| Would this be cheating? |
LoopGuy
Kwon-Tom Obsessive
Puzzles: 761
Best Total: 45m 59s | Posted - 2012.08.27 06:12:50
Would it be cheating to take screen shots while I'm solving puzzles to help me to remember solutions to a particular area? For example, I'm trying to solve a puzzle and I find that the bottom left corner can be solved two ways. The top right can also be solved in two ways. So I have 4 combinations I need to try in the middle to see which one works. I seem to have trouble remembering the solutions I found and am wasting time recreating them. If I had 4 screen shots (or, I suppose, had I drawn the shapes on a scrap piece of paper, but screen shots would be simpler), I could just concentrate on solving the middle for each combination to see which one worked.
I realize that it shouldn't be hard to remember four shapes, but some of these hard puzzles are more complicated then that and seem to require more short term memory then I have available.
Thoughts? |
PoPPiNFresh
Kwon-Tom Obsessive
Puzzles: 1200
Best Total: 25m 13s | Posted - 2012.08.27 06:51:00
Are training wheels cheating?
I used to take screenshots. I never even considered that it might have been cheating. Does this make me a bad person? |
MondSemmel
Kwon-Tom Obsessive
Puzzles: 6159
Best Total: 7m 47s | Posted - 2012.08.27 12:33:56
First of all, remember the "Fix Current Position" option in the flash solver. It only helps you with one exploration, not several, but if you only need one, this is much faster.
I don't see anything wrong with creating screenshots - in my opinion, the basic rule is: "As long as the puzzle timer is measuring your time properly, you can do whatever you want to."
As a tip, instead of using screenshots, you could also open several tabs of the same puzzle in your browser.
I think to generate several equivalents of your current position, you could even save the current position, then reload it several times from the Kwontomloop main page. That way, you have the same situation as the one in your screenshots, but can manipulate each one independently.
This is not cheating because the puzzle timer is global - all puzzles use the same timer. You cannot trick the timer that way.
I hope some of my suggestions turn out to be useful. |
LoopGuy
Kwon-Tom Obsessive
Puzzles: 761
Best Total: 45m 59s | Posted - 2012.08.27 16:05:43
Quote: Originally Posted by PoPPiNFresh Are training wheels cheating?
I used to take screenshots. I never even considered that it might have been cheating. Does this make me a bad person? |
Not at all. I just am a bit more careful because I am a computer programmer and I COULD cheat very easily. It just defeats the point of me doing this (ie, to teach my brain to do new things and get some relatively quick satisfaction of solving what, for me, is a rather difficult puzzle). I just want to solve harder puzzles quicker, because I'm using up a lot of time on some of the Friday and Saturday puzzles, and I'm looking for inefficiencies in my solving techniques. |
Tilps
Kwon-Tom Obsessive
Puzzles: 6720
Best Total: 18m 37s | Posted - 2012.08.27 21:57:22
I once wrote a version of LoopDeLoop which talked directly to the Kwon-Tom Loop Javascript solver page. I disabled most of the features, but it was still considered cheating - and fair enough, right-click drag-draw isn't a feature even in the flash solver. (and I think I had a full undo/redo support rather than fix position...)
I think the memory augmentation of screen shots is fine though. |
