this post was submitted on 06 Apr 2024
175 points (97.8% liked)

xkcd

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submitted 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) by [email protected] to c/xkcd
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[–] RustyNova 33 points 8 months ago (1 children)

NONONONO- NOT BALLS MACHINES! I CAN'T GET OUT! MUST. WATCH. BALLS...

[–] funnystuff97 5 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Randall has somehow weaponized my love for the Blue Ball Machine. He is a threat to us all.

[–] mangaskahn 5 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

Nerd sniped. ^^

[–] [email protected] 32 points 8 months ago (2 children)

I solved one. Kinda sorta. It didn't work consistently, but it worked well enough to count apparently.

Then I reloaded and got this?

[–] [email protected] 8 points 8 months ago

Reload again and get a 4 color criss-cross sorter T.T

[–] [email protected] 5 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

It's being DDOSed. Too many users. Too many submits. The rendering code is light enough on the server that it still works (most of the work is client side, the sever just serves a bunch of json files), but the submitting code definitely crashes.

[–] sanguinepar 32 points 8 months ago (3 children)

That's amazing. Possibly the cleverest thing I've ever seen on XKCD, and I don't say that lightly.

What a fun tool, and I was embarrassingly proud to finally solve my first section!

[–] [email protected] 14 points 8 months ago (2 children)

Wow, yours looks much more difficult than mine. I just had red balls coming out on top and having to leave at the bottom. Guess I'll try another one.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 8 months ago

Same for me. I was wondering if there is another difficulty or so

[–] sanguinepar 3 points 8 months ago

Yeah, it was really tricky, I had to start again like 5 times!. Then the next one was like you describe, just one colour, one entrance at the top one exit at the bottom :-)

[–] [email protected] 6 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

xkcd machine that separates balls

That's my submission. Balls get separated by sword and this anti-gravitational thingy

[–] [email protected] 4 points 8 months ago

ah, genius probabilistic sorting!

[–] Tolstoshev 15 points 8 months ago

I remember XKCD #1. I just did the math in my head and it’s been ~20 years. Fuck I’m old.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

Cool, but it's now impossible to submit anything, as the server is being DDOS'd. Not out of malice, mind you, there are just too many geeks out there, and this is a Sunday...

Still, one can read the titles of the already posted rooms with:

env URL=https://incredible.xkcd.com \
curl -SsL $URL/machine/current \
| jq .grid[][] | grep -v '^null$' | tr -d '"' \
| while read uuid; do printf '%s: ' "$uuid"; \
curl -SsL $URL/folio/$uuid \
| jq .blueprint.title; done

(Useful to find out if your room made it to the public set)

[–] kalpol 9 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Anyone remember The Incredible Machine game from the 90s?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago

Love that game

[–] Olgratin_Magmatoe 7 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Quite an enjoyable one. I just wish it were possible to re-visit past machines you made.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago

It should be, but the server is overloaded.

[–] Brekky 7 points 8 months ago

That was FUN!

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago

This is fun! Unfortunately it's always overwritten by someone else. I guess too many people playing at the same time?