i wonder if itd be interesting to try to explain math ideas to internet adults who don't understand a lot of math (or even some who do) but who have the drive to know a little bit...

when i was a tutor i found the biggest problem i ran into was that the students didnt really have anything they wanted to learn, instead only having things they were obligated to learn. they were incentivized to rush through past "realizations" and into rote methods, memorization, and so on for grades.

so under these conditions, not only was it difficult to take the time to properly build up to the concepts they needed to know, but more importantly, there was no time to show them the fun parts - and even if I wanted to try, they wouldn't have any appreciation for them.

if you're someone who feels like they have gaps in their math education, or just specific things you've heard about that you wanna understand a little better, and you wanna try to do it in a hopefully playful way, let me know, comment below? it'd be interesting to gauge interest for this. i don't currently have the tools to do this properly - i would need a drawing tablet, as well as a computer that doesn't easily overheat when I'm trying to do interesting stuff on it like sharing my screen for extended periods. but if we could get it working, i think it'd be really fun.

I'd love to take my beloved ideas and little games of symbols, this thing which is the most widely detested part of school, and use it to try to put into practice what a more liberated model of learning can look like. one independent of external motivations, and one that takes the frustrated stumbling around in the dark that is self-learning, and elevates that to a collaborative, assisted process; really, i just want to help more people appreciate this thing i've spent most of my life experiencing. if i could get just one being to idly play around with math where they wouldnt before, in any way, it'd be a massive success.

Huh. Anyway, the design of the rover or who's going to be making it isn't known yet, but we've got this nice publicity event about deciding what it's going to be called. Voting is now open on the shortlisted submissions, which are:

boy who doesnt believe in teeth

end of post. post cancelled, i cannot follow up that premise with anything funnier it's four in the fucking morning what do you want from me. boy who doesn't believe in teeth. comedy gold. i should get a nobel peace prize for saying that

my new favourite rhythm game is Piano Typer, which weirdly is a "puzzle" from the 2022 Galactic Puzzle Hunt. I already liked STEREOtype but this is just absurd. And the idea of making people complete a rather difficult rhythm game quite late into an event that is nominally about solving puzzles is very funny to me.

I really like both these genres of game and I think this is largely because they occupy a very similar space in my brain. In my experience rhythm and typing games are, more than any other genre of game, concerned with the physicality of their input methods. In basically any other game the controller/keyboard is just a tool, and like any tool it quickly fades into the background once you get used to it;¹ you're not really thinking about pushing phsyical buttons, just about moving in the game world (or whatever else the game has you doing). But in these games the keyboard or weird rhythm game controller is always there, the whole point of the game is getting better and faster at interfacing with the physical thing in front of you, and you're never really allowed to forget it exists.