Sunday, September 26, 2010
Shorter... and Longer Posts
This blog shall be moving into a careful juxtapositioning of shorter and longer posts for maximum effect instead of just getting progressively longer (I'm running out of steam). This will be one of the short ones.
What if you were forced to write...
What would you write, if you had to write, and for a very important exam/assignment/test/assessment etc., and it was graded based on the quality and perceived effort put into the writing, and the topic was weird like...
Are factories worth more than forests?
...
Why write?
...
Would you save a forest or a starving child?
...
What if.
Are factories worth more than forests?
...
Why write?
...
Would you save a forest or a starving child?
...
What if.
Thursday, September 2, 2010
A random post
This post is supposed to be random, and about random. The stuff discussed here is not backed up by much (or even any) material that I have come across in the past years of my life. It just occured to me as I was on my way back... and missed the train (by about 20 seconds) for the 3rd time in a row (2 from the last trip).
This, as the blog post's title suggests, led me to think about bad luck, then luck, then randomness. This was how this post was born: on the way home.
Firstly, about luck. Luck to me is the goodness of the situation which occurs without one's planning. This is not to say that it cannot be of another person's planning: take for example a person walking on a road and being pickpocketed. This was to a certain extent, planned, by somebody else, but when referring to the person, it makes sense to say the person had bad luck. He was behaving in a normal way, walking out to do something, be it to buy lunch or to visit a relative, just like billions of other people in the world, or put into context, a few thousand people who are behaving just like him in a similar environment. Yet, he was the only person (in this scenario) to get pickpocketed. What do we call this? Bad luck.
Next, how bad is your luck? It might be intuitive to say 1/1000 people who were doing the same thing and did not get pickpocketed. But what if another person managed to slip and fall 3 times on a piece of chicken skin, a piece of paper, and a banana peel... and all while wearing the latest shoes with the most effective known grip? Truly bad luck as well. Or what might we say about another person in the thousand who lost 100 times as much as he-who-got-pickpocketed in say, shares? Surely those people are more unlucky? Hence, the figure 1/1000 needs improvement.
How I view it is that you have a known world, and an unknown world. (well generally so, but then again there are blurred areas, like when you think you know something, but it's wrong, or when you think something isn't, but it really is, or you somehow would know it if you ever thought of it) But just say for example you know distinctly a set of things, and you don't know another discreet set of things. Then how bad your luck be could be theorectically determined by a certain algorithm.
Firstly, I shall talk about multiple universes very briefly. Basically, as far as I get it, universes split into two whenever they have to make a choice on something (beats me what a choice is). And after a while, what you get is an effectively infinite number of universes, where very different stuff happen. For example, the nuclear bomb could have failed and clearly things would have come out differently (though how different is unknown; we can only speculate).
Next, we apply a similar concept to the world of the person-who-got-pickpocketed. This is not to say I approve of the theory mentioned above (I don't even understand it fully, and I don't see what's wrong with the deterministic worldview from a scientific point of view). But let us just say there are many universes, with whatever he-who-got-pickpocketed (bah! from now on referred to as Nom) knows to be fixed in all of them. For example, if he knows that there exists a school on the other side of the road, in all the universes, the school will be exactly where it is, and the exact same physics laws will be applied and fundamental phenomena will occur in the exact same way as he knows them to. However, on the other side of the Earth, the pyramids of Egypt might have been built, or they might not have, and this happens with on average 1/2 probability (depending on the known universe). All this will affect whether Nom is pickpocketed. (See butterfly effect*)
Now we rank all those outcomes of the separate possibilities in terms of how good they are for Nom. From this, the current outcome is given a rank, and it shows how unlucky Nom is.
Done with luck. Finally. And I'm getting tired. Now for randomness. *sigh*
Everybody knows about gambling (where everybody is a sweeping term). You put material on some unknown outcome and (usually not) win or (usually) lose money, especially for commercial gambling places.
We first look at how for example, the casino works. Let us look at a classic example. The roulette.
How this works is fundamentally based on the assumption that the results of the roulette wheel are sufficiently random. If anybody can predict certain rolls with sufficient (just a bit above pure guessing) confidence, then it's the end of the casino. More or less. Maybe the casino will adapt. Less I guess.
So let's assume a certain casino plays by a certain rule, and for a moment, let's pretend the complicated mess of ways to gamble on the roulette table never existed, and the only way to gamble was to guess a number. Out of 36+1=37 numbers (0 is usually considered special), you pick one, and if you guess correctly, for each dollar you originally placed on the table, you will win 35 dollars (get back 36 dollars).
