When one gets a bit acquainted with Mersenne primes, knows what they are, sees the list of them, knows of the GIMPS project to find them and so on and so forth, they give the feeling that it should be obvious that there are infinitely many of them. Sure, they get rarer and rarer as you go higher in the set of natural numbers, but there doesn't seem to be any intuitive reason why there wouldn't be an infinite amount of them. (After all, primes themselves get rarer and rarer as you go up the number line, yet there are infinitely many of them.)
Thus it becomes somewhat of a surprise that the answer to the question of whether there are infinitely many Mersenne primes is actually unknown, an unsolved problem in mathematics. Why wouldn't there be infinitely many of them?
But, of course, as long as you can't prove there are, you can't say so. Assertions in mathematics cannot be made based on intuition and gut feeling.
But I suppose this isn't really a challenge nor a question (unless somebody feels like commenting on it, of course). So here's something completely unrelated:
I was playing this online Texas Hold'em game (which only uses play money, not real), and a situation came up where there were four players at the table, and three of them got King-Queen suited, and in addition to that there were 10, Jack and an Ace on the table (besides two other cards). In other words, they all got ace-high straights (but not straight flushes, though, as the 10, J and A were not suited). They split the pot three-way.
This is highly unusual and really, really rare. So I was wondering what the odds are. More specifically:
1) In a four-player game of Texas Hold'em, what are the odds that three of them will get King-Queen suited as their hand cards?
2) What are the odds that, in addition to the above, they all get ace-high straights (iow. 10, J and A hit the table; the two other cards don't matter). No straight flush (nor full houses), though, so those situations don't count.
The odds preferably in the form "1 in N".
So you're saying a category with no quitting to the main menu is what you'd want to watch. It's not about "banning" it in that category. It's just a separate category.
Banning things is such a drastic measure. (Things can, of course, be banned if there's a very good reason to ban them, as they go completely contrary to the core idea of speedrunning a game. Such as alt-tabbing to windows and hex-editing a savefile with some editor, for example.)
Different categories cater a lot better to a wider audience. I really like the LoZ:OoT speedrunning scene exactly because there are so many categories, which appeal to a wide range of people. There's the any% category, where anything goes, no matter what. There's the any% glitchless category. There's 100%, and 100% glitchless. Then there are categories where only certain glitches have been banned (such as wrong warp and item manipulation), and other categories where certain goals need to be achieved (such as all dungeons).
In contrast, Half-Life 2 has effectively one single category: Any%. (Technically speaking speedrun.com lists others as well, but at least the "low-glitch" categories are pretty much dead. They contain one single run on each. One of them is 2 years old. The other is 2 months old.)
Firefox has started giving warnings for login pages that are "insecure" (with which I'm assuming it means does not use https).
How difficult would it be to have the forum login page use https instead of http? (Only the login page would need to do this, not the entire forum, if I understand correctly.)
I'm not acquainted with the technical details, but I have got the impression from somewhere that it might not be absolutely trivial (like just turning a flag on somewhere), so it may be understandable if this isn't done, but it could be nice, if it isn't a lot of trouble.
Warp: The problem with PC games is you more-or-less have to go by time without loads, otherwise you don't have a level playing field and players could bring down their times by shelling out thousands of dollars on a top-end PC. Then stuff like this is an unfortunate side-effect.
I don't really have a problem in loading screens not being counted against the overall length of the run. I do have a problem when this reasonable rule is being abused, especially when it's abused in a manner that makes the run longer in real time, and especially if it's abused pretty much constantly, making the run unenjoyable to watch.
It's reasonable to have that rule in situations like when the game transitions from one level to another and there's a loading pause as it loads the new level, for the reason you say: A faster PC with a super-fast SSD, fast RAM etc. would have an advantage over a cheaper PC with a slow HDD and slower RAM etc. However, I wouldn't consider it the intent nor the purpose of the rule to be abused in the manner they do in DS3 runs.
If they wanted to limit this, I think an easy way would be to simply ban quitting to the main menu. (That might also remove the possibility of other tricks that do not abuse the loading-times-do-not-count rule, but personally that wouldn't bother me in the least.)
I would like to see "no underflow" maintained, for a few reasons. I thought I had posted them, but let me go over them again.
1. To a casual viewer, underflow/rollover is cool for a few reasons. Bosses are sped up because you can spam Super Missiles on them, and the arbitrarily large amount of ammo the glitch gives you completely removes the need to manage it and also lessens the need for luck manipulation.
2. Personally to me, as a TAS enthusiast, underflow, while cool, removes some entertainment, for exactly the same reasons it's cool to as a casual.
I suppose that in that sense it also diminishes the technical aspect of the run, as less work is required to make the TAS (less resource management, less luck manipulation, maybe less route planning...)
In Dark Souls it's not really used in any routes, but only to recover from mistakes, I think. (at least the speedruns that I have seen)
I can't watch DS3 speedruns because they are amazingly annoying to watch. They heavily abuse the fact that loading times are not counted towards the length of the run, and thus will quite liberally quit to the main menu and resume, even if that makes the wallclock time of the run longer. They will, for example, spend something like 10 seconds quitting to the main menu and resuming, to jump to a location that would have taken like 5 seconds to reach by just running there.
