The Nineteenth Byte

12:00 AM

I always say be unique. (I'm not sure I always stick to that though :P) Like I agree that this is kinda bland because we've had a ton of palindrome challenges and finding n-digit nums that mult into palindromes seems like a convoluted math requirement tacked on to an older challenge.

Alex A.

At least based on all your challenges that I've seen, I'd say you definitely do stick to that!

I have a hard time being unique. u_u

Calvin's Hobbies

Something palindromy and maybe more unique could be to sum the "rotations" of a palindromic number. Like 1234321 is 1234321 + 3124213 + 2314132. You'd need to worry about how to handle zeros.

Alex A.

By "rotations," do you mean like digit permutations that are still palindromes?

Or does the word have an actual meaning in this context that I don't know?

Calvin's Hobbies

I mean take the two center digits and put them at the ends. Repeat lengthOfNum/2 times (so the number ends up where it started)

Rotations doesn't mean anything special, just seems like the best word to describe

Alex A.

12:16 AM

Oh, okay, I get it. Neat idea!

Calvin's Hobbies

So 121 is just 121 but 628826 is 628826 + 862268 + 286682

It could be done with math or strings, giving a variety of answers

Feel free to make a question about it, no attribution needed

Alex A.

It would feel wrong posting that as my own work given that you came up with the whole thing. :P

Calvin's Hobbies

But you would write it all, that's the real grunt work

Alex A.

I don't mind writing things. Like I said, it's the ideas that I have a hard time with.

To me writing seems like the trivial piece.

Then again, I'm not one of the foremost question askers on PPCG. :D

PhiNotPi

I'm one of the foremost chat users on PPCG. :)

Alex A.

12:30 AM

@PhiNotPi And you're one of the foremost awesome users on PPCG!

You should write a challenge that requires people to use ϕ where they would otherwise have to use π. :P

PhiNotPi

Unrelated: I was going through some code golf questions to find some to answer in Element, and I was disappointed to find that row-column-diagonal-block is actually literally impossible to solve in Element. :/

There's probably quite a few languages in which it is impossible, actually.

Calvin's Hobbies

@PhiNotPi Why? Are newlines ignored?

Alex A.

Yeah, what about Element makes it impossible?

PhiNotPi

The problem is with the row vs. block.

If the first row is a valid program which outputs "row", then that will be executed before the rest of the program when it's a block. So, any "block" program will output "row" first.

Alex A.

12:46 AM

Yeah, I had that same problem with R and Julia.

Sp3000

There there, Pyth is practically impossible for most source layouts :P

Sp3000

1:08 AM

@PhiNotPi Well it looks like 3 years later, your syllable counting idea has been done for you

PhiNotPi

1:20 AM

New idea: output all unique impossible squares.

 _______
| _____/|
||\___ ||
|||   |||
|||   |||
|||___|||
|||___|||
\|_____|/

I might want to adjust some of the proportions.

 _____________
|            /|
|  _________/ |
| |\        | |
| | \_____  | |
| | |     | | |
| | |     | | |
| | |     | | |
| | |_____| | |
| | |     | | |
| | |_____| | |
\ |         | /
 \|_________|/

Calvin's Hobbies

  +-----+
 /|    /|
+-|---+ |
| |   | |
| +---|-+
|/    |/
+-----+

PhiNotPi

1:39 AM

Here's a massive post. It shows an example of an impossible square, followed by four other squares which show the possible corners that an impossible square can have.

Calvin's Hobbies

square? It's more of a torus

PhiNotPi

 _____________
|            /|
|  _________/ |
| |\        | |
| | \_____  | |
| | |     | | |
| | |     | | |
| | |     | | |
| | |_____| | |
| | |     | | |
| | |_____| | |
\ |         | /
 \|_________|/



 _____________
|             |
|  _________  |
| |\       /| |
| | \_____/ | |
| | |     | | |
| | |     | | |
| | |     | | |
| | |_____| | |
| | /     \ | |
| |/_______\| |
|             |
|_____________|

 _____________
|\           /|
| \_________/ |
| |         | |
| |  _____  | |
| | |     | | |

Yeah, I guess it's like a torus.

It's based on this thing: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penrose_triangle

Do you think a challenge based on outputting all impossible square torus things would be interesting?

The key parts would be making sure that the square really is "impossible"

Here is an example of a "possible square"

  ____________
 /           /|
/___________/ |
|           | |
|  _______  | |
| | |     | | |
| | |     | | |
| | |     | | |
| | |_____| | |
| | /     | | |
| |/______| | |
|           | /
|___________|/

Thus one of these should not appear in the output.

How can you tell if a square is possible or not? Count the number of visible surfaces of the square (excluding the inner square of empty space).

A possible square has 5 visible surfaces, an impossible square only has 4.

Quincunx

@PhiNotPi To me, the 2nd one looks very much possible

PhiNotPi

1:54 AM

The 2nd one is possible.

Quincunx

Oh

PhiNotPi

The first square in the list is "impossible," the next four (which are all "possible") show the options as to corner types.

Quincunx

Okay, I don't understand it and don't plan on trying to.

Do you know how to take a .VOB file and crop it? Or get Windows Movie Maker to actually edit it? Or perhaps there is a safe file converter I can download (I hate viruses)

PhiNotPi

I don't even know what a .VOB is, sorry.

Quincunx

It's a video file

First learned about it today

PhiNotPi

2:30 AM

Tips for golfing in Element, anybody? If feedback is positive, I'll post it in the morning.

Alex A.

3:16 AM

@PhiNotPi: I have no tips to add, but I'd be interested to read the post.