Parallelograms are hard.
October 14, 2008 10:01 AM Subscribe
I think my score is about even with Stevie Wonder's.
posted by milarepa at 10:11 AM on October 14, 2008
posted by milarepa at 10:11 AM on October 14, 2008
I did much better than I expected. But I would have done even better had I know what "equidistant to the edges" meant. Although now that I just typed "equidistant" I figured out what that means. Duh!
posted by Slack-a-gogo at 10:13 AM on October 14, 2008
posted by Slack-a-gogo at 10:13 AM on October 14, 2008
Glad I'm not a carpenter. (Still, I did better han I expected!)
posted by not_on_display at 10:19 AM on October 14, 2008
posted by not_on_display at 10:19 AM on October 14, 2008
Man, I'm good with that whole convergence and parallelogram thing. The midpoint of triangles, not so much.
posted by six-or-six-thirty at 10:20 AM on October 14, 2008
posted by six-or-six-thirty at 10:20 AM on October 14, 2008
I have big brass eyeballs, which strangely enough, are not actually very effective for the whole "vision thing."
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 10:22 AM on October 14, 2008
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 10:22 AM on October 14, 2008
3.01... but I should probably do it again since one slip gave me a 19.2 score. :)
posted by rokusan at 10:23 AM on October 14, 2008
posted by rokusan at 10:23 AM on October 14, 2008
The convergence threw me. Don't the lines converge wherever you drag the square? (14 units off, I guess not)
posted by stupidsexyFlanders at 10:23 AM on October 14, 2008
posted by stupidsexyFlanders at 10:23 AM on October 14, 2008
I wonder if it's the triangle midpoint thing fucks most people up, yeah. I'd love to see a per-category breakdown of aggregate scores, but I'm not finding anything like that on the site.
posted by cortex at 10:24 AM on October 14, 2008
posted by cortex at 10:24 AM on October 14, 2008
2.56! I managed 0.3 in bisecting tho, otherwise would have been much higher.
stupidSexyFlanders, I think it wanted the convergence point of the fixed lines. The ones that moved with the square were just for helpful guidance, as far as I could tell.
posted by Tapioca at 10:27 AM on October 14, 2008
stupidSexyFlanders, I think it wanted the convergence point of the fixed lines. The ones that moved with the square were just for helpful guidance, as far as I could tell.
posted by Tapioca at 10:27 AM on October 14, 2008
try it w/ your left hand. brain exercise.
posted by stbalbach at 10:30 AM on October 14, 2008 [1 favorite]
posted by stbalbach at 10:30 AM on October 14, 2008 [1 favorite]
Overall score: 3.62. In the most popular point on the graph, apparently.
posted by Pronoiac at 10:33 AM on October 14, 2008
posted by Pronoiac at 10:33 AM on October 14, 2008
I can do the right angle, midpoint, convergence and bisect really well (~1.0 units if I'm paying attention) most of the time. The others I'm lucky to get inside 4 units if that makes any sense at all.
posted by Skorgu at 10:34 AM on October 14, 2008
posted by Skorgu at 10:34 AM on October 14, 2008
Fantastic. Great find.
posted by schyler523 at 10:35 AM on October 14, 2008
posted by schyler523 at 10:35 AM on October 14, 2008
I did bad on this, partly because I have no idea what a parallelogram is. I should probably look that up before I play it again.
posted by nooneyouknow at 10:38 AM on October 14, 2008
posted by nooneyouknow at 10:38 AM on October 14, 2008
The triangle thing gets better with a bit of practice
I was averaging less that 2 when I accidentally clicked near the edge of circle and it took me up to 8! agggh!
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 10:39 AM on October 14, 2008
I was averaging less that 2 when I accidentally clicked near the edge of circle and it took me up to 8! agggh!