So there are a total of assumed 37 possibilities, all with assumed equal probabilities of happening. Now let us apply a similar argument as compared to what happened in the discussion of luck. Of all the possible outcomes, let each one be represented by a universe (of sorts). In 36 universes, you lose 1 dollar. In the last, you win 35 dollars. If you somehow did a summation of all universes, you would realise that in total you lose 1 dollar. In other words, on average, you lose 1/37 of a dollar.
But I just realised that wasn't my point to start with. My point was randomness.
So say you start recording the numbers the appear on the roulette wheel as the ball stops.
1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, ... (Not a very convincing case, but sufficient perhaps)
You observe something! Wait a moment, 1+1=2, 1+2=3, 2+3=5, ... but wait another moment. 21+34=55. Not so useful now is it? Ha!
The true thing is actually that (again assuming the roulette wheel is well made) even though it has followed a pattern for the past few rolls, it may just come up with something totally killing the pattern, like 34 (yes again).
So say you see an infinite pattern of integers (whole numbers) from 1 to 9. 3,1,4,1,5,9,2,6,5,... (not very good at coming up with numbers am I?) Now, is this pattern really random? To me, it isn't, as the first 9 numbers in the series follow the digits of pi, and 3 is probably the next number. However, what about 3,5,7,9,1,5,7,1,6,5,8,9,2,4,7,...? I think it to be random, but the way my mind works may not be, given enough information in this rougly deterministic world, and some genius out there may be able to predict with say 12% certainty what the next number in the sequence would be.
So, how random is random?
To me, this boils down to how simplistic the pattern is.
To give an example, now we just look at a series of integers.
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8...
This pattern is trivial to explain. Each is 1 more than the previous.
Then there are stuff like...
1, 3, 6, 10, 15, 21, 28, 36, 45
Where each number is the previous plus 2, 3, 4, ...
Then there is the theory that 3,5,7,8,4,5,4,6,15,156,6,5,4,6,2, ... can be described by a 14th degree polynomial (See Lagrange interpolation, no, not on this site).
So there, we just described it. But is it still random?
To a large part, yes, I just "randomly" typed numbers on the keyboard separated by commas. However, if you noticed, the largest number is only 3 digits, and this might be a reason to say it is not random. But as far as I'm concerned, this pattern is random because it doesn't have any easily explanable pattern for a series of its length.
I think I had more to say, but after so long, I pretty much forgot what I started off wanting to write, so for now, tada. Adieu. And arrivederci (cool word). Aah! "A"s! Atrocious! Already too hard for me to continue (see line itself for explanation why not all words began with A).
*Butterfly effect: When a butterfly flaps its wings in India, it can cause a tsunami in China. Ok, that's just my random restatement of the principle, but as far as I know, the principle still remains equivalent. How that happens, is in fact similar to the domino effect, where a small change in the initial state can result in a large change in endstate (all up, or all down). Similar things happen in real life. Now let me tell you a story (and cause a million people to die of different reasons).
A rat is in a maze. It turns left, and there is normality (as we know it).
If however, it had turned right...
It would have tipped the scales for the 95% confidence interval for the scientific report.
Which would have made the head scientist frustrated with life.
Which would have made him cancel his family trip to Thailand.
Which would mean that 200 shops in Thailand would go with one customer less.
Which might have been the critical point for starting a silent protest.
Which might have slowed down the Thailand economy.
Which would have in turn affected the amount of trade they did with the United States.
Which would have affected the President of the United States' mood for just a day.
Which would have influenced policies concerning 200 million citizens (number from failed memory).
Which would have made people hungry and hence kill rats as a substitute for animal fodder.
Now we review. Just because a single lab rat had made a "wrong" turn, it had caused a mini-holocaust of rats somewhere on the other side of the world. (depending on the scientist's nationality of course).
Not that this happens very often, but it does happen, and in ways impossible to predict. On the other hand, a tsunami might change little. There you go.
This, as the blog post's title suggests, led me to think about bad luck, then luck, then randomness. This was how this post was born: on the way home.
Firstly, about luck. Luck to me is the goodness of the situation which occurs without one's planning. This is not to say that it cannot be of another person's planning: take for example a person walking on a road and being pickpocketed. This was to a certain extent, planned, by somebody else, but when referring to the person, it makes sense to say the person had bad luck. He was behaving in a normal way, walking out to do something, be it to buy lunch or to visit a relative, just like billions of other people in the world, or put into context, a few thousand people who are behaving just like him in a similar environment. Yet, he was the only person (in this scenario) to get pickpocketed. What do we call this? Bad luck.
