Constrained Writing

I've been wanting to post this for quite some time. In fact, such some time that I can't exactly remember whether I actually ever got round to writing a post about constrained writing, but knowing me and my laziness, as well as the latest spate of blog-neglect, I shall assume that I never had.

First: before talking about what it was I think I wanted to talk about, I shall acknowledge the main source of my inspiration for this post: namely the Pilish work Cadaeic Cadenza (starting from the poem "Near A Raven"). It is an epic work of constrained writing, mainly that the number of letters of each word corresponds to digits in pi, i.e. Pilish. As if such an undertaking was not enough, the author (writer? composer?) saw fit to add other constraints into his writing through different parts of his story. Ridiculously, the story is coherent and (somewhat) elegantly written, if a bit awkward due to abuse of synonyms at numerous points. As an illustration, "Books inhabited each table, shelf, and nook.". Inhabited? Interesting use of word, of course with this particular instance of "nook". Also, "A madrigal; tell a marcher," seems a little arcane to me.

So, to the point of this post, which at some point became to evaluate the technical niceness of a piece of constrained writing. This is clearly subjective, but nevertheless, some indicators can be objectively evaluated (somewhat like standard of living indicators pointing to the quality of life).

Firstly, of course, there is the freedom that the constraints allow. For example, a constraint that you may not use the word gneiss is hardly a constraint at all under most normal circumstances, since English grammar does not commonly necessitate the use of such a word under most contexts. Writing without using any forms of the word "be", on the other hand, might be a challenge, since there ARE many situations where such a word IS used in the syntax of English.

Then there is, of course, coherence, where the text has to make sense. "For a dime, I would do proper Maths." is, for example, much more coherent than "Fly a poke: a flail or uneven table", despite that the two share the same constraint of Pilish. This is naturally highly subjective. I AM going to be contradicted... right?

Lastly, there is length. A good length makes any piece of constrained writing more impressive, since the whole idea is sort of a challenge upon yourself, and any lengthy piece could be compared to a marathon instead of a 100-metre race, which would be more than 422 times more impressive if traversed at the same velocity.

And once again, I conclude a post hastily, due to sudden lack of inspiration in the midst of composing (I recall there being a more... uncommon *inimitable is a synonym!* word for it). I would nearly apologise for this, but then that necessitates far more apologies to come, which would get old. 

Anagram a margana

Well, I can't let myself be beaten here. (Despite failing to satisfactorily solve even half of those anagrams ph42 gave...) Here's a fresh sampling of anagram hell.

strobe
sunboule
tacuics (Inaccurate tactics lead to death!)
gneiss (I could've given the other word instead, but nobody knows gneiss...)
cretins
liminiac
shidap
morphias
glintei

All popped into my head while trying to solve those 14 below. So yeah. A response.

Anagram List

May be edited to expand it. But meanwhile...

1. Naruto
2. Sungei (Malay for swamp I believe)
3. SacLose
4. ProBash (Warning: obscur-ish word)
5. NaEight
6. EpicSac
7. Tactics (Ah well...)
8. ProBing (Eh already a word. Too self-evident, apparently)
9. Chariot
10. Minister
11. Positional (Eh whaaaaat?)
12. Rating (Again, may be somewhat obscure)
13. Tortoise
14. Silver (3+ solutions)

Setting a chess puzzle

I was delighted this week, when I thought I managed to construct a delectable Chinese chess puzzle, pretty much by accident and chance. It contained a somewhat less commonly used theme as well as an accidentally set sacrifice. Happily, I chugged it into the engine for sidelines, and maddeningly, about 3 strange defences materialised out of thin air, defences I had never considered. In the end, I hereby resign to my sad puzzle-setting fate and present you the somewhat correct (but not a mate) puzzle.

Uhh... how do I write the plaintext for it again? Meh.

###AK#PR#
####A##H#
EP#######
##P#P##H#
P####P##H
#########
P#####PPR
####E####
######RP#
R####K###


Red to move and win, of course.


More on how my puzzle failed in a later blogpost, if I remember and can be bothered to make the effort. It's late and I'm braindead too. But in the meantime, enjoy the puzzle.


Just in case I remembered my own notation wrongly, the one presented is as follows:
P -- the most important, powerful, and prevalent piece (Darwin's theory!) on the board.
E -- elephant, minister, whatever. The mascot of Chinese Chess (Xiang Qi)
A -- The advisor, or "shi".
R -- Rook, or "ju", but probably not "che"
K -- The lousiest piece on the board -- never have I lost a game not because of it
H -- Knight (or was it N?). Either way, the "ma".
C -- Not featured in this puzzle, the sneaky cannon, or "pao".

A badly played Chinese Chess match

Clearly I haven't been playing Chinese Chess seriously in quite some time; I'm blundering pieces left, right, and center, for the most trivial of reasons. But the thing that takes the cake (it's a lie group!) is that I've not been sacrificing for initiative as much as I probably should. That will take some time to reset. And being cooped up in a place without access to the Internet (well, not much of it) for five days every week (all right, maybe six), I don't think I'll have time for quality chess any time soon. However, I did manage to find an average-ish player on a particular chess website today, and lo and behold! -- here is the chess match, with a slight bit of commentary on why I moved certain moves and my failings.

