This is Dragon the Dragon, or just Dragon for short. Here, I've drawn the character (in a stock pose from my dinosaur gallery) in apparent pursuit of a butterfly.
Who is Dragon?
Dragon is the mascot of Starfall (dot) com: an early-learning website with some simple games and stories for children.
As for me, I'll pass on the plush. Dragon is ok, I guess, but where are his wings? Perhaps, like Icarus, Dragon flew too close to the sun, and his wings evaporated ...that would help explain the name 'Starfall' for his site. ^^
How'd I discover Starfall?
Via this Starfall pencil I found in a box of stubs from the scrap shop. I didn't know what kind of site Starfall was, but something told me to keep the pencil (somewhat odd since I tend not to like pencils such as this---I prefer vintage and/or 'yellow' pencils).
As it turned out, Starfall wasn't very exciting for me---I won't even say I found the site/its characters particularly cute, but I somehow spent nearly an hour clicking around on it. ^^
The most amusing thing, for me, was in transitioning from the kids area to the shop that's reserved for grown-ups. To access the shop, the site has to be confident you're an adult, and it achieves this by asking a math question, such as,
"The Starfall Store is for grown ups. Please enter the sum of ten and twenty-five"
Actually, is that statement related to the command? Hm...
Either way, I'm sure any child making use of the Starfall site (which, in part, is designed to assist in reading and arithmetic practice), could read the question and figure its answer. At the very least, the kid would know how to open a calculator app. :P Last, what kid would use their parents' credit card to buy (what's effectively) homework? :P
Anyway, I hope you guys enjoyed ...and don't worry about the butterfly; Dragon wouldn't really catch it (it would traumatize him). ^^
Amusing observations. I assume they had to keep to basic arithmetic because some adults dont even seem to know anything more than the 4 basic operations and are stumped by algebra (let alone anything more advanced like definite integrals) ... sigh ...
Amusing observations. I assume they had to keep to basic arithmetic because some adults dont even se
Better not touch the Magic The Gathering TCG. I hear there is a way to stack multiple layers of primitive recursion on top of one another. Some crazy people asked (and answered) the following question: what is the most *non-infinite damage that can be dealt on the first turn assuming you go first, with a legal vintage 60 card deck and assuming all matters of luck go your way.
*By non-infinite the stipulation means no infinite combos and nothing that allows for arbitrary damage (player decides damage).
The answer they got gets into low tier googology territory:
There are several versions. The earliest version alone was estimated to deal approximately 2-->40-->23 damage, and later versions have gotten the last number as high as 417 (the last number is the one that matters the most). I linked you to the oldest version, but I don't expect you to actually go through it. I don't know enough about MtG to understand it myself, but it appears the strategy is roughly to set up processes that iterate, and then another card is added to iterate all previous processes. This is how the multiple recursions happen. It's doubtful the original game designers realized the insanity they had unleashed here. The combo is very long so I've never actually bothered to work out the whole thing myself, but I do find it interesting.
These numbers are larger than any of the numbers I previously discussed with you. To get a handle of it imagine that the operations form a hierarchy. Addition = 1, multiplication = 2, exponentiation = 3. It turns out you can keep going ... tetration = 4, pentation = 5, hexation = 6, heptation = 7, octation = 8, etc. etc. The hierarchy is infinite. Each operation involves iterations of the previous operation resolved from right to left. Needless to say even tetration leads to enormous numbers. A mere 4 tetrated to the 4th for example, is larger than a googolplex. To put 2-->40-->23 into perspective, this is 23 layers above multiplication! By comparison a googolplex is about a lower-tier 4, grangol and grangoldex are 4 and low-tier 5, and megiston (the largest I mentioned previously I think) is about a 5. These numbers already are enormous, but having dozens or hundreds of layers of recursion is essentially beyond comprehension.
That's the craziest thing I've ever seen in a TCG. Not sure if something similar exists in Yu-Gi-Oh! Seriously doubt Pokemon has anything like this, as far as I know there aren't stackable effects.
By the way, all of this is obviously theoretical and highly impractical. I think you get like 20 hit points in MtG ... ... ... ... so yeah, total overkill ;p
Better not touch the Magic The Gathering TCG. I hear there is a way to stack multiple layers of prim
Btw you can skip to the bottom of the page to see the final damage dealt, but it's not written in the compact a-->b-->c notation. Instead the recursive level is indicated by the number of carets (^) between the numbers a and b.
ie. a^^^...(c ^s)...^^^b means a-->b-->c.
Btw you can skip to the bottom of the page to see the final damage dealt, but it's not written in th
Yeah, this combo is not for the faint of heart. Not only do you need to know enough about MtG and the math, but then you have to pay attention to how dozens of cards are working together to make the combo. I don't know if I'll ever have the patience to make it through this thing myself. It's also quite terse and cryptic. I can handle the math part, but the MtG stuff ... geez ... what a crazy game. It seems to revolve around creating "tokens" and then repeatedly iterating on the tokens. It's like having a hyper-exponentially growing deck of imaginary cards on the field ... @_@
Yeah, this combo is not for the faint of heart. Not only do you need to know enough about MtG and th
The only TCGs I know anything about is Pokemon and Neopets (and I'm not good at the latter---haven't visited it in years, though i still have my decks).
The only TCGs I know anything about is Pokemon and Neopets (and I'm not good at the latter---haven't
I was into Yu-Gi-Oh! for a little while, that's about it. Never quite could get the whole MtG thing. I know the basics of the Pokemon TCG but never actually bothered to learn how to play properly (you know where the cards go, the different deck areas, that sorta thing).
One discouraging factor is the amount of money you have to spend. This was especially true when I was a kid and I had none to speak of. Then there is the time commitment learning how to play. I imagine the rules to Pokemon are pretty simple and easy to learn though. Anyway, I was never much more than a casual player of any of these, but the "technical" side of it did hold some appeal to me (you know people who study the card rules and invent their own combos and are effectively experts of the game). You could definitely do that with games like Yu-Gi-Oh! and MtG but pokemon seems mostly like it doesn't stray far from a basic damage/HP mechanic (correct me if I'm wrong).
I was into Yu-Gi-Oh! for a little while, that's about it. Never quite could get the whole MtG thing.
