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That's actually a pretty good idea. It, too, would have been expensive, but not prohibitively, since I couldn't have done it myself.Quote:
Originally Posted by Witis
Sure you did, in addition to making every eight bit red you also gave your reasoning in post#55820:Quote:
Originally Posted by Shaggy Hiker
"The other reason is that a two bit binary pattern is very hard to read. When written out, as in your posts, there is a clear left to right pattern to the bits. In the case of a 2D arrangement, a person could be forgiven to not finding any meaning at all. The pattern would look random, and any attempt to turn them into ASCII would work only if the person happened to start on a byte boundary and read in the right direction. That takes a whole lot of chance. I wouldn't expect anybody to figure out that there was a binary pattern, as it would appear random, and would read random in most directions, but by making every eigth bit red I left a clue as to how to read the pattern. A person might notice that the arrangement isn't truly random, and if they do, they'd also notice that the non-random part is a regularly repeating pattern of 8, which would suggest ASCII binary to any computer geek of the last couple decades. The pattern is an easter egg, but one with a hint built in."
Thus you started by making every eighth bit red so that it was possible to read the pattern i.e. by using the red bits as the character delimiter. Then you said that you added some extra red tiles as fill that "throw off the pattern in the picture" i.e. you added extra red tiles to throw an error and make it difficult or impossible to decipher the message.
True.Quote:
Originally Posted by Shaggy Hiker
I am sure that anyone recognising a pattern is unlikely to be put off by any vegetation, especially if it can be easily pushed aside.Quote:
Originally Posted by Shaggy Hiker
Quote:
Originally Posted by dday9
Go Freedom. \(^.^)/Quote:
Originally Posted by Shaggy Hiker
Actually, I started by making every eigth bit red because I had three colors to work with and I was afraid that a gray/tan pattern would be really washed out. I spent a couple months considering different designs before going with the binary pattern. The design was not the goal, it was the result of the elimination of the alternatives. I actually had the idea long before I decided to do it. I thought it was kind of cool, but not worth doing, so I considered solid color (gray would be boring, tan would be nearly invisible, red would make it look like an oven), considered regular patterns (the irregular shape of the yard meant that nobody would be able to see the whole thing from any vantage point, so any pattern would be lost...and I suck at art), and only really went with binary because I had decided to go with a random pattern and realized that truly random was actually as hard as binary. I still didn't think much of binary because it isn't a large space, but once I did all the measuring, I realized that I had somewhere over 800 bricks, which meant some 100 characters (not exactly, but I forget the true number). I thought I would have less than half that number of characters, but 100 characters is enough to say something...short, at least.Quote:
Originally Posted by Witis
So, I knew that the binary pattern would have to be tan and gray, but I still wanted to use the red bricks to add variety, since the subdued color of the gray and tan would result in a mottled yard. The red bricks were much more vivid than the other two, and I wanted them in there, though as a minority so that the more vivid color didn't dominate the pattern. That was the real reason for using every eigth bit as red. The alternative was using every ninth bit as red, but I rejected that because every eigth bit would be the same color, too, so it would always be a two bit pattern. Looking back on it, that would have made an even stronger hint as to the reading order, and it would have told people whether gray or tan was 0, because the red brick would have nearly random colors on three sides, but one side would ALWAYS be a zero, which would tell people the direction of reading, and the value of the other bits. Of course, it would mean that the red was 1/9 rather than 1/8, so they would have been even more rare.
So, you can make up whatever you want about what rules I used, but the real rule was this: I wanted to make a backyard patio and had three colors of bricks to work with.
The system, as created, is internally consistent, and that's all that matters. If you have a hard time figuring it out, that's your problem. There is sufficient information to work out the entire meaning. I could have made it more explicit, but my primary goal was to create a backyard, not to create one that was easier or harder for a person to figure out the meaning.
Ok, at least you started with a cool idea, now you just have to remove the error, which shouldn't be so difficult, and you are back in business.
Bring the binary back. 1001
I can't, the error is only in your mind, a place too difficult to delve.Quote:
Originally Posted by Witis
You can tell this is a programmers forum by the way you all can debate binary for pages on end!
