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On September 04 2010 13:08 [-]Ocelot[-] wrote:Show nested quote +On September 04 2010 10:25 Anty wrote:On September 04 2010 04:46 kojinshugi wrote:On September 03 2010 20:32 Shakes wrote:+ Show Spoiler +This is why I don't like his answer. Day9 went on about people making assumptions like the string burns at constant speed, but his preferred answer relies on lighting both ends causes it to burn twice as fast, which is not specified in the problem and hence also only an assumption. For example the extra heat from both ends being on fire might cause it to burn faster. Sorry, but that's asinine. + Show Spoiler +Of course it burns at a constant speed. This isn't an applied engineering problem, it's a frickin riddle.
My only problem with the riddle is that he didn't specify that I can't cut the string, so my solution was "cut a quarter off the string" :D
EDIT: to clarify, I mean it's not going to magically burn faster than 30 minutes because it's lit at both ends. I really don't intend to be a jerk here, but... + Show Spoiler +Day[9] specifically mentioned that it was a bad assumption that the string burned at a constant speed. His answer relies on the string burning at a constant speed. Now that that is over with, I think the INTENTION of the riddle makes a lot a sense, and I really appreciate the work you are doing to help players of all skill levels "become better gamers" Cheers man! Not to drag it out.. + Show Spoiler + His answer does not assume constant speed at which it's burning. He only said from one end to the other it takes an hour. That's fine.
One string can burn 90% of the way in 10 minutes, the other 50 minutes could take that last 10%. If you burn that particular string on both ends, it still does not assume constant speed. The other side clearly is more "dense" or however you want to phrase it, and will burn slower. It still will take it 30 minutes total to completely burn up.
So burning three ends. All is well. All we're doing is measuring 45 minutes of time, as if this was some really bad and convoluted clock. You burn the first string on both ends and the second string on 1 end all at the same time. The first string will burn out in 30 minutes (yes this does not mean the fire meets in the middle. It can meet at the 90/10 %age marks.
As soon as the first string is completely burnt, you immediately light fire to the second string. Regardless if the second string has burnt through 99% of itself, it will still take 15 minutes for that last 1%. It could have burnt through only 10% of itself, leaving 90% to burn in 15 minutes. (15 because it's going twice as fast since you're now burning both ends with half of it's time elapsed. Same idea as in the first string burning up in 30 minutes).
Also, you have no idea about the length of these strings, size, weight etc. Because that doesn't matter. You know regardless if it's a foot or a mile, it will burn up in 1 hour. Same with the other string, which could be a centimeter in length for all we care. You have all the information that is relevant and it's a damn clever riddle.
Just wanted to throw that out there to hopefully finally clear this confusion.
Edit: I was beaten to the punch.. ahhh oh well. Hopefully it's clear!
Ah, that makes a lot of sense, and will now proudly admit that: I was owned and I learned something new.
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On September 04 2010 13:30 jp_zer0 wrote:
Riddle's funny because it plays on the intuition you have that distance is the value you need to work with. It's an absolute value and it's easy to math it out. But to get past the "unevenness" problem you have to think out of the box first in a practical way by burning at both ends and second, theoretically this time, by working with time in a relative way.
Day didn't deliver the riddle that well in the daily. I was confused by a lot of things he said including the "left to right" part where I thought that implied the candle could only burned in that direction. I even think he did that on purpose. He also criticizes people who "try to find that extra bit of information" when that pretty much invites you to close your mind, to try to work with the information as unimaginatively and mechanically as possible. The problem is that the riddle he proposes IS in fact one where there is critical information withheld and needs to be found in imaginative ways. Makes the solution look just as cheap as the "short girl" solution.
No information is being withheld though.
There are two pieces of string. It'll take a piece of string 60 minutes to burn from end to end. How do you measure 45 minutes using only those two strings.
This is a good example of a riddle because it can be solved without stepping outside its boundaries. The "short girl" solution is the equivalent of a Protoss deciding that his counter to Battlecrusiers is Corruptors. The "string" solution is the Protoss deciding to use Void Rays to counter those Battlecrusiers. Void Rays are in within the boundaries of the Protoss, while Corruptors are not.
However, when we place assumptions, such as the string can be cut in half and each half will burn in the same rate, we limit ourselves. Only thinking that Void Rays are the solution to Battlecrusiers when you have a templar-tech ground army handy, will just steer you the wrong way. You can utilize Stalkers with High Templar feedback just as effectively as those Void Rays while saving on teching costs.