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 10:39 AM on October 14, 2008
3.49 for me, just barely better than average according to their curve - this was fun.
posted by wanderingmind at 10:39 AM on October 14, 2008
posted by wanderingmind at 10:39 AM on October 14, 2008
2.36
Yeah, I wish I had this when I was a kid and we fought over the placement of the goal-line in pickup football. I knew I could tell perpendicular to the sidelines better the Jeff!
posted by mouthnoize at 10:42 AM on October 14, 2008
Yeah, I wish I had this when I was a kid and we fought over the placement of the goal-line in pickup football. I knew I could tell perpendicular to the sidelines better the Jeff!
posted by mouthnoize at 10:42 AM on October 14, 2008
3.63 ...i'm popular too....(of course, being sexy doesn't hurt either)
would love to see breakdowns as well...did worst on the parallelogram, equidistant triangle...best on rt. angle, bisecting, center of circle (thinking about the center of circle...i just read last night that the sun is oblate by only 6 miles (!)...even the earth is chubbier around the middle...)
posted by sexyrobot at 10:44 AM on October 14, 2008
would love to see breakdowns as well...did worst on the parallelogram, equidistant triangle...best on rt. angle, bisecting, center of circle (thinking about the center of circle...i just read last night that the sun is oblate by only 6 miles (!)...even the earth is chubbier around the middle...)
posted by sexyrobot at 10:44 AM on October 14, 2008
-0.16
posted by Christ, what an asshole at 10:49 AM on October 14, 2008 [1 favorite]
posted by Christ, what an asshole at 10:49 AM on October 14, 2008 [1 favorite]
On my cp at least the right angle is off. Each time they add about 2 or 3 degrees. I thought I was imagining things until I checked it with an index card.
posted by zeugitai_guy at 10:55 AM on October 14, 2008
posted by zeugitai_guy at 10:55 AM on October 14, 2008
On my cp at least the right angle is off. Each time they add about 2 or 3 degrees. I thought I was imagining things until I checked it with an index card.
If you're running a widescreen LCD, it's easy to end up in a slightly off-square resolution (e.g. 1280x768 vs. 1280x720 modes on 16:9 and 16:10 ratio widescreens, respectively), which would give you that sort of problem.
Likewise, calibration of the picture on a CRT could contribute to off-square (and otherwise sublty distorted) display geometry.
posted by cortex at 11:01 AM on October 14, 2008
If you're running a widescreen LCD, it's easy to end up in a slightly off-square resolution (e.g. 1280x768 vs. 1280x720 modes on 16:9 and 16:10 ratio widescreens, respectively), which would give you that sort of problem.
Likewise, calibration of the picture on a CRT could contribute to off-square (and otherwise sublty distorted) display geometry.
posted by cortex at 11:01 AM on October 14, 2008
6.16
I blame my dry contacts and my inability to understand the intersection of angles.
posted by fijiwriter at 11:10 AM on October 14, 2008
I blame my dry contacts and my inability to understand the intersection of angles.
posted by fijiwriter at 11:10 AM on October 14, 2008
Parallelogram 31.8
Midpoint 3.6
Bisect angle 0.5
Triangle center 1.0
Circle center 3.6
Right angle 3.5
Convergence 5.1
Average error: 7.01
Fuck you, parallelogram.
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 11:11 AM on October 14, 2008 [1 favorite]
Midpoint 3.6
Bisect angle 0.5
Triangle center 1.0
Circle center 3.6
Right angle 3.5
Convergence 5.1
Average error: 7.01
Fuck you, parallelogram.
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 11:11 AM on October 14, 2008 [1 favorite]
Please dont hold a gun to my head as I try to find the center of a triangle!
posted by captainsohler at 11:14 AM on October 14, 2008
posted by captainsohler at 11:14 AM on October 14, 2008
3.04. I do extremely well in the right-angle, bisection, parallelogram and convergence tests, but finding centers is apparently impossible for me. I had three 0.0s.
posted by sonic meat machine at 11:19 AM on October 14, 2008
posted by sonic meat machine at 11:19 AM on October 14, 2008
I AM KING OF CENTER FINDING!
But am also Private Second Class, Pee Pants of Right Angle Location.
posted by robocop is bleeding at 11:20 AM on October 14, 2008
But am also Private Second Class, Pee Pants of Right Angle Location.
posted by robocop is bleeding at 11:20 AM on October 14, 2008
If it helps on the triangle, picture a circle touching all three sides, & aim for its center.
posted by Pronoiac at 11:21 AM on October 14, 2008
posted by Pronoiac at 11:21 AM on October 14, 2008
3.71. Bisection is surprisingly hard.
posted by of strange foe at 11:29 AM on October 14, 2008
posted by of strange foe at 11:29 AM on October 14, 2008
8.09. Screw convergence.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 11:32 AM on October 14, 2008
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 11:32 AM on October 14, 2008
5.23 My biggest problem was definitely with convergence. 39.2 on the first one... yikes. I got 0.0 on the third circle center, though, and felt ridiculously proud of myself. Cool find.
