User talk:Nø

Hi. I've been doing some work on sáhkku, and I've noted that the articles on daldøs and tâb have listed the probabilities of various dice combinations. Am I right to assume this is your work? It would be interesting to have a similar probability breakdown for the sáhkku article. The most normal sáhkku rules have three dices marked X-2-3-0, where X has the value 5 when used to move, but it can alternately be used to activate pieces. I have no idea how to calculate the probability for different combinations of three X-2-3-0 dices. If you're not interested in doing this (or don't have the time to do it), is there any program or website which can be used to calculate the probability of different combinations? I've found some places where you can calculate odds for normal 6d dice, but obviously not for sáhkku/daldøs dice... Misha bb (talk) 12:31, 7 January 2016 (UTC)

I agree it would be nice - but actually it is against wikipedia policy; I would not be able to contest it if someone deleted it (e.g. from the Daldøs article) as "original research". Nice work on Sahkku!!! - I may (or may not) find time to study it in detail, and perhaps come up with some probabilities, like next week.--Nø (talk) 11:43, 8 January 2016 (UTC)

Thanks! A shame that presenting probability calculations is considered to be against policy. Misha bb (talk) 08:25, 11 January 2016 (UTC)

It's not probability calculations that are against policy - but Wikipedia editors (in this case, me) are by definition NOT a reliable sources - one must (or at least must be able to) refenrece an independently published reliable source, and in this case that does not exist. Now, one might say that what REALLY matters is that the information is verifiable, and simple maths is always verifiable, but that is not enough on Wikipedia. However, luckily, no_one has challenged the calculations, demanding a source, partly because the artcles are low-profile.--Nø (talk) 09:09, 11 January 2016 (UTC)

The article Partners (board game) has been proposed for deletion because of the following concern:

Can't find any indication of notability via sources. Tried searching "Partners board game" "Partners danspil" (the manufacturer) and "Partners thomas bisgaard" (the designer) and couldn't find a better source than Boardgamegeek. I see from the talk page that even one of the main contributors acknowledges that they couldn't find any sources to add either, and that the game is "not well known" even in the original region of Scandinavia.

While all constructive contributions to Wikipedia are appreciated, pages may be deleted for any of several reasons.

You may prevent the proposed deletion by removing the {{proposed deletion/dated}} notice, but please explain why in your edit summary or on the article's talk page.

Please consider improving the page to address the issues raised. Removing {{proposed deletion/dated}} will stop the proposed deletion process, but other deletion processes exist. In particular, the speedy deletion process can result in deletion without discussion, and articles for deletion allows discussion to reach consensus for deletion. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 21:27, 29 May 2018 (UTC)

Hello Nø regarding this reversion on List of numeral systems, your parsing of Cherokee syllabary#Numerals is incorrect. Sequoyah developed a full numeral system; it's not a "system for writing Cherokee number words" any more than "64" is a way of writing "sixty four." The section of the Cherokee syllabary article could use expansion and additional detail, but I still don't understand your objection or how you're understanding what it says. Can you please help me in clearing this up? Carter (talk) 19:41, 17 May 2021 (UTC)

Replied on talk:List of numeral systems.--Nø (talk) 07:06, 18 May 2021 (UTC)

An unsourced statements regarding narayana cows is mentioned in the article of Narayana pandita Myuoh kaka roi (talk) 14:19, 1 December 2023 (UTC)

I thought that it meant that it was a pure base, not a hybrid like 5&20. VitAlv13 (talk) 15:08, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

@ 2806:2F0:43E1:E19A:6CAE:898F:206C:5C83 (talk) 19:58, 29 December 2024 (UTC)

Hi Nø. Long ago we had a brief discussion about various shapes of d4 dice and their propensity to tumble. I expect this is old news to you, but I was recently poking around and found 3 new peculiar shapes available. I'm not claiming they're notable, just that you might be amused.

• The first is this, which is really just a standard d4 long die with fun ends.
• The second is this which I expect you'll like both because it's catnip for geometry nerds, and because, while resembling the tragically stable D&D d4, it must surely tumble much better.
• The third is this which plays a sort of fascinating cheat with the expected Daldøs-type pyramidal ends -- it has only 1 instead of 2! It manages this by being, essentially, a standard d8 with one vertex pushed in, and the other pulled out.

