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Post by krusader74 on Sept 19, 2014 22:44:43 GMT -6
The Great Wheel Cosmology was introduced to the world by Gary Gygax in the article, "Planes: The Concepts of Spatial, Temporal and Physical Relationships in D&D", appearing in The Dragon, No. 8, July 1977. Here is the illustration from page 4: ... along with the key from page 5: An alternative cosmology, perhaps more suitable for a Gottam Cnihtas campaign, might be the DC Multiverse. Even if you're not a fan of Grant Morrison's current Multiversity series, his map of the DC Multiverse is quite interesting, integrating all the planes/locales/settings seen throughout the 75 year history of Batman. Here is a small image: There is also a LARGE 1400x1074 version here. Similar to D&D's Inner Planes, DC has the Orrey of 52 alternate universes. Like D&D's Outer Planes, DC has the Sphere of the Gods which contains: Dream & Nightmare: Homes of the deities of Neil Gaiman's "Sandman": the Dream-King Morpheus, the Courts of the Faerie, home to Oberon, Titania, Santa Claus, and the Easter Bunny. Nightmare is the home the the Bogeyman among others. Heaven & Hell: Created by Superman co-creator Jerry Siegel in 1940, Silver City is DC's home of Abrahamic theology and Angels. Hell, of course is the home of Lucifer and the fallen angels. New Genesis & Apokolips: New Genesis being the home of Jack Kirby's New Gods and the Forever People---Highfather, Orion, Big Barda. Apokolips the home of Darkseid (the archetype of evil, who seeks the anti-life equation), as well as Granny Goodness, Kalibak and the Parademons. Skyland & Underworld: Homes of the Old Gods: Asgard, Olympus, Hades and also the Phantom Zone. In addition to the Greek and Norse gods, there are also the Pantheons of the Celts, Mayans, Chinese, ancient Egyptians, and Canaanites. Happy Birthday Adam West, born September 19, 1928!!!
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Post by krusader74 on Sept 19, 2014 21:45:23 GMT -6
There's still about a day to get a free, 10 hour 24 minute audiobook version of R. A. Salvatore's "The Legend of Drizzt: The Collected Stories" at Audible. The link is Wizards of the Coast made this free for 40 days starting on August 12. You can also find it on Amazon dot com, the parent company of Audible. It's supposed to be free with no subscription required. Once you get it, you can play it on a tablet, phone or Kindle; or download it to a PC & play it with Audible's software. The 12 stories are read by Sean Astin (Sam in "Lord of the Rings"), Weird Al Yankovic, David Duchovny (X-Files), Melissa Rauch (The Big Bang Theory), Dan Harmon and Danny Pudi (Community), Greg Grunberg (Heroes), Tom Felton (Draco in "Harry Potter"), Michael Chiklis (The Thing in the "Fantastic Four"), and Ice-T. Here's the original PR and an article about it from CNET which includes links to a behind-the-scenes video on YouTube.
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Post by krusader74 on Aug 30, 2014 2:49:33 GMT -6
After wandering off to another city, however, they learn that gold there is severely undervalued and exchanges with silver at a rate of 1:6, instead of 1:10. An interesting thought experiment... Your scenario affords a wonderful opportunity for geographical arbitrage---a PC could literally make money from nothing. Call the city with the 1:6 exchange rate "G" for the Lost City of Gold. Call the city with the 1:10 exchange rate "S" for Silver City. The PC starts in "S" and borrows 30sp and agrees to pay it back in a month as the equivalent in gold (3gp) plus 10% (or 3sp) interest. He then travels to "G" and trades 24sp for 4gp at 6:1 keeping the remaining 6sp to pay interest and fees; he has to pay a 10% money changing fee (2.4sp, rounding up to 3sp). He returns to "S" and repays the 3gp principal plus the 3sp interest he owes. Tallying things up so far: 4gp gold 6sp silver -3gp principal -3sp interest -3sp money changing fee ----- 1gp profit If we can travel from "S" to "G" instantaneously and cost-free via magic then we're done calculating. Otherwise, we need to factor in time and travel costs. We assumed 1 month of interest payments, meaning we'd have to get there and back inside of 1 month, otherwise we need to adjust the calculations. We also need to figure out how much it costs to travel from "S" to "G" and back again. That will depend on the weight of the coins we're carrying. Then we can do the final calculations for the profit, which will be a function of the size of the trade we're doing. There are several risks. First, unless we're traveling back and forth instantaneously via magic, then the two trades are not executed simultaneously; that results in "execution risk." The interval in between the two trades allows exchange rates to change, e.g., we may get to "G" and discover rates have gone from 1:6 to 1:15, in which case we're screwed. There's also the risk that we'll be robbed by bandits during transit; hiring security increases our costs and lowers our profits. In the long run, once a large enough volume of these trades gets done, the exchange rates will equalize in "S" and "G" and the arbitrage opportunity will disappear. This is the Law of Once Price (LOP) reasserting itself. What the equilibrium exchange rate turns out to be in the end depends mainly on how much gold and silver were in each of "G" and "S" to begin with, assuming these amounts don't change by much due to mining or an influx/departure of these metals from/to other trading partners.
