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Man and Beast 03: From Ungulates Outward. (Updated!) Systematic naming of the simplest Oblique Pieces.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
🔔Notification on Tue, Jan 16 12:53 AM UTC:

The editor Fergus Duniho has revised this page.


H. G. Muller wrote on Wed, May 12, 2021 07:56 AM UTC in reply to Ben Reiniger from 03:12 AM:

@H.G., The change was to conform better to FFEN notation; together with that change occuring back in 2018, I think fixing the handful of pages in the comment I linked to last time is the better solution.

Here's the comments recording the change in behavior:
https://www.chessvariants.com/index/listcomments.php?itemid=DiagramDesigner&order=DESC&first=36719&last=36723

Yep, that is how you wreck a website.


Ben Reiniger wrote on Wed, May 12, 2021 03:12 AM UTC in reply to H. G. Muller from Tue May 11 05:02 PM:

@H.G., The change was to conform better to FFEN notation; together with that change occuring back in 2018, I think fixing the handful of pages in the comment I linked to last time is the better solution.

Here's the comments recording the change in behavior:
https://www.chessvariants.com/index/listcomments.php?itemid=DiagramDesigner&order=DESC&first=36719&last=36723


On this page, I copied out Pieces section to Notepad++, and used this regex:

find: (drawdiagram.php\?code[^&{"]*)\.
repl: $1$2$3{.}

This finds periods after drawdiagram.php?code and any number of characters that are not among &, {, ". The exclusions prevent searching beyond the ffen code from the drawdiagram script. The match always gets the furthest ., and so we replace from the rightmost side; repeating this (and the excluded {) eventually replaces everything we want.

This means I have to mash "replace all" until all the replacements are done, but that's fine.

There's a bigger issue with generated images, like the ZEBU (.ZRH) and BISON (.JZ). When copying from the webUI editor, the surrounding squiggly brackets got url-encoded, so that they were missed by the regex, and the leading . got caught and changed. I manually fixed these two.

I'll ponder ways to improve this process, but thought I'd describe it here so that (1) I'll remember, and (2) anybody (handier with regex?) can provide feedback.

Finally, the diagram containing the forward-only versions had suffered a newline in its url, which together with some added indentation for some reason, interpreted the additional whitespaces as requesting stones added to the board. I fixed that as well.


And on a possibly totally unrelated note: some of the math expressions are weird, seemingly including extraneous characters just before every exponent character?


Jörg Knappen wrote on Tue, May 11, 2021 05:09 PM UTC in reply to H. G. Muller from 05:02 PM:

Just a few days ago I created some diagrams with dots meaning plain and empty squares. I usually use numbers for fully empty lines, but dots for spaces in lines with pieces or decorations.

I suspect that there are more diagrams of this kind.


H. G. Muller wrote on Tue, May 11, 2021 05:02 PM UTC:

Is here a compelling reason to not simply fix the diagram designer so that it shows a marker for a period? At the moment it seems to completely ignore the periods in the FEN code. So it doesn't seem to be in use for something else.


Ben Reiniger wrote on Tue, May 11, 2021 02:58 PM UTC in reply to H. G. Muller from 01:27 PM:

Apparently it relies on the diagram designer to display a period as some marker. And for some reason it doesn't.

I've noted this before. We used to allow a period for a movement marker.

https://www.chessvariants.com/index/listcomments.php?id=37824

I started to look into a fix last night, but was having problems connecting to the server. I'll try again tonight. If I can't find a clever enough search-and-replace method, I might consider a spinoff (legacy version) DiagramDesigner for these pages.


H. G. Muller wrote on Tue, May 11, 2021 01:27 PM UTC:

There must be something very wrong with my FireFox. Anyway, I managed to work around it by logging on to a remote Linux system, and using wget there to fetch the page. I wanted to see what it uses to generate the faulty images. This appears to be the following:

<IMG SRC="/play/pbm/drawdiagram.php?code=9-18-3.1.6.1.3-11.3.2-1.5.5N4-4J6.3.2-1.5.4.1.3-18-3.1.12-9&cols=19&nocoordinates=on&set=alfaerie-many">

Apparently it relies on the diagram designer to display a period as some marker. And for some reason it doesn't.


x x wrote on Tue, May 11, 2021 01:18 PM UTC in reply to H. G. Muller from 12:49 PM:

Must be on your end, it works for me: https://pastebin.com/ex2CW0Hj


Jörg Knappen wrote on Tue, May 11, 2021 01:16 PM UTC in reply to H. G. Muller from 12:49 PM:

I cannot reproduce that problem, pressing CTRL-U in Firefox gives me a clean and readable source page.


