There are too many things exciting about this post. (Or the contents of this post. The post itself might be a bit drab.) This review at Kottke brought up many memories of watching Last Year at Marienbad in our Film room in college. It was my first Resnais film, and I think my last. But it was favourite film that whole year. Its been a while since I watched anything French New Wave, but its going back on my list (soon). The film itself is beautifully surreal, with beautiful French women in lovely silk dresses swishing around spiffy French men. (there was more to the film obviously, but I have a tainted memory of things after a while, and usually the memories are sartorially inclined). In any case, if my stunted review does not make you a film view, read this. The post at Kottke also got me hooked to the game Nim. For a space-age flash version, and to discover how much you hate losing, go here. Nim is a two-player mathematical game of strategy in which players take turns removing objects from distinct heaps. On each turn, a player must remove at least one object, and may remove any number of objects provided they all come from the same heap. Variants of Nim have been played since ancient times. The game is said to have originated in China (it closely resembles the Chinese game of “Jianshizi”, or “picking stones”), but the origin is uncertain; the earliest European references to Nim are from the beginning of the 16th century. Its current name was coined by Charles L. Bouton of Harvard University, who also developed the complete theory of the game in 1901, but the origins of the name were never fully explained. The name is probably derived from German nimm! meaning “take!”, or the obsolete English verb nim of the same meaning. It should also be noted that rotating the word NIM by 180 degrees results in WIN (see Ambigram). Nim is usually played as a misère game, in which the player to take the last object loses. Nim can also be played as a normal play game, which means that the person who makes the last move (i.e., who takes the last object) wins. This is called normal play because most games follow this convention, even though Nim usually does not. Why am I psyched? I love strange movies and strategy games, if you haven’t guessed by now. (via kottke)
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There are too many things exciting about this post. (Or the contents of this post. The post itself might be a bit drab.) This review at Kottke brought up many memories of watching Last Year at Marienbad in our Film room in college. It was my first Resnais film, and I think my last. But it was favourite film that whole year. Its been a while since I watched anything French New Wave, but its going back on my list (soon). The film itself is beautifully surreal, with beautiful French women in lovely silk dresses swishing around spiffy French men. (there was more to the film obviously, but I have a tainted memory of things after a while, and usually the memories are sartorially inclined). In any case, if my stunted review does not make you a film view, read this.

The post at Kottke also got me hooked to the game Nim. For a space-age flash version, and to discover how much you hate losing, go here.

Nim is a two-player mathematical game of strategy in which players take turns removing objects from distinct heaps. On each turn, a player must remove at least one object, and may remove any number of objects provided they all come from the same heap.

Variants of Nim have been played since ancient times. The game is said to have originated in China (it closely resembles the Chinese game of “Jianshizi”, or “picking stones”), but the origin is uncertain; the earliest European references to Nim are from the beginning of the 16th century. Its current name was coined by Charles L. Bouton of Harvard University, who also developed the complete theory of the game in 1901, but the origins of the name were never fully explained. The name is probably derived from German nimm! meaning “take!”, or the obsolete English verb nim of the same meaning. It should also be noted that rotating the word NIM by 180 degrees results in WIN (see Ambigram).

Nim is usually played as a misère game, in which the player to take the last object loses. Nim can also be played as a normal play game, which means that the person who makes the last move (i.e., who takes the last object) wins. This is called normal play because most games follow this convention, even though Nim usually does not.

Why am I psyched? I love strange movies and strategy games, if you haven’t guessed by now.

(via kottke)