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Post by krusader74 on Aug 29, 2014 23:44:04 GMT -6
Here's an example of how to use Palamedes (discussed here) to toy with prices and exchange rates quickly and easily. Paste the following code into the "Command" textarea and press the "Submit" button. See below for an explanation of what each command does and what the "Results" look like. /* standard conversion rates */ gold gets 1; electrum gets 2; silver gets 10; copper gets 100
/* basic equip & cost, vol 1, p 14 */ equip gets {"dagger": 3, "hand axe": 3, "mace": 5, "sword": 10, "battle axe": 7, "morning star": 6, "flail": 8, "spear": 1, "pole arm": 7, "halberd": 7, "two-handed sword": 15, "lance": 4, "pike": 5, "short bow": 25, "long bow": 40, "composite bow": 50, "light crossbow": 15, "heavy crossbow": 25, "quiver of 20 arrows": 10, "case of 30 quarrels": 10, "20 arrows/30 quarels": 5, "silver tipped arrow": 5, "mule": 20, "draft horse": 30, "light horse": 40, "warhorse, medium": 100, "warhorse, heavy": 200, "saddle": 25, "saddle bags": 10, "cart": 100, "wagon": 200, "raft": 40, "small boat": 100, "small merchant ship": 5000, "large merchant ship": 20000, "small galley": 10000, "large galley": 30000, "leather armor": 15, "chain-type mail": 30, "plate mail": 50, "helmet": 10, "shield": 10, "barding": 150, "50' of rope": 1, "10' pole": 1, "12 iron spikes": 1, "small sack": 1, "large sack": 2, "leather back pack": 5, "water/wine skin": 1, "6 torches": 1,"lantern": 10, "flask of oil": 2, "3 stakes & mallet": 3, "steel mirror": 5, "silver mirror, small": 15, "wooden cross": 2, "silver cross": 25, "holy water/vial": 25, "wolvesbane, bunch": 10, "belladona, bunch": 10, "garlic, bud": 5, "wine, quart": 1, "iron rations": 15, "standard rations": 5} The statement gold gets 1; electrum gets 2; etc. are just the standard exchange rates between various metals. Next, the equip variable gets assigned a JSON object with the basic equipment costs from page 14 of volume 1. Note that this assignment statement is one long line, no line-breaks allowed! The costs are all in gold. Let's say you wanted to see all the costs in silver instead. The statement table(equip*silver) displays the equipment costs in terms of sp rather than gp. If you wanted to change the exchange rate from 1:10 to 1:12, as was the case in the time of Charlemagne circa 800 AD (see my last post above), just enter the following Commands: silver gets 12 prices set equip*silver table(prices) Here are the Results of running that code: silver ← 12
prices ↤ equip * silver → {"10' pole":12,"12 iron spikes":12,"20 arrows/30 quarels":60,"3 stakes & mallet":36,"50' of rope":12,"6 torches":12,"barding":1800,"battle axe":84,"belladona, bunch":120,"cart":1200,"case of 30 quarrels":120,"chain-type mail":360,"composite bow":600,"dagger":36,"draft horse":360,"flail":96,"flask of oil":24,"garlic, bud":60,"halberd":84,"hand axe":36,"heavy crossbow":300,"helmet":120,"holy water/vial":300,"iron rations":180,"lance":48,"lantern":120,"large galley":360000,"large merchant ship":240000,"large sack":24,"leather armor":180,"leather back pack":60,"light crossbow":180,"light horse":480,"long bow":480,"mace":60,"morning star":72,"mule":240,"pike":60,"plate mail":600,"pole arm":84,"quiver of 20 arrows":120,"raft":480,"saddle":300,"saddle bags":120,"shield":120,"short bow":300,"silver cross":300,"silver mirror, small":180,"silver tipped arrow":60,"small boat":1200,"small galley":120000,"small merchant ship":60000,"small sack":12,"spear":12,"standard rations":60,"steel mirror":60,"sword":120,"two-handed sword":180,"wagon":2400,"warhorse, heavy":2400,"warhorse, medium":1200,"water/wine skin":12,"wine, quart":12,"wolvesbane, bunch":120,"wooden cross":24}
table (prices) → key value 10' pole 12 12 iron spikes 12 20 arrows/30 quarels 60 3 stakes & mallet 36 50' of rope 12 6 torches 12 barding 1800 battle axe 84 belladona, bunch 120 cart 1200 case of 30 quarrels 120 chain-type mail 360 composite bow 600 dagger 36 draft horse 360 flail 96 flask of oil 24 garlic, bud 60 halberd 84 hand axe 36 heavy crossbow 300 helmet 120 holy water/vial 300 iron rations 180 lance 48 lantern 120 large galley 360000 large merchant ship 240000 large sack 24 leather armor 180 leather back pack 60 light crossbow 180 light horse 480 long bow 480 mace 60 morning star 72 mule 240 pike 60 plate mail 600 pole arm 84 quiver of 20 arrows 120 raft 480 saddle 300 saddle bags 120 shield 120 short bow 300 silver cross 300 silver mirror, small 180 silver tipped arrow 60 small boat 1200 small galley 120000 small merchant ship 60000 small sack 12 spear 12 standard rations 60 steel mirror 60 sword 120 two-handed sword 180 wagon 2400 warhorse, heavy 2400 warhorse, medium 1200 water/wine skin 12 wine, quart 12 wolvesbane, bunch 120 wooden cross 24
Next we are going to allow for intertemporal and geospatial price dispersion using a geometric brownian motion model. Here are the Commands: drift gets 1/12 /* annualized drift */ volatility gets 1/6 /* annualized volatility */ GBM(drift,volatility) newprices set round(S(equip*silver,norm [0,1,1]),0) table(newprices) /* new prices after price dispersion */ table(newprices - prices) /* price changes */ drift (1/12 approx 8.33%) measures the tendency for prices to rise over a year. volatility (1/6 approx 16.67%) measures the random dispersion of prices around their mean over a year. These values reflect modern markets. Medieval drift and volatility were much lower. If you wanted monthly values, divide the annual drift by 12 and the volatility by the square root of 12. If you wanted daily values, divide the annual drift by the number of trading days in a year (252 in modern times) and volatility