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On September 04 2010 13:30 jp_zer0 wrote:
Riddle's funny because it plays on the intuition you have that distance is the value you need to work with. It's an absolute value and it's easy to math it out. But to get past the "unevenness" problem you have to think out of the box first in a practical way by burning at both ends and second, theoretically this time, by working with time in a relative way.
Day didn't deliver the riddle that well in the daily. I was confused by a lot of things he said including the "left to right" part where I thought that implied the candle could only burned in that direction. I even think he did that on purpose. He also criticizes people who "try to find that extra bit of information" when that pretty much invites you to close your mind, to try to work with the information as unimaginatively and mechanically as possible. The problem is that the riddle he proposes IS in fact one where there is critical information withheld and needs to be found in imaginative ways. Makes the solution look just as cheap as the "short girl" solution.
Not to look like I'm jumping on Day[9]'s nuts here, because you're right that he didn't present either the riddle or the solution very well in the daily, but I don't think this post is quite fair to either him or the riddle. He obviously didn't prepare the riddle beforehand and was trying to remember it on the spot. The 'left to right' didnt seem to be intentionally trying to confuse people because he immediately corrected himself and said 'end to end' instead.
The riddle is NOT one where there is critical information withheld. The only thing that is withheld is the way you need to think about the information. As you yourself said, it plays with your intuition in that you naturally think of the string in terms of distance when you need to think of it in terms of time to find the solution. But all of the necessary information is right in the riddle, and you can find the solution by throwing out your unfounded assumptions and applying logical thought processes to a well-defined system.
It's nothing like 'lateral thinking puzzles' or 'bullshit riddles' as Day[9] called them. These puzzles, like the one with the short girl who can't hit the top buttons, give you a piece of a story, or a few hints and clues, and leave you to imagine a possible explanation for all of them. The difference with that kind of puzzle is that the solution is never required or logically implied by the puzzle; it's just one explanation out of many, and often it's not the most likely one. For example, check out this page full of them: BULLSHIT PUZZLES. Try to solve them just by reading the questions (the first one doesn't count because it's basically the one Day[9] used). It's literally impossible because the answers are just so far out there. The puzzles aren't defined strongly enough to logically imply their solutions. There's always some random information thrown into the answer that wasn't even hinted at in the riddle and that you couldn't possible have guessed. That's what Day[9] is referring to when he talks about people "trying to find that extra bit of information". They are thinking of the puzzle 'laterally' instead of 'logically'.
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On September 04 2010 14:54 Sirot wrote:
There are two pieces of string. It'll take a piece of string 60 minutes to burn from end to end. How do you measure 45 minutes using only those two strings. I missed that. Is the answer: + Show Spoiler +1. 30 minutes while burning one string from two sides, the other one from one side. 2. 15 minutes burning the remaining piece of string from both sides.
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On September 04 2010 15:08 figq wrote:Show nested quote +On September 04 2010 14:54 Sirot wrote:
There are two pieces of string. It'll take a piece of string 60 minutes to burn from end to end. How do you measure 45 minutes using only those two strings. I missed that. Is the answer: + Show Spoiler +1. 30 minutes while burning one string from two sides, the other one from one side. 2. 15 minutes burning the remaining piece of string from both sides.
+ Show Spoiler +You light 3 ends of the 4 from 2 pieces of string. When the first 2 (on the string which you lit both ends of) burn out, you light the 4th end of string, the remaining time it takes to burn from the burning end and the recently lit end will be 45 minutes.
ftfy
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+ Show Spoiler +The solution was elegant and I liked it of course from a logic standpoint. That said, the assumption that one end to the other is thirty and yet both ends yields fifteen is not only questionable but actually unlikely from a materials science point of view. Stuff doesn't really burn like that and all.
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Same setup as the Day[9] string riddle, except now the question is:
How can you measure 15 minutes? (Preferably without wasting any time sitting around)
+ Show Spoiler +
Light one string from both ends, and any point in between. The trick is to keep the one string burning at 4 points at all times, so it will take 1/4 as long to burn up.
For simplicity's sake, I'll assume you start your in-between-fire in the middle.
If it burns evenly, both string halves will finish at the same time--in 15 minutes.
If it doesn't burn evenly, when one half finishes burning immediately light the other half in the middle. Repeat as necessary.
As a bonus, you get to keep one of the strings!