And they do that pretty much constantly. I just can't watch that. It's so amazingly annoying.
Remind me what the "trick" is again? I like you saw the run and was disappointed by it, but I can't remember why.
You mean the Minecraft thing? I don't remember the exact details anymore, but I think it was alt-tabbing to Windows and killing the game from the Windows task manager. This goes so far away from actually playing the game that it isn't even funny.
Blublu wrote:
I also love the wrong warp glitched Ocarina of Time run.
It's not the glitchiness itself I have a problem with, but how it's done.
If I remember and understand correctly the "wrong warp" glitch in OoT can be done purely by gameplay. No non-gameplay features involved (maybe not even the reset button). Thus it's completely ok in my books.
It becomes especially non-bothersome to me because OoT speedrunners also like to run less glitchy categories, such as explicitly banning wrong warp and item manipulation. (Much unlike HL2 speedrunning, where save-load abuse is essentially the only category that exists. As a viewer, you have no choice.)
Stopping the timer with the well known pause-abuse trick (or other nonsense resulting from it) was never the point of an ingame-oriented run.
Well, if the stated goal is to minimize in-game time, and the run does not minimize it, by deliberately bypassing techniques that would, then it fails at that goal and ought to be rejected.
You could argue that it "uses speed/entertainment tradeoffs", but then it's not an IGT category anymore, because the actual IGT becomes inconsequential. You can't say reasonably that it's trying to minimize IGT, if it isn't, if it's trading time for entertainment.
IGT with tradeoffs seems like a rather nonsensical category. I don't think it can be argued to be reasonable. Either it's a "playaround (with speed/entertainment tradeoffs)" or it's "aims for fastest IGT", but not a strange and arbitrary mix of both.
A run that truly aims for minimal IGT would probably be rejected if a significant portion of it is nothing more than spamming the pause screen, and its wallclock running time would be excessive because of that.
I think IGT "category" could be reasonably dropped.
Because the reset button is not a power resource. Abusing coins in arcade runs is essentially the TAS equivalent to bribing your way to victory, which is considered antithetical to the concept of 'perfect play'.
And abusing the hardware, rather than, you know, actually playing the game, is not considered antithetical to the concept of 'perfect play'. Because reasons.
The reset button has nothing to do with any of that, nor is it relevant to this discussion in any way.
I'm sorry for transgressing the purity of the topic and all the mental anguish that has caused.
Fair enough, ISPs blocking a site is much more of a problem than Google giving a site unfavorable search results. It really sucks how certain questionable morals can have such a huge impact.
I have to wonder on what basis would an ISP block tasvideos.org. It's not a video streaming site. All the videos are on YouTube and other independent streaming sites, not on tasvideos.org. If an ISP were to block tasvideos.org for having "inappropriate" content, they would have to block the entirety of YouTube because that's where said content is. Are ISPs really blocking sites that link to YouTube, but not blocking YouTube itself? I have really hard time believing this.
On what other basis would an ISP block tasvideos.org? Simply mentioning and talking about AO games is not a criterion. If it were, those ISPs would have to block Wikipedia, and all video game review sites (which often even contain self-hosted screenshots, etc.)
Unless someone can accurately explain how exactly this goes, I think it's just baseless fear-mongering. If you have an ethical problem with AO games, then say so; don't just use "we may be blocked by ISPs" as an excuse, unless you have actual verifiable evidence that's so, and can explain why it would happen.
I'd also like to point out the existence of this movie rule:
Additionally, buying continues with coins in arcade games is considered to be a cheat-like practice, as it provides the player with a free and virtually unlimited power resource, and as such goes against the typical concept of a TAS.
I find it curious how that's frowned upon, but using the reset button in consoles is just fine.
So I bought FF XV, given that it was a bit on sale. I have played one hour of it so far.
Since long I have been a bit dubious about the setting of the game. I mean, modern cars in a Final Fantasy game? That's nonsensical!
However, so far I like the Japanese dudebro road trip setting. It's cool.
At the beginning tutorial I was also a bit dubious about the battle system. I just like the traditional "old-fashioned" turn-based battle systems of JRPGs. But after some battles, perhaps it's ok too.
In terms of linearity, this seems to be the polar opposite of FFX and FFXIII. It's a wide open sandbox from the very beginning. And the graphics look gorgeous.
Could you please specify more clearly what "these games" are? I'm not asking this because I'm nitpicking or trying to be confrontational. I'm asking because I'm still not completely happy with the responses to my point.
My point being that M-rated games are allowed by default, and AO-rated games are banned by default, even though the actual distinction between the two is extremely fuzzy.
Heck, even the ESRB themselves sometimes can't decide on whether a game should be M or AO. As pointed out earlier, Fahrenheit got slapped an AO rating in the US, only to years later being "demoted" to an M rating, with no changes to the game content.
There are M-rated games out there where you can go to a strip bar and get a lap dance. I'm assuming that would not be accepted here.
