9 Billion Names of God Schismatrix (I liked the killer butterflies and vagina doors myself) Damian (movie) Pi (movie) The Code (movie) Stigmata (movie) Sherlock Homes (remember the dancing men?) And probably the best crypto/code/conspiricy fiction ever written, Foucault's Pendulum by Umberto Eco. After thinking about this I realize there is much more crypto/code/conspiracy in horror/evil/demon/kabala than sci-fi... ____________________________________________________________________ Before a larger group can see the virtue of an idea, a smaller group must first understand it. "Stranger Suns" George Zebrowski The Armadillo Group ,::////;::-. James Choate Austin, Tx /:'///// ``::>/|/ ravage@ssz.com www.ssz.com .', |||| `/( e\ 512-451-7087 -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- --------------------------------------------------------------------
Another Crypto-related movie is: A Day At The Races by the Marx Bros. (The code book scene demonstrates the basis for the business plan of most of the crypto companies today!) alan@ctrl-alt-del.com | Note to AOL users: for a quick shortcut to reply Alan Olsen | to my mail, just hit the ctrl, alt and del keys. "In the future, everything will have its 15 minutes of blame."
On Mon, 22 Jan 2001, Alan Olsen wrote:
Another Crypto-related movie is:
A Day At The Races by the Marx Bros. (The code book scene demonstrates the basis for the business plan of most of the crypto companies today!)
Some would say the last few presidencies have been based upon the Marx Bros. (Especially "Duck Soup".) Another couple of "honorable mentions" that come to mind are the "Flint" movies. (_Our Man Flint_ and _In Like Flint_.) Crypto plays a part in most of the communications. (Although the mathematical sequence is based on a guessable series of numbers.) Others will probably come to mind later... alan@ctrl-alt-del.com | Note to AOL users: for a quick shortcut to reply Alan Olsen | to my mail, just hit the ctrl, alt and del keys. "In the future, everything will have its 15 minutes of blame."
On Mon, 22 Jan 2001, Alan Olsen wrote:
Another couple of "honorable mentions" that come to mind are the "Flint" movies. (_Our Man Flint_ and _In Like Flint_.) Crypto plays a part in most of the communications. (Although the mathematical sequence is based on a guessable series of numbers.)
Wimp! Matt Helm rules! (Flint's out on DVD now, I love his alarm clock watch). ____________________________________________________________________ Before a larger group can see the virtue of an idea, a smaller group must first understand it. "Stranger Suns" George Zebrowski The Armadillo Group ,::////;::-. James Choate Austin, Tx /:'///// ``::>/|/ ravage@ssz.com www.ssz.com .', |||| `/( e\ 512-451-7087 -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- --------------------------------------------------------------------
At 09:53 PM 1/22/01 -0600, Jim Choate wrote:
And probably the best crypto/code/conspiricy fiction ever written,
Foucault's Pendulum by Umberto Eco.
It's worth reading the Illuminatus! trilogy first. I tried finding that in used book stores a decade or so ago, and for a while there was a Conspiracy to prevent me from collecting the whole set.... But yes, Foucault's Pendulum was a howler as well as having some deep material in it. Thanks! Bill Bill Stewart, bill.stewart@pobox.com PGP Fingerprint D454 E202 CBC8 40BF 3C85 B884 0ABE 4639
On Tue, 23 Jan 2001, Bill Stewart wrote:
It's worth reading the Illuminatus! trilogy first. I tried finding that in used book stores a decade or so ago, and for a while there was a Conspiracy to prevent me from collecting the whole set....
I just knew somebody was going to bring Wilson's trilogy up. I think there are actually four books (a conspiracy by the Gnomes of Zurich I bet), I've seen the first three bound together in pbk. I found it tedious and much less than funny. To each their own. I did like the card game that Steve Jackson Games did for it. It's still available (do we have a new category, crypto/math games?). ____________________________________________________________________ Before a larger group can see the virtue of an idea, a smaller group must first understand it. "Stranger Suns" George Zebrowski The Armadillo Group ,::////;::-. James Choate Austin, Tx /:'///// ``::>/|/ ravage@ssz.com www.ssz.com .', |||| `/( e\ 512-451-7087 -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- --------------------------------------------------------------------
On Tue, 23 Jan 2001, Jim Choate wrote:
I found it tedious and much less than funny. To each their own. I did like the card game that Steve Jackson Games did for it. It's still available (do we have a new category, crypto/math games?).