I liked the mermaids better - or are they binary as well ;)
They are, they just have large bits.
Which leads to the obvious nibble...
Nibbles and bits, nibbles and bits (careful for typos)
On a related note: Do mermaids get prune hands? If not, why not?
Mermaid dont have hands...
Attachment 115411
That's a merman.
Heh heh, at least we now know the source of all of you anti-binary vitrol.Quote:
Originally Posted by Shaggy Hiker
Of course.Quote:
Originally Posted by szlamany
You can tell it's the post race, too.
I gave you the rules under which the pattern was drawn. They are consistent, and the pattern is consistent with the rules. There is nothing anti-binary about that. You came up with the idea that there is an error because you imposed additional rules that I never stated, then tried to tell me how I had originally conceived the pattern. The error is only in your mind. There is nothing in the pattern that violates the rules that were stated, and the rules are sufficient to determine the message...or at least about half the message, as I only posted one of the two pictures that make up the whole yard.
True. There are legit discussions going around here.Quote:
Originally Posted by Shaggy Hiker
Did you use your special fish biologist powers to figure that out?Quote:
That's a merman.
Post race.
I did! It's a member of the Mermanus cartooni species. It was found in Family Guy in the episode Stewie Kills Lois Part II, and explained the difficult problem of mermaid reproduction left unanswered in other mermaid pictures.Quote:
Originally Posted by FunkyDexter
I suppose mermen could reproduce like seahorses.
They're certainly hung like them.
Hung like a sea horse?
Sure.Quote:
Originally Posted by Shaggy Hiker
You told us what you did i.e. you started with a cool binary backyard, then you admitted adding some extra red tiles which threw off the pattern and made it difficult or impossible to decipher your binary encoded message, finally you invented some new rules a couple of days ago, which cannot be reasonably deduced by anyone, in an attempt to justify your furtive backyard behaviours although, unsurprisingly, no-one believed you. :ÞQuote:
Originally Posted by Shaggy Hiker
Oh the inhumanity, er, I mean inmachinity. :cry:Quote:
Originally Posted by Shaggy Hiker
Nope, you can see the extra red tiles throwing off the pattern and making it undecipherable on the top left hand side of the picture you posted in post #55790.Quote:
Originally Posted by Shaggy Hiker
Half the message, what happened to the rest of it?Quote:
Originally Posted by Shaggy Hiker
11101000100
Even though your backyard has gone all anti-binary, at least it still looks like a game of tetris.☺
Every time I open the thread and see that post I think of old 80s specturm games and think:-Quote:
It could be the way of the Witis.
Way of the Exploding Witis!
Haaayah!
Post race.
The fact that you can't decipher the code when given the rules that are sufficient to do so says more about you than it does about the yard. As for the rest, you have made it all up, and it isn't the first time. Once you decide a set of rules applies, you never let reality intrude on your assumptions.Quote:
Originally Posted by Witis
They don't throw off anything. Binary patterns have only two values: 1 and 0. So what value do you suggest that the third color has? It can't be a 1 and it can't be a 0, because I have already said that the other two colors use those values. Why do you insist that the third color is vital to understanding the pattern? That would be like saying that the value of 2 is essential to reading a byte made up of 0 and 1.Quote:
Nope, you can see the extra red tiles throwing off the pattern and making it undecipherable on the top left hand side of the picture you posted in post #55790.
In the original post, which I haven't found and haven't sought, there were two pictures that covered the entire yard. Rather than re-posting both of them, I posted just the one. So, the image is not the entire yard, only the first few words of it. If you figure out one half, I'll re-post the other.Quote:
Half the message, what happened to the rest of it?
What game of tetris have you ever played that had single blocks? There are almost no Tetris shapes in the whole image, nor are there enough colors for a game of Tetris.Quote:
Originally Posted by Witis
I've got that version. It's really easy.Quote:
What game of tetris have you ever played that had single blocks?
Hmmm, if you wrote in Tetris shapes, would you be forced to write only block letters?
