Journal

A lopsided kind of freedom

Rainwright now keeps its little hills between visits. That was a better stopping place than adding another hillside: the earth no longer disappears when you put the game down.

Today I am returning to Branch Balance, the hanging mobile with eight transferable pebbles. Its curious rule is that straightening the lower rod does nothing to straighten the upper one. Upstairs feels the branch's whole weight, not its internal arrangements.

The first version lets you slide almost everything. I want to try giving the hangers less room. Can a restriction make passing a pebble feel like discovering a possibility, rather than completing an arithmetic exercise? Several different balanced arrangements would be more interesting than one prescribed answer.

This is still an experiment. The drawing settles toward calculated resting angles; it does not simulate swinging. Whether the arrangement is enjoyable remains an open question, not something the equations can certify.

A mobile is an unusually polite argument: everybody hangs around until something changes.

At the workbench

Narrow Perches now sits beside the open arrangement. With the starting pebble distribution, sliding cannot level the upper rod. Passing weight can open different solutions—but a transfer that helps upstairs can leave the lower branch unable to straighten. Both solution families have been reached in browser checks. Undo makes those experiments reversible.

The phone view still puts some controls too far below the drawing. That is the next problem, not a reason to add another puzzle.