.

It is currently very cold outside here in Berlin, which lets one feel like sitting in the warmth and do some crafts. At this place one should probably mention the blog of Tim’s sister Hanne called metamorfix. Hanne is a dominie in Stockholm and surroundings. In her free time she does stitchings and sewings and other crafts. Some of them are published on her blog.

“Dreimäckriges Blauquallendrachengespenst verwandelt sich in einen Kugelblitz um die ausgecyborgte, zweigebeinigte “Jeanne die Arge”, zu töten”. Artwork by Hugo Buster, acrylic paint and pencil

Just a quick link to what seems to be an interesting study about biodiversity with the title Experiment gives insight into how species maintain diversity (via physorg.com). In the study it was investigated how biodiversity could be maintained despite dominance. Experiments with male voles, ordered by testesterone level, were performed:

when they released just a few of the high testosterone males and lots of low testosterone males into the same area, the males once again reigned supreme with the ladies. But when they released lots of high testosterone males with lots of lots of low testosterone males, the males with the lower levels actually did better than those with the high levels, indicating that there was something clearly at play. The researchers suggest that such results came about because the high testosterone level males spent more time fighting or showing off than mating, which gave the low testosterone males more of a chance to mate.

I completely forgot to mention the post about the plywood bonobo by Stanislav Ploski. Like the other texts, the text was a little bit “polished” by the people at Inhabitat – just in case you wonder about my sudden glitzy english.

other posts there:
->Wood lamp
->Miss Maple
->Vase & Leuchte

“fractal breakfast at Tiffany’s” , by Rodriguez de la Mär

There seems to be currently an interesting exhibition at Foundation Cartier in Paris called “Mathematiques – un depaysement soudain” (a sudden change of scenery). It is a collaboration between mathematicians and artists. The exhibitions english website says that:

Visitors may continue to experience this “sudden change of scenery” via the exhibition catalog, an iPad application, the Fondation Cartier website, as well as by attending a series of events, the Nights of Uncertainty.

I couldn’t yet figure out how one can “continue the experience via the Fondation Cartier website” that is apart from the above mentioned french exhibition announcement and its english translation there seems sofar not so much more online and the flash plugin crashes regularily. But who knows ? – eventually the plan ist that Fondation Cartier thinks of revamping existing websites related to math and art like e.g. the Voro Wiki?

Another product description at Inhabitat: Elisa Strozyk’s Folded Wood Accordion Lamp is a Study of Material and Light.

My talk at the open knowledge confence was well perceived, however on the other hand there were not so many participants listening to my talk. In general it seemed to me that games were not (yet) in the focus of the open knowledge community. That is tere were not so many talks involving games at the conference. Nevertheless there were enough issues of importance and the conference was fun.

The slides of my talk are currently too big for upload, so I only uploaded a newer version of the article.

update (130711): The slides are available now at slideshare.net:

Talk: “Testing new toy economies/political structures in MMOGs” at slideshare.net

A recent product description at Inhabitat. Read about: Miss Maple – the pendant lamp by Elisa Strozyk and the tile-tale of cozy Sherlock Home.

Short notice: I am giving a talk on contents of the game scheme article and the scientific platform article on July 1st at the open knoledge conference in Berlin.

I am currently writing some product descriptions for the US based (sustainable) design/green architecture blog Inhabitat, here is a link to the first description -> a lamp by Miriam Aust.