I wonder what people of think of this: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/move38/blinks-game-system-20-new-smart-tabletop-games I ordered a set from their first kickstarter about a year ago. The product intrigued me because it was developed by an MIT media lab alumnus, and the "physical computing" aspects of the project felt very reminiscent of Bret Victor's Dynamic Land.

Well I haven’t even mentioned the biggest flaw in the system which is why it is doomed to failure, Which is that there has never been a mathematics tradition that supported independent parallel processing Computation. The parallela computer by Andreas Olaffson made it to 4000 nodes, and it worked, but they didn’t have a programming language to handle 4000 independent CPUs so nobody could program the damn chip. Although this is our present universe having many Cores, there is no easy to use programming language that facilitates programming these modules. So people will start out with some simple idea for a game and then it will be flaky. Debugging multi-threaded code is well known to be a hard thing and this is even harder than multithreading because you have completely independent chips. This is what makes aerospace and automotive software the most difficult of all types. One could argue in the case of automotive that you would be better off having a single processing system with a redundant backup rather than having so many independent computers. Supposedly it’s for reliability to have each independent module have its own processing power but actually in the JPL missions they couldn’t waste the power of having so many independent systems so they would put in an odd number of brains and have them vote on the outcome, and any system voting wrong too much just gets turned off. Anyway programming 30 independent nodes it is not 30 times harder than a single Node but more like 9000 times harder. I have no doubt that someone is going to figure out how to make parallel computing easily, but it will take an Alan Turing level of mathematics genius to do it. I have seen parallel computing fail for 50 years. From the illiac IV or whatever it was called. Many attempts from many different companies, there is no more certain graveyard than parallel computing. Who knows maybe this toy could spark a breakthrough. There was a guy who as a child went on a trip to the island of Crete, and they had at the gift shop plastic models of the Phaistos disk which is an undecoded script and he was able to figure it out later on in his life. This is the same guy that decoded Rongo Rongo writing from the Easter island, which turns upside down each line. Some people have a knack for doing puzzles that defy all other attempts to solve, I think we should have some kind of prize offered for solving the parallel computing language issue. There is a language called parasail which succeeds it allowing some things to be automatically be parallelized, via loops and there is a kind of super Fortran called chapel that facilitates giant computational clusters for Cray, but nobody has conquered the problem of debugging massively parallel code easily. It remains the a very esoteric skillset.

I'm going to be facetious for a moment 😄 I think your anecdote about the kid who went to Crete inadvertently gives the best argument for why this toy should exist! Statistically, the more kids (and people in general) have access to this kind of toy and this kind of thinking, the more likely such a genius is to appear. Tangentially, I am familiar with both Parasail and Chapel. I am involved in the Nim programming language community and Nim happens to be undergoing an overhaul of it's memory management and threading models at the moment. We have taken some inspiration and several ideas from Parasail. There was also a recent lively thread comparing Chapel to Nim, with core contributors from both Chapel and Nim chiming in. You might find it interesting: https://forum.nim-lang.org/t/6426

I like the toy, i am just being realistic and predicting its likely unhappy trajectory. When i was a kid they had a metal toy called the "erector set", and US version of the Meccano sets which were popular in Europe. Now it is an almost vanished toy, because in part anything out of metal is prohibitively expensive. Very sad that this generation of kids will only have Lego as the main construction toy. If only the public libraries would have these kinds of sets, it would make it possible for a huge number of kids to have access to this challenge. As it is, only a very few rich kids who already have lots of toys will get access. You can't predict who will be inspired by something this hard, so best to put it into a public space where kids can wander by and see it, and if intrigued pursue it. In my public school we had an long-past expiration date IBM computer, and a few of us got very interested, and it changed my life completely.

Funny you talk about the library. My wife happens to be a public children's librarian. I often try to work with her to get toys like this at her library. They have things like littleBits and Rigamajig sets. (unfortunately COVID has really destroyed budgets for that sort of thing). The impact is very hit and miss. The irony is that this generation ignores even Lego. Minecraft and Robolox have totally consumed their "constructive" headspace.

The Beads language is out now, you can download the compiler at beadslang.com, and there are a dozen or two sample projects on GitHub mostly simple games, working up to Chess. Sorry to hear that public libraries are getting hammered, because they are an immensely equalizing force in the world. The great Andrew Carnegie helped build almost half the public libraries in the USA, it was a huge factor in the boom of the USA in the 20th century. Our tycoons today are very selfish people, pursuing vanity projects like spaceships which don't actually help the common man. Improving education is the single biggest thing one could do for the world, because as Einstein pointed out, stupidity is the only infinite thing in the universe.