posted by TrinaSelwyn at 11:34 AM on October 14, 2008
posted by TrinaSelwyn at 11:34 AM on October 14, 2008
15.71. In my defense, I really have no clue what you're supposed to be trying to do in the "Find the mid-point of the line segment" and "Find the point of convergence" ones, so I just sort of moved stuff about until the lines looked nice.
posted by jack_mo at 11:43 AM on October 14, 2008
posted by jack_mo at 11:43 AM on October 14, 2008
3.83 on the second try...gah! but, i did get a 0.0 on the parallelogram...hah!
posted by sexyrobot at 11:44 AM on October 14, 2008
posted by sexyrobot at 11:44 AM on October 14, 2008
You'd figure I'd be better at this game, what with the abundance of eyes and all.
10.98
posted by eyeballkid at 11:46 AM on October 14, 2008
10.98
posted by eyeballkid at 11:46 AM on October 14, 2008
(In other news, it took me two goes to pass maths GCSE, and when I took an IQ type test at school, they assumed there'd been an error in marking the spatial awareness/what shape comes next bit, until I was retested and did even worse.)
posted by jack_mo at 11:47 AM on October 14, 2008
posted by jack_mo at 11:47 AM on October 14, 2008
That was fun, but I wish the mouse arrow would vanish or turn into a crosshairs. My arrow was very distracting and frustrating.
posted by JBennett at 11:54 AM on October 14, 2008
posted by JBennett at 11:54 AM on October 14, 2008
Convergence is the easiest one... just get all the lines straight.
posted by autodidact at 11:55 AM on October 14, 2008
posted by autodidact at 11:55 AM on October 14, 2008
I was pretty sweet on convergence and the centre of the circle. Crap at the rest though.
I should never attempt to put shelves up either, as I am apparently terrible at finding right-angles.
posted by djgh at 11:55 AM on October 14, 2008
I should never attempt to put shelves up either, as I am apparently terrible at finding right-angles.
posted by djgh at 11:55 AM on October 14, 2008
2.86, but I'm on a widescreen. Centers, bisecting, and convergence were easy - right angles and parallelograms were hard.
posted by bashos_frog at 11:58 AM on October 14, 2008
posted by bashos_frog at 11:58 AM on October 14, 2008
3.2. I like it, it's a simple idea and I found the distribution of scores really interesting; I think this must be a fruitful field of research in cognition. Estimating is such a characteristic mode of thought for us; yet you rarely (or I rarely) hear about people modeling it in an attempt to understand, for example, creativity or problem-solving. I also bet it's pretty hard to shift your score significantly even with practice - again, just a guess, but it seems like you're likely to hit a plateau pretty fast. Maybe this kind of thing isn't totally hard-wired but it feels pretty well baked in to me.
posted by Wolfdog at 11:59 AM on October 14, 2008
posted by Wolfdog at 11:59 AM on October 14, 2008
2.45. I rule.
posted by middleclasstool at 12:08 PM on October 14, 2008
posted by middleclasstool at 12:08 PM on October 14, 2008
Mouse arrow distracting, and I want to be able to tweak it and click OK.
posted by seanmpuckett at 12:14 PM on October 14, 2008
posted by seanmpuckett at 12:14 PM on October 14, 2008
Stupid touchpad.. the granularity of this thing is like 3 units.
posted by tehloki at 12:22 PM on October 14, 2008
posted by tehloki at 12:22 PM on October 14, 2008
This would be a better "drunkfilter" test than the arithmetic problems, wouldn't it?
posted by Wolfdog at 12:24 PM on October 14, 2008 [1 favorite]
posted by Wolfdog at 12:24 PM on October 14, 2008 [1 favorite]
2.90. Finding centers is apparently hard, and so are right angles, although I lucked out on the third attempt and got a 0.1 score.
posted by daniel_charms at 12:53 PM on October 14, 2008
posted by daniel_charms at 12:53 PM on October 14, 2008
Woo, 2.25 for me, good for the #9 slot on the last 500 rounds. The fact that this game is played on a computer monitor means you can cheat on some of these tests a little bit by looking at the stairstepping patterns of pixels on the screen.
posted by letourneau at 12:54 PM on October 14, 2008
posted by letourneau at 12:54 PM on October 14, 2008
Didn't we do his binary wooden adding machine before? This site is rich far beyond the eyeball game.
posted by caddis at 1:07 PM on October 14, 2008
posted by caddis at 1:07 PM on October 14, 2008
2.35. I guess 4 years of art school come in handy (finally.)
posted by The Whelk at 1:12 PM on October 14, 2008
posted by The Whelk at 1:12 PM on October 14, 2008
13.86
posted by jason's_planet at 1:19 PM on October 14, 2008
posted by jason's_planet at 1:19 PM on October 14, 2008
you can cheat on some of these tests a little bit by looking at the stairstepping patterns of pixels on the screen.
