At the beginning of a chess game, White has twenty possible moves. After that, Black also has twenty possible moves. Once both sides have played, there are 400 possible board positions. Go, by contrast, begins with an empty board, where Black has 361 possible opening moves, one at every intersection of the 19 by 19 grid. White can follow with 360 moves. That makes for 129,960 possible board positions after just the first round of moves.
Archives for May 2014
The Seduction of the Superficial in Digital Product Design
It’s understandable that non-designers talking about design (as increasingly happens) focus on the superficial–it’s the easiest to discuss. However, we in the digital design community must not get so caught up in the seductive Surface that we neglect those lower layers.
Hear hear!
Heaven is for neuroscience: How the brain creates visions of God
How We Get Tall
A Beautiful Corpse: An oral history of the fast life and quick death of the XFL
I really wish this would have worked out. While I’m not a fan of the WWE, the XFL had a lot of potential, assuming they stayed true to it as a sport and avoided the scripted spectacle that is pro wrestling.