While I’ve been quiet here in the past month, I’ve been busy elsewhere.  The Ace Community Survey released a new report, and survey.  And on The Asexual Agenda, I wrote about Jones from Gunnerkrigg Court, and about a constructionist view of attraction.   Finally, the Ace Journal Club read an evolutionary psychology paper.

Newton’s Fractal (which Newton knew nothing about) | 3Blue1Brown (video, 26 min) – 3b1b explains the Newton’s Fractals and where they come from, using some excellent visuals. I’ve explained before how my avatar is a Newton’s fractal–albeit from a non-polynomial function. Really I just messed around with weird complex functions until I got stuff that looked nice. Having had that experience, I’m a bit disappointed that people often stop at polynomials.  They’re missing out. Still, it’s rare to get visuals that are as good as in this video.  Also see part 2 about the connection to Mandelbrot sets.

How Bisexuality Changed Video Games | verilybitchie (video, 54 min) – An entertaining deep dive on playersexuality, and related topics.  Although many romanceable characters are mechanically bisexual, it’s often written with straight or gay players in mind, and the only way for the player to really express bisexuality is by romancing multiple people, which games treat as bad.

Here’s an idea: anti-playersexuality.  Like, a male NPC who is gay if the player character is a woman, and straight if the player character is a man.  Upon multiple playthroughs, the player is left to deduce that the NPC is really bisexual, asexual, or perhaps simply that the world bends to your choices but not to your will.

Reviewer Brain | Transparency (video, 17 min) – In media analysis, writers often compelled to talk about whether the media is good or bad, even when it’s unrelated to their main point.  And readers often expect the same.  Why is that, and how can we get past it?  I was just thinking about this problem in my game diary, where I just talk about games I’ve been playing lately.  I often end up just saying whether I liked the game or not, which I don’t find very interesting, and almost renders the diary pointless.  I’m more interested in organizing my thoughts on games, breaking down different aspects–which may touch upon whether I find those games effective or not, but even so that’s not the point.  I was also thinking about how this might affect how I view media criticism made by other people.

Tits and Tiles: The NSFW History of Strip Mahjong | SuperJump Magazine (contains nudity and sexually explicit images) – Strip Mahjong, it seems, was not merely a single game in Japan, but a living genre that spanned multiple platforms and decades.  Fascinating that this particular combination was so enduringly successful.