No miniatures anywhere: the fourth edition of A World At War is $210 from GMT, plus another $67 if you want to replace the mapsheets with mounted map boards. (This is a monster game covering the entire Second World War at the strategic level. It cannot be played by humans in a reasonable period of time.)

If you have ever used an HP RPN calculator (which are clearly the best calculators), there is Droid48, which emulates the HP 48GX.

So, uh, when I saw the post title and the thumbnail ... the first sentence into my mind was "How are you gentlemen?"

I'm old.

42055 Bucket Wheel Excavator.

It is physically very large. Larger than basically all cats and a lot of dogs. My daughter was 3 1/2 when I got it and it wasn't much smaller than she was then.

I've assembled and disassembled it several times. I think it takes 8-10 hours to get it together and not much less to take it apart. You really have to follow the instructions in reverse to get it broken down, and the pins make my fingers quite sore if I don't take it in stages.

The linked review is correct that the mechanics somewhat overtax the single motor, but I find the design so impressive that it doesn't matter.

This was the last "flagship" Technic set I ever bought. We don't have space in the house for more plastic toys this size, and I don't love the fact that the huge ones tend to be app controlled now. But I think this was a pretty high note to go out on.

J

Nothing much to say about today's. I think I wrote basically the same code you'd write in Python, just with fewer characters, more of which are punctuation. I did learn a little bit more about how to use J's step debugger, and that / is specifically a right fold, so you can use it on a dyad with arguments of different types as long as the list argument is the left one.

data_file_name =: '15.data'
lines =: cutopen fread data_file_name
NB. instructions start with the first line not containing a # character
start_of_moves =: 0 i.~ '#' e."1 > lines
grid =: ,. > start_of_moves {. lines
start_row =: 1 i.~ '@' e."1 grid
start_col =: '@' i.~ start_row { grid
pos =: start_row, start_col
grid =: '.' ( start_of_moves }. lines
translate_move =: monad define"0
   if. y = '>' do. 0 1
   elseif. y = '^' do. _1 0
   elseif. y = '<' do. 0 _1
   elseif. y = 'v' do. 1 0
   else. 0 0 end.
)
moves =: translate_move move_instructions
NB. pos step move updates grid as needed and returns the new position
step =: dyad define"1 1
   new_pos =. x + y
   if. '#' = (< new_pos) { grid do. x  NB. obstructed by wall
   elseif. '.' = (< new_pos) { grid do. new_pos  NB. free to move
   else.  NB. it's 'O', need to push a stack
      p =. new_pos  NB. pointer to box at end of stack
      while. 'O' = (< p) { grid do. p =. p + y end.
      if. '#' = (< p) { grid do. x  NB. stack is blocked
      else.  NB. move stack
         grid =: 'O.' (< p ,: new_pos)} grid
         new_pos
      end.
   end.
)
score =: dyad define"0 2
   +/ ; ((<"0) 100 * i.#y) +&.> (< @: I. @: = & x)"1 y
)
final_pos =: step~/ |. pos , moves  NB. / is a right fold
result1 =: 'O' score grid