Still, if one really wants a d4 to "tumble"... I say nothing beats a Dreidel. Cheers. Phil wink (talk) 19:00, 30 March 2025 (UTC)

Thanks - amusing indeed! You're right; my favourite would be #2: Best to roll, the most pleasing to look at, and the constant width thing as an extra feature. Of course, a long die could be made nearly round too, so that it will roll better (though not with constant width; that would be possible for a long d3, though). Throwing a long die requires a relatively long flat throw and a long tray or other flat area, compared to normal dice, so #2 will fit in better in a set of different dice, I think. - Yes, dreidels, wheels of fortune, and similar randomizers, are also neat a solution, but they also do not mix well with other dice. -- For a fair one-sided die, more interesting than the ones mentioned in the article Dice, see Gömböc ;-) (I'd love to own one, but they are rather pricey!) Nø (talk) 07:16, 31 March 2025 (UTC)

Yes, I'd encountered a gömböc at some point on YouTube, but hadn't thought of it as an ironic die. I guess you need a 3D printer, so you can have any shape you want... although I expect they wouldn't provide the clean surfaces and edges that a machined product would. Your note that long dice require long throws reminds me that bad tumbling in few-faced lots appears to have been "a truth universally acknowledged":

• In North America, throwing staves (binary lots, semicircular in section) were sometimes bounced vigorously and vertically down upon a flat stone, evidently to cause a disruption to their initial state, which effectively replaced the tumbling that couldn't be relied upon.
• In Egypt and the Levant, similar lots were cast against a vertically anchored stick, functioning a bit like a craps backboard (as I suppose you know, having once researched Tab).
• In Korea, when using stubby little half-rounds, they'd toss them through a little hoop. All these seem to be safeguards against cheating, but here there's a very fine line between cheating and naturally-occurring bad tumbles.
• Of course some Romans used a pyrgus to prevent cheating. My pet hypothesis is that, when using astragals, there was a second virtue to the pyrgus: I think that it may have slightly evened out the odds of the famously "unfair" astragal (usually stated to be about 1:1:4:4, though experiment shows some individual specimens to approach 1:1:3:3). This imbalance is generally attributed to 2 faces having noticeably larger surface areas than the other 2 (let's say effective surface, ignoring all the pitting). This is true, but a second factor is that the ends of astragals are rounded "rockers" that rock the lot toward the 2 already-larger faces. My sense is that a pyrgus would tend to cause astragals to exit tumbling laterally, removing the "rocker" factor and leaving only the area factor -- thus lessening, without eliminating, the bias.

Well, that's enough of that. Cheers. Phil wink (talk) 17:17, 31 March 2025 (UTC)

Thanks for enlightening me :-) I believe Gömböcs must be machined to a very high precision to work (and preferably be made of heavy material), so 3D printing is probably not a cheaper way to get one that actually works. (The precision thing may be marketing bullshit, though.) Nø (talk) 18:09, 31 March 2025 (UTC)

Our recent discussion at Talk:Long dice#Yut sticks revealed to me that Wikipedia needs articles on Binary lots and Astragals, which, if I have the energy, I intend to create. But merely naming these articles treads on very stinky terminological and categorical grounds, not to mention actually writing the things. So in preparation, I've sketched out some facts, problems, and thoughts in an essay: User:Phil wink/Lots of terms (terms of lots). Now, for most people, reading this would be a punishment, but I actually think you'd be interested in it. If you're not, don't bother; but I wonder if you'd be willing to check it out and comment. I don't see this becoming actual WP guidance (I doubt enough people care ever to obtain any meaningful consensus), but it might serve as a quarry for sound facts and arguments on these topics, should they come up for discussion. Then in the future, if I get those articles done, I hope you'll improve them: I think we come at this from somewhat different perspectives, so anything we both accept should be pretty high-quality. Thanks. Phil wink (talk) 17:04, 9 April 2025 (UTC)