by the square root of 252. The statement GBM(drift,volatility) initializes the model with the given annualized values of drift and volatility. The function S(oldprice,time) uses the GBM model to compute a new price from an old price and a time interval. In our case, we want to use a spacetime interval, rather just a time interval, so we'll use the norm function as follows. Suppose we want to simulate the prices we'd encounter if we traveled a distance from the origin 1-year north and 1-year east. We're measuring space in terms of the traveling times of the average merchant: The spacetime interval separating these points is norm [0,1,1] assuming a Euclidean norm. The vector [time,north,east] measures displacement from the origin in the given directions. But to keep all the units the same, we convert distance to time using average travel times for merchants. The norm of a vector measures its distance from the origin. Besides the default Euclidean norm, other norms are supported, e.g., norm([0,1,1],"minkowski") will give you a relativistic spacetime interval. The function round(number,decimalpoints) rounds a number to the desired number of decimal points---in our case 0. Putting all this together we compute our new prices with the statement newprices set round(S(equip*silver,norm [0,1,1]),0). Next we show the table of newprices with table(newprices). Finally, we show the price change with table(newprices - prices). Here are what the Results look like: drift ← 1 / 12
volatility ← 1 / 6
GBM(drift,volatility) → OK. GBM setup function S(S0,t) using parameters pct_drift=0.08333333333333333 and pct_volatility=0.16666666666666666
newprices ↤ round(S(equip * silver,norm([0, 1, 1])),0) → {"10' pole":18,"12 iron spikes":14,"20 arrows/30 quarels":75,"3 stakes & mallet":45,"50' of rope":18,"6 torches":13,"barding":2183,"battle axe":93,"belladona, bunch":108,"cart":1107,"case of 30 quarrels":130,"chain-type mail":436,"composite bow":496,"dagger":38,"draft horse":333,"flail":87,"flask of oil":29,"garlic, bud":49,"halberd":113,"hand axe":32,"heavy crossbow":235,"helmet":161,"holy water/vial":403,"iron rations":206,"lance":65,"lantern":100,"large galley":473050,"large merchant ship":259794,"large sack":35,"leather armor":205,"leather back pack":64,"light crossbow":197,"light horse":460,"long bow":452,"mace":61,"morning star":114,"mule":235,"pike":54,"plate mail":675,"pole arm":129,"quiver of 20 arrows":162,"raft":587,"saddle":264,"saddle bags":163,"shield":131,"short bow":275,"silver cross":342,"silver mirror, small":166,"silver tipped arrow":94,"small boat":1386,"small galley":130023,"small merchant ship":89666,"small sack":14,"spear":20,"standard rations":69,"steel mirror":66,"sword":179,"two-handed sword":186,"wagon":1950,"warhorse, heavy":2018,"warhorse, medium":1231,"water/wine skin":11,"wine, quart":15,"wolvesbane, bunch":138,"wooden cross":21}
table (newprices) → key value 10' pole 18 12 iron spikes 14 20 arrows/30 quarels 75 3 stakes & mallet 45 50' of rope 18 6 torches 13 barding 2183 battle axe 93 belladona, bunch 108 cart 1107 case of 30 quarrels 130 chain-type mail 436 composite bow 496 dagger 38 draft horse 333 flail 87 flask of oil 29 garlic, bud 49 halberd 113 hand axe 32 heavy crossbow 235 helmet 161 holy water/vial 403 iron rations 206 lance 65 lantern 100 large galley 473050 large merchant ship 259794 large sack 35 leather armor 205 leather back pack 64 light crossbow 197 light horse 460 long bow 452 mace 61 morning star 114 mule 235 pike 54 plate mail 675 pole arm 129 quiver of 20 arrows 162 raft 587 saddle 264 saddle bags 163 shield 131 short bow 275 silver cross 342 silver mirror, small 166 silver tipped arrow 94 small boat 1386 small galley 130023 small merchant ship 89666 small sack 14 spear 20 standard rations 69 steel mirror 66 sword 179 two-handed sword 186 wagon 1950 warhorse, heavy 2018 warhorse, medium 1231 water/wine skin 11 wine, quart 15 wolvesbane, bunch 138 wooden cross 21
table (newprices - prices) → key value 10' pole 6 12 iron spikes 2 20 arrows/30 quarels 15 3 stakes & mallet 9 50' of rope 6 6 torches 1 barding 383 battle axe 9 belladona, bunch -12 cart -93 case of 30 quarrels 10 chain-type mail 76 composite bow -104 dagger 2 draft horse -27 flail -9 flask of oil 5 garlic, bud -11 halberd 29 hand axe -4 heavy crossbow -65 helmet 41 holy water/vial 103 iron rations 26 lance 17 lantern -20 large galley 113050 large merchant ship 19794 large sack 11 leather armor 25 leather back pack 4 light crossbow 17 light horse -20 long bow -28 mace 1 morning star 42 mule -5 pike -6 plate mail 75 pole arm 45 quiver of 20 arrows 42 raft 107 saddle -36 saddle bags 43 shield 11 short bow -25 silver cross 42 silver mirror, small -14 silver tipped arrow 34 small boat 186 small galley 10023 small merchant ship 29666 small sack 2 spear 8 standard rations 9 steel mirror 6 sword 59 two-handed sword 6 wagon -450 warhorse, heavy -382 warhorse, medium 31 water/wine skin -1 wine, quart 3 wolvesbane, bunch 18 wooden cross -3 Remember, these are changes encountered by traveling 1-year north and 1-year east of the origin. You could similarly simulate prices in the same location in the future, e.g., to see prices at the origin 6 months in the future, enter the Command: table(round(S(equip*silver,1/2),0))
You could also switch to monthly or daily values of drift and volatility as described above. Or you could change the assumptions about drift and volatility; for example, you could simulate a deflationary trend. In any case, if someone were interested in simulating price changes over time and place, this may be a simpler way to do it than whipping up a custom spreadsheet and building-in lots of assumptions and formulas.