Are you talking about the Sinclair ZX Spectrum?Quote:
Originally Posted by FunkyDexter
That company was founded by Clive Sinclair which almost released the SuperSpectrum and SuperBasic, a portable computer called pandora, and a desktop computer named Loki.
Sir Clive was knighted in 1983, suffered financical difficulties in 1985, and a year later he sold the rights to his computer products to Amstrad.
Bloody monarchist (knighthoods are still "honours under the Crown"), I was glad when it was all over.
That made me laugh:
"Despite his involvement in computing, Sinclair does not use the Internet, stating that he does not like to have "technical or mechanical things around me" as it distracts from the process of invention. In 2010 he stated that he does not use computers himself, using the telephone in preference to email." - wiki
=D
Indeed.Quote:
Originally Posted by dday9
Do you mean that I am imagining the presence of a number of red tiles appearing at the top left hand side of the picture you posted that throw the binary pattern off?Quote:
Originally Posted by Shaggy Hiker
They are your words not mine, I quoted you directly.Quote:
Originally Posted by Shaggy Hiker
I can't argue there Shaggy.Quote:
Originally Posted by Shaggy Hiker
Third colour? Didn't you just say binary patterns only have two colours?Quote:
Originally Posted by Shaggy Hiker
Now you have lost me Shaggy, your trinary colouring system is quite irregular.Quote:
Originally Posted by Shaggy Hiker
Can you please tell us once again the purpose the third colour?Quote:
Originally Posted by Shaggy Hiker
Ah, I see, have you added any extra red tiles as fill in the other section of your backyard?Quote:
Originally Posted by Shaggy Hiker
Shaggy you just need to use your imagination a bit more, I can't think of any other game that it resembles more closely than Tetris. =^.^=Quote:
Originally Posted by Shaggy Hiker
This is how I picture you saying this:Quote:
Originally Posted by dday9
http://belikewaterproduction.files.w...86cao1_500.gif
That is a very accurate depiction
The third color is largely there for aesthetic reasons. However, it also serves a practical purpose. There is little chance that a backyard will have a number of bricks that is a multiple of either 7 or 8 (the two viable byte sizes that can be used for writing ASCII messages). Therefore, there has to be a fill color that has no value. The alterantive would be to fill with the 0 bit color, but that gets a bit dicey, unless the number of bytes that makes up the message is at least pretty close to the size of the yard (I kept tinkering with the message until I got it right to the maximum character count possible, but that still left several extra bits, since the area was not evenly divisible by 8 bits).Quote:
Originally Posted by Witis
The other purpose that the third color can serve is to hint at the fact that there is a pattern, and hint at how to read it. This I did by making every eigth bit red. That doesn't mean that all red bits are eigth bits as you insist on mininterpreting, it just means that every eigth bit is red. Other bits can be red, as well, but every eigth bit MUST be. If I were to make every other bit red, that would also work, because then every eight bit would be red. In that case, nobody would ever reasonably expect that the other bits carried any meaning at all, and the information density would be seriously diluted. Any other pattern of red bits is also possible, actually, but if you play around with other patterns of red bits, you will see that they quickly come to dominate the pattern as a whole. Alternating red bits might draw attention to the variability of the non-red bits, but the predominance of red bits would swamp the message. Therefore, I went with the rule that every eight bit MUST be red, and otherwise used red sparingly. All surplus bits are red (there is a string of them at the very end of the pattern due to the fact that there was not an even multiple of 8 bricks).
The information is not contained in the red bits, nor can there be any information contained in the red bits. All the information is contained in the gray and tan bits which make up the binary pattern. Therefore, only gray and tan bits are the binary pattern. A third color (red) can't be part of a binary pattern by definition. So focusing on a third color and saying that it throws off the pattern is absurd. The third color can't be part of the pattern, so it can't throw anything off. You should be able to read the pattern even if all the red bits were removed, because they aren't part of the binary message. It would be harder to read, since you would have to keep track of your place, but there is no information contained in the red bits, so they shouldn't impact the reading. Also, without the red bits, you'd have to try out N-S, E-W, W-E, and S-N reading, only one of which is correct. With the red bits, you can rule out two of those, which should cut the time taken to figure out the orientation of the pattern quite a bit quicker, but that's all it does.