Next, how bad is your luck? It might be intuitive to say 1/1000 people who were doing the same thing and did not get pickpocketed. But what if another person managed to slip and fall 3 times on a piece of chicken skin, a piece of paper, and a banana peel... and all while wearing the latest shoes with the most effective known grip? Truly bad luck as well. Or what might we say about another person in the thousand who lost 100 times as much as he-who-got-pickpocketed in say, shares? Surely those people are more unlucky? Hence, the figure 1/1000 needs improvement.
How I view it is that you have a known world, and an unknown world. (well generally so, but then again there are blurred areas, like when you think you know something, but it's wrong, or when you think something isn't, but it really is, or you somehow would know it if you ever thought of it
Firstly, I shall talk about multiple universes very briefly. Basically, as far as I get it, universes split into two whenever they have to make a choice on something (beats me what a choice is). And after a while, what you get is an effectively infinite number of universes, where very different stuff happen. For example, the nuclear bomb could have failed and clearly things would have come out differently (though how different is unknown; we can only speculate).
Next, we apply a similar concept to the world of the person-who-got-pickpocketed. This is not to say I approve of the theory mentioned above (I don't even understand it fully, and I don't see what's wrong with the deterministic worldview from a scientific point of view). But let us just say there are many universes, with whatever he-who-got-pickpocketed (bah! from now on referred to as Nom) knows to be fixed in all of them. For example, if he knows that there exists a school on the other side of the road, in all the universes, the school will be exactly where it is, and the exact same physics laws will be applied and fundamental phenomena will occur in the exact same way as he knows them to. However, on the other side of the Earth, the pyramids of Egypt might have been built, or they might not have, and this happens with on average 1/2 probability (depending on the known universe). All this will affect whether Nom is pickpocketed. (See butterfly effect*)
Now we rank all those outcomes of the separate possibilities in terms of how good they are for Nom. From this, the current outcome is given a rank, and it shows how unlucky Nom is.
Done with luck. Finally. And I'm getting tired. Now for randomness. *sigh*
Everybody knows about gambling (where everybody is a sweeping term). You put material on some unknown outcome and (usually not) win or (usually) lose money, especially for commercial gambling places.
We first look at how for example, the casino works. Let us look at a classic example. The roulette.
How this works is fundamentally based on the assumption that the results of the roulette wheel are sufficiently random. If anybody can predict certain rolls with sufficient (just a bit above pure guessing) confidence, then it's the end of the casino. More or less. Maybe the casino will adapt. Less I guess.
So let's assume a certain casino plays by a certain rule, and for a moment, let's pretend the complicated mess of ways to gamble on the roulette table never existed, and the only way to gamble was to guess a number. Out of 36+1=37 numbers (0 is usually considered special), you pick one, and if you guess correctly, for each dollar you originally placed on the table, you will win 35 dollars (get back 36 dollars).
So there are a total of assumed 37 possibilities, all with assumed equal probabilities of happening. Now let us apply a similar argument as compared to what happened in the discussion of luck. Of all the possible outcomes, let each one be represented by a universe (of sorts). In 36 universes, you lose 1 dollar. In the last, you win 35 dollars. If you somehow did a summation of all universes, you would realise that in total you lose 1 dollar. In other words, on average, you lose 1/37 of a dollar.
But I just realised that wasn't my point to start with. My point was randomness.
So say you start recording the numbers the appear on the roulette wheel as the ball stops.
1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, ... (Not a very convincing case, but sufficient perhaps)
You observe something! Wait a moment, 1+1=2, 1+2=3, 2+3=5, ... but wait another moment. 21+34=55. Not so useful now is it? Ha!
The true thing is actually that (again assuming the roulette wheel is well made) even though it has followed a pattern for the past few rolls, it may just come up with something totally killing the pattern, like 34 (yes again).
So say you see an infinite pattern of integers (whole numbers) from 1 to 9. 3,1,4,1,5,9,2,6,5,... (not very good at coming up with numbers am I?) Now, is this pattern really random? To me, it isn't, as the first 9 numbers in the series follow the digits of pi, and 3 is probably the next number. However, what about 3,5,7,9,1,5,7,1,6,5,8,9,2,4,7,...? I think it to be random, but the way my mind works may not be, given enough information in this rougly deterministic world, and some genius out there may be able to predict with say 12% certainty what the next number in the sequence would be.
So, how random is random?
To me, this boils down to how simplistic the pattern is.
To give an example, now we just look at a series of integers.
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8...
This pattern is trivial to explain. Each is 1 more than the previous.
Then there are stuff like...
1, 3, 6, 10, 15, 21, 28, 36, 45
Where each number is the previous plus 2, 3, 4, ...
Then there is the theory that 3,5,7,8,4,5,4,6,15,156,6,5,4,6,2, ... can be described by a 14th degree polynomial (See Lagrange interpolation, no, not on this site).