And here I thought I was so clever for rigging my machine up to work with this old vectrex display. Curses!
posted by Wolfdog at 1:57 PM on October 14, 2008
And here I thought I was so clever for rigging my machine up to work with this old vectrex display. Curses!
posted by Wolfdog at 1:57 PM on October 14, 2008
3.56
I am good at right angles and bisection but crappy at centers.
posted by rmless at 2:19 PM on October 14, 2008
I am good at right angles and bisection but crappy at centers.
posted by rmless at 2:19 PM on October 14, 2008
The triangle equidistance bit me too... I was going for equidistant to vertices rather than edges which skewed my first two numbers greatly.
3.30
posted by kingbenny at 2:19 PM on October 14, 2008
3.30
posted by kingbenny at 2:19 PM on October 14, 2008
2.2, which should be the 5th highest score in the last 500 games, but it didn't record it. Hrmph.
posted by blm at 2:29 PM on October 14, 2008
posted by blm at 2:29 PM on October 14, 2008
3.94. I am the king of Bisection town (0.2), but I've been kicked out of Convergence for drunk and disorderly (12.5).
I kind of want to try it again, but I don't want to know that I'm worse than beginner's luck (averaged over three tries).
posted by quin at 2:30 PM on October 14, 2008
I kind of want to try it again, but I don't want to know that I'm worse than beginner's luck (averaged over three tries).
posted by quin at 2:30 PM on October 14, 2008
I may have assumed parallelogram to mean trapezium on my first attempt...
posted by knapah at 2:36 PM on October 14, 2008
posted by knapah at 2:36 PM on October 14, 2008
Tricky! 8.1 - Didn't help that I was getting in the 200's for the first couple.
posted by simplesharps at 3:38 PM on October 14, 2008
posted by simplesharps at 3:38 PM on October 14, 2008
convergence is easy, you just want to make all 3 lines straight. If you can do two of the lines you automatically get the third. So make one line straight, move the cursor up or down that line until one of the others line up.
posted by substrate at 3:52 PM on October 14, 2008
posted by substrate at 3:52 PM on October 14, 2008
so i pulled a 17.56... and what i'm curious about is The Method.
The Method being how do all you super low scoring folks go about placing your decisions.
are you using visualization techniques?
running off of intuitions ("it just feels right here...").
using tricks that the lay-type wouldn't be familiar with?
my curiosity is piqued as i scored a low ball and was more than a little surprised.
of course, i did spend my whole morning giggling at stupid zen anti-koans... maybe i broke something.
posted by artof.mulata at 3:56 PM on October 14, 2008
The Method being how do all you super low scoring folks go about placing your decisions.
are you using visualization techniques?
running off of intuitions ("it just feels right here...").
using tricks that the lay-type wouldn't be familiar with?
my curiosity is piqued as i scored a low ball and was more than a little surprised.
of course, i did spend my whole morning giggling at stupid zen anti-koans... maybe i broke something.
posted by artof.mulata at 3:56 PM on October 14, 2008
I got 0.0 at convergence and I'm now waiting for Sony to call me.
posted by ersatz at 4:19 PM on October 14, 2008
posted by ersatz at 4:19 PM on October 14, 2008
Best of four: 2.69.
I've been trying to identify a consistent technique, artof.mulata, and I can't. For the right angle and angle bisection, I don't really have to think about it--the answer is just obvious. For the parallelogram I make the smaller angles match. Everything else is much harder, and involves squinting and cocking my head and cursing. The triangle center never looks right, even when I'm pretty close. The line segment midpoint always looks right and never is.
posted by hippugeek at 4:52 PM on October 14, 2008
I've been trying to identify a consistent technique, artof.mulata, and I can't. For the right angle and angle bisection, I don't really have to think about it--the answer is just obvious. For the parallelogram I make the smaller angles match. Everything else is much harder, and involves squinting and cocking my head and cursing. The triangle center never looks right, even when I'm pretty close. The line segment midpoint always looks right and never is.
