yotogi.net

while i was in college i got into game theory. part of this was due to the fact that i took a class in AI (more on this in a bit) and part of it due to the fact that i find facinating the analysis of situations and the attempt to reduce these into machine-understandable states.

i find it interesting that the class that i took was able to get me into AI at all. much of AI breaks down into three classes of problems: searching, sorting and knowledge representation. the treatment of these topics given in my class led much to be desired. they certainly didn't spark any interest in truly understanding the subtleties of A* algorithms, nor did they really pique much interest or desire into continuing the study of the topics presented.

but perhaps it was the knowledge representation that struck me most. i was interested in how to represent the world in a binary format. i was interested in finding ways to emulate that which our brains do so well in computing. we store and process an incredible quantity of information every moment, to be able to do a fraction of that on a machine level has always interested me.

so back in colege i took an interest in a game called mancala. very simple and quite enjoyable and quite an area of study for game theorists. the development of quickly evaluating heuristics is rolling around in my head once again. of course, before i can implement anything to investigate the rules one might employ to be very good at the game, i need to write a framework for playing the game.

so much code, so little time.