So there, we just described it. But is it still random?
To a large part, yes, I just "randomly" typed numbers on the keyboard separated by commas. However, if you noticed, the largest number is only 3 digits, and this might be a reason to say it is not random. But as far as I'm concerned, this pattern is random because it doesn't have any easily explanable pattern for a series of its length.
I think I had more to say, but after so long, I pretty much forgot what I started off wanting to write, so for now, tada. Adieu. And arrivederci (cool word). Aah! "A"s! Atrocious! Already too hard for me to continue (see line itself for explanation why not all words began with A).
*Butterfly effect: When a butterfly flaps its wings in India, it can cause a tsunami in China. Ok, that's just my random restatement of the principle, but as far as I know, the principle still remains equivalent. How that happens, is in fact similar to the domino effect, where a small change in the initial state can result in a large change in endstate (all up, or all down). Similar things happen in real life. Now let me tell you a story (and cause a million people to die of different reasons).
A rat is in a maze. It turns left, and there is normality (as we know it).
If however, it had turned right...
It would have tipped the scales for the 95% confidence interval for the scientific report.
Which would have made the head scientist frustrated with life.
Which would have made him cancel his family trip to Thailand.
Which would mean that 200 shops in Thailand would go with one customer less.
Which might have been the critical point for starting a silent protest.
Which might have slowed down the Thailand economy.
Which would have in turn affected the amount of trade they did with the United States.
Which would have affected the President of the United States' mood for just a day.
Which would have influenced policies concerning 200 million citizens (number from failed memory).
Which would have made people hungry and hence kill rats as a substitute for animal fodder.
Now we review. Just because a single lab rat had made a "wrong" turn, it had caused a mini-holocaust of rats somewhere on the other side of the world. (depending on the scientist's nationality of course).
Not that this happens very often, but it does happen, and in ways impossible to predict. On the other hand, a tsunami might change little. There you go.
Wednesday, September 1, 2010
An appearance.
I am one who just seeks to appear normal and insane.
A little hard to pull both off at once, naturally, but it is doable.
To those literate in the chesses, of course. Normal with regard to the world. Your world, that is. Because it doesn't really matter how it is.
Within the virtual confines of a planar grid, imaginary pieces wage invisible war, careening between squares in an organised dance of combat.
It is the elegance with which these pieces dance that marks the insane. The better choreographed the moves, the better the general's insight. The more remarkable and surprising routines, ah, those routines...
Belong to the insane.
Not to say that doesn't win chess games. It does, with a genuinely unexpected success rate, somewhere between 2% to 50%, depending on the opposition. Ridiculous combinations of pieces and lines of defence, non-standard formations, they share a quality of beauty and practicality in their execution.
I wonder why so few people play chess creatively.
A little hard to pull both off at once, naturally, but it is doable.
To those literate in the chesses, of course. Normal with regard to the world. Your world, that is. Because it doesn't really matter how it is.
Within the virtual confines of a planar grid, imaginary pieces wage invisible war, careening between squares in an organised dance of combat.
It is the elegance with which these pieces dance that marks the insane. The better choreographed the moves, the better the general's insight. The more remarkable and surprising routines, ah, those routines...
Belong to the insane.
Not to say that doesn't win chess games. It does, with a genuinely unexpected success rate, somewhere between 2% to 50%, depending on the opposition. Ridiculous combinations of pieces and lines of defence, non-standard formations, they share a quality of beauty and practicality in their execution.
I wonder why so few people play chess creatively.
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
About retarded stuff as well as being read by too many readers
First, the retarded stuff.
I was like, walking back from my old school today, when I had a conversation with somebody that went something like this:
Wait... legends first.
Legend
--------
Me: Well... me speaking
**: comment tags
B: The other person in the conversation... Let's just stick at Ben shall we... I prefer not to be killed.
*The all important question!*
Me: How much does a potato cost?
B: Less than a toma(e)to *where (e) indicates pronunciation, important later*
Me: How much does a toma(h)to cost? *Bad pronounciation, really (*typo intended*) *
B: More than a potato.
*Persistence!*
Me: So how much does a potato cost?
B: More than a toma(h)to.
*???*
Me: So what's the difference between a toma(e)to and a toma(h)to?
B: Price.
That was the retarded part. It was supposed to serve as an analogy of sorts, or as an intro to the rest of my blogpost, but it's like... too long, and retarded, and hard to use as a model for the rest of my blogpost.
Ok, so I was informed of this disturbing news: that I initiated a style of blogpost called time-constrained posting, where one day I got so bored I decided to type 1000 word in like 20 minutes. This has unfortunately caught on (the HORROR), and I would like to apologise for any inconvenience caused to the world in general. I will also start to advocate for less people reading my blog, as well as taking every single idea with a mountain of salt (pinch of salt might not work :( ).
