Pocket Loops

I just received a prize from Kadon Enterprises: gamepuzzles.com for helping them finding bloopers in their web site. Ive been browsing the site and it has a lot of interesting information, different types of puzzles, good pricing. A recommendable site and products. Always they have some kind of puzzle with prizes.

Bad Design

Design problems can be seen even in seats that try out to make a small square near to Pablo Neruda's Isla Negra House. Looking at this 8x8 matrix with so different colors I can imagine a chessboard or English draughts board; the problem is the orientation is wrong!

Then we can deduce several points: the artist made a matrix as a chessboard just because he liked it, but why didn't he change the orientation? besides with the space left players can seat there, thus to use that small square' space in a better way and to expand the use of people diversity (and not only to seat). Also we may think it was a tribute, but with a big design error.

Thus we can assimilate to design and use of patterns (or anti-patterns) in software design where it's not enough with good intentions, but a correct analysis for the problem before to start programming (which I see more often I'd like between co-workers and friends).

Finally to visit the Pablo's House was a great experience, with the stories told inside it helps to the soul.

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Problemas de diseño los podemos ver incluso en asientos que intentan hacer una pequeña plaza antes de la Casa de Isla Negra de Pablo Neruda. Al ver esta matriz de 8x8 con colores tan diferentes uno se imagina un tablero de ajedrez o de damas (versión inglesa); el problema es que la orientación esta incorrecta!

Entonces podemos deducir varias cosas: el artista uso una matriz tipo tablero de ajedrez sólo porque le gustaba, pero ¿por qué no cambio la orientación? si además con el espacio dejado podría sentarse jugadores y así aprovechar mejor el espacio de esa plazoleta, y la diversidad de las personas (y no sólo sentarse). También podríamos pensar que fue un tributo, pero con un grave error de diseño.

Así podemos asimilarlo al diseño y uso de patrones (o anti-patrones) en diseño de software donde no basta con la buena intención sino un análisis correcto del problema antes de empezar a programar (cosa que lo veo bastante seguido en colegas y amigos).

Finalmente visitar la Casa de Pablo fue una gran experiencia, con las historias contadas adentro ayudan a tu alma.

25 Years Puzzle: The Spy Strikes Back

In the 80s I played a game for the Atari 8bit called The Spy Strikes Back, It had a hidden message, but I wasn't able to solve by that time (The game is really hard). Today with an emulator is much easier to reach the final game (saving states).

Therefore I start to work on it, first of all, to find every clue because I knew there was a hidden message probably a cryptogram. I was encoded in a nice color/sound way, which only can be seen in a video.

The cryptogram can be seen more easily with the following picture:



The hidden message (cryptogram) is:

not a capitol but has only one salt can be found on its east its constitution is wooden and it lies in the land of the free send answer to preston.

Which is a riddle, after a small brainstorming with ibaeza I was able to solve and the solution is Boston.

Afterward, I contacted the original author and he responded to me:

> 2009/2/20 Mark Pelczarski wrote:
> And many people in the U.S. think that Boston is the capital of
> Massachusetts, because it is the largest city in the state.
>
> It is not.
>
> But it has "one capital"..... "B".
> Mark
>
>2009/2/20 Mark Pelczarski wrote:
> The USS Constitution is wooden.
>
> The salt is in the saltwater of the Atlantic Ocean, which lies to the east
> of the city.
>
> Congratulations!!
>
> - Mark
>
>

>> German Gonzalez wrote:
>> By the way the answer is Boston?
>>
>> because I think the Salt is the USS Constitution that was in the
>> Boston Harbor that is in the east of that city.
>>

Thus everything looks fine and problem solved :P

More information in Spanish can be found at:

http://manillismo.blogspot.com/2009/02/spy-strikes-back-solved.html
http://manillismo.blogspot.com/2009/02/spy-strikes-back-riddle.html
http://manillismo.blogspot.com/2009/02/spy-strikes-back-acertijo-resuelto.html

Mex al Rescate @ SF.net

Mex al Rescate is now hosted at Sourceforge.net

You can download it and contribute it at http://sourceforge.net/projects/mexrescate

Pandigital Squares & References

It was released the book called A Lifetime of Puzzles, which it's a tribute to the famous Martin Gardner, where several authors write an article even Martin Gardner himself.