H. G. Muller wrote on Tue, May 11, 2021 12:49 PM UTC:

There is something very fishy with this Man & Beast page: I cannot get the page source! When I request it through my browser, I get the page source of a page announcing a 520 error by Cloudflare. This doesn't happen for any other page on CVP.


Eric Silverman wrote on Tue, May 11, 2021 12:28 AM UTC in reply to Liang Qi from Sun Nov 15 2020 09:50 AM:

Same for me, none of the diagrams work in these MAB articles. These articles seem really useful but are really dense with information and hard to follow, so without functioning diagrams I can't really make heads or tails out of them.


Liang Qi wrote on Sun, Nov 15, 2020 09:50 AM UTC in reply to Jean-Louis Cazaux from Sat Nov 14 08:13 AM:

Yeah, among all 21 MAB articles,I could not see complete movement diagram with full capture and not capture move.


Jean-Louis Cazaux wrote on Sat, Nov 14, 2020 08:13 AM UTC:

For reason I don't know, I don't see the full diagrams: I only see the boards and the piece in its middle, but the possible moves are not shown.


Liang Qi wrote on Sat, Nov 14, 2020 03:48 AM UTC:

You've lost the triangulate version of VERGER.


jumbods63 wrote on Fri, Feb 3, 2017 05:18 PM UTC:Excellent ★★★★★

There's a typo in this article: you say that "Vine+8:3 VUMP=VANDYMAN", but shouldn't that be 7:3 VUMP?


George Duke wrote on Thu, Jan 27, 2011 04:13 PM UTC:
How many of the 21 Man & Beasts have you learned well? 1? 10? All 20? No easy answers? Start with M&B03 here, the easiest. A piece moves, and there is a leap length. Now which of the compounds of Duals, always bi-compounds, deliver Mate with King alone? (not addressed much by Gilman's anti-problemist bent, let's say) Gilman notwithstanding, sufficient mating material is standard Chess criterion to separate major/minor piece-types, right? Answer: only the first two, Man(W+F) and Gnu(N+Camel), as experimenting on board shows. The formula algebraically is two times the sum of SOLLs, to find the other one that matches for each compound. If already lost, read the article and other comments. By the third one and outward the fourth, fifth, the piece-type does not achieve it. So only the first two compounds of Duals deliver mate. That means all the other compoundings of Duals are rather weak units made as they are of two long-range leapers, known to be low piece-value. All that seems to recommend them then after those first two Dual-compounds is that they triangulate. Triangulate of course is to return in three, the way Queen or King do. Now other paired leapers, for example (Dabbabah + Camel), triangulate without being Duals; so triangulating is not really all that unique. Bi-compound duals are okay as mnemonic and organizing thought as far as that goes, but not great use to put into CVs once at and beyond Camel and Zebra distances. They are essential mostly for nomenclature. For follow-up, does Gilman really stress duals in his 200 CVs? Or mostly just in the Man & Beasts? Rather than compounds of duals, I think Gilman and other designers implement long-range component with short-range atom N,F,W,D, or A. That creates a piece-type of more useful point value 3.5 to 6.0.

George Duke wrote on Tue, Oct 6, 2009 05:35 PM UTC:
ChessboardMath11 Quiz 3.September.2009 #(1) asks ''Identify Umbrella and Mallet.'' This is technical even for Charles Gilman. Umbrella is forward only 5,4 leaper version of Rector, and Mallet is forward only leaper version of 6,1 Flamingo. That's the answer, appearing here after the paragraph beginning ''Shogi...'' In practice they might become compound with some Pawn, such as Jeremy just lists from Gilman's other work. The ten/eleven questions of the quiz are being answered periodically every few days. Then they can be summed up back at ChessboardMath11 later. #(2) already answered is that at ''Worse Than Worthless'' Betza describes Nattering Nabobs of Negativity for CDA choice. 
http://www.chessvariants.org/index/listcomments.php?subjectid=chessboardmath11

💡📝Charles Gilman wrote on Mon, Aug 17, 2009 05:44 PM UTC:
[comment withdrawn]

💡📝Charles Gilman wrote on Mon, Jun 29, 2009 06:15 AM UTC:
I have now extended what I now realise was an unnecessarily small range of 2d MAB 14 leapers to larger coordinate 7, using up Ho- and Mu- among the prefixes available. I have decided to rethink 10:n leapers' names as it has dawned on me that they share their SOLLs with 8:6:n ones and that would add a whole tranche of extra new names if I allowed reversibility without duplication. Names ending in -er are of course unsuitable for this because of the Rector, likewise -ry hecause of the existing Rytas. Some of these might be reused elsewhere.

