Via «a href="http://www.whotendsthefires.us/mt/archives/000747.html"»Denita«/a», I come across this game, «a href="http://personal.baker.edu/web2/cdavis09/roses.html#background"»Petals Around the Rose«/a». Natually, being an intelligent person, I set to discover the secret of the game.
Five minutes later, I'm frustrated. I'm tired, thinking of sleep, but no, this game is too stupid, there's some trick involved. And just like in Wargames, I went to learn more about those who had created the game for a secret. Found this «a href="http://www.borrett.id.au/computing/petals-bg.htm"»interesting article«/a» where apparently Bill Gates was stymied for some time by the problem, but eventually figured it out. Also, it has been hypothesized that the more intelligent you are, the longer it takes to figure out.
Nutuh, not me. I am genius! If Bill Gates can figure it out, so can I. But what is the trick? I've conjured up five separate theorems only to have them blasted out by trial and error in as many minutes, and was about to launch into an attack using matrices when I remembered you didn't need to use such...only basic math is required. It's a trap, said Admiral Ackbar. Intelligent people take longer to discover the method. Should I act stupid? How can I act stupid? Wait, even better, what do I tell stupid people to do, all the time, day in, day out?
READ THE FUCKING MANUAL.
Okay, the instructions are: «BLOCKQUOTE»I can tell you only three things: the name of the game, the fact that the answer is always even, and the answer for any particular throw.«/BLOCKQUOTE»
I roll the dice. Hmm. AHA! Eureka! It's true, RTFM works.
If you can't figure it out, if you are stumped, don't sit and theorize, the problem may be stupider than you think. RTFM. Here endith the lesson.
And no, you go figure it out.
Damn, I didn't know I'd cause this many headaches across the Blogosphere...!
I was almost in tears by the end of the day because of that stupid game. Oh man, it literally gave me a migraine. If I'd known what a devil I'd unleashed, I would have avoided it!
--TwoDragons
I almost got my 2nd "Petals Around the Rose" headache. I gave up on it a few weeks ago.
The RFTM advice did NOTHING to help me; if you're going by the linked game's instructions -- drew a total blank. Your 'interesting article' link didn't help either, although it was interesting LOL.
I found a forum thread, that didn't really explain how to figure it out, but after a few different members referenced the same trend, I found where to focus.
Now that I've figured it out, I hate that stupid game even more! But I'm glad to know it should it ever come up again in my life.