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According to Time Magazine, Alex's last words were "You be good, see you tomorrow. I love you." This statement was not made out-of-context; the New York Times reported Alex was saying goodnight to Dr. Pepperberg as she left the lab for the evening, as per usual. Later that night, Alex died.

This context does not in any way tarnish Alex's memory nor does it make the story any less sad and sweet. He died a quick and unforeseeable death; the only theory that the full quotation might serve to disprove is that Alex was psychic. He was a incredible, brilliant individual, and though other parrots may one day learn to do what he accomplished, there will never be another like him. Regardless of whether or not he truly possesses "language", he and Dr. Pepperberg present one of the most successful examples of inter-species communication, ever.

The lesson to be learned here is that if you're quoting a parrot, you should at least do as well as he did to copy words correctly.

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They see me rollin’, they hatin’…

Bat disease hits Mammoth Cave National Park

White-nose syndrome, already responsible for killing some 6 million North American bats, has now been confirmed in Kentucky’s iconic cave system.

Mr. Ditmars, the director of the zoological garden in New York, had the idea to film the attitudes and expressions of a few animals under the influence of music.

A Video Game that Utilizes the Fourth Dimension

Miegakure is a video game set in four spatial dimensions: specifically, the dimension that goes out to the sides, like your keyboard; the one that goes up, like a tree; the one that goes out deep, like a dog fetching a stick… and that other dimension, the one you can’t point to unless you’ve got 4D fingers.

Think of it another way. This is like the Mario from Super Mario Bros., who lives in a flat 2D world, being told that the 3D Super Mario 64 exists and being told he can play it…. one 2D slice at a time. Except you’re Mario. You’re 3D. And the “Super Mario 64” we’re talking about is 4D.

Cool, huh?

Speaking of Mario, this game’s a platformer. You’re jumping around, pushing blocks, exploring a world.

It’s been two years since designer Marc Ten Bosch first showed me Miegakure and convinced me that a game set in four spatial dimensions is possible. The math allows it… all you have to do is take any point in our three-dimensional understanding of space (x,y,z) and add a fourth coordinate to locate its position in a fourth dimension. And if the math allows it, a computer can plot it. If a computer can plot it, we can run through it. And if we can run through it… voila! Video game.

Marc shows us a simple level of the game in the video here, which we shot at PAX East. He also showed us a tougher level, but asked that we not show it off, head-hurtingly interesting as it was. He only wants you to see the game at its most polished. So, enjoy the one level we’ve got for you.

Miegakure will be out “when it’s done” on PC (Steam, probably) and a console.

UPDATE: Since a number of readers are clearly hungering for more explanation about how a spatially-4D game world works in a game that is displayed in three dimensions, I’m adding the following from ten Bosch’s own description of the game:

Think about a two-dimensional character living on a horizontal, flat two-dimensional plane. To this character, height would be a foreign concept. A number of actions we three-dimensional beings take for granted feel like absolute magic to this two-dimensional character.

For example, if there is a wall in the shape of a circle around an object in 2D, it is essentially closed-off, since to reach it one would have to leave the 2D plane. It is also impossible for an outsider to know what is inside.

But us 3D beings can see the object from above, and also simply lift it off the ground to move it outside, essentially teleporting it. Now by analogy a four-dimensional being could perform many similar miracles to us living in only three-dimensions. This game allows you to perform these “miracles.”