Message #398

From: Roice Nelson <roice@gravitation3d.com>
Subject: Re: 3^5 Solution
Date: Tue, 07 Aug 2007 12:28:57 -0500

Hi Mark,

That was it, thanks! It is now posted for all to enjoy. I don’t know if
you opened your log with a text editor like notepad, but if not, you might
be interested to know your solution took 1,984,853 moves! When I saw that
this morning, I immediately wondered if the macros you used ever caused any
lag in the program, which your subsequent (wonderful) email then answered.
This was actually something I worried about since macros do tend to be
recursive (5-sided macros being built on 4-sided ones, themselves being
built on 3-sided ones, etc.), so they naturally get very long. I’m glad the
delay was limited to a few seconds and that the puzzle was still workable,
especially since you had done all the work up to the 4-sided pieces at that
point.

You asked about accessing moves in the macros. There is a file which can
also be opened with notepad (C:\Program
Files\MagicCube5D\MagicCube5D.macros) which contains the definitions of your
macros. If you never deleted your 3-sided macros, it is possible to look at
them there. The format is not so human friendly, but at least the number of
moves is easily readable. For each macro the first line contains 3
tab-delimited columns, e.g. something like this:

Macro 3-sided1 45

The first column always says Macro and just denotes the start of a new
macro. The second column is the name given, and the third is the number of
moves it contains. Subsequent lines contain all the actual moves, with a
max of 10 per line I think. Let me know if you’d like elaboration on the
format of the moves - I’ve never tried to directly interpret moves out of a
macro file myself. Some have shared their macro files with the group by
attaching them, which can be nice if one wants to study how others did their
work (if one performs a macro, you can then see the individual moves in
reverse by undoing through them). However, the macro definitions have a
serious limitation at the moment which makes them difficult to reverse
engineer what the solver was doing. They don’t save out the recursive,
nested nature, so all the moves are in one big flat list. I don’t know if
we’ll ever actually make related improvements that have been discussed, but
it would be nice if macros that called other macros were saved as such
instead of as a full list of moves. It would also be nice if after
performing a macro, one could undo the entire macro at once instead of
undoing the individual moves, which those same changes would enable. But
I’m digressing (sorry).

I wanted to tell you I enjoyed the comments about your wife, and I
completely related :) I appreciated my wife Sarah putting up with many
nights of me staying up late in my efforts to solve the puzzle. She also
encouraged me at lower points when inevitable discouragement and sleep
deprivation led me to say things like "what’s the point of this?" (the
answer as Melinda has pointed out to me…because the mountain is there!).

Finally, I wanted to ask your permission to link to this post from the
insanity page. I thought it was a good overview of attacking the 5D cube,
and could help others take the chance to attempt to dive in. Let me know.

Take Care,

Roice
P.S. I went ahead and spammed the group with this in case the information on
macro files might be of interest to anyone.

On 8/7/07, Mark Oram <markoram109@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
>
> Hi Roice,
>
> I did track down the file you indicated, and have
> attached this. Hopefully this is what you need!
>
> My solution made (very!) extensive use of macros, with
> latter ones being built on earlier ones. The log file
> is massive, in other words, so I hope it still makes
> it as an attachment. Obviously, please let me know if
> there are any problems.
>
> Thank-you again for your help, support and
> encouragement with all this,
>
> Mark.
>
>
>
> On 8/6/07, Roice Nelson <roice@gravitation3d.com> wrote:
> >
> > Hi Mark,
> >
> > Thanks very much for all your kind words. I really enjoyed your emails
> > today, and am happy to welcome you to this group! It was really great to
> > feel the satisfaction in your words.
> >
> > I’ve updated the Hall of Insanity with your name, but the zip file you
> > sent didn’t have your log file so I couldn’t upload that (it had a shortcut
> > to the program). If you would like your log posted as well, it should live
> > here:
> >
> > C:\Program Files\MagicCube5D\MagicCube5D.log
> >
> > Let me know if you have any troubles finding it (I’ve done the work to
> > allow saving to arbitrary files - I just need to post the new version at
> > some point).
> >
> > All the best,
> >
> > Roice
> >
> >
> > On 8/6/07, Mark Oram <markoram109@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
> > >
> > > Roice,
> > >
> > > I hope I have attached the correct file for my (just
> > > completed) 3^5 solution: please let me know if not!
> > >
> > > Thank-you for all of your efforts in creating this: it
> > > is a superb simulation.
> > >
> > > Best wishes,
> > >
> > > Mark Oram.
> > >
> > >