There were questions about their motivation at the time. There still are questions.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kent_State_shootings

In the case of level 29[1], the best position on the second ladder is to move to the top then use the horizontal pole to move left. That's what it will do when below the right-side pole. But when it gets above that it switches to thinking it should move down. Because the goal changes it gets stuck in the loop of moving up then moving down.

What you may be thinking of is when the "best" position is at the top of a ladder but no clear path left or right. It will climb to the top so the only way to go next is down. But after moving down immediately wants to go up again.

[1] https://strategywiki.org/wiki/File:Lode_Runner_level29.png

Here it is in C (from my own notes)

    SetCurrentRow1(y);
    if (CURROW1[x] != 0) {
        if (x != 0) {
            if (CURROW1[x-1] == 4) {
                TargetY = y;
                if (y >= PlayerY)
                    return y;
            } else {
                SetCurrentRow1(y+1);
                if (CURROW1[x-1] == 1 || CURROW1[x-1] == 2 || CURROW1[x-1] == 3) {
                    TargetY = y;
                    if (y >= PlayerY)
                        return y;
                }
            }
        }
        if (x < 27) {
            if (CURROW1[x+1] == 4) {
                TargetY = y;
                if (y >= PlayerY)
                    return y;
            } else {
                SetCurrentRow1(y+1);
                if (CURROW1[x+1] == 1 || CURROW1[x+1] == 2 || CURROW1[x+1] == 3) {
                    TargetY = y;
                    if (y >= PlayerY)
                        return y;
                }
            }
        }
    }

The Apple II, Atari 8-bit, Commodore 64, and naturally the VIC-20 versions of the game have this bug since they were all made by Broderbund. But interestingly so does the Hudson Soft NES port. The later Macintosh version, which is otherwise a direct port of the Apple II code, fixed it. The IBM-PC version didn't have this bug because it was rewritten with the memory layout column-ordered instead of row-ordered. But then introduced a similar bug by subtracting when it should be adding.

(edit: I hadn't checked until just now but I'm amused to find that Lode Runner Legacy from 2017 preserved this bug in the classic game mode.)

That is sort of the problem we find ourselves in.

[1] https://github.com/otya128/winevdm

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44431805

Points: 38

# Comments: 7

Someone should file weekly FOIA requests.

Coinbase would have to make you sign a challenge ahead of time that would mark the wallet as the authorized public key for your account.

Even if, as you say, crawlers will hit the PoW thousands of times more, the only way to make it a barrier is if the cost is higher than the profit to be gained. Otherwise it's merely an expense to be passed on to the customer.

I fear the end state of this game is the death of the anonymous internet.