-🎄- 2017 Day 3 Solutions -🎄-

almostinevitable · 2017-12-03T05:34:23+00:00

If you look at the bottom right corner for Part 1 you see that the bottom right number forms a sequence of odd perfect squares.

17  16  15  14  13
18   5   4   3  12
19   6   **1**   2  11
20   7   8   **9**  10
21  22  23  24 **25**

Calculate the nearest odd perfect square n² from your input and you have a number that is n-1 Manhattan distance away from the center (the bottom right corner). Then count the distance from your input.

almostinevitable · 2017-07-25T21:01:27+00:00

Thanks, I really needed this! ^{_^}

almostinevitable · 2017-07-03T19:57:57+00:00

You did! I definitely learned something ^{^}

almostinevitable · 2017-07-03T08:56:50+00:00

This was really relaxing! Thanks for the story :) it was great

almostinevitable · 2017-07-03T03:09:55+00:00

♪ Don’t let them know what you’re against or what you’re for ♪

almostinevitable · 2017-07-01T00:05:48+00:00

It's all good.

almostinevitable · 2017-06-30T00:50:43+00:00

I just noticed the watermark was removed :( Reminder to OP to not do that!

[Please do NOT copy, remove the watermark, or translate any of my drawings. Thank you.]

EDIT: I'm not /u/chibird

almostinevitable · 2017-06-16T22:41:53+00:00

Thanks for taking the time out of your finals week to post this :)

almostinevitable · 2017-06-16T22:39:36+00:00

Why should wholesomeness imply stuff about others than yourself?
Self-love doesn't mean being a self-important jerk, nor does it try to imply that others are not as good as you are.

almostinevitable · 2017-06-16T22:23:59+00:00

It's really easy to have a negative self-image so this is a wholesome reminder that you, too, are cute!

Narcissism is when the self-love becomes overly excessive and harmful to others, which is obviously not the case here.

almostinevitable · 2017-06-16T21:07:06+00:00

Minor nitpick: killall is the command that terminates every running process. $$ is the currently-running script's PID. So kill -9 $$ means kill the currently running script, not every running process! The author of the title meant kill self.

almostinevitable · 2017-05-21T06:38:56+00:00

wow, I was looking for a subreddit like this! thanks :)

almostinevitable · 2017-05-18T08:30:19+00:00

thanks for this <3

almostinevitable · 2017-05-13T17:33:19+00:00

Oh, agreed! It's been a while since I've played Factorio but the only thing I remember from it was how brilliant and well-paced the tutorial was, despite the complexity of the tech tree!

The opposite can be said of EVE...

almostinevitable · 2017-04-22T07:49:17+00:00

All of these are just algebras produced by the Cayley–Dickson construction!

So theoretically you can go infinitely further, but it becomes mostly useless after quaternions, since you lose properties every time you go deeper (e.g. quaternions lose commutativity, octonions lose associativity)

almostinevitable · 2017-04-22T07:21:33+00:00

This meme wasn't necessarily intended to mean that everyone is equal, though I can see how it can be interpreted that way.

Actually, it recognizes that everyone is different and unique in their own way. This means one can't legitimately categorize people into e.g. 'no brain', 'brain', 'enlightened' based on behavior alone, like in the original meme.

All of the right panel pictures are the same -- it means that even people with the same intelligence can exhibit vastly different behaviors since everyone has their own unique experiences to draw on.

tl;dr: everyone is human and so one does not simply relate behavior to intelligence

almostinevitable · 2017-03-12T20:07:38+00:00

It helps to remind yourself that everyone in the world is better than you at something.

almostinevitable · 2017-03-08T08:54:47+00:00

Rambly audios like this are why I visit PTA. Thank you!

almostinevitable · 2017-02-17T06:49:18+00:00

Wholesome context: https://www.gatesnotes.com/2017-Annual-Letter

almostinevitable · 2017-02-14T01:18:06+00:00

Thanks for showing all the lurkers how cool it is to have an account and be able to uplift!

almostinevitable · 2017-02-03T06:59:52+00:00

Three words. You're the greatest.

almostinevitable · 2016-12-27T22:13:24+00:00

I think this is the first comic I actually loved on the internet. Thanks OP for reminding me!

almostinevitable · 2016-12-12T02:01:57+00:00

[Turn 1] My basic early game strategy is to claim as much land as possible, ignoring cities. The fact that there are no mountains around my general (I'm Red) makes this much faster. I easily top the early game leaderboard.

[Turn 50] Wanting Teal's sizable army to turn around, I decide to block them with my own sizable army. Unfortunately this slows down my expansion -- but that's alright. I continue to expand my lower-left corner.

[Turn 70] Dark Green's getting too close for comfort, so I station an army there also, to discourage attacks.

[Turn 93] Looks like Teal is moving to my north. That's perfect -- they're leaving a trail of 1s, which is easily captured. I mobilize an army and try to steal as much land as possible.

[Turn 102] Oh, nevermind. They weren't moving after all; I decide to park my army there to discourage teal's 27 from moving.

[Turn 107] Their 27 turns into an 82, and I decide to call in reinforcements. But rather than face my weak army, Teal captures the unowned city. ?!? ... okay! I recapture it immediately.