💡📝Charles Gilman wrote on Wed, Jun 24, 2009 07:38 AM UTC:
While my names cover everything out to max coordinate 9, my coverage beyond that to 13 is fairly patchy. I can identify 10:2 Zrene, 10:4 Sharolais, 10:6 Grine, 10:8 Rherolais, 11:1 Pamel, 11:3 Bemel, 11:5 Humel, 11:7 Lamel, 12:2 Pharolais. 12:3 Ghimois, 12:5 Zoetrope, 12:8 Zeltrap, 12:9 Nhamois, 12:10 Rherolais, 13:1 Cumel, 13:3 Gamel, 13:5 Tomel. Colourswitching pieces to fill just that in would require 12 distinct starting letter pairs - for 10:1/11:9, 10:3/13:7, 10:7, 10:9, 11:2/13:9, 11:4, 11:6, 11:8, 11:10, 12:1/13:11, 12:7, and 12:11. Going out to 15 would require further ones. There are a few pairs left - bo by ce cy fy gy hi ho hy ja je ji jo ju jy ly ma mu my qu ri ru sy ti tu ty vi vu vy wa wu wy xa xo xu xy za zi zu zy - but few are promising and I welcome suggestions. Best to avoid tu on account of its rude Bishop compound. Nor can I see how to continue the sequences ending in Albatross and Deacon. Then names with a C and A would need devising for 10:5, 12:4, 12:6, 14:7, and 15:5 leapers. Is it all worth it for pieces that would be very weak even on a 16x16 board? Personally I doubt it, but again suggestions are welcome.

George Duke wrote on Tue, Jun 23, 2009 11:00 PM UTC:
All oblique coprime leapers are switching in 2-D, either changing rank and file from odd to even or vice versa, or changing binding (the latter the odd-SOLL ones). How about SOLL in cubes? We found one-step Bishop there root-2 and one-step Unicorn triagonal root-3, making their basic SOLLs 2 and 3. Covering in detail oblique cubes' movers will be ''M&B05: Punning by Numbers'' later. For Forward Only FO, Gilman names Shogi Knight HELM. FO Flamingo 6,1 is of course MALLET 6,1 through 'Alice in Wonderland' croquet. FO 3,1 HUMP, merely a Camel FO, is the one causing so much trouble 5 years ago, as to appropriateness, for members' then, as now, carelessly reading, or not reading, Gilman's (or any quality producer's) straightforward definitions. Gilman concludes 'M&B03': ''No piece's long coordinate exceeds 13. This is partly as simple pieces with a longer leap are weak on any reasonable sized-board, partly for want of names for triangulating compounds.'' Adrian King's Jupiter is 16x16 and Gilman should name at least all the 15s. Their long dimension would leap from back-rank to back-rank of Jupiter, not too much to ask. If you can name the 13s, you can name the 15s. And ''weak''? In general, of course the longer solitary leap loses strength, but there are tradeoffs, not least the board. Namel 7,1 was critical even on regular 8x10 to solve one Problem Theme in 2007. No other shorter leaper would have worked. Think of Ramayana board of only 84 with outlier squares in Archipelago and expand it. A long leaper can sometimes get in one jump 11, 12, or 15 away it takes sliders several moves to reach, if they ever get there at all. The particular 13,5 TOMEL or unnamed 15,11 may be of greater piece-value than Zebra or Giraffe on a case basis. Nomenclature should be open-ended and ever-growing.

