Caturday Post: Castle

Tamerlane sits in the house portion of the new cat tower.

Do I Really Have To Find The Conveniently Lying Around Puzzle Hint?: Basic Combinatorics and Computer Games

Screen text: I don't know the right combination, and trying to find it will take too long.

Situation 1: combination lock.  3 buttons (levers? thingamajigs?) , each button has 5 sides.  Without any further information to rule out possible combinations, I have 5 choices for the first button, 5 choices for the second button, and 5 choices for the third button, for 5*5*5 = 125 total possibilities to try for a brute force test-everything solution.  Assume I need 2 seconds to set each button to a possibility.  Then the maximum time I need to test a combination is 6 seconds (less for combinations where I need to change only one or two slots).  6 seconds * 125 tries = 750 seconds or 12.5 minutes.  Assume I stop for a break and to make notes to keep track of my attempts.  I can still reasonably force the lock in under 30 minutes.  Even in a real-time game, unless you are in a down-to-the-minute crunch, this is doable.  Tedious (very tedious!), but straightforward.  I don't truly need someone's conveniently left out password here. 

How about this one?

Screen text: I can't figure this out without a plan.

Situation 2: A clearly magical harp sitting in a swamp (if it weren't magical, we would have serious water damage to this poor instrument).  We do have a limited number of pitches: 17, one for each colored segment.  (My mouse pointer is covering up one such segment). If we assume the magical melody is

• exactly 17 notes long, no repeats, we have 17 choices for the first note, then 16 choices for the second note, 15 choices for the third note, etc., for 17*16*15*14*...*3*2*1 = 17! = 355687428096000 combinations.  Way too many to test without a computer!  (Read the "!" as "factorial" in this context.)
• exactly 17 notes long, repeats allowed, we have  17*17*17*...*17 = 17^17 = 827240261886336764177 possible choices.  Way too many to test!  (With a computer?  I'm not sure.  Let me do some more research.)
• Less than or more than 17 notes? Less than, and you could probably still force it with a computer eventually.  Small enough and you could do it by hand.  More than 17?  Well, how much more?  At some point you can always make the problem too big.  Even the integers are infinite.  (And the real numbers are infinitely more infinite than the integers.  In a mathematically well-defined and amazingly mind-blowing way.)
• If timing and tempo matter?  Forget it.  

I do need a conveniently lying around hint for this one, even with an untimed game.

Edit: turned out situation 2 was just about tuning the strings, rather than a combination.  Since tuning is an aesthetic choice (individual or cultural), yes, I did need a guide. 

Australia's First 4 Billion Years

For light watching with lovely glimpses of geology and computer generated scenes of ancient life, I highly recommend Australia's First 4 Billion Years.   It's a NOVA documentary, but you can find it on Youtube, just search the title.

I think the best part is the "driving" into the past at 60 million years per hour: all of humanity occupies only the first 2 seconds of the journey, while it takes over 3 days to get to the beginnings of Earth.  It's a nice way to try to make the vastness of time more immediate and conceivable. 

My favorite parts are the CG scenes of trilobites and their world.  I find trilobites pleasingly symmetric and streamlined:

Order: Ptychopariida
Suborder: Ptychopariina
Superfamily: Ptychoparioidea
Family: Marjumiidae
Species: Modocia typicalis
Source: Trilobites.com

Caturday Post: Scaramouche Plays Turtle

"The Veal Holds No Uncertainty For Her, and She Shall Know No Fear of Death, For the Maker Shall Be Her Bacon and Her Shield": Dragon Age Origins Review and Opinions

Short Summary:

 Sword and sorcery real-time RPG.  Both swords and sorceries kick butt:

The column of flame is the inferno spell.  Love it.  Never sets fire to the landscape, either.

Prepare to die, darkspawn!

Good 3D graphics, comes with widescreen option, wide range of possible camera angles.  Lots of cutscenes.  Most dialog is both voiced and animated, both of high quality (even the few cheesy lines are done with sufficient conviction and sincerity to carry the day).  Approximately 85% fighting and 15% diplomacy, puzzles, or exploration.  World is not very extensive or open, but what there is is well-done.  Straightforward yet well-written against-all-odds fantasy adventure with a few twists that I did not anticipate.  Includes a few romance options.  Moderate learning curve given prior experience with Baldur's Gate or similar games.  I enjoyed it very, very much.               

Longer Opinions:

"In Death, Sacrifice"

"Join us, brothers and sisters. Join us in the shadows where we stand vigilant. Join us as we carry out the duty that cannot be forsworn. And should you perish, know that your sacrifice will not be forgotten. And that one day, we shall join you."
                                                                          -Grey Warden oath

Despite my title, Dragon Age Origins is neither a happy nor a happily-ever-after fantasy.

Caturday Post: Bird-Watching

It's so cute when their heads move in unison.

"You Only Get a Sense of Fulfillment from Torture and Dominos If You Do Them Yourself": Art and Philosophy in Hoozuki no Reitetsu

The third OVA of Hoozuki no Reitetsu is now out! 

Hakutaku-san (left) and Hoozuki-sama (right).  Fan art from the web.

In this episode, Is Art an Explosion?, we come to the subjects of draftmanship, painting, and abusing one's powers!  Hoozuki-sama, Hell's secretary general and power behind the throne of King Enma, takes heavenly (for some values thereof) Hakutaku's terrible drawings as an excuse to force him into art lessons with Nasubi, Hell's resident up-and-coming artist.  Nasubi, a thoroughly likeable demon who works hard at his art and paints a mouth of truth mural in a previous episode, sees promise in Hakutaku's works: they're unforgettable. 

The mouth of truth will bite off your hand--or your head.

Mix in some taoist magic that makes drawings come alive, some philosophical thoughts about having such magic, and a little general mayhem, and Hoozuki-sama has another enjoyable day in Hell.