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Post by krusader74 on Aug 29, 2014 19:18:56 GMT -6
Resuming the timeline started in my previous post that went from King Midas in the 8th century BC to the first Roman mint in the temple of Juno Moneta in 269 BC: 312 AD Emperor Constantine first struck the gold solidus (French: sou) as the standard gold coin of the Roman Empire. 803 AD Holy Roman Emperor Charlemagne ceded control of Venice to Byzantine Emperor Nikephoros I. Charlemagne abolished the monetary system based on the gold sou; and he standardized new silver coins (livre carolinienne). It's important to note that from 800 to 1320 almost all gold flowed out of West Africa to Venice in exchange for slaves; then from Venice east to Byzantium, Arabia, and China in exchange for spices. Thus, there was a gold shortage in Europe after ceding Venice to the Byzantines. Byzantium's gold standard went back to Constantine. But under Charlemagne, Europe went to a new silver standard. Charlemagne's standard silver coin had - a silver purity of 92%
- a weight of 240 coins/deniers/shillings/pennies per pound
- an exchange rate of 240 silver coins to 20 gold coins, i.e., 1 sou = 12 denarii
But this standard only lasts until Charlemagne dies in 814 AD. 814-1300 AD There is a growing diversity of coinage: Diversity both in purity and weight. Quoting the Catholic Encyclopedia: 1300s: International trade unions begin to (re-)standardize the purity/weight of coins. 1320: Gold is discovered in Hungary. Venetians import Hungarian gold and then export it to France where it fetches the highest price; eventually they attempt to break into the English market. 1330-40: Gold becomes victorious in Europe. Edward III unsuccessfully attempted to block gold's ascendancy in England. Now silver is mostly traded as a commodity metal in bulk or for small purchases by the poor. 1346-53: The Black Death. Two-thirds of the population is wiped out. First there is a negative supply shock (rising prices due to lack of suppliers) followed by negative demand shock (price drops due to lack of consumers). 1350-1500: Monetary/liquidity crisis. Silver mining grinds to a halt because it becomes technically impossible to remove the ground water flooding the mines as they are dug deeper. Most small transactions only use silver. But silver is drained from the economy to buy gold. In turn, gold is drained trading with the Arabs for spices from China. There are no real exports to bring gold back into Europe, and constant wars only exacerbate the problems. This leads to 1.35% annual inflation for 150 years, considered high for the times. That results in a 7-fold price increase over this 150-year time period. The economy falls into general malaise. 1500- A gold influx from the New World. And new techniques to pump water out of European mines leads to the resumption of silver mining. This stimulates economic growth. And prices finally start to fall.
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Post by krusader74 on Aug 22, 2014 6:40:33 GMT -6
Gold as fiat money in the fantasy world. You've just plundered the Caves of Chaos. You've got thousands of gold coins burning a hole in your pocket. You're finally going to get that suit of plate armor you've always wanted! Returning to the Keep, you find that the trader (KotB, #10, p. 9) will NOT accept your gold. Nor will any of the other merchants in the Keep. "Why?" you ask. The trader holds up one of your gold coins and says "Just look at it! This coin has been defaced. It has the image of Gruumsh on it! And that one the image of Ilneval. And this one Bahgtru..." You get the idea. These details escaped your notice while you were plundering. The trader continues: "Everyone doing business in this fief has to pay taxes. But taxes can only be paid with coins minted by the Seigneur. And those coins all have the Crown's image on them." (I set KotB in Karameikos, so gold coins are minted with the image of King Stefan Karameikos.) He continues, "These coins are worthless!" He concludes his speech by throwing the coins in your face. In a world replete with gold, gold isn't valuable as a commodity. Gold is, in fact, an intrinsically useless product. In the fantasy world, gold is fiat money, just like paper money in the real world. More specifically, gold is conventionally used for the highest denomination of coin. And the legal ratio of 1 gold coin to 10 silver coins arose because they naturally occur in that ratio. In such a world, after adventurers score a large haul of gold coins, they'll have two main choices: - Take it to the Seigneur and have it minted into coins.
- Find a money changer (i.e., a foreign exchange middle man)
Fortunately, the KotB has such a money changer (KotB, #11, p. 9), at the LOAN BANK, where Money changers. I already wrote extensively about this LOAN BANK in my post on THREE YELLOW BALLS. But Wikipedia has some additional interesting notes on medieval money changing: Seignorage. The Castellan Keep doesn't have a mint. For that, the adventurers need to travel to a large city. (See the map of Karameikos.) Once there, they'll find that they need to pay a 10% fee to have their foreign coins melted down and re-cast into official coinage. This fee is called "seignorage." In other words, no matter which choice the adventurers make (money changer or mint), they are going to pay a 10% fee. Minting techniques. There are two main ways to make a coin: - Strike the metal between a pair of metal dies that contain the design of the coin. In ancient times through the Middle Ages, a "blank" or unmarked piece of metal was placed on a small anvil, and the die was held in position with tongs. The reverse side of the coin received a rectangular mark made by the sharp edges of the little anvil. This result is called "Hammered coinage" or "Struck coins."
- Melt the metal and pour it into a mould. This result is called "Cast coins."
Striking is actually the older and more widely used technology for minting coins. But striking is unsuitable for large masses of metal, so the Romans cast their larger copper coins in clay moulds. In ancient times, the blanks were spherically shaped or lens shaped. Prior to 300AD, dies were made from bronze, and the blanks made red hot prior to striking. After 300AD, iron was used for dies and the blanks were cold struck. In the Middle Ages (and also in Ptolemeic Egypt, circa 300BC), bars of metal were cast and hammered out on an anvil. Portions of the flattened sheets were then cut out with shears, struck between dies and again trimmed with shears. Dies had a limited lifespan. Quoting Wikipedia: Today, cold striking is still used, but instead of a hammer and anvil, we use presses. The result is called "milled coinage." First were monkey presses that use a falling weight, then screw presses, then steam powered presses, then electric. Large rollers powered by horses, mules, water (or later electric) reduced cast bars to flat sheets of metal and punched out round disks to use as blanks. Meanwhile, counterfeiters still use casting. Perhaps your adventurers may get the idea to steal the official dies so they can strike their own coins from the loot they stole from the goblin lair without having to pay the 10% seignorage or money changing fees? Or perhaps they'll try to cast their own counterfeit coins? A brief history of gold coinage. Lydia was a city in Phrygia, a kingdom occupying the western end of the Anatolian plateau. Gold and electrum coins are said to have been invented in Lydia around the 7th century BC. Here is a picture of a 6th century BC Lydian electrum coin: By the 5th century BC, the practice of minting coins had spread to the city of Cydonia on Crete. Around the same time minting began independently in China, Japan and Korea. The Romans began minting coins in the 4th century. In 269BC, this practice was moved to the temple of Juno Moneta. She