There was a little-known sequel to SimTower called Yoot Tower (named after Yoot Saito). It was a commercial flop, but I played it in the 2000s and again in the 2010s and very much enjoyed it! It had a lot of added customizability (more choices of restaurants and shops, for one thing). I would love to see that game recreated.
The reason for the confusion is that a smooth, projective plane curve of degree d has genus (d-1)(d-2)/2, which is 2 or greater starting at d=4. Hence the phrasing in the article, which is missing the “smooth, projective” hypothesis. The equation y = x^4 doesn’t define a smooth curve when extended to the projective plane, because it has a singularity at infinity.
I have moderate-to-profound hearing loss and have worn hearing aids since I was 4. I currently have Oticon Opn1’s and have had Oticons since 2017 (and got new ones in 2022) and they are fabulous. I find the sound quality in noisy environments much better than any other aid I’ve had - much better perception of voices in restaurants, for example. I rarely have to fiddle with the volume control and in fact do not even use any other settings than the main program - I find that whatever the core program is doing tends to be basically what I want.
I also very much appreciate that they can natively connect to iPhones (this is also essentially the main reason I have an iPhone). This makes phone calls and music and podcasts very easy. (Whereas up until 2017, I used to dread phone calls.)
I actually tried Phonaks briefly in 2022 and hated them. Lots of controls to fiddle with (some with oddly unintuitive names), but that meant I was constantly trying to adjust it and was rarely able to just exist in the moment. I found them markedly worse in noisy environments - I basically couldn’t have a conversation in a restaurant.
There was a little-known sequel to SimTower called Yoot Tower (named after Yoot Saito). It was a commercial flop, but I played it in the 2000s and again in the 2010s and very much enjoyed it! It had a lot of added customizability (more choices of restaurants and shops, for one thing). I would love to see that game recreated.