translate_cell =: monad define"0
   if. y = '#' do. '##'
   elseif. y = '.' do. '..'
   elseif. y = 'O' do. '[]'
   else. '@.' end.
)
grid2 =: (,/ @: translate_cell)"1 ,. > start_of_moves {. lines
start_row2 =: 1 i.~ '@' e."1 grid2
start_col2 =: '@' i.~ start_row { grid2
pos =: start_row2, start_col2
grid2 =: '.' (< pos)} grid2  NB. erase the @
NB. (grid; box_pos) try_push dir attempts to push the box at box_pos one
NB. cell in direction dir. box_pos can be either the left or right cell of
NB. the box. it returns (grid; success) where grid is the maybe-changed grid
NB. and success is whether the box moved. if any box that would be pushed
NB. cannot move, this box cannot move either and the grid does not change.
try_push =: dyad define"1 1
   'grid pos' =. x
   if. ']' = (< pos) { grid do. pos =. pos + 0 _1 end.  NB. make pos left cell
   source_cells =. pos ,: pos + 0 1
   if. 0 = {: y do.  NB. moving up or down
      target_cells =. (pos + y) ,: (pos + y + 0 1)  NB. cells we move into
   elseif. y -: 0 _1 do. target_cells =. 1 2 $ pos + y  NB. moving left
   else. target_cells =. 1 2 $ pos + y + 0 1 end.  NB. moving right
   NB. Have to check target cells one at a time because pushing a box up or
   NB. down may vacate the other target cell, or it may not
   trial_grid =. grid
   for_tc. target_cells do.
      NB. if a target cell is blocked by wall, fail
      if. '#' = (< tc) { trial_grid do. grid; 0 return.
      elseif. '[]' e.~ (< tc) { trial_grid do.
         'trial_grid success' =. (trial_grid; tc) try_push y
         if. -. success do. grid; 0 return. end.
      end.
   end.
   NB. at this point either target_cells are clear or we have returned failure,
   NB. so push the box
   grid =. '[]' (<"1 source_cells +"1 y)} '.' (<"1 source_cells)} trial_grid
   grid; 1
)
NB. (grid; pos) step2 move executes the move and returns new (grid; pos)
step2 =: dyad define"1 1
   'grid pos' =. x
   new_pos =. pos + y
   if. '#' = (< new_pos) { grid do. grid; pos  NB. obstructed by wall
   elseif. '.' = (< new_pos) { grid do. grid; new_pos  NB. free to move
   else.  NB. need to push a box
      'new_grid success' =. (grid; new_pos) try_push y
      if. success do. new_grid; new_pos else. grid; pos end.
   end.
)
'final_grid final_pos' =: > (step2~ &.>)/ (<"1 |. moves) , <(grid2; pos)
result2 =: '[' score final_grid

J

Had to actually render output! What is this "user interface" of which you speak?

J doesn't have meaningful identifiers for system interfaces built into the core language because why would you ever do that. It's all routed through the "foreign conjunction" !:. There are aliases in the library, like fread, but if the documentation gives a list of all of them, I haven't found it. We're doing 1980 style system calls by number here. 1 !: 2 is write(), so x (1 !: 2) 2 writes x (which must be a list of characters) to stdout. (6 !: 3) y is sleep for y seconds.

It's inefficient to compute, but I looked for low spots in the mean distance between robots to find the pattern for part 2. The magic numbers (11 and 101) were derived by staring at the entire series for a little bit.

load 'regex'
data_file_name =: '14.data'
raw =: cutopen fread data_file_name
NB. a b sublist y gives elements [a..a+b) of y
sublist =: ({~(+i.)/)~"1 _
parse_line =: monad define
   match =: 'p=(-?[[:digit:]]+),(-?[[:digit:]]+) v=(-?[[:digit:]]+),(-?[[:digit:]]+)' rxmatch y
   2 2 $ ". y sublist~ }. match
)
initial_state =: parse_line"1 > raw
'positions velocities' =: ({."2 ; {:"2) initial_state
steps =: 100
size =: 101 103
step =: (size & |) @: +
travel =: step (steps & *)
quadrant =: (> & (<. size % 2)) - (< & (<. size % 2))
final_quadrants =: quadrant"1 @: travel"1
quadrant_ids =: 4 2 $ 1 1 _1 1 1 _1 _1 _1
result1 =: */ +/"1 quadrant_ids -:"1/ positions final_quadrants velocities

render =: monad define
   |: 'O' (<"1 y)} size $ '.'
)
pair_distances =: monad : 'y (| @: j./ @: -/"1)/ y'
loop =: dyad define
   positions =. positions step"1 (velocities * x)
   for_i. i. 1000 do.
      time_number =. x + i * y
      mean_distance =. (+/ % #) , pair_distances positions
      if. mean_distance < 50 do.
         (render positions) (1!:2) 2
         (": time_number, mean_distance) (1!:2) 2
         (6!:3) 1
      end.
      if. mean_distance < 35 do. break. end.
      positions =. positions step"1 (velocities * y)
   end.
   time_number

result2 =: 11 loop 101

J

I think this puzzle is a bit of a missed opportunity. They could have provided inputs with no solution or with a line of solutions, so that the cost optimization becomes meaningful. As it is, you just have to carry out Cramer's rule in extended precision rational arithmetic.