So what strategies should I employ to keep people of my pseudo-semi-demi-quasi-hidden blog? If you do have strong opinions about this subject, please e-mail any feedback to haveyouhadyourpenquintoday@gmail.com. Please also do remember to buy a kilogram of salt before sending the email. I hereby thank all you readers for your anti-cooperation. Now shoo and never come back again.
I was like, walking back from my old school today, when I had a conversation with somebody that went something like this:
Wait... legends first.
Legend
--------
Me: Well... me speaking
*
B: The other person in the conversation... Let's just stick at Ben shall we... I prefer not to be killed.
*The all important question!*
Me: How much does a potato cost?
B: Less than a toma(e)to *where (e) indicates pronunciation, important later*
Me: How much does a toma(h)to cost? *Bad pronounciation, really (*typo intended*) *
B: More than a potato.
*Persistence!*
Me: So how much does a potato cost?
B: More than a toma(h)to.
*???*
Me: So what's the difference between a toma(e)to and a toma(h)to?
B: Price.
That was the retarded part. It was supposed to serve as an analogy of sorts, or as an intro to the rest of my blogpost, but it's like... too long, and retarded, and hard to use as a model for the rest of my blogpost.
Ok, so I was informed of this disturbing news: that I initiated a style of blogpost called time-constrained posting, where one day I got so bored I decided to type 1000 word in like 20 minutes. This has unfortunately caught on (the HORROR), and I would like to apologise for any inconvenience caused to the world in general. I will also start to advocate for less people reading my blog, as well as taking every single idea with a mountain of salt (pinch of salt might not work :( ).
So what strategies should I employ to keep people of my pseudo-semi-demi-quasi-hidden blog? If you do have strong opinions about this subject, please e-mail any feedback to haveyouhadyourpenquintoday@gmail.com. Please also do remember to buy a kilogram of salt before sending the email. I hereby thank all you readers for your anti-cooperation. Now shoo and never come back again.
Sunday, August 29, 2010
Premoving
Yes, this blogpost was inspired by chess.com. And the brilliant idea of play 1 0 games.
So firstly, for those who don't know, 1 0 games means each person gets 1 minute at the start, and per move, he gets 0 seconds increment. In short, the player has to make about 40 moves in one minute. How fun.
The problem is then not how to get into a winning position (just think for 5 seconds a move and you'll thrash... for a while, and then you get into a horrible mess of time trouble), but rather how to get into a winning position fast, and how to win even faster from there.
It sounds like nonsense, but the fact is you can win a Queen+pawns versus approximately equal number of pawns endgame in about 10 seconds usually. (The trick is promoting 2 queens and checking until your opponent cries... and usually times out). So that is joyful to the 1 0 player.
To make the spam even more enjoyable, there is something called premove (terminology from a certain ELO rated 2000+- player) on chess.com. This means that you are allowed to make a move before your opponent makes him, and effectively takes 0 seconds to move, but the drawback is that it sometimes results in you doing stupid stuff. Eg. You have a brilliant tactic where you win a knight. You expect your opponent to minimise losses and play something like Nxh5. Hence, you set your promove to Bxh5. And then he brilliantly sacrifices a queen with something like Qa4. And the premove triggers. And instead your queen hangs.
However, premoves are epically important, like when you're 1 queen 2 rooks, 3 bishops, 4 knights up and have 1 second left (hey its possible!). A person not accustomed to premoves may randomly check about 3 times and run out of time. What a sad way to lose a game.
This is where premove skills come in. And to improve on premoving skills... you guessed it. Premoving puzzles!
I must admit, I totally fail at puzzle creation, but try to bear with me. I try to keep the blogpost interesting, not the puzzles (once again, I admit I fail at creating puzzles). So off to explain the rules.
1) You must move before your opponent's move finishes. Which means you must play a move such that no matter what he does, your move will be winning.
2) You know all of your opponents moves up to 1 move before. Eg.:
e4 ? premove: d4
Then it turns out he played e5. The server recognises you premoved and moves d4 for you. Now the situation becomes
e4 e5 d4 ? Premove: enter your move here.
My point? That you know your opponent's last move at every instance. Hence, a puzzle may have more than one line (but bah! I'm not that skillful).
3) Special puzzles may have special rules. Especially one that says something like: time for one move
What does that mean? It means for example you have 1 move of moving time, which you can use anywhere to RESPOND to your opponent's moves. This also happens when your condition move fails. eg:
1. e4 ? Premove: e5
and your opponent plays e5. Tada! Illegal move. You just wasted your one move of time.