@Edward de Jong / Beads Project I apologize if this isn't the right place for a bug report (but we are already way off topic at this point anyway). I was exploring the website for your Beads project, and unfortunately, there is a bug in your color picker example. http://beadslang.com/apps/colorchart/colorchart.html on a Windows 10 box with Firefox 77.0.1 (64-bit)

TypeError: std.get_path is not a function colorchart.html:227:19
    chart_draw_cell <http://beadslang.com/apps/colorchart/colorchart.html:227>
    draw_grid <http://beadslang.com/runtime/beads_k.js:1763>
    chart_draw <http://beadslang.com/apps/colorchart/colorchart.html:210>
    draw_slice <http://beadslang.com/runtime/beads_k.js:1479>
    slices_compute <http://beadslang.com/runtime/beads_k.js:1662>
    div_end <http://beadslang.com/runtime/beads_k.js:1807>
    main_draw <http://beadslang.com/apps/colorchart/colorchart.html:392>
    rebuild_all <http://beadslang.com/runtime/beads_k.js:3671>
    <anonymous> <http://beadslang.com/apps/colorchart/colorchart.html:595>
    InnerModuleEvaluation self-hosted:1572
    evaluation self-hosted:1543

The language itself looks very interesting on the surface. I admit I only skimmed it so far. Nim is also heavily influenced by Dr. Wirth and Modula-2. It feels like a language very much of the same lineage.

the Beads language is a direct descendent of modula2 which i used for 20 years making a lot of great products on mac and windows platforms. Modula2 was superior to C in every single respect except popularity. I was never able to convince anyone to switch, the herd mentality is so powerful. indenting is significant it is al of python. I thought of calling my language wirth in honor of him, But as he is a living person I wanted his blessing for that and I was never able to get back in touch with the guy since he retired from ETH. I will have to check that color picker code probably means I forgot to upload latest version to the web.

Wow, those are both pretty neat and pretty awful. Pretty much all the games shown require at least 18 to 36 of them. They each use a Cr2032 battery that last for 40hrs so basically you need to keep a giant stash of batteries around. Looks like the batteries generally cost > $1 each so add another $40 every couple of weeks. Assuming you'd actually use them. I love this kind of stuff when I see it but I know if I bought it it would get used for 2-6hrs max and then sit on a shelf. I remember being inspired by Sifteo But they had the same issue. Way too expensive. Only really interesting if you have a lot of them. Not going to actually use them for more than a couple of hours before they go on a shelf. I can see these types of things maybe getting more used if I had kids or ran a class though the constant costs for batteries kind of kills it for schools.

Actually CR 2032 batteries are dirt cheap, you can buy 100 of them on eBay for a very small amount of money. They’re made by the billions so it was an excellent choice for the battery type it’s the cheapest small battery you can get

@gman Maybe CR 2032 batteries are more expensive where you live, but I have to agree with Edward, they are pretty damn cheap where I looked. "Pretty much all the games shown require at least 18 to 36 of them." Where did you see that? I bought my set last year when you could only get 12. Every game it came with required no more than 12 units. And AFAIK, the games in this new kickstarter also only require 12 units. I know this because I'm on their forum, where they would beta test the games. (They are all open source on github btw.) That being said, the games work better the more units you have, but the minimum is much lower than you seem to think.

I just went on Amazon for prices of cr2032. They were $1-$1.50 a piece so if you have 36 of these then it will be ~$36 every 2-4 weeks if you actually use them. First hit on Walmart.com has them at $3 a piece

This is really the hill you want to fight on? Top of my Amazon search results. Third result: 60 cents a piece. https://www.amazon.com/LiCB-CR2032-Lithium-Battery-10-Pack/dp/B071D4DKTZ/ Random website on google shopping (maybe less reputable but still) 30 cents a piece: https://www.thebatterysupplier.com/products/sony-genuine-fresh-date-cr2032-2032-lithium-3v-batteries-20-pieces.html Best Buy: 73 cents a piece https://www.bestbuy.com/site/ultralast-cr2032-batteries-50-pack/6259072.p?skuId=6259072 Ebay name brand: 35 cents a piece https://www.ebay.com/itm/DURACELL-2032-DL2032-CR2032-LITHIUM-BATTERIES-25-COUNT-TRAY-BRAND-NEW/282708389934?hash=item41d2bbb02e:g:H2YAAOSwh2RZ8T3B:sc:USPSFirstClass!89031!US!-1 Ebay chinese knockoff: 15 cents a piece https://www.ebay.com/itm/100-PCS-CR2032-Button-Cell-Lithium-Battery-3V-Calculator-Scale-Remote-Watch/231822774643?epid=2134298466&hash=item35f9b6d173:g:ZhIAAOSwqYBWoq5-

My point doesn't change... They require a constant stream of money and supplies to use. Whether it's $10 a month or $40 a month it's still $$ a month. Run out and don't have a stash then you're not using them without a trip to the store

