Puzzle 40: Sky’s Revenge

Liar Slitherlink. Follow regular Slitherlink clues (make a loop following the gridlines that doesn’t touch/cross itself anywhere, and givens tell the number of sides used around that cell). However, exactly one given in each row/column is wrong. The task of determining which givens are lying is given to you.

It was a tough journey, but Sky made it to Odd Island. He was pretty surprised to see a few zeroes; perhaps the zeroes betrayed Even Island inhabitants? In any case, he managed to avoid suspicions, and in case someone attacked him (he’s #492, so yeah), he simply Seed Flared them away.

He made it to the prison that he suspects to hold many of the twos, and boy, what a surprise! No less than 86 twos are present. They sure kidnapped a lot of twos! He wanted to free them all from those pesky guards, but he surely could not Seed Flare those innocent twos. So he went with a very unusual approach…of Liar Slitherlink-ing them.

Wait… Isn’t Sky’s previous puzzle a Liar Slitherlink? Is Sky our hero? Hm…

Puzzle 40: Sky’s Revenge
Liar Slitherlink

Yes, MellowMelon-inspired. Although I don’t think he made that for the purpose of maximizing the number of 2s; mine started with a grid of 2s and givens got replaced when they don’t fit.

Also, if you’ve solved the grid, you may continue the story:

Sky’s bizarre strategy worked! Somehow. The guards were disoriented by being called liars and stuffs, and they all went arguing, allowing those twos to escape. They all went back, Sky was reunited with his lost two, and he could finally make another puzzle involving twos. Maybe next time…

Puzzle 39: Where Are My Twos?!

Liar Slitherlink. Follow regular Slitherlink clues (make a loop following the gridlines that doesn’t touch/cross itself anywhere, and givens tell the number of sides used around that cell). However, exactly one given in each row/column is wrong. The task of determining which givens are lying is given to you.

BREAKING NEWS: Leader of Flygrass Town lost his twos; police are looking at possible suspects
“It was all there when I went to sleep last night, but I found them missing this morning!” Sky cried.

That was two days ago. Now Sky has gotten over his loss, and he wants a revenge. “I’ll show them what I can do even without those 2s!” Sky adamantly proclaimed. After leaving this medium puzzle, he leaves to the Odd Island, the most probable suspect of where the 2s are kept hostage in.

Puzzle 39: Where Are My Twos?!
Liar Slitherlink

Yes, no 2 at all. Stay tuned for the second part (and also the final part) of Sky’s mini-adventure of reclaiming his 2s!

Imposing Self-restrictions

It won’t work for me. I failed to make Puzzle 30 large and I’m feeling really uninspired to make Puzzle 40 large either (Puzzle 39 constructed and no large grid ready in my puzzle book).

Meh. No longer any guarantee of large puzzles. I feel better to make puzzles that employ a particular trick as its attractive point. Large puzzles I made tend to combine stuffs so no trick is really highlighted. Maybe if I want to employ a trick that simply cannot be done in small puzzles, sure, but let’s see.

Meanwhile, Puzzle 39? Yes, I have a puzzle to be posted when I get on computer. Where are my twos :O

Pushing Myself Over My Limits

It all began on Sunday. I tutored several people for 6 hours, from 2 PM to 8 PM, for Math finals we took on Monday.

Next, things get even more bizzare on Monday. 9 hours for Tuesday’s Physics.

And I overdid myself for tutoring 12 hours on Tuesday for today’s Chemistry.

The result? I was too tired, forgot pretty much everything and I can ony assure myself 50/100 score while I usually score high in the 90s.

Lesson: Don’t overdo yourself. Or if you do, learn everything so it sticks in your mind without being forgotten due to extreme tiredness.

Meh.

Antiderivative of tan x

I was toying with Problem 317 on Project Euler when I found a messy (but rather easy) antiderivative of a polynomial (with messy coefficients of course). Somehow whatever train of thoughts led me to think of the antiderivative of tan x. (That’s extremely sidetracked, but whatever. My initial guess of 2.4 million something was wrong anyway 😛 )

And it is pretty surprising.

Letting , we have . Hence
.

Wild Logarithm appeared! But seriously. This is pretty amusing. Well, if you know , this is not that amusing, but still.

