Flipped coins not fair?

It should not be a complete surprise that flipped coins do not exactly meet the ideal of fair 50/50 outcomes. After all the stamp on each side must shift the balance, however slightly. Here researchers find the "up" side when flipped is slightly more likely to be the end result. 

I suspect dice have a similar bias, especially when you don't give them an energetic shake and throw.

Flipped coins found not to be as fair as thought

https://phys.org/news/2023-10-flipped-coins-fair-thought.html

 

Celebrate Roguelikes, October 3rd 2020

Celebrate the rich history and inspiring future of roguelikes
with streamed talks and more in our own custom-built
 roguelike social space!

I don't think I've ever mentioned my love of roguelike games here before. This dates back 40 years and my Sophmore year as a computer science major. The version I played was called "Hack" but as far as I can tell it was an early version of Rogue for the PC - back when Personal Computers were a novel concept!  I spent every hour I could spare in the computer lab playing Hack, and nearly flunked my classes that semester because of it. 

This October comes Roguelike Celebration, an online event with dozens of presentations about Roguelike games. Count me in!

The roguelike I am currently playing is a much simplified version called Shattered Pixel Dungeon, which is a relatively gentle introduction to a complex genre.

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Tribes Universe games, including Earthseige, are now available free

I remember downloading and playing the demo for Earthseige, long ago. It seemed like a cool game, and the demo left me wanting more.

One apocalypse later, the Earth lies in ruin from these heavy metal marauders. You and your squad of HERCULAN warriors must prowl this target-rich wasteland to deliver some heavily mechanized payback. But beware--the Cybrids are an intelligent and relentless enemy. You'll constantly have to train new pilots, develop new tactics, and acquire new weapons to secure an advantage. If not, they'll be hosing your remains out of the cockpit for the next rookie.

Then I bought Mechwarrior 2 and mostly forgot about Earthseige. I recall reading about one of the developers saying they thought Earthseige suffered from the lack of a strong background story like that of the Battletech universe. I actually didn't know that the Tribes games were in the same series as Earthseige, so I guess they did OK without me. You can download all five Tribes games (for free) now at:  http://www.tribesuniverse.com/


Via Polygon News

GBR Collection on Google Plus+

I have a collection of games related posts on Google+. Most of these are things I would write about if I could make the time. Stop by and browse a bit.

UPDATE: G+ is gone now. I have the collection archived, but it would take some work to make it available again. Maybe ...

Megabots: Not Funded

Megabots: Giant Fighting Robots - an unsuccessful Kickstarter project to develop arena style robot combat.


So of course I just had to share it. :-)

 

Ludology Podcast

I have recently discovered the Ludology Podcast, which has serious discussions about what makes things work, including a bit of informal probability. If you have any interest in game design, it's definitely worth checking out.
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New Dice to Move your Mice

I've going to have to get some of these for my collection, because dice!

More info at The Dice Lab.



Visit +Henry Segerman for more mathy goodness. :-)