load 'regex'

data_file_name =: '13.data'
raw =: cutopen fread data_file_name
NB. a b sublist y gives elements [a..b) of y
sublist =: ({~(+i.)/)~"1 _
parse_button =: monad define
  match =. 'X\+([[:digit:]]+), Y\+([[:digit:]]+)' rxmatch y
  ". (}. match) sublist y
)
parse_prize =: monad define
  match =. 'X=([[:digit:]]+), Y=([[:digit:]]+)' rxmatch y
  ". (}. match) sublist y
)
parse_machine =: monad define
  3 2 $ (parse_button >0{y), (parse_button >1{y), (parse_prize >2{y)
)
NB. x: converts to extended precision, which gives us rational arithmetic
machines =: x: (parse_machine"1) _3 ]\ raw

NB. A machine is represented by an array 3 2 $ ax ay bx by tx ty, where button
NB. A moves the claw by ax ay, button B by bx by, and the target is at tx ty.
NB. We are looking for nonnegative integer solutions to ax*a + bx*b = tx,
NB. ay*a + by*b = ty; if there is more than one, we want the least by the cost
NB. function 3*a + b.

solution_rank =: monad define
  if. 0 ~: -/ . * }: y do. 0  NB. system is nonsingular
  elseif. */ (=/"1) 2 ]\ ({. % {:) |: y do. 1  NB. one equation is a multiple of the other
  else. _1 end.
)
NB. solve0 yields the cost of solving a machine of solution rank 0
solve0 =: monad define
  d =. -/ . * }: y
  a =. (-/ . * 2 1 { y) % d
  b =. (-/ . * 0 2 { y) % d
  if. (a >: 0) * (a = <. a) * (b >: 0) * (b = <. b) do. b + 3 * a else. 0 end.
)
NB. there are actually no machines of solution rank _1 or 1 in the test set
result1 =: +/ solve0"_1 machines

machines2 =: machines (+"2) 3 2 $ 0 0 0 0 10000000000000 10000000000000
NB. there are no machines of solution rank _1 or 1 in the modified set either
result2 =: +/ solve0"_1 machines2

J

Implementing flood fill or something like that would have been smart, so I didn't do that. Instead I used a sparse-but-still-way-too-big-and-slow block matrix representation, which takes several minutes to compute the region partitions for the real problem. The rest is essentially simple, although counting edges has some picky details. The result is a lot of code though -- way more than has been typical up to now.

data_file_name =: '12.data'
grid =: ,. > cutopen fread data_file_name
data =: , grid
'rsize csize' =: $ grid
size =: # data
inbounds =: monad : '(*/ y >: 0 0) * (*/ y < rsize, csize)'
coords =: ($ grid) & #:
uncoords =: ($ grid) & #.
neighbors =: monad : 'uncoords (#~ inbounds"1) (coords y) +"1 (4 2 $ 1 0 0 1 _1 0 0 _1)'
components =: 1 ((i.size) ,. i.size)} 1 $. (size, size); (0 1); 0
NB. fuse (m, n) fuses together the components of linear indices m and n onto the
NB. lesser of the two
fuse =: monad define
   fused_row =. >./ y { components
   NB. 4 $. is a version of 1 I. that works on sparse arrays: it gives us the index array,
   NB. but it's rows of index vectors so we have to transpose to get just the column indices
   fused_indices =. {. |: 4 $. fused_row
   components =: 1 (, fused_indices (< @: ,"0/) fused_indices)} components
)
NB. fuse_all fuses all adjacent pairs of cells according to the grid contents; this makes
NB. a "block diagonal" matrix of 1's where the block index groups are components
fuse_cols =: monad define
   for_r. i. rsize do.
      for_c. i. <: csize do.
         n =. uncoords (r, c)
         pair =. n, n + 1
         if. =/ (pair { data) do. fuse pair end.
      end.
   end.
   components
)
NB. To speed this up we only execute fusion once on each pair of adjacent contiguous groups,
NB. since each row has already had its columns fused.
fuse_rows =: monad define
   for_r. i. <: rsize do.
      cur_cell =. a:
      in_group =. 0
      for_c. i. csize do.
         n =. uncoords (r, c)
         if. cur_cell ~: n { data do.
            cur_cell =. n { data
            in_group =. 0
         end.
         pair =. n, n + csize
         if. =/ (pair { data) do.
            if. in_group = 1 do. continue.
            else.
               fuse pair
               in_group =. 1
            end.
         else. in_group =. 0 end.
      end.
   end.
   components
)
fuse_all =: fuse_rows @: fuse_cols
NB. count_edges n counts the number of fenced edges, which is 4 minus the number of neighbor
NB. cells in the same component
component_neighbors =: monad : '(#~ ((= & (y { data)) @: ({ & data))) neighbors y'
count_edges =: monad : '4 - # component_neighbors y'
NB. components component_index n gives the least cell index in n's component
component_index =: dyad : '<./ {. |: 4 $. y { x'
NB. distinct components gives the list of component indices
distinct_components =: monad : '~. 0 $. y component_index"_ 0 i.size'
NB. components component_cells m gives the cell list of component m
component_cells =: dyad : 'I. 0 $. y { x'"_ 0
NB. components area m gives the area of component m
area =: (# @: component_cells)"_ 0
NB. components perimeter m gives the perimeter of component m
perimeter =: (+/ @: (count_edges"0) @: component_cells)"_ 0
components =: fuse_all components
result1 =: +/ components (area * perimeter) distinct_components components