George Duke wrote on Mon, Jun 22, 2009 04:30 PM UTC:
If you do not know these, any more you are rowing blindly, thrashing in thin air (remember flat earth?), designing in the void, to be condemned forever and stockaded for now. Duals include Ferz->Wazir, N->Camel, Zebra->Zemel, Giraffe->Gimel, Antelope->Namel. They should become second nature and their relationships. For example, Antelope 4,3 = 25 SOLL. x2=50. 50= SOLL Namel 7,1. Giraffe 4,1 = SOLL 17, x2=34 -> as 25+9, 5,3 Gimel. Triangulating is not the norm for oblique leaper. That is why we compound them, like Carrera compounds in 1617, not so long ago, B and N to Centaur, who triangulates. Coprime oblique leapers in fact none of them triangulate, because in squares they switch. They either switch colour, or they switch rank as to odd or even from origination. // (1) Still being thought-processed: Non-coprime NN 2,4 cannot triangulate 2-D either but keeps both colour and ranks' binding odd/even; not switching here = not triangulating? (2) Determining triangulation in cubes depends on the board's 3 dimensions with respect to the coordinates of the leaper.

George Duke wrote on Mon, Jun 22, 2009 04:18 PM UTC:
M&B03 is pivotal. Square of leap length. 1,2 Knight's SOLL is 5, that's odd, so Knight is not colourbound. 1,3 Camel's SOLL is 10, that's even, so Camel is colourbound. Knight switches from one Bishop binding to the other each move, right? Therefore N cannot return to the same square in three, only two, four etc. Compounds of duals triangulate, but compound of any two single leapers not duals may or may not. For ex., Gazelle (N+Zebra) colourswitches, like each of its legs, and so needs 4 (or 2 trivial case) to return. 5,2 leaper half-ungulate Satyr has SOLL 29, Saturn's year in fact. 25+4=29. x2=58, which requires 49+9 and obvious 7,3 for dual Samel. Among the dozen and more duals (depending how far out we go), 6,1 Flamingo and 7,5 Famel are called triangulating compound Flambeau, good one, that will fit onto even 8x8, bound to the double outer perimetre for my Problem Themes, only unable to reach the centre 4x4, a safe haven from burning by the Flambeau. The math is 36+1=37. x2=74, and 7^2 + 5^2=74. FLAMBEAU is a torch such as carried by Shakespeare's Lady Macbeth. --'Tis unnatural, even like the deed that's done. On Tuesday last, a Falcon, towering in her pride of place, was by a mousing owl hawk'd at and killed. Act II scene iii Macbeth.

George Duke wrote on Sat, Jun 20, 2009 03:10 PM UTC:
Okay. With Gilman's indulgence we keep it still basic (and only square-based), to win a few more converts to systematizing. The duals will all end in -el, because Camel and Knight are duals, and Camel has been around a long time. Move from a starting square twice as Knight and back to same square as a Camel: duals: duals triangulating back. Oblique triangulators end in -u, because Gnu has been around for a long time, and Camel + Knight is Gnu, meaning Gnu is sure to be the second compound triangulator. What is the first one? Why non-royal King, compound of Wazir + Ferz; 1,2,3. Gilman's is a system of nomenclature. Some amateur-night designer may already be using Gnu(C+N) once in a while in fantastical back-rank for no other reason than he wants more choice in jumping. He can well go through life never knowing about duals or triangulation and still make lots of CV art. For smart people let's try Zebra + Zemel = Zebu. 2,3 has leap length of root-13 and SOLL 13. Twice that is 26 and sure enough there are corresponding squares 25 and 1, so Zemel is 5,1. (I am surpirsed 5,1 is not previously named) Anyway now a piece can move from b1 to d4 to g2 and back to b1, triangulating, and call that compound of duals Zebu. All ratings of a M&B will be 'Excellent' but some few chapters will just not have rating for minor protest, nothing in between. One weakness throughout is lack of dates of invention. Highly sensitive to cultural history is Gilman, unlike lesser designers who are anti-historical let alone ahistorical. My instinct is to refer to any pieces the first time by year or period. For example, 13th century Gryphon, 17th century Centaur(BN), 1907 Unicorn, circa 1912 Nightrider, 1940s Hunter and Falcon of Schultz, 1970s Angel of Conway, 1992 Falcon, 2005 Promoter. A major question later will be, to what extent does all this knowledge algebraic and geometric make better rules-sets mind to mind?

💡📝Charles Gilman wrote on Thu, Jun 18, 2009 06:29 PM UTC:
At first sight 'Scorpion 3, Dragon 4 squares (not pathways), Phoenix 6, and Roc 7' seemed to omit 5, but perhaps you meant (after Moo 2 and Falcon 3) 'Scorpion 4, Dragon 5, Phoenix 6, and Roc 7'. Is this correct. I do not recall seeing your Phoenix and Roc mentioned before, but once you clarify I will endeavour to add them to the list at the end of MAB 13.

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