Chain Reaction

Luna_Northcat · Post by **Luna_Northcat** » Fri Apr 29, 2005 12:12 am

CasVeg wrote:<snip>... disrupt the direct connection between input and output and make the sword even more upredictable. (The next state of the system would also be reliant on its current state, not just the input.)
<snip>

Congratulations, you've just described a chaotic system quite well. But this gives the sword even more flexibility; to follow on from the work of Celso Grebogi (http://www.fc.up.pt/cmup/jfalves/porto2004/grebogi.htm), controlled chaotic systems offer an advantage in flexibility in that many different behaviors, chaotic or not, can be stabilized by very small controls -- and the choice of the desired behavior can be switched from one possibility to another with only minute perturbations of the current system performance. One does not need to know all the rules and equations which govern a chaotic system in order to design a control algorithm, either; all one needs is a period of time-series observations on responses to perturbations to "tune" one's own ability to apply the necessary perturbations to the system to achieve desired system response. In other words, you don't actually need to know how it all works in order to use it very effectively indeed -- all you need is a learning period for how it acts.

SolidusRaccoon · Post by **SolidusRaccoon** » Fri Apr 29, 2005 3:58 am

Well now we have a base to go on. Now let's drop the swrod subplot and move on to the next grand adventure.

Luna_Northcat · Post by **Luna_Northcat** » Fri Apr 29, 2005 4:24 am

SolidusRaccoon wrote:Well now we have a base to go on. Now let's drop the swrod subplot and move on to the next grand adventure.

Awwww...but this is so much fun!

The JAM · Post by **The JAM** » Fri Apr 29, 2005 6:18 am

[...unWARP!!!]

Good evening.

Drat, and here I thought that there was a RND(0) function embedded in there somewhere...

SolidusRaccoon · Post by **SolidusRaccoon** » Fri Apr 29, 2005 6:18 am

Nope, just let it go.

StrangeWulf13 · Post by **StrangeWulf13** » Fri Apr 29, 2005 9:09 am

CasVeg wrote:
The JAM wrote:In Hebrew culture, the perfect number is 7, and its multiples. The number 6 is the imperfect number, along with its multiples as well.
What would that make 42?

Well, 6 is usually credited as the number of mankind, being imperfect as he is, and 7 as being the number of God, 'cause He's defined as perfect.

6 x 7 = 42

.........

Relationship between God and man?

Maybe it really is the fabled Answer...

(Then again, I may be thinking entirely too much about this.)

Wayfarer · Post by **Wayfarer** » Fri Apr 29, 2005 9:12 am

StrangeWulf13 wrote:(Then again, I may be thinking entirely too much about this.)

Oh, and no one ever does that around here...

SolidusRaccoon · Post by **SolidusRaccoon** » Fri Apr 29, 2005 9:23 am

This is the first time Wulf has confessed to thinking, a red letter day.

Mutant for Hire · Post by **Mutant for Hire** » Fri Apr 29, 2005 9:29 am

I have to admit that I do find the sword a certain amount of overkill. Three drunk kits make two massive discoveries that will revolutionize the creation of lux artifacts from now on: fractal runic structure and logic runes. I could have easily handled one or the other, but both of them at once seems to be a bit much to me.

It's a little deus ex machine for my tastes. It flunks the RPG test by a fairly wide margin. Admittedly this isn't a RPG, but it's a useful rule of thumb in general.

CasVeg · Post by **CasVeg** » Fri Apr 29, 2005 9:58 am

Actually, Kestrel's a forge worker. Iron, steel, and other metals and alloys are frequently worked by folding. The Dragon curve is a natural consequence of folding. The pattern was there; noone was using it.

RHJunior · Post by **RHJunior** » Fri Apr 29, 2005 10:02 am

actually, it's more a matter of discovering 2 or 3 boolean gates, and extrapolating the rest. If I recall correctly, all the other gates can be built from AND, OR, and NOT gates. Once you've hit on the idea of a relay that only throws if both inputs are fired, or a relay that cuts off power flow when it's activated, the rest would tend to follow rather quickly.

As to the fractal pattern--- well, fractal geometry isn't discovered or invented, so much as it reveals itself,often by the repetition of a simple mathematical/geometric action, over and over and over again. Many things, one might argue nearly everything in nature, has an innate fractal pattern.

There's even been some research that indicates that music, all music, has an innate fractal structure.

In essence the three were fumbling around, trying to get the broken bits of the sword to work again. And, in their drunken fumbling to string the rune-bits together, they found a "pretty pattern" and ran with it.

SolidusRaccoon · Post by **SolidusRaccoon** » Fri Apr 29, 2005 10:48 am

Heh, one in a million shot.

NydaLynn · Post by **NydaLynn** » Fri Apr 29, 2005 10:53 am

It's a little deus ex machine for my tastes.

I think it's dues ex machina...

but we get what you mean.

NydaLynn · Post by **NydaLynn** » Fri Apr 29, 2005 10:54 am

SolidusRaccoon wrote:Heh, one in a million shot.

Well.... could be argued one in a million shot that humans get to where they are now.

NydaLynn · Post by **NydaLynn** » Fri Apr 29, 2005 10:56 am

Well, 6 is usually credited as the number of mankind, being imperfect as he is, and 7 as being the number of God, 'cause He's defined as perfect.

6 x 7 = 42

.........

Relationship between God and man?

Maybe it really is the fabled Answer...

Hmmm.... you might have something there! PS. everyone see Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy today!

Mutant for Hire · Post by **Mutant for Hire** » Fri Apr 29, 2005 11:07 am

RHJunior wrote: There's even been some research that indicates that music, all music, has an innate fractal structure.

Actually, the research shows that music follows the pattern of 1/f noise.

Anthony Lion · Post by **Anthony Lion** » Fri Apr 29, 2005 1:56 pm

RHJunior wrote:actually, it's more a matter of discovering 2 or 3 boolean gates, and extrapolating the rest. If I recall correctly, all the other gates can be built from AND, OR, and NOT gates. Once you've hit on the idea of a relay that only throws if both inputs are fired, or a relay that cuts off power flow when it's activated, the rest would tend to follow rather quickly.

A small correction:
ALL other gates can be made just from NAND gates.
To make a NOT, tie the inputs together to one.
To make a AND gate, place a NOT on the output of the NAND.
To make an OR gate, place NOTs on the input of a NAND gate.
A NOR gate is an OR gate with a NOT on the output, or an AND with NOT on the inputs.
XOR is a bit more difficult.
Take the inputs and run them into both an OR and a NAND, then run the outputs through an AND gate.

Memory can be constructed of latches, and a simple one can be made out of four NAND gates.

Yeah, I play with electronics at home...

StrangeWulf13 · Post by **StrangeWulf13** » Sun May 01, 2005 4:29 pm

SolidusRaccoon wrote:This is the first time Wulf has confessed to thinking, a red letter day.

*slaps Solidus around a bit with a large trout*

=P That'll teach ya to sully my honor.

Wayfarer · Post by **Wayfarer** » Sun May 01, 2005 9:47 pm

StrangeWulf13 wrote:
SolidusRaccoon wrote:This is the first time Wulf has confessed to thinking, a red letter day.
*slaps Solidus around a bit with a large trout*

=P That'll teach ya to sully my honor.

Okay, so I'll ask (I want to get off of 88 posts, anyway)...
Which one sullied your honor, suggesting that you never thought, or suggesting that you had broken a pround record of not thinking?
(Sorry, but you do see how this could go either way, don't you?)

SolidusRaccoon · Post by **SolidusRaccoon** » Mon May 02, 2005 3:19 am

I meant both.