@gman is correct, it is a design mistake to require a battery in each unit. What they could have done is put a small supercapacitor in each one, so that when disconnected it has some number of seconds of life left before you have to reconnect it; and then have an outboard power brick, possibly using the super cheap laptop power bricks that can be had for $10 at the wholesale level, that would supply enough wattage to power all the connected modules. With a hex grid you can easily put a pairs of pins on each of 6 faces, and thus allow them to be powered from a single AC adapter. You can recess the pins so you don't shock people, but if you distribute 5V safety would not be a big problem. A 50W laptop brick would probably power 50 cells if they are the approx. 1W that i expect they are. Or maybe have a special cell which is the hard drive for the the cells so you can disconnect and reconnect them at will, by rebooting the nodes from either the neighbors or the special NAS cell. If you pump the flash memory too often it will wear out, so best to have what might be considered a NAS cell. With a communication system between the nodes, and a super cheap cell, the toy would be hella fun. If you want in the game to have the cells separated by space, you can include blank spacer cells which just have wires inside with no electronics. Non-rechargeable batteries are un-ecological and a retrograde solution IMHO.

@gman You first said: "They each use a Cr2032 battery that last for 40hrs so basically you need to keep a giant stash of batteries around. Looks like the batteries generally cost > $1 each so add another $40 every couple of weeks." And then you dug in on your point more: "I just went on Amazon for prices of cr2032. They were $1-$1.50 a piece so if you have 36 of these then it will be ~$36 every 2-4 weeks if you actually use them. First hit on Walmart.com has them at $3 a piece" Your point was very obviously about the cost of the batteries, not the concept of batteries in general. Not once did you mention recharging in your posts. Not once did you talk about the design decision itself. Your arguments solely focused on the cost of the batteries. You are also making a lot of assumptions about the usage that are just plain wrong. I literally own a set, and am on the community for these things, and I'm telling you it's not an issue. But instead of taking my word for it, you are attacking me and telling me I'm wrong? even though I actually own them, and you are just making assumptions out of thin air? You honestly sound like a person who had their point shown to be wrong, but are too prideful to admit it, and instead you are backtracking and jumping onto a different point entirely, and attacking me. That's not constructive at all. @Edward de Jong / Beads Project gives a much more compelling argument about charging. In fact, I think Edward's idea about the charging setup with a capacitor is interesting. They continue to iterate on the design, so it might even be worth bringing up to the company in their forums. I agree that the battery solution is "un-ecological and retrograde". I also know it made their circuit design and production much easier to get done. There is some interview or post where they talk about this that I can't find atm. "If you are going to use them, say for a class at a school, then I'd expect several hours of use a week. As such you will need to keep a large supply of batteries and it will add up to basically a constant maintenance fee" While it's un-ecological, it's also extremely cheap, and completely normal in today's economy. You are acting like this is outrageous and unheard of. You buy new batteries for TV remote controls, rc toys, and small electronics all the time. You buy new light bulbs when your light bulbs die. Schools and libraries spend huge amounts on replacing entire computers every year. Buying batteries in bulk like this would be a negligible part of their budget. It's really not an argument against them.

One of Apple’s most recent product failures was their multi device charging mat which was never released. The blank people must not know much about electro magnetic induction, A charging Mat does not give you freedom of movement.There are hotspots that have power and dead spots. They give the flabby excuse that an AC adapter brick would reduce portability, and then the same breath they claim you can use rechargeable batteries and have a recharging station well that’s probably just as big as an adapter brick. they are just too stubborn to admit they blew it on rev 1. If they don’t want to have a power brick then they should build a little tiny motorized recharge your module that runs around and charges each of the blinks while the game is on. watching a little robot run around and charge the modules would be very entertaining. But if they think that replacing 40 batteries on a constant basis is fun they sure don’t know the toy business very well. Nintendo was the first company to select ARM chips for a portable gaming unit. They made the Nintendo GameBoy Run for 20 hours on a single AA battery, that was a really good design. that’s a lot of playtime. But when you have 40 independent battery powered pieces the chance that one of them is running low becomes very high and therefore you’re constantly interrupted by charging. Nintendo got really rich because they understood electronic child immobilization was an extremely valuable thing for parents. The parents gladly excepted the inexpensive AA battery as a trade off for 20 hours of entertainment.