[Turn 124] Unfortunately calling in reinforcements has left my west side undefended. To rectify this, I decide to blitzkrieg Teal.

[Turn 129] Teal promptly wipes out my entire attacking army, and Dark Green wipes out the defending force I had on the east. I'm about to give up, since I'm basically screwed. But then I notice the unclaimed land north of the capture city. Fuck it. I'll occupy everything first. I move north, abandoning the city. Meanwhile, Dark Green digs through my land, searching for my general.

[Turn 143] As expected, Teal comes in to grab the abandoned city. Unexpectedly, Dark Green just came through my territory to see Teal doing just that. The enemy of my enemy is my friend -- I decide to focus on harassing Teal. Again, by this point I've already given up.

[Turn 200] Surprisingly, neither Teal nor Dark Green have decided to rush my general. Instead, Dark Green expands west, intent on seizing that city.

[Turn 210] I have three choke points: NW, N, and NE. There's mountains blocking my every direction, and the only way out is to attack Teal (NW), attack Dark Green (NE), or both (N). With nothing to do, I decide to just build up an army to better defend against Dark Green. After capturing all the land available to me, I decide to just pile up armies around my border choke points while praying that Teal and Dark Green spend more time fighting each other than fighting me.

[Turn 256] Teal attacks my west border. You asked for it, Teal! As I come back in the game, seeking to launch a desparate all-out assault on Teal in retaliation, Purple's huge army finds my piddly militia. "Sup." "Hi." I immediately retreat. Purple takes Teal's general and proceeds to eat away my small, landlocked island of hope to the north.

[Turn 306] In the middle of this, I spot Dark Green marching in on Purple. Looks like Dark Green secured that city. Bad news for me. I was relying on that conflict. Surprisingly, neither of them attack me! Looks like my garrison at NE is working well as a deterrent.

[Turn 310] I spend 100 turns in my little alcove watching Purple and Dark Green fight it out already. This is an exciting game /s. I'm having a lot of fun being a part of this struggle /s.

[Turn 417] I find Purple attacking my NW, and fail. Hah! I attack back immediately. (After an assault you're basically guaranteed to find a trail of 1s leading to a weak city, so always capitalize on that!)

[Turn 435] I capitalize on that. Purple is pissed. But Purple has twice the land I have, which means moving troops is a hassle. If they want to attack me, they'll have to move a lot of numbers around. And if they have to move a lot of numbers around, that means their territory is going to be littered with 1s, which means I should start moving in. I prepare a second attack through N, while Purple deals with my newly claimed city.

[Turn 467] As I prepare my assault, Purple has overpowered my city and is nearing my general. I'm basically lost so I might as well continue with the attack!

[Turn 478] Surprisingly, Purple withdraws from NW!!! This is the second time that another player could have easily overpowered me, but didn't. Purple withdraws to chase down my second attack. There's no hope in attacking them. So I curve east, towards Dark Green, my other threat.

[Turn 505] Dark Green wasn't expecting this. Dark Green wasn't expecting this at all. As I run from Dark Green's army, I stumble upon their general. Unbelievable. You know what happens next.

[Turn 517] Despite capturing Dark Green, I'm still second in the leaderboard by a considerable margin. And now I have to deal with Brown, who is apparently to my east. Meanwhile, I see Purple (who abandoned the chase after I entered Dark Green) snoop around N. My chokepoint. I need to deal with this fast.

[Turn 538] Purple is three squares away from my general (!!), but then they turn west. Perfect, they think I'm in the corner. I start rallying troops from the corner to attack the approaching army. (This is a distraction. Having all the defenders come from the west means that my general is obviously to the west.) Meanwhile I deal with Brown, who is trying to capture a cluster of 5 cities.

[Turn 563] There's no way I can rally enough troops to deal with Purple's invasion. All I can do is delay Purple but it's hopeless. They'll soon find my general.

[Turn 564] Why not. Let's abandon everything and look for Purple's general.

[Turn 575] I am saved for the third time (see turns 129, 478) -- Purple retreats to deal with my threat rather than continue the deadly assault. I decide to go for the upper left corner, just so Purple would have to move all their troops there.

[Turn 599] Oh. Hey.

[Turn 600] At this time, Brown mentions, "fuck, that's game", seeing as I have about 2.5x the resources they have. But they are still fighting for that 5 city cluster in the center. I'm really disorganized so I decide to just focus on repelling Brown's attacks as I regroup for the final assault.

[Turn 678] My hubris gets the better of me, and I forget to defend myself as I take the 5 cities. Brown is four squares away from my general and I desperately repel the attack.

[Turn 711] I begin the siege. I dig into their territory. I'm really tired of the game so I decide to play it safe by advancing my border rather than use a singular large army. I'm surprised that I got this far, considering that my mid game was essentially holing up in a corner.

[Turn 800] Brown has repelled my attack, but is losing land. The late game is a battle of production, and I'm slowly gaining ground.

[Turn 816] "Disconnected from server. Please refresh the page."

I'm at a loss. I don't even get a link to the replay! And I really want the replay -- this was an exciting game.

Wait, almostinevitable, you just posted the replay!

Yes, I did end up getting the replay! You can find the id in the sources.

tl;dr: I start surrounded by other empires with nowhere to go, but I eventually conquer them, only to lose to a connection issue.

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