You say that I shoudl use my imagination a bit more, yet you are the one who can't think of any other games? How about Breakout, CubeCrash, DropBlocks, Go, Othello, or any other such game? All of them resemble my yard more than Tetris, as none of them have fixed shapes.Quote:
Originally Posted by Witis
Tri-coloured binary aesthetics? At least you chose red. =)Quote:
Originally Posted by Shaggy Hiker
Truly, ok, let's hear it then.Quote:
Originally Posted by Shaggy Hiker
I don't quite see the problem, you just zero fill the last few unused bytes and it is then possible to determine exactly where the start and end of the message are.Quote:
Originally Posted by Shaggy Hiker
Now you are talking.Quote:
Originally Posted by Shaggy Hiker
Yeah, just zero fill those extra bytes for the win. FTWQuote:
Originally Posted by Shaggy Hiker
However, an 8 bit binary pattern would have needed no introduction or special markers, e.g. "Historically, the byte was the number of bits used to encode a single character of text in a computer" - wikiQuote:
Originally Posted by Shaggy Hiker
You designed your binary pattern so that red functions as a visual character delimiter, so that is their main role in the pattern.Quote:
Originally Posted by Shaggy Hiker
I am not convinced that you can use red tiles for multiple purposes if doing so interferes with or destroys the message you encoded.Quote:
Originally Posted by Shaggy Hiker
However, that would be a very confusing pattern indeed.Quote:
Originally Posted by Shaggy Hiker
Yep, that is another way to use red to destroy your message.Quote:
Originally Posted by Shaggy Hiker
Red = character delimiter, got it.Quote:
Originally Posted by Shaggy Hiker
Quote:
Originally Posted by Shaggy Hiker
Originally you said the row of extra red tiles at the top left hand side "throw off the pattern in the picture". Further the only obvious 7 bit pattern occurs reading the pattern bottom to top (rather than from left to right or right to left) in the pic your posted, meaning that any fill at the end of your message should only occur vertically rather than horizontally.Quote:
Originally Posted by Shaggy Hiker
The red is there to trick you into thinking it is a trinary pattern when it is actually a binary pattern.Quote:
Originally Posted by Shaggy Hiker
Go the binary bits.Quote:
Originally Posted by Shaggy Hiker
But you made it part of your binary pattern.Quote:
Originally Posted by Shaggy Hiker
You originally said that the extra red tiles throw off the binary pattern.Quote:
Originally Posted by Shaggy Hiker
Extra red tiles laid in the wrong place can easily throw off the pattern.Quote:
Originally Posted by Shaggy Hiker
Although a 7 bit pattern would be a tricky pattern to spot. A gap or a couple of half tiles could also have functioned as a delimiter.Quote:
Originally Posted by Shaggy Hiker
But the extra red tiles do, particularly as they do not seem to function as fill at the end of the message.Quote:
Originally Posted by Shaggy Hiker
As long as you have some sort of delimiter, and obvious fill at the end of the message, then it makes it relatively easy to deduce how to extract and read the binary encoded characters.Quote:
Originally Posted by Shaggy Hiker
Breakout - not reallyQuote:
Originally Posted by Shaggy Hiker
CubeCrash - maybe
DropBlocks - maybe
Go - not really
Othello - not really
CubeCrash and DropBlocks also resemble Tetris, and as CubeCrash and DropBlocks are not very famous, most folks would only recognise Tetris in your backyard. =D
Since I didnt read majority of the post about the binary backyard, the tiles in your backyard represent a coded message in binary? is that accurate?
Indeed. I believe it is an image or an egg or something. lol
and it features the colour red. =)
I will write my name in my binary backyard.
It reads like you got some expensive taste there dclamp.
Someone will have to teach you how to eat sushi and forget about the chicken and the all beef patties, pickles, and onions on a sesame bun. 8-)
I will pass on that sushi though... thanks
Sticking with the beef, chicken, and pork?
Yes sir.
But what did the cow do wrong to deserve being put down (they use an electrical jolt to stun the cows before slitting their throats), it only eats grass after all?
It's meat tastes great. They're just unlucky.