[HN Gopher] Tangoing with a Martin Gardner Word Game
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       Tangoing with a Martin Gardner Word Game
        
       Author : pncnmnp
       Score  : 46 points
       Date   : 2024-04-29 01:11 UTC (21 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (pncnmnp.github.io)
 (TXT) w3m dump (pncnmnp.github.io)
        
       | planetpluta wrote:
       | > Take, for example, "Day," which is even, and "Say," which is
       | odd. Since the "-ay" suffix is consistent, it indicates that "S"
       | is the first letter in the target word.
       | 
       | Am I missing something? Given that information, couldn't the D+a
       | or D+y be correct?
       | 
       | (I understand those cannot be correct because of "May", but not
       | from the consistent suffix alone)
        
         | cyborgx7 wrote:
         | You're correct. In fact I'm not seeing any two probe words that
         | will give you a definite piece of positive information, without
         | taking into account a third word.
         | 
         | I made my own mistake when trying to figure out this puzzle,
         | that I didn't notice until your comment prompted me to go back
         | and check through it again. I thought after the three even
         | words, the solution had to BAY or all three even words had to
         | be zeroes. But without using any of the odd probe words, words
         | starting with BU- are also still a possibility.
        
         | pimlottc wrote:
         | I think that line was meant to help you understand how the
         | algorithm works internally, not what information was revealed
         | the player.
        
         | svat wrote:
         | The sentence is missing the example of "May", as you observed.
         | It should say:
         | 
         | > _Take, for example, "Day" and "May", which are even, and
         | "Say", which is odd. Since the "-ay" suffix is consistent, it
         | indicates that "S" is the first letter in the target word._
         | 
         | (Because as "Day" and "May" have the same parity and different
         | from "Say", it must be that "D" and "M" must have the same
         | correctness and different from "S", and as only one letter can
         | be correct, that letter must be "S".)
        
       | mcphage wrote:
       | The abstract strategy game mentioned is listed on BoardGameGeek:
       | https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/1047/mem
        
       | omoikane wrote:
       | Spoiled by grep:                  cat words \        | grep -E
       | '^(da[^y]|d[^a]y|[^d]ay|[^d][^a][^y])$' \        | grep -E
       | '^(ma[^y]|m[^a]y|[^m]ay|[^m][^a][^y])$' \        | grep -E
       | '^(bu[^y]|b[^u]y|[^b]uy|[^b][^u][^y])$' \        | grep -E
       | '^(s[^a][^y]|[^s]a[^y]|[^s][^a]y)$' \        | grep -E
       | '^(d[^u][^e]|[^d]u[^e]|[^d][^u]e)$' \        | grep -E
       | '^(t[^e][^n]|[^t]e[^n]|[^t][^e]n)$'
        
         | lupire wrote:
         | Typing that is harder then solving.
         | 
         | Need a version that generates the grep from input
        
           | omoikane wrote:
           | I generate those with VIM macros. For example, I might type
           | "day", "may", and "buy" on separate lines, move cursor to
           | "day" and then type something like                  qayy3pkll
           | i[^<ESC>A]|<ESC>gJli[^<ESC>la]<ESC>A|<ESC>gJi[^<ESC>la]<ESC>A
           | |<ESC>gJi[^<ESC>la][^<ESC>la][^<ESC>la]<ESC>q
           | 
           | And then @a to apply the same expansion to "may" and "buy".
           | (Rather than parsing the keystrokes above, it's probably
           | easier to derive keys with similar effects by using VIM
           | interactively).
        
         | thih9 wrote:
         | What about exact matches for words from the odd list? This
         | wasn't the case here but in theory 'see' could have been in the
         | odd list.
        
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       (page generated 2024-04-29 23:02 UTC)