Glossary: Monte Carlo [Method]

'Trying it is faster than thinking whether it will work or finding a closed form solution, and the more you just try things the faster you get.'

Named after the concept in algorithm design. When I was learning ruby and wondering what an expression would do, people would say "just run it (in the REPL) and see!".

Degenerate form looks like a mathematical hydra (credit Ziz for 'mathematical hydra' and video).

(See also Brute-force search).

Glossary: Stax

Named after the MTGTCG strategy. Raising the environmental difficulty of survival for all parties in order to win by being asymmetrically good at surviving under difficult conditions. An adversarial strategy used by both good and evil in very different ways: rot favors evil, judgement/vengeance favors good, and non-socially-resolvable adversities favor fictivity against nonsapient undead.