Math has always mesmerized me with its beautiful, unexpected results. However, it requires deep thought to actually understand it, hence a boatload of dislikes to math. In my class of 22 students, only one goes deep to math (namely me); one or two are good at school math, a few more okay, but that’s it; the rest are…uh…terrible. Of course, you cannot ask the opinion of a person who really digs math about math in these settings (aka the question about how his classmates are progressing in math); that’s biased.

Recently, namely 2.5 hours ago, I’ve just finished tutoring seven of my classmates for about 5.5 hours about math. Tomorrow is math (and history) finals exam, and it involves four topics: antiderivatives and integrals, matrices, vectors, and geometric transformation. I almost gave a very terrible problem (find the area enclosed between and , later revised to be base 2 instead of e); it’s terrible just because finding the intersection points will be a nightmare for them. Although I’m positive that most readers of this post can solve the problem without too much effort (note that the former is convex and the latter is concave, so they cut at at most two points, and they can be found easily).

Appreciating math (or any subject for that matter) is hard. I tend not to appreciate Indonesian (mostly because of severely flawed and broken “opinion-type” questions, where English should have anyway but our English focus more on grammar and reading); there might be someone out there who loves Indonesian more than their spouse (if there is any). Sometimes someone simply doesn’t appreciate any subject at all. I don’t have any right to judge; it might be that they like something else.

However, if you have the patience and logic to grasp the hidden beauty of math masked by mindless exercises such as , you might just stare in awe (or in confusion; again note that you need logic) of the beauty of math. You might even be amazed of the wonders of antiderivatives; note that the above example employs both partial integration (for first term) and integration by substitution (for second term) while differing only a number in its expression. So beautiful, so orderly.

Now that I’ve written too much, I might better sleep and prepare for tomorrow. It’s going to be a big day. (Those seven will come again for tutor on Tuesday’s Physics. 😛 )

Puzzle 38: Fillomino Party! Part Finale!

Kropki Fillomino. Follow regular Fillomino rules. In addition, Kropki clues appear on the grid. If two numbers are separated by a black circle, then one is double of the other. If two numbers are separated by a white circle, then they are consecutive integers. Note that if there is no circle, then it doesn’t mean that the two cells have none of the two relationships (double or consecutive). Between 1 and 2, either circle may appear.

And we’re finally on the last puzzle! It’s apparently a genre invented by…er…let me see.
*skims*
*skims further*
*doesn’t skim further* Okay, sorry. Apparently this is the chef’s original, or it should be so since the chef was too lazy— err, failed to find any other puzzle of the same variant. Anyway, enjoy our last medium meal…
…wait, Chef! Why is it another medium?!
Uhm anyway, enjoy this one, and see you in the next party!

Puzzle 38: Fillomino Party! Part Finale!
Kropki Fillomino

Uh wait. Chef, is this lower-right part is truly empty?
…uh, no answer. My chef likes to escape from questions. Anyway, I suppose that means yes.

Yes indeed. Have fun with this final puzzle! I’m off to study for finals. Don’t expect too much until, say, a few days after 3 December? My last finals will be on 3 December. Non-puzzle posting will probably resume as usual depending on whether I get something to post.

Puzzle 37: Fillomino Party! Part 2!

Greater-Than Fillomino. Follow usual Fillomino rules. In addition, inequality signs appear on the grid. Given inequalities must be satisfied by the numbers in the corresponding cells. Try MellowMelon’s too if you don’t get the rules.

So, you’re satisfied with the first meal? You’re not done yet.
This one is a puzzle, which genre is inspired from some yellowish fruit. A melon perhaps? Although I’m not sure how a melon can make puzzles. Or is it a Melon-pult? *shudders*
Umm, anyway. Enjoy. Another medium meal. Hey chef, is there going to be any heavy meal or something?

Puzzle 37: Fillomino Party! Part 2!
Greater-Than Fillomino

Part 2 of the party. One more to go. This theme of no number at all should have been done somewhere. (After an educated guess and a look on it, the original Fillomino Fillia has it.) Yay. Stay tuned for the last in the batch…let’s take a guess on the variant, shall we?

Puzzle 36: Fillomino Party! Part 1!