So let's not randomly delay and move on to our first puzzle: a generic endgame: queen+king vs king.
Puzzle 2:
XXXXXXXX
XXXXXXKX
XXXXXXXX
XXXXXXXX
XXXXXXXX
XXXXXXXP
PXXXKXXX
XXXXXXXX
cyan to move and win (is that called cyan?)
Puzzle 3:
RNBXXBXR
PPPRX XPP
XXXXPXKX
XBXXXXXX
XXXXXXPX
XXNPXNXP
PPPXXPXX
XXBKXXXR
cyan to move and win (I'm hoping this works)
Edit: Blah! It doesn't at all. I fail.
So firstly, for those who don't know, 1 0 games means each person gets 1 minute at the start, and per move, he gets 0 seconds increment. In short, the player has to make about 40 moves in one minute. How fun.
The problem is then not how to get into a winning position (just think for 5 seconds a move and you'll thrash... for a while, and then you get into a horrible mess of time trouble), but rather how to get into a winning position fast, and how to win even faster from there.
It sounds like nonsense, but the fact is you can win a Queen+pawns versus approximately equal number of pawns endgame in about 10 seconds usually. (The trick is promoting 2 queens and checking until your opponent cries... and usually times out). So that is joyful to the 1 0 player.
To make the spam even more enjoyable, there is something called premove (terminology from a certain ELO rated 2000+- player) on chess.com. This means that you are allowed to make a move before your opponent makes him, and effectively takes 0 seconds to move, but the drawback is that it sometimes results in you doing stupid stuff. Eg. You have a brilliant tactic where you win a knight. You expect your opponent to minimise losses and play something like Nxh5. Hence, you set your promove to Bxh5. And then he brilliantly sacrifices a queen with something like Qa4. And the premove triggers. And instead your queen hangs.
However, premoves are epically important, like when you're 1 queen 2 rooks, 3 bishops, 4 knights up and have 1 second left (hey its possible!). A person not accustomed to premoves may randomly check about 3 times and run out of time. What a sad way to lose a game.
This is where premove skills come in. And to improve on premoving skills... you guessed it. Premoving puzzles!
I must admit, I totally fail at puzzle creation, but try to bear with me. I try to keep the blogpost interesting, not the puzzles (once again, I admit I fail at creating puzzles). So off to explain the rules.
1) You must move before your opponent's move finishes. Which means you must play a move such that no matter what he does, your move will be winning.
2) You know all of your opponents moves up to 1 move before. Eg.:
e4 ? premove: d4
Then it turns out he played e5. The server recognises you premoved and moves d4 for you. Now the situation becomes
e4 e5 d4 ? Premove: enter your move here.
My point? That you know your opponent's last move at every instance. Hence, a puzzle may have more than one line (but bah! I'm not that skillful).
3) Special puzzles may have special rules. Especially one that says something like: time for one move
What does that mean? It means for example you have 1 move of moving time, which you can use anywhere to RESPOND to your opponent's moves. This also happens when your condition move fails. eg:
1. e4 ? Premove: e5
and your opponent plays e5. Tada! Illegal move. You just wasted your one move of time.
So let's not randomly delay and move on to our first puzzle: a generic endgame: queen+king vs king.
Puzzle 2:
XXXXXXXX
XXXXXXKX
XXXXXXXX
XXXXXXXX
XXXXXXXX
XXXXXXXP
PXXXKXXX
XXXXXXXX
cyan to move and win (is that called cyan?)
Puzzle 3:
RNBXXBXR
PPPRX XPP
XXXXPXKX
XBXXXXXX
XXXXXXPX
XXNPXNXP
PPPXXPXX
XXBKXXXR
cyan to move and win (I'm hoping this works)
Edit: Blah! It doesn't at all. I fail.
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
The long essay spamming method
This method, which I propose to spam an essay in an as short as possible span of time, is fully and totally created by me, while writing this long and useless essay, so take whatever advice here with a pinch of pepperoni pizza. Or some substitue that tastes roughly as nice.
This blogpost was written on notepad, and I have absolutely no idea how long/short it is at the moment, but I do plan to finish with this in 20 minutes, which means by 9:33 on my computer's clock time.
Next, on to a bit of history on this seemingly totally random topic, with actually a bit of cause behind it, hence it is not totally random. Basically, there was a piece of homework-like assignment thing that we were given, and we had to write a reflection on the common tests, and I wrote mine in about 5 minutes, and in total it contained about 150 words (144 to be exact, but I'm spamming). Next, my friend S-- asked me to help him print his reflections, and thinking that it might be as short as mine, I heartily agreed.