The most reasonable argument given so far is that publishing AO-rated material would cause the site to be de-listed from some search engines. But this has little to do with the site being "child-friendly" (because, as said, many M-rated games are anything but.)
AO ratings are pretty distinct from M ratings. There are reasons that console manufacturers refuse to publish AO games, many retailers refuse to sell AO games, Twitch bans streaming AO games, etc., whereas there is no stigma at all with M games.
My point is that if the argument is that tasvideos.org should be child-friendly, then M-rated games are not such. Even the ESRB description for the rating says 17+.
To me it looks like the difference between M (17+) and AO (18+) is quite fuzzy at times. The latter seems to be stamped onto a game only because of rather subjective controversy, rather than there being a clear definitive standard that clearly delineates the difference between the two. (Eg. some AO-rated games do not have sexual content at all. Some M-rated games have sexual content. The distinction seems very subjective and fuzzy.)
I suppose that what I'm saying is that if the principle is "M-rated games are ok but AO-rated games are not", the argument cannot be "to make the site child-friendly" because neither type of game is.
It takes Alex 3 hours to walk from town A to town B, and it takes Beatrice 5 hours to walk from town B to town A. If they both start walking at the same time (and they both walk at a constant speed), how long does it take for them to meet?
I just want to add that I strongly agree with Mothrayas here. We have many children visit the site and some of our finest members are quite young. Our site is meant to cater to the whole of the gaming community, and not be restricted to adults. Therefore, it is best not to publish content not suitable for children.
Also, what exactly constitutes "adult-only" video games?
The God of War series has pretty much in every single game at least one scene that's extremely explicitly sexual. Would that disqualify it?
How about the The Witcher series, which likewise has such scenes?
Would Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas be disqualified because it has an ESBR rating of Adults Only? Or how about Fahrenheit, which has the same rating?
You may as well ask, "Shouldn't he start with the Peano postulates and go from there? Isn't he just assuming you can add and multiply numbers? Shouldn't it be proved?"
The convergence of the ratio between two consecutive Fibonacci numbers is most certainly not an axiom. I don't think the argument "this is a convergent series, and I don't need to prove it because I don't need to prove the Peano postulates either" would fly.
On what basis can you simply assume that the series converges to a specific value?
In this Numberphile video Matt Parker proves that the ratio between consecutive Fibonacci numbers approaches the golden ratio.
He does this by noting that the definition of the Fibonacci numbers is that each number is the sum of the two previous numbers, and then assuming that as we go along the sequence, the ratio between two consecutive pairs of numbers approaches the same value, ie, that Xn/Xn-1 = Xn-1/Xn-2, and then solves what that ratio must be so that the equality holds (which, of course, is the golden ratio).
But isn't he just assuming that the ratios of consecutive Fibonacci numbers converges to a particular value? He is also assuming that the ratios of two consecutive pairs approach each other as we advance in the sequence.
On which basis can these assumptions be made? Couldn't it be perfectly possible that the ratios diverge, or oscillate, as we go along the series? Can the convergence simply be assumed? Shouldn't it be proved?
Then to make matters worse people were swapped out after that practice resulting in us being even more unprepared.
But then at the last minute it was decided we would use different hardware.
It baffles me seeing that kind of thing happening with all kinds of projects over and over, and I have never understood why people do that.
For example back in the mid-90's a friend of mine was a coder in a demo group, and they had been developing for months a demo for some demo party. At the last minute (like about the same day, or the previous day before their demo were to be shown) for whatever strange reason they decided to suddenly not only change the music used in the demo, but also the music player code. From what he told me, the previous music was just fine, and it had been working for months. But because reasons, they decided to change it at the last minute. It backfired spectacularly, when the player code bugged out during the live showing, causing it to not play properly.
One method for tesselating a sphere into triangles that are all the same shape and at least approximately equilateral, is to take a platonic solid, like the icosahedron, and subdivide each side into equal triangles. For example, each side of the icosahdedron could be divided into four triangles like this:
Then the newly created vertices are moved away from the center of the sphere to its surface, to form a new 80-sided polyhedron.
This 80-sided polyhedron is not a platonic solid, though, and it's not necessarily trivial to immediately see why.
So why is it not a platonic solid? My hypothesis is that the resulting triangles (the ones that use the previously-existing vertices as one of their vertices) are not equilateral anymore.
So, the problem:
A side of an icosahedron is divided into four equal triangles, as depicted above. The three new vertices are moved away from the center of the circumscribed sphere, to its surface. What are the lengths of sides of these four new triangles?
Then the newly created vertices are moved away from the center of the sphere to its surface, to form a new 80-sided polyhedron.
This 80-sided polyhedron is not a platonic solid, though, and it's not necessarily trivial to immediately see why.
So why is it not a platonic solid? My hypothesis is that the resulting triangles (the ones that use the previously-existing vertices as one of their vertices) are not equilateral anymore.
So, the problem:
A side of an icosahedron is divided into four equal triangles, as depicted above. The three new vertices are moved away from the center of the circumscribed sphere, to its surface. What are the lengths of sides of these four new triangles?