corresponds to the Greek Mnemosyne, goddess of memory and mother of the Muses. In Rome, she became the personification of money. From " Moneta" we get the words " mint", " money", "monetize", and so on. The pre-history (mythology) of gold and gold coinage. Lydia was the ideal origin of gold coins because the river Pactolus was rife with gold and electrum. (Electrum AKA "green gold" is a naturally occurring alloy of gold and silver, with trace amounts of copper.) Here is the aetiological explanation: In the 8th century BC, Phrygia was without a king. At the capitol city, Telmessos, the oracle declared that the next man who drove an ox cart through the city gates would be the new king. That man was a poor peasant named Gordias. Gordias's son, Midas gave thanks to the Phrygian god Sabazios (identified with Dionysius) by dedicating the ox cart to him. He tied the ox cart to a post in the palace with an intricate knot of cornel. No one could find the end to the knot to unbind it. The oracle declared that anyone who could unbind this knot would become not only the ruler of Phrygia, but the ruler of all Asia. It became known as the "Gordian Knot." By the late 8th century BC, Midas had succeeded his father as King of Phygia. He had two children: a daughter Zoe (life) and a son Lityerses (death). Lityerses is the archetype of the grim reaper. He was the fastest harvester in the land. He would challenge other farmers to see who could harvest the most crops in one day. At the end of the day, after winning the challenge, he would behead his competitor and sing a song. The song of Lityerses became the archetype of all harvest songs. Herodotus wrote about the wild rose garden at the foot of Mount Bermion as "the garden of Midas son of Gordias, where roses grow of themselves, each bearing sixty blossoms and of surpassing fragrance." After a night of drinking, the satyr Silenus passed out in Midas' rose garden. Satyrs are companions of Dionysus with equine features. Midas treated Silenus hospitably, and entertained him for ten days and nights. Silenus delighted Midas with stories and songs. On the eleventh day, Midas brought Silenus back to Dionysus. As a reward, Dionysus offered Midas whatever he wished. Midas asked that whatever he might touch should turn to gold. First Midas touched an oak twig then a stone, and both turned to gold. Returning home to his palace, Midas ordered his servants prepare a feast. But when Midas grabbed his food, it turned to gold. And when he tried to take a drink of wine, it turned to gold. And when he hugged his daughter Zoe, she turned to gold too. Midas cursed his new power. Midas prayed to Dionysus, begging to be saved from starvation. Dionysus heard his prayer, and consented. He told Midas to wash in the river Pactolus. Then, what ever he put into the water would be reversed of the touch. When Midas immersed himself in the waters, the power flowed into the river, and the river sands turned into gold. And that's why the river Pactolus was so rich in gold, and why Lydia became the first city to mint gold coins. Etc. I still have a lot more to say about silver and the politics of bimetalism, about medieval coin size as a function of final-product transactions, and also about prices and how to make them more realistic, but I'll save that for a later post.
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Post by krusader74 on Aug 14, 2014 9:51:03 GMT -6
Uploaded build 30 of palamedes with the following changes: - Added a recur operator to generate recurrences. E.g., recur (_1+_2),[0,1] generates the Fibonacci sequence to ∞ which is set to 100 by default. The format is recur expr, initial where expr is an expression in parens. This expression may contain variables of the form _k which get set to result[n-k] where n is the number of results accumulated so far. And initial is the initial value of the result array. The expr has to be an actual expression -- it can't be a variable holding an expression, but this constraint may disappear in a future release. See the NEWS file for more examples.
- Added the sqrt function. This is different from root which is a dyadic operator rather than a function, e.g., 3 root 10 produces the cube root of 10. In general, functions need parens, operators don't. But the sqrt function is threadable over vectors/matrices/tensors, and parens are optional around things enclosed in square brackets, e.g., sqrt [0..4] is OK. TMTOWTDI: sqrt(2) produces the same result as 2 root 2 and √2 and 2^.5
- Added the trig reciprocal functions: cot, coth, csc, csch, sec, sech
- Added sign function to return the sign of a number: 1, 0 or -1.
- Added fix(x,n) function to display decimal numbers x with a fixed number n of decimal places. The number n defaults to 2. This function is threadable, so parens are optional around vectors and matrices as long as the default number of decimal places is used.
- Added size function to return the size of its input: 0 means its a scalar; a positive number n means its a vector of length n; and an array [m,n] means its a matrix with m rows and n columns. Additionally, -1 indicates its a JSON object; -2 indicates its a JavaScript function; and -3 indicates its type is unknown.
- Added trace function: tr. Input is a square matrix. Output is sum of diagonal elements. This is a non-threadable function--at most one input which must be in parens.
- Added the norm function to return the p-norm of a vector or matrix. By default, p is 2. But see the NEWS for more details.
- Fixed a minor bug that caused the output of while(a){b;c;d} to display as while(a){b,c,d} with commas instead of semicolons.
See the NEWS for more details and examples. Or download the SOURCE code.
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Post by krusader74 on Aug 13, 2014 6:27:47 GMT -6
Can I set the random number seed explicitly, so that I can reproduce the same results between sessions? Yes, it is now possible to set the random number seed explicitly, so that you can reproduce the same results between sessions! I just uploaded build 29, which incorporates this functionality. Quoting from the NEWS file: Try it online at palamedes.altervista.org or download the SOURCE.
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Post by krusader74 on Aug 12, 2014 23:47:25 GMT -6
The Player's D&D Basic Rules v0.2 is only about 15 pages longer than v0.1. The changelog summarizes the changes: Added (1) acid splash and poison spray spells, (2) noble background, (3) Appendix B containing the Forgotten Realms deities, (4) Appendix C containing descriptions of the five factions in the D&D Adventurers League, and lastly (5) legal text to allow reproduction for personal purposes. (That last change may prove very important if you ever want to take it to a Kinkos to get it printed off and bound into a book!) The big change is v0.1 of the Dungeon Master's D&D Basic Rules: about 50 pages of monsters, plus a couple pages for each of: NPCs, building combat encounters, and magic items.
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Post by krusader74 on Aug 12, 2014 23:26:26 GMT -6
Sweet! As soon as my homepage return to running, expect a link on a prominent spot. Thanks very much, I appreciate it!
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Post by krusader74 on Aug 12, 2014 23:24:14 GMT -6
Thanks! These reproductions look much more authentic than the ones I found on eBay, and they're a good value. This link has a whole bunch of historical dice reproductions for sale: historicgames.com/RPdice.htmlScroll down for a video on how to score with knucklebones. Great video! He explains how to remember the numerical values for each side of a knucklebone. Very useful. Their $20 bag of knucklebones is by far the best I've seen so far. Plus it comes with 6 wooden dice and a book of Early Dice Games (circa 1280-1700). And their NSFW dice are a real blast! Thanks for the links!
