• Post Reply Bookmark Topic Watch Topic
  • New Topic
programming forums Java Mobile Certification Databases Caching Books Engineering Micro Controllers OS Languages Paradigms IDEs Build Tools Frameworks Application Servers Open Source This Site Careers Other Pie Elite all forums
this forum made possible by our volunteer staff, including ...
Marshals:
  • Campbell Ritchie
  • Jeanne Boyarsky
  • Ron McLeod
  • Paul Clapham
  • Liutauras Vilda
Sheriffs:
  • paul wheaton
  • Rob Spoor
  • Devaka Cooray
Saloon Keepers:
  • Stephan van Hulst
  • Tim Holloway
  • Carey Brown
  • Frits Walraven
  • Tim Moores
Bartenders:
  • Mikalai Zaikin

Waste Time & Get a Free Headache!!

 
(instanceof Sidekick)
Posts: 8791
  • Mark post as helpful
  • send pies
    Number of slices to send:
    Optional 'thank-you' note:
  • Quote
  • Report post to moderator
http://home.cwru.edu/~jnt5/Planarity/
 
Ranch Hand
Posts: 126
  • Mark post as helpful
  • send pies
    Number of slices to send:
    Optional 'thank-you' note:
  • Quote
  • Report post to moderator
2199 What's your's?
 
author and jackaroo
Posts: 12200
280
Mac IntelliJ IDE Firefox Browser Oracle C++ Java
  • Mark post as helpful
  • send pies
    Number of slices to send:
    Optional 'thank-you' note:
  • Quote
  • Report post to moderator
By the time I got up to level 9, my computer was complaining that Macromedia was taking too long to respond which could make my computer run slowly. So I stopped after level 10. I think my score was 9753.
 
High Plains Drifter
Posts: 7289
Netbeans IDE VI Editor
  • Mark post as helpful
  • send pies
    Number of slices to send:
    Optional 'thank-you' note:
  • Quote
  • Report post to moderator
Had to quit and go to bed:

Level 10:
Score: 45464
submitted under mfernest
 
ranger
Posts: 17347
11
Mac IntelliJ IDE Spring
  • Mark post as helpful
  • send pies
    Number of slices to send:
    Optional 'thank-you' note:
  • Quote
  • Report post to moderator
Sorry I went as far as level 4 and started to get that headache, and realized. Heck, I should be doing my work.

Mark
 
Stan James
(instanceof Sidekick)
Posts: 8791
  • Mark post as helpful
  • send pies
    Number of slices to send:
    Optional 'thank-you' note:
  • Quote
  • Report post to moderator
Is there a method to this? I got stuck going in circles at 4. ... edit later ... Ok, finished 9 with 47577. Just moved things closer to the ones they connect to, then untangled from several points on the outside in. Starting to recognize "refactoring patterns" like flipping a whole substructure or moving it inside another. Way too much time spent! Now I must ponder whether this has any parallels in design, so I can say it wasn't a total waste of time.
[ July 15, 2005: Message edited by: Stan James ]
 
Michael Ernest
High Plains Drifter
Posts: 7289
Netbeans IDE VI Editor
  • Mark post as helpful
  • send pies
    Number of slices to send:
    Optional 'thank-you' note:
  • Quote
  • Report post to moderator
That's where I'm at. I was thinking how might this be an interesting utility to take a mathematical graphing model and 'sort' it by untangling a set of relationships through a game.

Imagine for example that you've got a number of 'facts' that enter a system in some serial but unhelpfully-ordered fashion. As you establish relationships between these 'facts,' you draw lines between them. I'm wondering if it is of any consequence to learn how to 'un-tangle' them.

I presume it would be a minor trick for a rules engine to automate the sorting, but what fun is that?

Had I chosen to go into math instead of English for grad work, I would have loved playing with this kind of stuff. Alas, I didn't like any of the math faculty at my alma mater, and since I didn't want to become someone I couldn't stand, I chose lit. After a point, you can only chase som many rabbits at once...
 
Michael Ernest
High Plains Drifter
Posts: 7289
Netbeans IDE VI Editor
  • Mark post as helpful
  • send pies
    Number of slices to send:
    Optional 'thank-you' note:
  • Quote
  • Report post to moderator

Originally posted by Stan James:
Is there a method to this?


Sound like you got it just fine, but: find the triangles and go from there. The rest seems to be time, patience, and the ability to hold a shape in your head while you muck with the one on the screen.
 
Wanderer
Posts: 18671
  • Mark post as helpful
  • send pies
    Number of slices to send:
    Optional 'thank-you' note:
  • Quote
  • Report post to moderator
Completed level 13 with 810062. As complexity increases I'm getting more and more messages along the way: "A script is causing Macromedia Flash Player to run slowly; do you wish to abort?" It happens only as I get close to a solution - I'm guessing it's the code which checks to see if there are any remaining intersections. It's possible to minimize this effect. If you're close but you know you're not done yet, take one point from a "solved" region and pull it out of place so that it crosses over a large number of other lines "preferably also in the "solved" region so it doesn't obscure your view of the unsolved region. Then you can continue working on hte unsolved region until you're happy with it Even with this fix, the final solution check for level 13 took about 10 minutes, and required something like 50 clicks to say no, do not abort the script. :roll: If not for that, it actually seemed I was getting faster on the higher levels, as I learned more and more how to solve it quickly. After a while the game stopts being a puzzle so much as a mouse-clicking excercise, like minesweeper.

I like Stan's refactoring analogy. That's very much what this game feels like as you learn it. Would be nice if the interface supported more refactorings, like "move group", "rotate group", or "flip group". According to the FAQ it's planned to support selecting multiple vertices, so "move group" at least should be possible. Dunno about the others.
 
Stan James
(instanceof Sidekick)
Posts: 8791
  • Mark post as helpful
  • send pies
    Number of slices to send:
    Optional 'thank-you' note:
  • Quote
  • Report post to moderator
Ok, by level 15 (3,264,868) it quit being any fun. Just pick any dot, arrange its immediate neighbors so there are no crossing lines. For each of those, arrange its immediate neighbors, etc. If you go for breadth not depth the crossings that appear are easy to fix. (I tend to call them twists ... I like untangling wads of string I guess) The only hard part is ignoring the lines going out to the unsolved dots and making some room to work. Still, I wasted several hours over a couple days ... good clean fun while it lasted.

I only got a few Flash script warnings ... 3.1 ghz, 2gig ram.
 
Mark Spritzler
ranger
Posts: 17347
11
Mac IntelliJ IDE Spring
  • Mark post as helpful
  • send pies
    Number of slices to send:
    Optional 'thank-you' note:
  • Quote
  • Report post to moderator
Kind of addictive, but eventually you've had enough. I have gotten to level 12 score 193758.

I got to stop seeing those dots and lines in my head. Stop them now please.

Mark
 
Don't get me started about those stupid light bulbs.
reply
    Bookmark Topic Watch Topic
  • New Topic