I've had the idea of "collectible algorithm trading cards" kicking around for a while... -David
On Tue, 23 Jan 2001, dmolnar wrote:
On Tue, 23 Jan 2001, Jim Choate wrote:
(do we have a new category, crypto/math games?).
I've had the idea of "collectible algorithm trading cards" kicking around for a while...
"Magic, the math edition!"...(somebody walking on grave) That reminds me of a game called 'Equations' (I think) that I used to play when I was in Jr. High and early High School. I've still got a copy but can't put my hands on it for specifics...if I find it I'll pass info along...but each player created 'equations' and played them off each other like Scrabble. The game was challenging because the 'symbols' had to be taken from a pile each player drew from, and equations had to be correct. It covered basic algebra but calculus or number theory and such wouldn't be that much more difficult to add. Though you'd need a larger symbol pile/pull that might need some massaging. ____________________________________________________________________ Before a larger group can see the virtue of an idea, a smaller group must first understand it. "Stranger Suns" George Zebrowski The Armadillo Group ,::////;::-. James Choate Austin, Tx /:'///// ``::>/|/ ravage@ssz.com www.ssz.com .', |||| `/( e\ 512-451-7087 -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- --------------------------------------------------------------------
On Tue, 23 Jan 2001, Jim Choate wrote:
On Tue, 23 Jan 2001, dmolnar wrote:
On Tue, 23 Jan 2001, Jim Choate wrote:
(do we have a new category, crypto/math games?).
I've had the idea of "collectible algorithm trading cards" kicking around for a while...
"Magic, the math edition!"...(somebody walking on grave)
You could do a collectable card game based on the patent mess, but the idea of a collectable card game has already been patented. (Now owned by Hasbro now that they bought Wizards of the Cost.) alan@ctrl-alt-del.com | Note to AOL users: for a quick shortcut to reply Alan Olsen | to my mail, just hit the ctrl, alt and del keys. "In the future, everything will have its 15 minutes of blame."
Alan Olsen wrote:
You could do a collectable card game based on the patent mess, but the idea of a collectable card game has already been patented. (Now owned by Hasbro now that they bought Wizards of the Cost.)
wouldn't that be perfect? a "collectable patent card game", as a way to criticise patents (by using the most ridiculous ones on the cards), which in itself violates a patent... hm, I like the idea... "combine the 'patent for display of blablah' with the 'method or device for remote information acquisition' and you can cross-license that against your enemie's 'global computer network patent' for 10 points."
At 01:26 PM 1/24/01 +0100, Tom wrote:
Alan Olsen wrote:
You could do a collectable card game based on the patent mess, but the idea of a collectable card game has already been patented. (Now owned by Hasbro now that they bought Wizards of the Cost.)
wouldn't that be perfect? a "collectable patent card game", as a way to criticise patents (by using the most ridiculous ones on the cards), which in itself violates a patent... hm, I like the idea...
"combine the 'patent for display of blablah' with the 'method or device for remote information acquisition' and you can cross-license that against your enemie's 'global computer network patent' for 10 points."
I'll take "Famous Patent Lawyers" for $200 ...
Bill Stewart wrote:
At 01:26 PM 1/24/01 +0100, Tom wrote:
Alan Olsen wrote:
You could do a collectable card game based on the patent mess, but the idea of a collectable card game has already been patented. (Now owned by Hasbro now that they bought Wizards of the Cost.)
wouldn't that be perfect? a "collectable patent card game", as a way to criticise patents (by using the most ridiculous ones on the cards), which in itself violates a patent... hm, I like the idea...
"combine the 'patent for display of blablah' with the 'method or device for remote information acquisition' and you can cross-license that against your enemie's 'global computer network patent' for 10 points."
I'll take "Famous Patent Lawyers" for $200
as a matter of fact, I do think that the game can be done as a variation of a game called "lunch money". actually, even the theme is quite compatable. I'll post it here soon.
You could do a collectable card game based on the patent mess, but the idea of a collectable card game has already been patented. (Now owned by Hasbro now that they bought Wizards of the Cost.)
