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Why addictive games finally let you go: My latest Wired News column

There’s nothing worse than getting the wobbly table at a coffeehouse and spilling a drink all over your lap. (Okay, okay, realistically, there are quite a lot of things worse than that. The rhetorical trick of saying “there’s nothing worse than …” is, when you think about, incredibly stupid because it implies you’ve done a comparative assessment of all possible bad things that could happen in life and selected the most genuinely ghastly, gruesome experience. But hey: As rhetorical tricks go, this one’s a classic! I’m sticking with it.)
Anyway. The point is, when you get stuck with a wobbly table, is there any way to un-wobble-ify it? Most people attempt to stick a matchbook or piece of napkin underneath the leg. But André Martin, a physicist at CERN, would use a different trick: He’d rotate the table, working under the assumption that the legs were all the same length and that ground would eventually yield up four areas at the same level — producing a perfectly stable table. He’s always able to find a good orientation. That got him wondering: Could he mathematically prove his technique will always work?
Thus was born “On The Stability of Four Feet Tables” (PDF link), Martin’s recent paper arguing the proof indeed exists: Rotate a round table for long enough and you will inevitably produce stability. Mind you, Martin makes several assumptions that may dice out your particular coffeehouse: The table must be round, its legs all perfectly even, and while the ground has any number of bumps, the inclination between any two points must never be more than 15%. As a story at news@Nature points out:
Whether it will help during the coffee breaks at CERN is another matter: the ground there might be too irregular. “The trouble with the terrace is that there is both grass and paving slabs,” Martin says.
The bigger problem is that, in my experience, the problem with wobbly tables is not that the ground is uneven, but the legs are uneven. Would Martin’s proof obtain for a table with uneven legs? Assuming the legs are off by a gradation of no more than 15%, would the bumps in the floor be able to compensate for the legs? And more to the point, would the damn coffeehouse owner go out and like, buy some damn tables with even legs? And while you’re at it, pal, turn off the Bob Dylan. There’s only so much Dylan anyone can take.
(Thanks to Steve Emrich for this one!)
I'm Clive Thompson, a writer on science, technology, and culture. This blog collects bits of offbeat research I'm running into, and musings thereon.
Currently, I'm a contributing writer for the New York Times Magazine and a columnist for Wired magazine. I also write for Fast Company and Wired magazine's web site, among other places. Email or AOL IM me (pomeranian99) to say hi or send in something strange!
The “Milky Way Transit Authority” map
Should automobile software be open-sourced?
My Bookforum review of Jaron Lanier’s “You Are Not A Gadget”
Molecular secrets of the “iron-plated snail”
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January 31, 2010 » 07:29 PM
V. A. To me death seems to be an evil.
M. What, to those who are already dead? or to those who must die?
A. To both.
M. It is a misery, then, because an evil?
A. Certainly.
M. Then those who have already died, and those who have still got to die, are both miserable?
A. So it appears to me.
M. Then all are miserable?
A. Every one.
January 24, 2010 » 03:22 PM
One of the more interesting trends is family, which came in at number five. Specifically, discussion about family, moms, dads, daughters, etc. jumped during 2009. With Facebook users getting older, this isn’t a big surprise. However, the fact that the mention of “kids” jumped by a factor of five this year is rather dramatic. It’s tough to know what this means, though. (via Facebook Unveils Most-Mentioned Topics of 2009
)
January 15, 2010 » 01:36 PM
BEYOND AWESOME. They are announcing a recall of the Plush Uterus “due to a potential choking hazard for children”. To apply for it, “Please send an email to the address below with the subject line, ‘UTERUS OPT OUT’”.
January 14, 2010 » 10:04 PM
“To order, please TYPE “YES” IN CHECKBOX BELOW TO AGREE YOU UNDERSTAND THIS PLUSH MUST BE KEPT AWAY FROM KIDS (it is a sex organ, after all). If it is not checked, WE WILL NOT SEND THE UTERUS.” (via @ibogost)
January 11, 2010 » 01:45 PM
I watched Space: 1999 back in the day, but I swear to god I do not remember this scene.
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