Nasty linewriting with mental arithmetics

[Fiona]

Edit: There is now an improved online-version.

I am not entirely sure where to post it, but I figured since it is a blueprint for mean dares and punishments, here may be the right place.

These days I came across a thread for line-writing punishments which for some reason I found quite intriguing, especially seeing the variant where you have to use a different color for every letter. The pointlessness of the task combined with the ridiculous but beautiful aspect of being able to only write one letter at a time has something humiliating on it.

However, this got me thinking: The common variant of cycling through the colors (for instance pink → yellow → green → pink → yellow and so on) allows you to create a queue of your pens by putting them next to each other with the leftmost always being the next one and putting every pen back as the new rightmost. It is already quite a slowdown, but still somewhat efficient.

The first possible fix is to prescribe an order in which the colors appear multiple times in a chaotic way (yellow → pink → red → yellow → blue → red →pink → blue → repeat). Since such an order is both harder to memorize and you cannot use the above method to always take the right next color, picking the next pen must now be done in a conscious way, making it a lot harder.

It is however still possible to make it harder: If the order is completely random and comes from an external list, you cannot possibly learn it by hard and you are now also forced to check the external list every time. In other words: give each color a number and throw a dice until you have a different color than the one before. While this is very slow if you do it live, it is impossible to verify that the color-order is correct or even created with a dice. Therefore pass the person who does the writing a list yourself (you could throw a dice yourself, but just using a computer is much easier).

Still… it's not like this would be mentally challenging…

And this is where the programmer in me came through: Why not generate random small calculations that evaluate to the desired color (for example: 11 * 3 - 31 would be color two. The great thing is that this is trivial to do with a very small program whose output is even in a format that allows pasting into some other programs that will then calculate all the results for verification.

So, here is how the output looks:

(-19) * (-13) + (-243)
(7) * (-4) + (31)
(-10) * (-13) + (-126)
(-12) * (-20) + (-238)
(6) * (2) + (-8)
(-19) * (5) + (97)
(6) * (14) + (-83)
(1) * (-20) + (22)
(-5) * (-3) + (-14)
(5) * (-3) + (18)

this evaluates to this:

4 3 4 2 4 2 1 2 1 3

Now for the bad news: This is a pure command-line program and I can only offer you the code (C++11), so for people who are not technic-savvy people this might not be very useful (you can however create it with a dice if you want, though this will likely be more work for the creater than the writer), but it is possible to just give them a list of calculations created by the program.

To get the correct results, simply paste the list into the command-prompt of your favorite languages interpreter, since almost every one of those ill accept the format (If you are using Forth, that is your problem).

Maybe someone can also create executables or even a nicer interface?

[Fiona]

An example for a longer list of calculations (100) with five colours:

(7) * (-8) + (61)
(-14) * (7) + (102)
(12) * (12) + (-141)
(0) * (3) + (2)
(-20) * (-6) + (-119)
(-16) * (-18) + (-286)
(13) * (-4) + (55)
(1) * (15) + (-11)
(1) * (-15) + (20)
(-17) * (-1) + (-14)
(15) * (7) + (-100)
(17) * (20) + (-336)
(1) * (-15) + (20)
(-14) * (-13) + (-180)
(8) * (14) + (-111)
(-16) * (-15) + (-235)
(-13) * (-18) + (-232)
(17) * (8) + (-132)
(8) * (-12) + (99)
(9) * (0) + (1)
(0) * (3) + (3)
(-13) * (-8) + (-100)
(13) * (9) + (-114)
(8) * (10) + (-79)
(-17) * (12) + (208)
(8) * (-8) + (67)
(-11) * (-16) + (-174)
(-5) * (-8) + (-39)
(4) * (6) + (-20)
(-13) * (-8) + (-99)
(12) * (-4) + (49)
(6) * (-13) + (80)
(-14) * (-1) + (-13)
(4) * (-3) + (15)
(-7) * (-14) + (-97)
(-15) * (-7) + (-100)
(17) * (-13) + (223)
(14) * (18) + (-248)
(-11) * (5) + (57)
(-12) * (-10) + (-117)
(2) * (0) + (1)
(-5) * (20) + (103)
(20) * (-12) + (245)
(-6) * (20) + (124)
(-11) * (-10) + (-107)
(3) * (17) + (-46)
(13) * (-2) + (29)
(-10) * (18) + (182)
(-14) * (4) + (61)
(8) * (-18) + (148)
(-15) * (13) + (200)
(20) * (-13) + (261)
(-20) * (2) + (44)
(-12) * (-20) + (-238)
(-13) * (16) + (209)
(-17) * (-8) + (-133)
(9) * (-7) + (65)
(-11) * (11) + (124)
(10) * (-5) + (55)
(7) * (-11) + (79)
(-6) * (-4) + (-21)
(17) * (18) + (-305)
(13) * (-16) + (211)
(12) * (9) + (-103)
(-19) * (-13) + (-243)
(-15) * (10) + (153)
(2) * (15) + (-29)
(3) * (14) + (-39)
(-2) * (18) + (41)
(11) * (8) + (-87)
(7) * (-1) + (9)
(0) * (11) + (4)
(10) * (2) + (-19)
(19) * (-10) + (195)
(11) * (8) + (-84)
(12) * (-8) + (98)
(7) * (-6) + (46)
(2) * (-19) + (43)
(14) * (-14) + (197)
(18) * (19) + (-340)
(-1) * (2) + (3)
(13) * (19) + (-244)
(-20) * (0) + (2)
(8) * (10) + (-76)
(-8) * (-17) + (-135)
(1) * (-20) + (22)
(8) * (10) + (-77)
(-9) * (-12) + (-106)
(13) * (1) + (-9)
(15) * (14) + (-207)
(16) * (-19) + (308)
(8) * (13) + (-101)
(13) * (1) + (-12)
(20) * (10) + (-197)
(17) * (-16) + (274)
(-7) * (9) + (68)
(-14) * (-19) + (-262)
(16) * (-9) + (147)
(19) * (16) + (-299)
(5) * (-17) + (86)

just find a text and you are ready to go. ;-)