(As a side excuse, it was a 5 0 game.)
Black: Me            Red : ???

 1. C2.5 c8.5   2. H2+3 h8+7   3. R1.2 r9+1
 4. C8.7 h2+1   5. H8+9 r1.2

At this point I was waiting for the response R9.8 to play C2+4. No I don't remember the theory, but that kind of moves look theory-ish. Also, we probably had deviated from main theory lines by then, so...

 6. P9+1 r9.4
 7. A4+5 c2.3  

 At this point I rather liked my setup. Sure I wasn't exactly winning, but it looked like I might have an attack along the right side (in my POV).

 8. R2+4 p5+1

The start of my troubles.

 9. P5+1

Doh!

 9 ... a6+5

 ?? move. Now I'm in a little bit of trouble. Sigh. Since the formatting looks a bit weird, I guess I'll just take this space to comment on my next few moves. His pao, sitting on the middle, is strong and attacking my king. Even though my cannon is pretty much doing the same thing, I have insufficient coordination, and hence I thought it might be safer to just trade every thing off the board... and my cannon could easily be replaced anyway. Following that, I just threatened to kill his xiang as best as I could, and I would even have happily sacrificed my ma for it, but... he just didn't accept. Aw... so much for being an aggressive maniac.

10. P5+1 c5+5  11. E3+5 c3.5  12. R2+2 r4+7
13. E5-3 r2+4  14. C7.5 c5+5  15. E3+5 r2.5
16. R2.3 h7+5

Yet another occasion that I played a dubious move. Now my xiang dies. And before his. Better was probably R5+3 R3+1 R5=7 R3+2+ A5-6, and now I'm threatening a stupid one move mate, and his shuai must move out, whereupon I can check him and put his king in an extremely dubious place vulnerable to harassment by the side, which is rather sneaky and difficult to defend against. My usual defence against this kind of things is just hoping my opponent doesn't see. Either that or trade off the 'ju's off the board and run away in fear.


17. R3+3 a5-6  18. H3-4 h5+ 19. P3+1 h7+5


Just moving my ma along with the flow. I wanted to go there anyway. Yet the bing move was somewhat necessary to prevent a faster check (which could be fatal since his shuai cannot move).

20. R9.8 h5+7  21. H9+8 h7+9

And I thought I was being obvious. Not obvious enough, apparently :(.

22. H4+3 h9+7

Oops, unstoppable mate out of nowhere in particular. And from this moment on I was just being an irritating troll warlord. But he resigned :(. Aww.

23. K5.4 r5.6  24. A5+4 r4+1
25. K4+1 r6+3  26. K4.5 r4.5  27. K5.6 r6+1

0-1

In conclusion, I was still down by a bing at the end. This reflects a deterioration of my skills. *sigh*

Till next time then.

Vocabulary (from a different person)

Thought I might as well post something after yet another long period of inactivity. Definitions come from google. Words come from... hmm?
Extolling: Praise enthusiastically
Ember: A small piece of burning or glowing coal or wood in a dying fire
Penumbra: The partially shaded outer region of the shadow cast by an opaque object
Inimitable: So good or unusual as to be impossible to copy; unique
Forevermore: Forever (o.O)
Foreboding: Fearful apprehension; a feeling that something bad will happen
Threescore: Sixty
Perchance: By some chance, perhaps
Afore: Before
Hereinbefore: Before this point in this document
Repose: Temporary rest from activity, excitement, or exertion, esp. sleep or the rest given by sleep
Thence: As a consequence
Pallid: Pale, typically because of poor health
Dissonance: A tension or clash resulting from the combination of two disharmonious or unsuitable elements
Intoning: Say or recite with little rise and fall of the pitch of the voice
Forlorn: Pitifully sad and abandoned or lonely
Corvus: A small Southern constellation (the Crow or Raven), south of Virgo
Heretofore: Before now
Maven: An expert or connoisseur
Dirge: A mournful song, piece of music or poem
Wherefore: As a result of which
Entreated: Ask earnestly or anxiously for
Nefarious: Wicked or criminal
Delectable: Extremely beautiful
Emancipate: Set free
Spurned: Reject with disdain
Mirth: Amusement

OMG I necro'd the blog...

It's been such a long time since I posted, and I have had a break from the school of school. For these two years anyway. As such, I have mostly stopped writing, and right now it feels a little unnatural to be typing over here, being inactive for the past 5 months or so. As such, my writing style would probably have changed, but it matters not, for it is the same person bringing you time-wasting paragraphs of contentless rants!

Nevertheless, I am sad to say that my brain has degenerated in fields of... everything ranging from sudoku to maths to even... *drumroll* chess! And as such I have actually not thought of material to post here. However, I hope that I will be able to think of more content soon, and resume the monotony of chess, chess, chess, maths and chess posts. In the meantime, a random link: http://www.kongregate.com/games/Tukkun/anti-idle-the-game?acomplete=anti+idle. Wonder where this goes...