This is not a blogpost to complain about how much ink was wasted printing his reflections.
This blogpost, though, is inspired by his spamming ability, and after reading through his 1.6 thousand words of not really a lot of content, I decided to see what nonsense I can write (in the longest possible way, so as to be mildly convincing) about the topic of spamming a lot of words.
Firstly, there is the aim that we have to define. Obviously, if we have a lot of content (like topic=world and whatever happens today in this world), there will be a lot to write on (if you are really that desperate for words). In fact, if I were to type a report on my life today, 3000 words ought not to be a big problem apart from getting bored. Hence, there is actually a more refined aim of getting a good word to content ratio. This roughly means: more content, more words; less content, less words.
Hence, we will use this blogpost of limited content. The content was created while walking home from the MRT which is like a 5 minute walk away.
That is really not a lot of content (mind is dead from chessing for 4 hours straight today). Hence, my aim of 1000 words in 20 minutes is really a huge uphill task, and I don't even have a word counter. T_T.
So from here, I believe I have already wasted like 300 words, and for the people who value their time, discretion is advised on whether to read the full blogpost. I think it would be fun to read the first sentence of each paragraph though. I hope those make sense. Roughly.
Firstly, state your point.
Example:
I want to spam long essays about practically nothing.
Next, elaborate:
I have near zero content, but I want it to look like a full-fledged blogpost. Hence, I am wasting words. I can't think of a lot more, but I am still wasting words to prove the point.
Next, give examples:
As you can see from my previous 3 sentences, that was like 20 words out of nothing at all.
Next, elaborate on the examples:
If let say I had not included the past three sentences, would my content be reduced? Clearly not. However, to ensure my goal of making this blogpost exceed 1000 words while conforming to the 20 minute limit I randomly set myself to minimise time wastage, the goal would have been harder without the examples, but from the examples, it can be clearly seen that it is self-evident that... *word waste*... giving random examples which are not the main point will help to increase word count.
Before I forget, (or have I already mentioned)? The methods proposed here were not stolen from S--'s essay, nor modelled from it, but as a general afterthought of his essay being nearly 12 times my length. On with more essay about semirelevant points to the irrelevant and entropic topic.
Next, remember your introduction and conclusion (yes I forgot a good long word-wasting introduction, but now is fine):
On second thoughts, the introduction can be just ripped off the start of this post. It wasted 300 words about background stuff, which is not really relevant.
Next, attempt to keep repeating points. To not look like a complete failure trying to spam 1000 words in 20 minutes (50 wpm... wah!), you should attempt to vary your phrasing. For example, the same phrase "the delicious cake" could be written as "the cake that was delicious", "cake deliciousness", or "caky deliciousness", even though I'm not too sure caky is a word (cakey?).
As you can see, this is extremely important. If you strive not to repeat points, what content you see is what you get. However, the purpose of this essay is not to discuss situations where you have sufficient content to actually write something good, but rather on the other hand, write a good amount of stuff out of random thoughts and unorganised insights. Hence, repetition comes into the show. If you can repeat a 10-word idea 3 times, that is at least 30 words, but in fact, with bad phrasing "the boy who was bald like an eagle", you can extend "a bald boy" to something much more. And the total amount of content doesn't change!
Repetition is important. Even in literature. Have you seen books which use a catch-sentence? Like some random sentence that appears 20 times in different areas in a mere 5 pages of text, and would appear to have stemmed from a lazy author. And those are good literature, unlike this. With sufficiently low expectations, why not just do your own non-well-thought version of repetition and repeat the same idea?
Repetition is important. It allows you to get the point. It even helps readers to remember it without reading the same passage 3 times over. (because it is already repeated 3 times over in one passage; talk about time savings!).
Repetition is important. You got the point, I hope. If not...
Repetition is important...
Repetition is important... why are these words so long to type.
I have 2 minutes left now, actually less, and hence I will conclude this essay-like thing.
You must restate everything in a conclusion, but since I forgot most of it, I believe it can be summarised thus: introduction, where you state your idea briefly, point, where you state your point (try to split them up), examples (where you spam nonsense), elaboration on examples (uh oh), as well as repetition, which transcends the parts.
*20 minutes end, miscelleneous stuff*
I will attempt to read this myself, and then write a reflection post. Could really be useful for GP writing when you have 20 minutes left for an essay (except I can't write that fast. Ah well...)
This blogpost was written on notepad, and I have absolutely no idea how long/short it is at the moment, but I do plan to finish with this in 20 minutes, which means by 9:33 on my computer's clock time.