posted by hippugeek at 4:52 PM on October 14, 2008
3rd try 3.23...hey, i'm getting better...
as far as technique...looking closelier at how the lines raster/anti-alias on the monitor seems to help...these are all geometric 'constructions', btw...they can all be solved with just a straightedge and compass (no ruler, no protractor) (i think so anyway...its been yuheeears...but i remember enjoying the bit about finding the centers of things using only a compass)
posted by sexyrobot at 5:34 PM on October 14, 2008
as far as technique...looking closelier at how the lines raster/anti-alias on the monitor seems to help...these are all geometric 'constructions', btw...they can all be solved with just a straightedge and compass (no ruler, no protractor) (i think so anyway...its been yuheeears...but i remember enjoying the bit about finding the centers of things using only a compass)
posted by sexyrobot at 5:34 PM on October 14, 2008
What a great post!!
I admit I've played it 3 times now, averaging around 3. I can do bisecting, the parallelogram, the right angle, and the converging lines just fine. I am *really* bad at finding the center of a circle, which is strange, because intuitively I probably would have guessed that circle-center-finding would be the easiest task. It seems as though people here are remarkably varied in their strengths and weaknesses. Very interesting. At first, it seemed as though there was the "I can find the center, but I suck at bisection" crowd and the "bisection is easy but finding the center is impossible" crowd. But now it appears that there's a much wider distribution of eyeballing talents.
posted by Cygnet at 6:38 PM on October 14, 2008
I admit I've played it 3 times now, averaging around 3. I can do bisecting, the parallelogram, the right angle, and the converging lines just fine. I am *really* bad at finding the center of a circle, which is strange, because intuitively I probably would have guessed that circle-center-finding would be the easiest task. It seems as though people here are remarkably varied in their strengths and weaknesses. Very interesting. At first, it seemed as though there was the "I can find the center, but I suck at bisection" crowd and the "bisection is easy but finding the center is impossible" crowd. But now it appears that there's a much wider distribution of eyeballing talents.
posted by Cygnet at 6:38 PM on October 14, 2008
I suck (4.8 avg) but I rocked a 0.1 TWICE on the right angle jibby. Woo-hoo I'm an L-7 squizzare.
posted by Joseph Gurl at 6:56 PM on October 14, 2008
posted by Joseph Gurl at 6:56 PM on October 14, 2008
5.53
I had way too much trouble with the damnable parallelogram, but I did manage to get the exact center of the circle and the line twice! Yay! Three times in a row makes your eyes start to burn.
posted by starfyr at 7:07 PM on October 14, 2008
I had way too much trouble with the damnable parallelogram, but I did manage to get the exact center of the circle and the line twice! Yay! Three times in a row makes your eyes start to burn.
posted by starfyr at 7:07 PM on October 14, 2008
I CAN BISECT AN ANGLE! But apparently drawing right angles are too much for me...
posted by pedstel at 10:05 PM on October 14, 2008
posted by pedstel at 10:05 PM on October 14, 2008
1.84 baby!
Finally some proof that all those hours of Photoshop have taught me something.
posted by otherthings_ at 11:11 PM on October 14, 2008
Finally some proof that all those hours of Photoshop have taught me something.
posted by otherthings_ at 11:11 PM on October 14, 2008
Hint: bad antialiasing is your friend here.
posted by otherthings_ at 11:12 PM on October 14, 2008
posted by otherthings_ at 11:12 PM on October 14, 2008
1.61.
Good grief. I should be doing anything but this...
posted by otherthings_ at 11:22 PM on October 14, 2008
Good grief. I should be doing anything but this...
posted by otherthings_ at 11:22 PM on October 14, 2008
1.42, which apparently is the lowest score of the last 10,000 plays.
Don't think I can beat that without needing surgery afterwards.
posted by otherthings_ at 11:31 PM on October 14, 2008
Don't think I can beat that without needing surgery afterwards.
posted by otherthings_ at 11:31 PM on October 14, 2008
Mark the point equidistant to the edges [of the triangle]
Did anyone else try to figure out how to mark a point very very far away from the triangle?
posted by alasdair at 2:49 AM on October 16, 2008
Did anyone else try to figure out how to mark a point very very far away from the triangle?
posted by alasdair at 2:49 AM on October 16, 2008
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posted by Mister_A at 10:06 AM on October 14, 2008