Entries this day: designed-a-solitaire-game-threes dream-convention gotta-get-my-drivers-license headed-to-ces walked-ten-kilometers-this-morning-710am

designed a solitaire game threes

Lin's mom has been playing a game of solitaire in which if she tries to put all the cards into pairs. Because her target is to put all the cards in pairs she ends up spending most of the time shuffling so that she doesn't have the pairs automatically there.

In my head, I just designed a game of solitaire that will shuffle the cards for her and not use the number four, which means death in Japanese.

The target of Threes is to put all of the cards into ordered collection stacks per suit. Spades' order will be Ace through King. The three other suits will be ordered King through Ace.

Starting with the deck face down, take the top three cards off the deck and turn them face-up in a mini stack. If the top card is an Ace of Spades or any of the three King cards, put that card into a collection stack according to the suit.

If the next visible card in the mini stack is numerically adjacent to the top card in its suit's collection stack, put it on its appropriate stack.

In the much more likely case that no cards can go onto any of the collection stacks, take the top three cards off the upside down deck and place them on the mini upright stack.

If the next visible card in the mini stack is numerically adjacent to the top card in its suit's collection stack, put it on its appropriate stack.

Repeat this process, essentially looking at every third card to see if it is next in the order of its particular suit. You can go through the deck three times this way. If you end up with all the cards laid out in order per suit, you win; if not, you lose.

dream convention

Addressing attendees at a convention about future transportation, I was writing my presentation as I went up to the stage to speak.

In the future, this will not be a question anymore. And will be ubiquitous that no one has to solve the pesky problem of deciding whether to walk on the left or right of any particular obstacle.

This was meant to get the audience thinking about how we should handle transportation on the proverbial last mile.

I planned to continue my introductory speech saying this man has courageously been fighting to bring this ubiquitous future to us today.

gotta get my drivers license

After moving to Tokyo, I fell in love with the trains. No flat tires, no maintenance, no insurance / inspection / oil change / tire change / expensive leaky gaskets allll outsourced to professionals.

So I didn't worry when my driver's license expired.

Lin loves to drive. Right now we are stopped in a rest area where she is sleeping for a quick power nap. If I had my license, we could be still on our way as I take some of the cognitive load off Lin's shoulders.

But dang, 350,000 yen is steep.

headed to ces

Lin and I are headed to CE's cabin in Nagano today. our start was somewhat delayed because I forgot to load one of Lin's bags into the car. but the good news is that I got to go see Yomiuriland three times today.

Speaking of Three, I looked for playing cards in the rest area and they had some.. but for 750 yen, I was like, nope! The rest area was as crowded as I imagine it would be on a normal summer day. There was not any particular effort made to do social distancing, and about 20% of the people were not wearing masks.

walked ten kilometers this morning 710am

I walked over 10 kilometers this morning, from our house to our main station ShinYurigaoka, to Yomiuriland, then (for the first time) down the back stairs under the gondola lines all the way to Keio Yomiuriland Mae station.

It took less than three hours, and I could easily imagine walking that twice in one day. Therefore walking 400 kilometers to Niigata could be done in three weeks.

I got home just in time to rest a bit and then do Design Your Day workshop.