Wordsteal &cetera

(This has been fixed - or fixed itself - as of eight hours later.)

Seems to be a problem connecting to a game room at the moment. I get to the login page, but then it just shows the “Connecting to WordSteal Server” message.

These were blooming yesterday when I went for a short hike in the morning along a creek, now dry in the late summer. Things are winding down with the plants, though. Where there might be 30 different species in bloom at any one time earlier in the year, it was difficult to find five yesterday. But life, and the seasons, do go on, don’t they? Just have to take it as it is and enjoy what’s there, as much or as little as it might be, and remember that the cycle continues. Today is the beginning of the rest of time. Or, as the Ravenclaw door asked Harry and Luna, “Which came first, the phoenix or the fire?”

Interesting flowers, though, growing within a few feet of each other. The blazing star has one of the largest wildflower blossoms to be found anytime around here, up to 5 or 6 inches across, and quite spectacular when in prime condition, with each 5′ tall plant having up to ten or more flowers. Difficult to miss, no matter where they are. The wicker buckwheat flowers, on the other hand, are tiny, barely 1/8″ across at their best. But a close up look shows how gorgeous they are. If you use a magnifier, it’s even better. The plants get up to a foot tall, with many branching stems and many blossoms. Some people call very tiny plants “belly flowers,” because you really need to get down on your tummy in order to see and appreciate them. This one is more of a “knee plant.”

The server for Mark’s home page is not working at the moment. Trying to access it returns the error message:

Bad Gateway
The proxy server received an invalid response from an upstream server.

Mark is working to get it fixed ASAP. This affects the forum as well as any other content on markbyers.com. Wordsteal is in a different location and is doing fine.

There was an eclipse of the moon last night, visible from start to finish all around the Pacific Rim. I took photos of it and made this composite, showing from just after the moon entered the dark part of the earth’s shadow until it was completely in it.

It’s not completely dark in the shadow because of sunlight bending around the earth, so the moon shows up in the reddish-orange color. This sequence took about 1.5 hours to complete. When I first went out, the moonlight was so bright you could read a book by it, and trees were casting shadows on the ground. By the time of totality, it was hard to see a hand in front of your face! (Now the question is, as the morning sky lightens, should I go back to bed or go fix coffee? I know what I should do, but I hate sleeping when it’s light.)

Author suspects alien abduction.

After numberless sleepless nights and used up pencils, and days spent searching the nooks and crannies of Wordstealdom, the Way to Calculate your rating change after a game has been discovered! Here it is in mathspeak, in glassy-eye making small print:

rating_change = max(0, min(8 + (loser_rating - winner_rating + 50)/100, 16))

What it means. If that looks a bit strange, it’s because it is. But working it out is in fact quite simple. The Wordsteal program can do it in one operation, whoosh. We need to do it in steps to make it understandable. We just go from the inside of the formula and work outward.

1. Subtract the winner’s rating from the loser’s rating, and add 50.
2. Divide the result by 100, and add 8.
3. Take the smaller of 16 and the number from step 2..
4. Take the larger of 0 of the number from step 3. Drop any part after the decimal point (do not round it!). This is the rating change. In a two-person game, the winner gains that many points, the loser drops the same number.

Example 1. Say the winner began with 1651 points, the loser with 1600. Then the steps would be:

1. 1600 - 1651 + 50 = -1
2. -1/100 + 8 = 7.99
3. 7.99 compared to 16: Take the smaller, 7.99.
4. 7.99 compared to 0: Take the larger, 7.99. Dropping the .99 gives 7, the number of points gained or lost in this example.

What the formula does is ensure that higher rated winners get fewer points for a win, the greater the difference between them and the lower rated player. Conversely, lower rated winners get more points for a win, the greater the difference between them and the higher rated player. But it also limits the most points won or lost to 16.

Example 2. Suppose the winner began with 1700 points, the loser with 2510.

1. 1700 - 2451 + 50 = -701
2. -701/100 + 8 = 0.99
3. 0.99 compared to 16: Take the smaller, 0.99.
4. 0.99 compared to 0: Take the larger, 0.99. Dropping the .99 gives 0, the number of points gained or lost in this example.

Example 2 shows that a much higher rated (over 750 points difference) player will get no points from the win. If the difference were 750 points exactly, it would be one point for the win. If the lower rated player in Example 2 wins, it would be worth 16 points, the maximum the formula allows.

In a 3 or 4 player game, the calculation is the same, but with the winner against each of the losers. The winner then gains the total of the points won from all the others. Each of the other players loses only the points to the top winner.

Mark is back. Wordsteal is back. The server got reset about an hour ago - people have been streaming in ever since!

It’s just after midnight, 3 August, UK time. I had expected to hear from Mark today, but no word yet. Hope all is well and that he gets in (or wakes up) soon. Wordsteal is still off, of course.