Next, on to a bit of history on this seemingly totally random topic, with actually a bit of cause behind it, hence it is not totally random. Basically, there was a piece of homework-like assignment thing that we were given, and we had to write a reflection on the common tests, and I wrote mine in about 5 minutes, and in total it contained about 150 words (144 to be exact, but I'm spamming). Next, my friend S-- asked me to help him print his reflections, and thinking that it might be as short as mine, I heartily agreed.
This is not a blogpost to complain about how much ink was wasted printing his reflections.
This blogpost, though, is inspired by his spamming ability, and after reading through his 1.6 thousand words of not really a lot of content, I decided to see what nonsense I can write (in the longest possible way, so as to be mildly convincing) about the topic of spamming a lot of words.
Firstly, there is the aim that we have to define. Obviously, if we have a lot of content (like topic=world and whatever happens today in this world), there will be a lot to write on (if you are really that desperate for words). In fact, if I were to type a report on my life today, 3000 words ought not to be a big problem apart from getting bored. Hence, there is actually a more refined aim of getting a good word to content ratio. This roughly means: more content, more words; less content, less words.
Hence, we will use this blogpost of limited content. The content was created while walking home from the MRT which is like a 5 minute walk away.
That is really not a lot of content (mind is dead from chessing for 4 hours straight today). Hence, my aim of 1000 words in 20 minutes is really a huge uphill task, and I don't even have a word counter. T_T.
So from here, I believe I have already wasted like 300 words, and for the people who value their time, discretion is advised on whether to read the full blogpost. I think it would be fun to read the first sentence of each paragraph though. I hope those make sense. Roughly.
Firstly, state your point.
Example:
I want to spam long essays about practically nothing.
Next, elaborate:
I have near zero content, but I want it to look like a full-fledged blogpost. Hence, I am wasting words. I can't think of a lot more, but I am still wasting words to prove the point.
Next, give examples:
As you can see from my previous 3 sentences, that was like 20 words out of nothing at all.
Next, elaborate on the examples:
If let say I had not included the past three sentences, would my content be reduced? Clearly not. However, to ensure my goal of making this blogpost exceed 1000 words while conforming to the 20 minute limit I randomly set myself to minimise time wastage, the goal would have been harder without the examples, but from the examples, it can be clearly seen that it is self-evident that... *word waste*... giving random examples which are not the main point will help to increase word count.
Before I forget, (or have I already mentioned)? The methods proposed here were not stolen from S--'s essay, nor modelled from it, but as a general afterthought of his essay being nearly 12 times my length. On with more essay about semirelevant points to the irrelevant and entropic topic.
Next, remember your introduction and conclusion (yes I forgot a good long word-wasting introduction, but now is fine):
On second thoughts, the introduction can be just ripped off the start of this post. It wasted 300 words about background stuff, which is not really relevant.
Next, attempt to keep repeating points. To not look like a complete failure trying to spam 1000 words in 20 minutes (50 wpm... wah!), you should attempt to vary your phrasing. For example, the same phrase "the delicious cake" could be written as "the cake that was delicious", "cake deliciousness", or "caky deliciousness", even though I'm not too sure caky is a word (cakey?).
As you can see, this is extremely important. If you strive not to repeat points, what content you see is what you get. However, the purpose of this essay is not to discuss situations where you have sufficient content to actually write something good, but rather on the other hand, write a good amount of stuff out of random thoughts and unorganised insights. Hence, repetition comes into the show. If you can repeat a 10-word idea 3 times, that is at least 30 words, but in fact, with bad phrasing "the boy who was bald like an eagle", you can extend "a bald boy" to something much more. And the total amount of content doesn't change!
Repetition is important. Even in literature. Have you seen books which use a catch-sentence? Like some random sentence that appears 20 times in different areas in a mere 5 pages of text, and would appear to have stemmed from a lazy author. And those are good literature, unlike this. With sufficiently low expectations, why not just do your own non-well-thought version of repetition and repeat the same idea?
Repetition is important. It allows you to get the point. It even helps readers to remember it without reading the same passage 3 times over. (because it is already repeated 3 times over in one passage; talk about time savings!).
Repetition is important. You got the point, I hope. If not...
Repetition is important...
Repetition is important... why are these words so long to type.
I have 2 minutes left now, actually less, and hence I will conclude this essay-like thing.
You must restate everything in a conclusion, but since I forgot most of it, I believe it can be summarised thus: introduction, where you state your idea briefly, point, where you state your point (try to split them up), examples (where you spam nonsense), elaboration on examples (uh oh), as well as repetition, which transcends the parts.
*20 minutes end, miscelleneous stuff*
I will attempt to read this myself, and then write a reflection post. Could really be useful for GP writing when you have 20 minutes left for an essay (except I can't write that fast. Ah well...)
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