LITS Fillomino. Follow usual Fillomino rules. However, there can be no number 4 in the grid; all 4-minoes are replaced by L,I,T,S shapes. All LITS shapes must form a single connected polyomino, no two identical LITS shapes may be adjacent (including after rotation and/or reflection), and no 2×2 region may be completely used by LITS shapes. Basically a cross between Fillomino and LITS that’s invented by mathgrant.

Welcome to my Fillomino party! I’m Shaymin, your host. I’m not sure why I get to host this while some polyomino can be chosen instead, but whatever.
So… You will be served three Fillomino puzzles. To avoid getting too full, we will serve each puzzle 12 hours after the previous, so you will get a 24-hour party. Neat!
Here’s your first puzzle. I heard that this genre is invented by some foxy animal, although I’m sure he’s not a Vulpix or something. Seriously, I can’t recall any Pokemon which is fox-like and is cyan…err, wait, he’s not a Pokemon? Okay then.
This one should be a medium meal. After all, you have 12 hours to digest it before your second meal.

Puzzle 36: Fillomino Party! Part 1!
LITS Fillomino

Yes. Fillomino party. Over the next 24 hours, you will be presented a total of 3 Fillomino puzzles…or probably variants.

This one is a gift for betaveros, for solving Puzzles 34-35. Two spots left! No, the other two puzzles aren’t gifts for Puzzles 34-35 solvers.

Finals in 3 days. Why am I still making puzzles? Sigh.

Syllogism

A syllogism is a kind of logical argument in which one conclusion is inferred from two or more premises of a specific form. — Wikipedia

According to Wikipedia (and propositional calculus), all the following are invalid inferences.

All humans are mammals.
No cats are humans.
Hence, no cats are mammals.
(AEE-1)

Some humans are not male.
All fathers of humans are humans.
Hence, all fathers of humans are not male.
(OAE-1)

No humans are reptiles.
No cats are humans.
Hence, all cats are reptiles.
(OOA-1)

A few other resources agree with this.

However, introducing my Indonesian teacher. He believes that all of the above three syllogisms are valid (but wrong), while propositional calculus states that the above three are invalid.

Also, here’s another:
All Indonesians are humans.
All humans are mammals.
Hence, some mammals are Indonesians, given that the set of Indonesians is not empty.
(AAI-4)

Propositional calculus agrees that it’s valid, but my teacher basically rejects everything not in Format 1 (major MP, minor SM, conclusion SP).

I never know that the concept of syllogism is heavily different between Indonesian and math. English and math both agree on the given concept of syllogism as in Wikipedia, right? I’m pretty sure all other languages do the same (at least Greek does). Why Indonesian has an insane syllogism rules is beyond my comprehension. Or maybe not Indonesian, but this Indonesian teacher; after all, all Indonesian sources I’ve read also state the same thing, only my teacher differs.

Sooner or later I might as well ditch Indonesian language. Seriously. Either it’s illogical or my teacher is illogical.

Thanksgiving

Apparently today is Thanksgiving in US. As I’m getting more and more Shaymin-like, it’s natural that I’m going to thank people.

A few thanks are directed to certain obvious people. I’m not sure whether God is a person or a deity or something, but whatever.
– God
– Parents and family
– Friends, school and not school
– Other people and non-people

But there are some that deserve just those special mentions that are within the third and fourth categories above (the first two have my highest gratitude). They are, in no particular order:
– levans for making me a moderator of G&FF and Mafia
– Indonesia’s math team leader for a chance to go to IMO
– betaveros for countless things, but mostly his puzzles, ideas to various stuffs, and basically a nice person to chat with
– Yoshiap for the same reasons as betaveros, although unmentioned reasons might differ
– My classmate who gifted me the Shaymin action figure (pictured in some previous recent post (yeah recently updated so just see))
– My English Native teachers; I can now do IELTS Writing Test with some ease as opposed to 5 months ago where I’m pretty much unable to do it at all, and my other skill have improved too
– Game Freak (or Ken Sugimori? Whatever) who invented Shaymin so I can, to put simply, love it
– Everyone who came at my 17th birthday party a few days ago. You all are great.

Perhaps to be updated later.

Thank you for everything. Let’s make more puzzles. Wait what?