NB. cell edges are given coordinates as follows: horizontal edges are numbered according to the
NB. cell they are above, so [0..rsize] x [0..csize), and vertical edges are numbered according to
NB. the cell they are left of, so [0..rsize) x [0..csize]. Two adjacent (connected) cell edges
NB. belong to the same component edge if they have a component cell on the same side.
NB. cell_edges m gives the edge coordinates in the schema above of the cell with linear index m,
NB. as a boxed list horizontal_edges;vertical_edges.
cell_edges =: monad define
   'r c' =. coords y
   neighbors =. component_neighbors y
   horiz_edges =. (-. ((y - csize), y + csize) e. neighbors) # 2 2 $ r, c, (>: r), c
   vert_edges =. (-. ((<: y), >: y) e. neighbors) # 2 2 $ r, c, r, >: c
   horiz_edges ; vert_edges
)
NB. cells hconnected r c1 c2 if (r, c1) and (r, c2) are horizontally connected edges
hconnected =: dyad define
   'r c1 c2' =. y
   if. 1 < c2 - c1 do. 0 return. end.
   if. (0 = r) +. rsize = r do. 1 return. end.
   upper_neighbors =. (uncoords"1) 2 2 $ (<: r), c1, (<: r), c2
   lower_neighbors =. (uncoords"1) 2 2 $ r, c1, r, c2
   (*/ upper_neighbors e. x) +. (*/ lower_neighbors e. x)
)
NB. cells vconnected c r1 r2 if (r1, c) and (r2, c) are vertically connected edges
vconnected =: dyad define
   'c r1 r2' =. y
   if. 1 < r2 - r1 do. 0 return. end.
   if. (0 = c) +. csize = c do. 1 return. end.
   left_neighbors =. (uncoords"1) 2 2 $ r1, (<: c), r2, <: c
   right_neighbors =. (uncoords"1) 2 2 $ r1, c, r2, c
   (*/ left_neighbors e. x) +. (*/ right_neighbors e. x)
)
component_edges =: dyad define
   cells =. x component_cells y
   'raw_horiz raw_vert' =. (< @: ;)"1 |: cell_edges"0 cells
   edge_pairs_of_row =. ((> @: {.) (,"0 1) ((2 & (]\)) @: > @: {:))
   horiz_edge_groups =. ({. ;/.. {:) |: raw_horiz
   new_h_edges_per_row =. (-. @: (cells & hconnected)"1 &.>) (< @: edge_pairs_of_row)"1 horiz_edge_groups
   total_h_edges =. (# horiz_edge_groups) + +/ ; new_h_edges_per_row
   vert_edge_groups =. ({: ;/.. {.) |: raw_vert
   new_v_edges_per_row =. (-. @: (cells & vconnected)"1 &.>) (< @: edge_pairs_of_row)"1 vert_edge_groups
   total_v_edges =. (# vert_edge_groups) + +/ ; new_v_edges_per_row
   total_h_edges + total_v_edges
)
result2 =: +/ components (area * (component_edges"_ 0)) distinct_components components

