This is a blog format of the presentation given at the Bridges Conference of Mathematics and Art 2024 in Richmond. The original paper the presentation is based on can be found on the Bridges Website. You can also order a large format print of the poster.

a single chart that connects relativity, particle physics, big bang, stellar evolution, biology and either hippos can float

While it typically falls outside my primary areas of research in crypto usability, I've recently found myself exploring a different rabbit hole. My journey began with an attempt to improve upon Uber’s H3 system, involved a phase of laser printing numerous paper rhombic dodecahedrons, and finally culminated in a novel map projection. This map not only enhances the aesthetic appeal of Buckminster Fuller’s “Dymaxion" model of a continental Earth, but also integrates a more organic, fractal-based round border.

On a recent post I’ve written critically of Instant Run-off voting, mainly criticizing it for being too complex to visualize the full state of the vote and that’s unintuitive to figure out the winner without tallying up all the votes in your head. I’ve also given a few examples in which the vote result could change drastically by a few voters changing their strategies as well as an example that in a typical race where the most popular candidates were extreme opposites, then the moderate candidates in the middle would be squeezed out. Hard to predict, hard to understand and prone to surprising results: those are the opposite qualities you want from a voting system.

Democracy is the heart of modern civilization, elections are the heart of democracy, and a voting system is at the heart of elections. While we can’t blame all modern illnesses on a improper vote counting algorithm, a failed one certainly ripples back its problem on all society. Luckily this isn’t just an academic argument anymore, with more countries and states experimenting with systems beyond First Past the Post and Two Round Systems. Unfortunately, many of those are now migrating to Instant run Off voting, which has so many flaws that it can spoil the whole movement for better voting.