My sorry if you felt attacked. I never attacked anyone. That you read it as an attack is your interpretation but nothing I wrote is or was an attack. I only claimed that the fact that you need a stash of batteries is a problem. I went to Amazon, typed in Cr2032 and the first hit was expensive. My bad for not looking deeper but it was irrelevant to the point. The point isn't that they cost 30 cents each or $2.50 each. The point is you need lots of them. I only own a single thing that eats batteries, that's my Oculus controllers. They eat ~1 AA battery a month. That means mostly not thinking about it. I buy a pack of 6-12 AA batteries and I'm set for a 6 months to a year. Otherwise the only things in my life that eat batteries are a couple of remotes which need a new battery every 2-3 years. My 6 PS4 controllers (4 dual shock, 2 moves). My 4 switch controllers, my 4 phones, my tablet, all recharge. Oh, I used to use a bluetooth mouse on my desktop, it required a AA battery but less than once a year. So no, don't own a single thing that used batteries at the same level as a set of these would use. Here we have a device that needs 6 to 36 new batteries every XX hours. From the links you posted

I am getting 30+ hours on CR2032s.

... We arrive at our ~50 hours of gameplay by this measure,

I also have a full set of LIR2032 (rechargeable equivalent), - maybe 8 hours on a charge.

Someone mentions recharger. Again, maybe I didn't look deep enough. I only see chargers that take 4 batteries so either I have be vigilant and make sure I always have a full set of 18-36 charged else I need 5 to 9 chargers. I went through this same issue with candles. I can buy wax candles (100 for $4) https://www.ikea.com/us/en/p/glimma-unscented-tealights-50097995/ but of course they have a certain amount of danger given they are actually on fire. I looked into battery powered ones (https://www.amazon.com/Flameless-Vivii-Battery-powered-Unscented-Tealights/dp/B01MQ1Q3R1/) which are also relatively cheap (36 for $9) but they require 36 spare batteries which I decided I didn't want to deal with that so decided against buying the candles.

My son is suggests the following which is probably the optimal solution for the Blinks power problem. put 4 dimples on the top of each Blink and 4 pins on the bottom, I’m not sure if they’re called Pogo pins but anyway the point is then the units can stack on top of each other and connect electrically so they can be charged and you put them on a base unit that supplies power to charge them and you just stack them up, and the rechargeable battery which can be a rechargeable version of the CR 2032 if they want. This is the same system that they use for the notification pucks at restaurants, that lets you know your table is ready. I’m pretty sure the original patent controlling the stacking of rechargeable units must have expired by now. It also keeps them in a nice neat pile. This way you can charge as many as you want at the same time. you don’t need a big charging station and you don’t have to take the units apart. I understand the advantage of not needing wired system. Nobody likes being tethered to an AC adapter.

@gman I apologize. I have to take a step back here. I took your criticism a bit harshly. I admit that I am probably suffering a bit from sunk cost fallacy / Kickstarter evangelism. Your criticism about the batteries bring up good points. I don't want to write your criticisms off. I'm getting a bit frustrated because there is a lot of potential with this toy and it seems to be getting lost because of a non-optimal battery solution. That seems a bit out of proportion. That's just my opinion. I will say, that from what I've seen in the Blinks community, it hasn't come up as a big problem. Of course, there is a lot of bias in that community. They bought them after all. I will also admit that I haven't used them regularly enough to give proper anecdotal evidence myself. I do plan on using them in an educational setting. My wife is a public librarian and I help her do STEM/STEAM programs. That will give me a better idea of how it works out in practice. Unfortunately, due to COVID, that kind of thing is on hold right now. @Edward de Jong / Beads Project no offense, but this thread is starting to look a lot like "armchair quarterbacking." You have some useful critiques and interesting ideas for the product. But at this point I'm not sure what else there is to be accomplished by discussing it on this thread. As you saw, the company is very responsive on their forums. If you are inclined, I would suggest bringing up these ideas to them directly. Or even better, buy a set and try to improve it. It's actually a very open design. One of my favorite features of Blinks is that they are just Arduinos in fancy clothes.

We figure that you will pass on whatever constructive criticism you can glean from the various comments. As one of 5 children, who raised 5 children, that is pretty good toy purchasing experience. I developed a big selling educational toy (the Flying Colors painting program for kids), and some close friends were Broderbund pioneers who was a top educational software publisher, so I know that space very well, and these suggestions could make the difference between dust or magic. The constraints that the Blinks have can work as an advantage. The original Nintendo had horrendously low resolution, and it forced the game designers to be creative, which they were, and the rest is history. The Blinks have the same super low resolution constraint, but that can work to their advantage. But i can't think of a successful product in the history of electronics that had more than 10 batteries to keep going. If they can get to rev2 i am sure it will be a more viable product. It is interesting to the future of computing people, because the future will be many CPU's, and although we don't have a language yet for this, this kind of toy could lead to such a thing. A lot of modern computer technology can be traced directly to the gaming market, which drives us ever forward in terms of price/performance.

"We figure that you will pass on whatever constructive criticism you can glean from the various comments." Fair enough. 👍 "the Flying Colors painting program for kids...some close friends were Broderbund pioneers who was a top educational software publisher" I'm definitely not questioning your credentials. You obviously have a lot of experience and connections. I bet you have some great software engineering war stories that I would love to hear some day!