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Post by krusader74 on Aug 12, 2014 3:51:12 GMT -6
Just uploaded build 28 to palamedes.altervista.org that includes the following changes: - Negative numbers are now handled at the lexer level, so -2 is parsed as -2 rather than -1 * 2. The trade-off is that you must write Level - 1 with whitespace around the minus symbol, rather than Level-1 or you get a syntax error. 2 - -2 (=4) and 2 + -2 (=0) are syntactically OK. This change affects the D&D Men Attacking example, where the minus had been written without whitespace. In the future, I may change this so that 2-2 is again valid subtraction and ¯2 becomes the unary minus symbol as in 2-¯2.
- Fixed a problem with numeric functions like abs, ln and floor threading over arrays. So the expression abs [-0.1,.5,-.5,1,-2,3,-4] yields [0.1, 0.5, 0.5, 1, 2, 3, 4] instead of []
- Some functions now require parens around their args, e.g., abs(-0.1) is OK, but abs -0.1 is a syntax error. No parens necessary if threading over an array, so abs [-0.1,.5,-.5,1,-2,3,-4] is OK. The functions that require parens are: U, N, Φ, Phi, probit, abs, acos, acosh, asin, asinh, atan, atanh, atan2, ceil, comb, cos, cosh, exp, floor, ln, log, perm, round, sin, sinh, tan, tanh. This change affects the tali example, which used the comb function without parens.
- Some functions are now case sensitive, namely, U, N, Φ, Phi, probit, abs, acos, acosh, asin, asinh, atan, atanh, atan2, ceil, comb, cos, cosh, exp, floor, ln, log, perm, round, sin, sinh, tan, tanh
- Added U function to generate random variates from a continuous uniform distribution over given range. U() defaults to U(0,1)
- Added Phi (or Φ) function: Cumulative distribution function for standard normal distribution.
- Added probit function: quantile function (or inverse cumulative distribution function) for standard normal distribution.
- Added N function to generate random variates from a normal distribution. N() defaults to the standard normal distribution N(0,1). Otherwise N(mu,sigma) defaults to a normal distribution with mean mu and standard deviation sigma.
- Note that the functions U, N, Φ, etc. are distinct from the variables U, N, Φ, etc.
- Added log function: base 10 logarithm. ln is still base e logarithm
- Added exp(x) function as alternative to e^x
- Added trig functions: cos, sin, tan. Added their inverses: acos, asin, atan
- Added hyperbolic trig functions: cosh, sinh, tanh. Added their inverses: acosh, asinh, atanh
- Added ceil and round functions. These are JavaScript implementations. May add alternative rounding functions in the future.
- Added inf (or Inf or INF or ∞) special variable used as upper limit for operations that compute a sequence, series or limit.
- Variable names may now contain dollar signs $. Question marks ? may be used except in the initial position.
See the NEWS file for more details. Or download the SOURCE code.
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Post by krusader74 on Aug 9, 2014 21:57:42 GMT -6
If you want to link to another post on these boards, go to that post and click the button shown here, then click the "Link to Post" menu item: Copy the URL shown there into the BBCode URL tag discussed in the comments above.
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Post by krusader74 on Aug 9, 2014 21:48:54 GMT -6
There's also help available on the BBCode.org site for Creating links.
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Post by krusader74 on Aug 5, 2014 15:07:19 GMT -6
Last week I read Marvel Essentials Fantastic Four vol. 1 by Lee and Kirby, collecting issues #1-20 and Annual #1. I had the urge to dig the 1984 MSHRPG out of my basement and play. I remember the Thing narrating the combat section of the Battle Book -- It's Clobberin' Time!
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Post by krusader74 on Aug 5, 2014 2:04:06 GMT -6
I have photos of it all in my "Pictures" folder in my laptop (which runs Windows 8.1). How do I display those photos in a post here on the boards? You could certainly use a free Dynamic DNS service to allow everybody on the Internet to access resources on your home PC or laptop. The following article describes what Dynamic DNS is, and then compares a bunch of free service providers: Best Free Dynamic DNS Services (Updated 2014). However, I would not recommend that approach unless you were willing to setup a secure, dedicated web server, and put some kind of firewall between it and the rest of your home network! @ premmy's suggestion of using a free photo sharing service is definitely the right way to go! There is additional information on the BBCode examples page about posting images and resizing them. There's some other useful stuff there, like making BBCode tables. But your question suggests the need for a sticky post (perhaps in the Links & Resources section?) that would describe how to share multimedia content or active content on these boards, such as...
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Post by krusader74 on Aug 3, 2014 2:31:59 GMT -6
BTW, a note at the top of the article says: "This was originally a two part article in NFB23 & 24, 1978/80. When I recently saw Phanarzul's article on Economics (NFB22)..." Does anybody know what "NFB" stands for, or where I could read a copy of the article he mentions by "Phanarzul" on Economics?The article is from the News From Bree Tolkien-focused RPG fanzine. It looks like the file you linked to was originally copied from NFB's website here: www.newsfrombree.co.uk/m_econ.htmThanks for clearing that up! I stumbled on the Middle-earth PBM newsletter, also named News From Bree (35 issues from '98-'08), but that wasn't what I was looking for---glad you steered me to the right source. So the right News From Bree was a newsletter/RPG-fanzine from 1970 to 1988 by members of the Tolkien Society. It's unfortunate that all 29-issues haven't been digitized---that econ article was well done, and I'd like to see more.
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Post by krusader74 on Aug 1, 2014 21:16:22 GMT -6
If someone were running an historical campaign and needed accurate prices for plate armor or simply interested in getting an idea of the real economics governing medieval plate armor, I highly recommend the article: Medieval Economics for RPGs by Philip McGregor. Apparently, iron was a major factor to consider. He talks about how it was in short supply over this time period: After a discussion of medieval wages, he talks about how much labor time it took to produce armor and what effect this had on its price: Geography was another important consideration: There was also a market for pre-owned armor: The section on armor ends with this note: BTW, a note at the top of the article says: "This was originally a two part article in NFB23 & 24, 1978/80. When I recently saw Phanarzul's article on Economics (NFB22)..." Does anybody know what "NFB" stands for, or where I could read a copy of the article he mentions by "Phanarzul" on Economics?
