Pac-Man's Ghost Behavior Algorithms

An anonymous reader writes "This article has a very interesting description of the algorithms behind the ghosts in Pac-Man. I had no idea about most of this information, but that's probably because it's difficult to study the ghosts when I die every 30 seconds. Quoting: 'The ghosts are always in one of three possible modes: Chase, Scatter, or Frightened. The "normal" mode with the ghosts pursuing Pac-Man is Chase, and this is the one that they spend most of their time in. While in Chase mode, all of the ghosts use Pac-Man's position as a factor in selecting their target tile, though it is more significant to some ghosts than others. In Scatter mode, each ghost has a fixed target tile, each of which is located just outside a different corner of the maze. This causes the four ghosts to disperse to the corners whenever they are in this mode. Frightened mode is unique because the ghosts do not have a specific target tile while in this mode. Instead, they pseudorandomly decide which turns to make at every intersection.'"

Comments

Re:Programming lesson

[hedwards]

And I'm sure that the GP will care as soon as women start caring about the unintended consequences of all the sexist things they say and do. It's really easy to be sanctimonious if you're OK ignoring the hypocrisy involved with it. Personally, I'd take sexism significantly more seriously if I wasn't expected to put up with so much sexual harassment and jokes that are far worse than the one the GP made.

I'm sure that there are some women out there that genuinely consider sexism to be wrong and do their best not to involve themselves in it either way, but I don't see them because that's a subtlety that isn't particularly easy to pick up on. What I do however see is the leering, the sexist comments about what scum men are and how serious domestic violence is, but mysteriously defining it as man on woman.

Re:Programming lesson

[moexu]

I care about the consequences of sexism towards men, FWIW. I had a female supervisor who used to say sexist things and expect me to agree with them when a) I didn't and b) there were 8 guys in the room that I had to work with. It was very uncomfortable.

Re:Programming lesson

[dgatwood]

Domestic violence is serious and the vast majority of it is man-on-woman.

Only if you define it narrowly to be reported physical domestic violence. If you look at it more broadly and include emotional abuse and unreported abuse, I think you'll find that men and women are roughly equal opportunity offenders. It just looks like it's mostly men on women because:

• Statistically men are stronger than women on average. Thus men are far more likely to be able to physically overpower women than the other way around, and men are likely to cause more damage to women on average than the other way around.
• Men are statistically less likely to put up with it and stay in the relationship, so domestic violence against men tends to be more distributed, making it harder to spot. You're less likely to notice that a girl gave a different guy a black eye every week than to notice that a girl has gotten a black eye every week.
• Women are more likely to abuse people in ways that don't leave a physical scar. You know, like boiling your bunny.

Just saying.

Re:Programming lesson

[dgatwood]

Trust me. You can do far more damage to someone psychologically by not hitting them physically. Imagine this. You wake up and find your head shaved and/or your hair glued to the pillow. You step out of bed onto an emptied box of thumbtacks. When you get downstairs, you find out that your pet dog is hanging from the ceiling fan with its guts strewn on the floor. Your elementary school daughter's class schedule is missing from the front of the refrigerator, and the words "You're next" are written in the dog's blood on the kitchen floor.

You run out of the house to go pick up your daughter, but your car door locks are glued shut. And the ignition lock. And the tires are flat. You run inside to call someone for a ride, when the phone rings and you hear heavy breathing. You suddenly notice a bloody knife beside the phone that was not there when you walked out to the car.

You quickly hang up and call the police, then call someone to get a ride to work. When you go to lunch, you find out that your credit cards have been reported stolen and your bank account is now empty. And then you find out that your psycho ex has accused you of molesting your daughter, resulting in a year-long court battle. And then she hides child porn on your computer. And then you lose your job, your freedom, your child, and your sanity, all without a single direct physical act of violence against you.

Yes, this is an extreme example, but to suggest that you have to physically beat someone to cause serious injury to that person is utterly foolish.