J

If one line of code needs five lines of comment, I'm not sure how much of an improvement the "expressive power" is! But I learned how to use J's group-by operator (/. or /..) and a trick with evoke gerund (`:0"1) to transform columns of a matrix separately. It might have been simpler to transpose and apply to rows.

data_file_name =: '11.data'
data =: ". > cutopen fread data_file_name
NB. split splits an even digit positive integer into left digits and right digits
split =: ; @: ((10 & #.) &.>) @: (({.~ ; }.~) (-: @: #)) @: (10 & #.^:_1)
NB. step consumes a single number and yields the boxed count-matrix of acting on that number
step =: monad define
   if. y = 0 do. < 1 1
   elseif. 2 | <. 10 ^. y do. < (split y) ,. 1 1
   else. < (y * 2024), 1 end.
)
NB. reduce_count_matrix consumes an unboxed count-matrix of shape n 2, left column being
NB. the item and right being the count of that item, and reduces it so that each item
NB. appears once and the counts are summed; it does not sort the items. Result is unboxed.
NB. Read the vocabulary page for /.. to understand the grouped matrix ;/.. builds; the
NB. gerund evoke `:0"1 then sums under boxing in the right coordinate of each row.
reduce_count_matrix =: > @: (({. ` ((+/&.>) @: {:)) `:0"1) @: ({. ;/.. {:) @: |:
initial_count_matrix =: reduce_count_matrix data ,. (# data) $ 1
NB. iterate consumes a count matrix and yields the result of stepping once across that
NB. count matrix. There's a lot going on here. On rows (item, count) of the incoming count
NB. matrix, (step @: {.) yields the (boxed count matrix) result of step item;
NB. (< @: (1&,) @: {:) yields <(1, count); then *"1&.> multiplies those at rank 1 under
NB. boxing. Finally raze and reduce.
iterate =: reduce_count_matrix @: ; @: (((step @: {.) (*"1&.>) (< @: (1&,) @: {:))"1)
count_pebbles =: +/ @: ({:"1)
result1 =: count_pebbles iterate^:25 initial_count_matrix
result2 =: count_pebbles iterate^:75 initial_count_matrix

Yes. I don't know whether this is a beehaw specific issue (that being my home instance) or a lemmy issue in general, but < and & are HTML escaped in all code blocks I see. Of course, this is substantially more painful for J code than many other languages.

J

Who needs recursion or search algorithms? Over here in line noise array hell, we have built-in sparse matrices! :)

data_file_name =: '10.data'
grid =: "."0 ,. > cutopen fread data_file_name
data =: , grid
'rsize csize' =: $ grid
inbounds =: monad : '(*/ y >: 0 0) * (*/ y < rsize, csize)'
coords =: ($ grid) & #:
uncoords =: ($ grid) & #.
NB. if n is the linear index of a point, neighbors n lists the linear indices
NB. of its orthogonally adjacent points
neighbors =: monad : 'uncoords (#~ inbounds"1) (coords y) +"1 (4 2 $ 1 0 0 1 _1 0 0 _1)'
uphill1 =: dyad : '1 = (y { data) - (x { data)'
uphill_neighbors =: monad : 'y ,. (#~ (y & uphill1)) neighbors y'
adjacency_of =: monad define
   edges =. ; (< @: uphill_neighbors"0) i.#y
   NB. must explicitly specify fill of integer 0, default is float
   1 edges} 1 $. ((#y), #y); (0 1); 0
)
adjacency =: adjacency_of data
NB. maximum path length is 9 so take 9th power of adjacency matrix
leads_to_matrix =: adjacency (+/ . *)^:8 adjacency
leads_to =: dyad : '({ & leads_to_matrix) @: < x, y'
trailheads =: I. data = 0
summits =: I. data = 9
scores =: trailheads leads_to"0/ summits
result1 =: +/, 0 < scores
result2 =: +/, scores