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Post by krusader74 on Jul 31, 2014 23:06:29 GMT -6
The free pdf of the basic rules is wordy and has too many unnecessary tables. Not sure if someone already mentioned this, but Konstantin M made a 23-page condensed, 5.83" x 8.26" PDF and ODT of the basic rules, which I find more appealing than the original---less wordy, fewer frills.
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Post by krusader74 on Jul 30, 2014 1:00:09 GMT -6
You need to consider the location: Are you tunneling through clay, sand or rocks? You also need to consider what type of tools you are using: shovel, hammer/chisel, explosives? There's some interesting info here. Dasharath Manjhi spent 22 years using a hammer-and-chisel to "cut a 120m-long, 10m-wide and 8m-high passage" through a mountain by himself "so that villagers could reach a local hospital," according to this source. Using modern excavation equipment, "Norway's 15.23 mile long Laerdal Tunnel built during a five-year period from 1995-2000 at a cost of approximately $113 million U.S. dollars." Those stats as well as those for some other modern tunnels may be found here. You also need to consider hazards: hitting ground water that can flood your tunnel; poison gas; cave-ins and collapses. In a magical campaign consider using giant ants or dire moles to dig for you... In the real world, a brood of 200 ants can dig a maze in as few as 3 days. Considered as a graph, this maze would have 60±20 vertices and 70±31 edges. You can get more details including statistics on tunnel volume, width, length, and so on in this research paper -- Nest excavation in ants: group size effects on the sizeand structure of tunneling networks -- but be sure to scale up! In the real world, "Moles are fast diggers and can tunnel at a rate of 15 feet per hour. In favorable areas, shallow tunnels can be built at a rate of 12 inches per minute," according to this source. The very first issue of The Fantastic Four introduced the Mole-Man, a super-villain who used an army of giant moloids to dig tunnels for him. The Fantastic Four's Human Torch was able to tunnel by making himself hot as lava and melting his way through even rocky and mountainous terrain.
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Post by krusader74 on Jul 25, 2014 20:52:38 GMT -6
Yes, but what of the Conspiracy? Surely you must realize that a device which can be accessed by wireless technologies is not secure. You must realize that they can connect you to their secret surveillance network without you realizing it's even happened. Let them try that with an old type writer. Granted, they can send a fly sized drone to buzz you but that requires prioritization and prioritization is what makes them have to work and think and not rely upon computers to do all the work for them. You have to really think these things through. The NSA's " Tailored Access Operations" (TAO) unit has a large catalog of spy gadgets including the Cottonmouth I, II, and III---Universal Serial Bus (USB) hardware host taps that allow them to spy on machines that aren't even connected to the Internet. All they need is to implant the tap in your machine's USB port; such machines were sold by the big US hardware brands (HP, Dell, Cisco and so on) since at least 2008. The tap draws power from your USB port and allows a covert agent at a remote console a couple miles away to have complete control over your system. " Big Brother is watching you!" Worse: If the NSA can exploit this USB host tap to spy on you, I'm sure Ukrainian hackers and even Rupert Murdoch can exploit it too. The upside: If anyone here still plays Top Secret, they'll surely want to add the aforementioned TAO catalog to their equipment list!
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Post by krusader74 on Jul 24, 2014 1:20:23 GMT -6
Thank you for sharing this. This month, a close family member was diagnosed with terminal/inoperable prostate cancer. So early diagnosis and treatment are imperative. You mentioned issues with sleep apnea. A recent study showed that sleep disruptions double the risk of prostate cancer. Another study showed that sleep apnea is also associated with higher rates of colo-rectal cancer. I've also seen recent research in cancer journals that correlate low vitamin D to prostate cancer, and that also links low testosterone to prostate cancer. I bring all this up because when someone develops a new or unusual health condition, they ought to be taken seriously, no matter how minor the condition might seem---Insomnia, a vitamin deficiency, a slight hormone imbalance might appear trivial, but it could just be the first symptom of a serious affliction. The statistics say that 1-in-7 men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer in their lifetime. So if someone develops a health issue, even something seemingly minor and unrelated to cancer, he shouldn't use that as an excuse to put off going to a doctor.
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Post by krusader74 on Jul 22, 2014 19:53:36 GMT -6
Batman DayWednesday, July 23rd is Batman Day, celebrating 75 years of the Dark Knight. Events are planned at many comic shops, book stores (including Barnes and Noble), and libraries. Free promotional items, including - four special Batman masks, one from each era: Detective Comics #27 (1939), Adam West's Batman '66, Frank Miller's Dark Knight Returns, and Greg Capullo's current run on Batman
- 75th-anniversary cape
- bookmarks
- special-edition comic book retelling the Caped Crusader's first story from 1939's Detective Comics #27
Comixology is having a 1-week 99-cent sale on digital editions of 750 Batman comics 7/22 thru' 7/29. Detective Comics #27 is FREE! Sale highlights include In brick-and-mortar comic shops, several new Bat-titles will be released, including Batman #33 (the extra-sized conclusion of Scott Snyder's Zero-Year) and Batman Beyond Universe #12 (conclusion of the 4-part Justice Lords Beyond story arc).
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Post by krusader74 on Jul 19, 2014 21:15:02 GMT -6
Option 1. Don't get a dedicated device, just replace the software you are using in order to get rid of distractions.The type of software @ mushgnome suggested goes by many names: - full-screen writing program
- distraction-free editor
- minimalist text editor
- focused-writing app
They exist on all platforms: Windows, Mac, iPad, Linux and Android. There is a Wikipedia article about them here: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distraction-free_editorThere are also many online reviews of them--- Option 2: Don't get a dedicated device, switch your operating system instead.Put FreeDOS on a USB stick or a CD and boot from it: www.freedos.org/Then use an old-school DOS text editor: For instance, I'm sure most everyone on this forum has heard that George R. R. Martin still uses WorStar 4.0 on DOS, and if not, then here is an article about it: George R. R. Martin writes with a DOS word processorAnother option for DOS is WordPerfect. Version 4.1 was known for its clean, clutter-free interface. The minimalist programmer's editor, Brief, is still around for DOS, OS/2 and Windows: www.briefeditor.com/Option 3: Get a dedicated device.When I do the following search on eBay, I get a list of many inexpensive word processors, including the AplhaSmart already suggested by @ paulg: www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_nkw=word+processorThere are also many Brothers, Canons, Smith Coronas, Tandys, and so forth.