[yellowtop]

ah, linewriting. This makes me think I might have to visit Kitten's thread again. I haven't done anything particularly wrong though recently to deserve lines, at least not as far as I know.

your task sounds like a nightmare. To be clear, the program outputs the arithmetic and you would then have to evaluate the numbers yourself?
How many lines do you think would be appropriate with this?

I'm always interested in ways to make written punishments inventive and challenging. When we were at school, you always used to write lines in columns because it made it seem easier somehow. So some teachers would start setting lines that were longer than 1 line ,so you couldn't do that, or it wasn't so easy. Some teachers used to set long paragraphs of copying, say 10,20,30 copies required.

Then there's the possibility of altering the lines from one to the next
so that they can't be copied in columns. So "This is line number one and I still have four hundred and ninety nine lines to write" sort of thing.

On a completely different tack, I've heard of punishments involving squared paper, so you must write some digit or letter in every square of some graph paper. Alternatively, there's colouring in every other square so you get a checkerboard pattern. That's supposed to take ages to do, be excruciatingly tedious, and yet be trivial for the setter to check that the task has been done properly, so it ticks all the boxes for lines/written punishments. I've never actually done that task myself though.

As you can tell, this subject is close to my heart. Are you going to set these lines for others, or are you going to do them yourself?

[Fiona]

Originally Posted by yellowtop

your task sounds like a nightmare.

Great, that is exactly what I wanted! ;-)

Originally Posted by yellowtop

To be clear, the program outputs the arithmetic and you would then have to evaluate the numbers yourself?

Yes.

Originally Posted by yellowtop

How many lines do you think would be appropriate with this?

I have no idea, but I don't think it will be many before this turns into something that is truly a brutal punishment. Naturally it also depends on the length of the line and the severeness of the bad behavior. For some people one line would also be horrendous, for others you might get away with ten (especially the people who see that there is a simple trick to make the calculations much easier (to put the very simple thing you have to do in mathematical gibberish so that only people who would figure it out themselves anyways understand it: Unless a lot of colors are used, you can easily transform the problems into problems in a simple residue-class and then they are almost trivial), though this could be solved with minor changes to the term-structure).

On the other hand if the tasks become too difficult, writing the actual line looses the focus and the punishment basically becomes “Calculate the following formulas”, in which case you better remove the color completely to allow a greater set of possible results. Or if you want that, you can get completely crazy and give out small instances of problems that are used in cryptography because they are so hard (Find the factors of 2117 (it's two two-digit primes)).

Originally Posted by yellowtop

Then there's the possibility of altering the lines from one to the next
so that they can't be copied in columns. So "This is line number one and I still have four hundred and ninety nine lines to write" sort of thing.

I don't like this: The punishment should be related to the crime and this is not the case there.

Originally Posted by yellowtop

Are you going to set these lines for others, or are you going to do them yourself?

As I wrote above, this is more of a blueprint for a punishment and I don't think there i a text that is suitable for a lot of people. While “I am an evil Sissy that gives people overly mean ideas for punishments.” would be a somewhat reasonable line for me, it is completely unrelated to everyone else and therefore useless as punishment/dare.

[yellowtop]

Originally Posted by Fiona

I don't like this: The punishment should be related to the crime and this is not the case there.

"This is line number one of a five hundred line punishment for being an evil sissy and I still have four hundred and ninety-nine lines left to write" - ??

As I wrote above, this is more of a blueprint for a punishment and I don't think there i a text that is suitable for a lot of people. While “I am an evil Sissy that gives people overly mean ideas for punishments.” would be a somewhat reasonable line for me, it is completely unrelated to everyone else and therefore useless as punishment/dare.

if you want to atone for this, you could post here
http://www.getdare.com/bbs/showthread.php?t=278799
(in case you're not already aware of that thread)

[Fiona]

Originally Posted by yellowtop

"This is line number one of a five hundred line punishment for being an evil sissy and I still have four hundred and ninety-nine lines left to write" - ??

No, because this is still basically the same.

Originally Posted by yellowtop

if you want to atone for this, you could post here
http://www.getdare.com/bbs/showthread.php?t=278799
(in case you're not already aware of that thread)

Actually the right side of this post in that thread gave me the idea.

Also: I don't think I deserve punishment for this, I am not interested in writing the initial lines (at least not 50 regular ones) and I don't like the idea of connecting this account with public images of my handwriting for privacy-reasons.

[Fiona]

Since the approach with the code had it's obvious problems, I have now created an online-version for it: http://fiona.pythonanywhere.com/beautiful_lines

I also changed the style of the exercises a bit to avoid the mentioned problem with there being a trivial way to simplify them. In exchange I made the values configurable and reduced the defaults. I think the difficulty is comparable or lower if you didn't see the simple way.