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thanks...I just started watching your dailies and love them...keep it up Day9
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A) I don't know why people have a problem with how Day9 set up the riddle. I had to pause it (on bliptv) for a minute before I got it, but I got it, and I followed the basic thought procession he outlined. It's a good riddle.
B) I remember reading that 170 was also a TvT. Is this true? I'm kinda hoping he'll do a daily focusing on Z builds, now that I've switched =/
EDIT: I didn't get the 15 minutes version though. Tricky tricky...
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On September 04 2010 22:13 Azn FlatLine wrote:
thanks...I just started watching your dailies and love them...keep it up Day9
me too... Day9 gives very helpfull infos! im glad i found this!
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Hey sorry if this has been posted before, or if its an issue only I've been having.
But recently (like 1 week ago) I loaded up blip.tv like I always do to watch the dailies ive missed. But blip.tv started acting different, telling me about mode switching ect. It'd never done that before, but now if i'm in "stream" mode then it stops and buffers every 15-20 seconds.
But if I'm in wahtever the other mode is I cant play it until the entire video is loaded, I cant click anything in the window untill it's all loaded, and then I can watch it.
Can anyone help me figure out how to watch the videos, or get it back to the way it used to work for me.
Cheers
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It would be interesting if Day[9] posed a riddle/problem at the beginning of each daily. :-D
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You are misunderstanding his answer then. You don't have to rely on the string burning at a constant speed to know that lighting it at both ends will cause it to burn out in half an hour. That is true regardless of which part of the string burns faster. That's why his answer works and "cut off a quarter of the string" doesn't work.
This is not true. If we were to fold the string in half and half again it provides the same deliniation that burning the string at both ends.
Both HAVE to have constant burn use.
By Day9's reasoning to invalidate cutting we are forced to assume the string can burn at a slow initial rate and a high final rate.
Imagine the string burns at a squared rate. As in it accelerates as time passes. That means the last thirty minutes would represent a significantly faster burn rate than the initial thirty minutes. By sectioning the string or burning it at both ends you fundamentally accept the same tenets.
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Was there a Day 9 172? Or not?
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It could also be, that the string only burns in 1 hour, if you let hold/hang it in the air and light it at the bottom. Since strings usually burn faster from bottom to top than the other way, it might take 2 hours for it to burn from top to bottom, so the presented method of day9 wouldnt work.
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On September 05 2010 03:48 Grachuus wrote:
Imagine the string burns at a squared rate. As in it accelerates as time passes.
I don't think any string in THIS universe burns like that. Why would it accelerate, exactly? Fire has no inertia or momentum... You have to assume that a given length of the string will burn in the same amount of time no matter how long the rest of the string has been on fire. That's physics.
On September 05 2010 05:45 Moshon wrote:
It could also be, that the string only burns in 1 hour, if you let hold/hang it in the air and light it at the bottom. Since strings usually burn faster from bottom to top than the other way, it might take 2 hours for it to burn from top to bottom, so the presented method of day9 wouldnt work.
That's true, but you're just being ridiculous now. Obviously you'd assume the strings are rated at 1 hour when burning horizontally, and that's how you'd use them.
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On September 05 2010 06:37 therealmeal wrote:Show nested quote +On September 05 2010 03:48 Grachuus wrote:
Imagine the string burns at a squared rate. As in it accelerates as time passes. I don't think any string in THIS universe burns like that. Why would it accelerate, exactly? Fire has no inertia or momentum... You have to assume that a given length of the string will burn in the same amount of time no matter how long the rest of the string has been on fire. That's physics.
maybe the last quarter of the string was dipped in petrol making it burn faster, but still totaling to 1hour. Day9's solution would still be valid.
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how come day[9]'s icon on TL is a marine. i thought he played zerg.
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On September 05 2010 07:08 Wussie wrote:Show nested quote +On September 05 2010 06:37 therealmeal wrote:On September 05 2010 03:48 Grachuus wrote:
Imagine the string burns at a squared rate. As in it accelerates as time passes. I don't think any string in THIS universe burns like that. Why would it accelerate, exactly? Fire has no inertia or momentum... You have to assume that a given length of the string will burn in the same amount of time no matter how long the rest of the string has been on fire. That's physics. maybe the last quarter of the string was dipped in petrol making it burn faster, but still totaling to 1hour. Day9's solution would still be valid.
That would be "information withheld". I don't believe the string not burning uniformly would be a natural assumption for the vast majority of people. That information should be included in the riddle.
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EPT