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Post by krusader74 on Jul 14, 2014 4:26:59 GMT -6
The main offerings in the 0e space appear to be (in the order they appeared): S&W:WB ( Finarvyn et. al.), Delving Deeper ( waysoftheearth et. al.), Seven Voyages of Zylarthen ( oakesspalding), Full Metal Platemail ( Leonaru). I'd add to this list Paul Gorman's excellent 0e/LBB retro-clone Torch & Sword. The author is a frequent contributor to these boards as @ paulg. The work is minimalistic--it only covers the 3LBBs and it doesn't attempt to "correct" their omissions and ambiguities. It's well organized and has an index. It includes really good artwork. It's licensed under the OGL. It's free--- the PDF is here. And the LaTeX source code is also freely available. I recommend this one in addition to the four just mentioned by @ WotE.
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Post by krusader74 on Jul 14, 2014 0:45:11 GMT -6
Thanks for the links! Duly bookmarked. And thanks for the article. That will giving me a lot of distraction for all my free time (ha!)! Have you seen this HTML article? It is one I am familiar with. It footnotes the one you linked to: rpg-design.wikidot.com/evaluationIt is not clear who the author is. What do you think of it? Thanks for the link! It was an interesting read. A couple years ago, I did a similar analysis and came to similar conclusions. Here's a table summarizing my own thoughts on what the ideal DoS distribution would look like: Moment | Low skill | Med skill | High skill | 1 Mean | low | med | high | 2 Variance | high | med | low | 3 Skewness | Right (postive)* | Symmetric (zero) | Left (negative)* | 4 Kurtosis | Platy-kurtic** | Meso-kurtic | Lepto-kurtic** | Ideal continuous distrib | Log-normal | Normal | Skew-normal with negative alpha (α<0) | Discrete approximation | Negative binomial | Convolution of discrete uniform | Not sure of the name; see techmologist's post here | Best approx dice throw | How many successes x rolled before r failures? | Sum of n dice | Roll n, keep the k highest, and sum |
Notes:* The low skill PC gets a positively skewed distribution, because although most of his output is poor, once in a while he'll get really lucky and score high. Similarly, a high skill PC gets a negatively skewed distribution, because though he usually scores high, once in a while he effs-up and does quite bad. ** You can see this on the graph of the ideal DoS in the link you sent---the low skill distribution is wide and flat, whereas the high skill distribution is narrow and acute.
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Post by krusader74 on Jul 11, 2014 7:28:09 GMT -6
Just uploaded build 27 to palamedes.altervista.org that includes the following changes: - Fixed a regression in the domain function that caused it to fail on singleton objects, which in turn made the knucklebones example fail.
- Changed the behavior of union/∪ in a way that breaks backward compatibility. See NEWS for details.
- Added concat/⊎, powerset and permute array operators.
- Added set operators: intersect, diff (difference) and sdiff (symmetric difference), respectively, ∩, \, and Δ.
- Infix set and array operators now have precedence between relational expressions and additive expressions.
- No longer need parentheses to string together multiple infix operators: of/after/∘, union/∪, cross/×, dot/., etc.
- Added set comparisons: subset/⊂ and subseteq/⊆.
- Added all/∀ and some/∃ quantifiers that apply to arrays or matrices of boolean values.
- Added approx/≈ equality comparison and the tol variable which stores the tolerance to use to check approximations.
- Added prod/Π operator to take the cartesian product of an array of arrays. Note that Π is uppercase pi, not to be confused with lowercase pi/π which is the constant 3.141592653589793
- Added lcm and gcd functions. These each operate on an array of integers.
See the NEWS file for details. Or download the SOURCE.
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Post by krusader74 on Jul 11, 2014 0:32:21 GMT -6
This is rad. I love the stuff about Palamedes. I had never even heard of him! So cool. I am not a programmer, so some of that escapes me. I use the "any dice" online dice calculator when I am interested in this kind of stuff: anydice.comI never take my questions in this vein much further than what it can answer for me. krusader, are you familiar with it? What do you think? I agree, Anydice is excellent! I also like the Troll dice roller and probability calculator written by Torben Ægidius Mogensen. Check out the PDF user manual to see what Troll is capable of. Additionally, Professor Mogensen wrote an interesting paper About dice-mechanisms in role-playing games that's well worth reading. Another tool that I've used is Dicelab. It runs on the Windows or Linux command-line. And it has a well written PDF user manual with sample usage on pages 17-18.
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Post by krusader74 on Jul 9, 2014 6:39:08 GMT -6
Uploaded a new build to palamedes.altervista.org that includes the following changes: - Added cross (×) function. Note that × is not the letter "eks" x. Overloaded cross to handle:
- Vector cross product exactly when both arguments are 3-element arrays of numbers
- Matrix multiplication when both arguments are arrays of arrays and have compatible dimensions
- Cartesian products otherwise
- Implemented C-style comments: /* comment */
- Added trans function to transpose an array or matrix
- Added det function to calculate determinant of matrix
- Augmented existing inv function to do matrix inverse
- Redefined arithmetic operations for
- matrix op matrix
- matrix op array
- matrix op scalar
- Matrix^Power does repeated matrix multiplication, Matrix^-1 does inverse
- With these new matrix functions, you can
- Solve a system of linear equations
- Perform a linear regression
See the NEWS file for details. Or download the SOURCE.
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Post by krusader74 on Jul 8, 2014 16:44:36 GMT -6
Could this be it: the Aquiliad by Somtow Sucharitkul? These were 3 SF stories originally from the 1950s, collected together and published as a novel-length book in December 1983. The story is set in an alternative earth where Rome never declined and went on to conquer the world. In addition to battling aliens, there are also Aztecs, time-traveling criminals and sasquatch. If that's not it, take a look at this list of Fiction set in the Roman empire. There are a couple other possibilities listed there.
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