On a slightly more cypherpunkish theme, before Cryptonomicon had the base-52 Solitaire encryption, there had been some people who'd done 256-card implementations of RC4. That's a lot of cards - a 64-card version would still be reasonably secure. The Illuminati collectable-card-game cards from Steve Jackson Games would do well (maybe there are 256?), but it's easier to do something with suits and numbers on lots of the cards; a Tarot deck has something like 79 cards, and an appropriate amount of deliberate obfuscation. There's also the Silicon Valley Tarot (which first appeared on the web, www.svtarot.com, but SJG sells the cards) which has more localized archetypes, like The Hacker, The Garage, The Ace of Cubicles, Bugs, Encryption. Thanks! Bill Bill Stewart, bill.stewart@pobox.com PGP Fingerprint D454 E202 CBC8 40BF 3C85 B884 0ABE 4639
On Tue, 23 Jan 2001, Alan Olsen wrote:
You could do a collectable card game based on the patent mess, but the idea of a collectable card game has already been patented. (Now owned by Hasbro now that they bought Wizards of the Cost.)
Wait, there are non-Hasbro collectable card games, aren't there? Do they all simply license from Hasbro? In any case, simple collectible cards would be all right to start with. So what if they "happen" to fall into patterns. They're algorithms! "I'll trade you a Floyd-Warshall for a Rabin-Miller, but only if you throw in a Nisan-Wigderson Derandomizing Pseudorandom Generator...I'm low on randomness." Instead of Mana, have "time," "space," "randomness," and other complexity measures. (Death to the first person who suggests "ink.") Trade off between the two as appropriate. Special cards ("Blum Speedup Theorem") affect resource consumption. Maybe offer other cards which give benefits at a cost ("Superstitious Mathematician" - halves time required to run algorithms, but doesn't believe in randomness so you lose all randomness counters...) -David
On Thu, 25 Jan 2001, dmolnar wrote:
On Tue, 23 Jan 2001, Alan Olsen wrote:
You could do a collectable card game based on the patent mess, but the idea of a collectable card game has already been patented. (Now owned by Hasbro now that they bought Wizards of the Cost.)
Wait, there are non-Hasbro collectable card games, aren't there? Do they all simply license from Hasbro?
The WotC patent was recieved well after there were other card games in production. WotC said that they were not going to press the patent. I have not heard much more about it since the original flap over the patent being granted.
In any case, simple collectible cards would be all right to start with. So what if they "happen" to fall into patterns. They're algorithms!
"I'll trade you a Floyd-Warshall for a Rabin-Miller, but only if you throw in a Nisan-Wigderson Derandomizing Pseudorandom Generator...I'm low on randomness."
Instead of Mana, have "time," "space," "randomness," and other complexity measures. (Death to the first person who suggests "ink.") Trade off between the two as appropriate. Special cards ("Blum Speedup Theorem") affect resource consumption. Maybe offer other cards which give benefits at a cost ("Superstitious Mathematician" - halves time required to run algorithms, but doesn't believe in randomness so you lose all randomness counters...)
This could get quite silly very fast. alan@ctrl-alt-del.com | Note to AOL users: for a quick shortcut to reply Alan Olsen | to my mail, just hit the ctrl, alt and del keys. "In the future, everything will have its 15 minutes of blame."
On Wed, 24 Jan 2001, Alan Olsen wrote:
WotC said that they were not going to press the patent. I have not heard much more about it since the original flap over the patent being granted.
That's a relief.
between the two as appropriate. Special cards ("Blum Speedup Theorem") affect resource consumption. Maybe offer other cards which give benefits at a cost ("Superstitious Mathematician" - halves time required to run algorithms, but doesn't believe in randomness so you lose all randomness counters...)
This could get quite silly very fast.
Yup! That's a bad thing? OK, maybe it would lead to too many in-jokes... -David
Jim Choate wrote:
It's worth reading the Illuminatus! trilogy first. I tried finding that in used book stores a decade or so ago, and for a while there was a Conspiracy to prevent me from collecting the whole set....
I just knew somebody was going to bring Wilson's trilogy up. I think there are actually four books (a conspiracy by the Gnomes of Zurich I bet), I've seen the first three bound together in pbk.
there's 3 books in the trilogy, but a couple of other ones which are related to the topic. as the trilogy, quality varies widely within the books. some pages are great, others aren't worth the dead tree.
participants (6)
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Alan Olsen -
Bill Stewart -
dmolnar -
Jim Choate -
Jim Choate -
Tom