By the same reason I read the digital version, which can be seen through amazon.com, but when I read the R. Kurchan's article makes mention about pandigital squares where I help to minimize its solution after 12 years that was published and nobody else has achieved any new result at all, finally we both got the same final minimal solution, which appears in the book. What is sad for me is that Kurchan doesn't mention any reference of my work at all and only mention that he found a solution on 2003. Things like these are what bother me a lot of my region (Latin America), nobody respect your work. If we were more serious (beginning at least with right acknowledge to authors) writing papers and giving the correct reference, we could advance a little more.

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Apareció el Libro A Lifetime of Puzzles que es un tributo al famoso Martin Gardner, en el cual varios autores escriben un artículo incluyendo al mismo Martin Gardner.

Por lo mismo miré la version digital que se puede ver a través de amazon.com, pero al ver el artículo de R. Kurchan habla sobre los cuadrados pandigitales que yo ayude a minimizar su solución 12 años después que había sido publicada y que nadie había logrado algún avance, finalmente ambos llegamos a la solución mínima que aparece en el libro. Lo triste es que él no hace referencia de mi trabajo y sólo pone como hito que logró otra solución. Cosas como estas son las que me molestan de nuestra región (latinoamérica) que nadie respeta el trabajo de otros. Si fuésemos más serio en esto podriamos ir avanzando de a poco.

Se supone que hay un espíritu de trabajo colaborativo, sobre todo en pasatiempos de este tipo.

Eclipse Plug-in

Eclipse Ganymede SR1 is a more stable and helps more to the developer than earlier version, however it needs some legacy plug-in yet to be a better tool.

Besides the subclipse (right now has a new version complaint with eclipse ganymede -3.4-) and Maven2, I use JAR Class Finder (very good to find classes with a good advanced search interface).



Antoher is Caps Toggle to change words without need to rewriting as most modern editors has as feature.

Here you can see even more plug-ins for Ganymede.

No More Checks

Apparently Knuth suffered of a financial fiasco, therefore he decide not give away more checks for awards of finding bugs in his books. For sure these checks are going to get a more romantic value in the years.

Now he made a fictional bank (called The Bank of San Serriffe) with accounts of people who have found some bugs, I can see my account with 0x$1.20 :)

It's sad to see how criminals uses anything to get profit, even destroy a nice ludic way to support Science.

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Al parecer Knuth sufrió de una estafa, por lo cual ha decidido no dar más cheques de recompensa a las personas que encuentren bugs en sus libros. Seguramente estos cheques van a tener un valor más romántico a través de los años.

Ahora hizo un banco ficticio (llamado The Bank of San Serriffe) con cuentas de personas que hayan encontrado bugs, puedo ver mi cuenta que tiene 0x$1.20 :)

Es triste ver como los delicuentes usan lo que sea para obtener ganancias, incluso destruyen una manera lúdica para apoyar las Ciencias.

Instant Insanity

despues de encontrar este puzzle en una feria... y el vendedor me dio las instrucciones al revés.

• primero lo encontre como DNA, después como Instant Insanity
• hice la tipica busqueda de fuerza bruta por las mismas intrucciones erroneas que el vendedor me dio.

Usando povray hice las soluciones:

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Hay un blog parecido que mostro una solucion de fuerza bruta tambien
http://nat.org/blog/?p=831

El Arte del Diseño de Juegos con Microcomputadora

El famoso libro de Chris Crawford es de 1981 y habla de la creación de video juegos analizando juegos de la época, hechos por él y los blockbusters del mercado de terceros, a pesar, de la antigüedad aun se mantienen muy frescas las ideas planteadas.

El libro original The Art of Computer Game Design en inglés y existe de forma libre desde el sitio de la Washington State University.

Con el permiso de Chris Crawford ahora estoy publicando la versión en español de su libro llamado: El Arte del Diseño de Juegos con Microcomputadora. (27MB)

Esta versión esta en formato PDF de escaneos directos del libro original, de igual forma que el proyecto en inglés es para la disponibilidad de estudiantes y quienes estén interesados en diseño de video juegos.

Si alguien se entusiasma en traspasar a texto este libro (OCR, Manualmente), que sea bienvenido, por favor no dude en hacerlo y me puede avisar para también subirlo a mi sitio web.

Binary Decision Diagrams

Good news, once again Dr. Knuth has published a new draft from his classical The Art of Computer Programming (every time closer to finish Volume 4). It can be found in his site.

This draft is about Binary Decision Diagrams, which is a data structure to represent and manipulate Boolean functions.