takodana.dev · software · languages · physics
I build small, sharp tools for things I do every day — mostly learning languages, mostly by reading. Below is what runs, and what is coming.
The n-th most common word turns up about 1/n as often as the first. It holds across every language anyone has checked, and nobody fully agrees why. It is also the thing that lets a reader decide which unknown word in a paragraph is worth learning.
Russian marks six cases on almost everything; German marks four and hides them in the article. Same job, opposite strategy — and the difference decides how you have to teach either one. Half of what I build is an argument with that fact.
Two masses have a closed-form solution. Add a third and it is provably chaotic — no formula, only integration. The diagram above is doing exactly that, forty times a second, which is why holding the pointer down never quite gives the same orbit twice.