I have finished calculating the basic difficulty for the first 32768 hands of Freecell using my particular shuffling algorithm. Before I terminated the process this morning, it had calculated 37052 hands. I don't think the calculation is completely accurate, but it's good enough for giving the Freecell that my live CD comes with difficulty levels.
Here is the final breakdown of difficulty
0 75
1 6637
2 21849
3 7756
4 535
5 200
In this chart, the left column is the number of freecells, and the right column is the number of hands solvable with that many freecells. "5" indicates that the hand could not be solved with four freecells.
I am sure a lot of those 200 hands which fc-solve couldn't solve are, in fact, solvable.
Here is the final list of hands solvable with zero freecells:
116 497 1195 1762 2330 3175 3380 3417 4187 4325 4361 5061 5394 6188 6552 6569 6642 7208 7253 7298 9836 10181 10377 10393 11211 12106 12637 12762 12832 13458 13632 13710 14928 15017 15900 16182 16303 16411 16820 17733 17990 18439 18663 18906 19168 20233 20928 21038 21837 21979 22051 22150 23417 24394 25195 25469 26458 27405 27854 28057 30783 30790 30914 31713 31828 33272 33437 33570 34105 34902 35018 35189 35493 35938 37011
And the final list of hands fc-solve could not solve:
30 228 459 508 673 714 1081 1257 1288 1464 1567 1792 2235 2362 2386 2484 2715 2880 3022 3194 3267 3322 3861 4230 4287 4530 4791 4873 4874 4908 5030 5195 5396 5809 5820 6140 6227 6408 6523 6737 6761 6796 7073 7077 7269 7383 7530 7853 8009 8417 9113 9155 9640 10076 10110 10117 10294 10338 10567 10809 10961 11060 11151 11239 11991 12122 12360 12432 12433 12439 12978 13000 13345 13365 13595 13769 14234 14243 14314 14509 14574 14673 14871 14880 15182 15280 15316 15418 15477 15723 15798 15890 16280 16319 16399 17514 17823 17856 18057 18327 18570 18764 18837 19140 19286 19862 19924 19926 19965 20133 20429 21130 21320 21535 21628 21920 22091 22264 22597 23095 23099 23127 23233 23327 23625 24132 24519 24619 24660 24871 25067 25069 25246 26381 26584 26640 26667 26806 26816 26970 27015 27183 27223 27333 27572 27932 27970 28000 28245 28482 28486 28499 28556 28645 28765 28989 29142 29173 29243 29320 29538 29589 29644 30009 30346 30539 30651 30739 30959 30984 31320 31532 31951 32381 32625 32647 32672 33495 33707 33728 33835 34049 34203 34865 34889 35028 35211 35320 35779 35867 35902 35934 36066 36331 36348 36425 36465 36508 36633 36720
OK, the other night I was teaching English to a student who just put Vista on a new laptop. Everything was enabled: Aero, translucent window bars, the whole nine yards. As you can imagine, this computer was S-L-O-W. Anyway, so we open up Word 2007 so I can start typing a lesson for him (I use client's computers so that I don't have to lug my laptop everywhere, and so that clients can have notes on their computers). After installing my special font with IPA symbols, I get to work and type. Then Word incorrectly underlines something I wrote in Spanish, because the document was in English.
No, problem. Go to tools->set language and change the language. This is how it's done in Word 2000 and 2003. Well, except, Microsoft has completely changed the interface in Office 2007. My client says "OK, let's figout out where it is". With over 10 years of Linux experience, I know to RTFM (read the fancy manual) when I'm lost. We decided to take the RTFM route.
I open up the help, type in the Spanish for "set language" (the client's system, like all computers I see here in Mexico, is in Spanish), and go through until I find the document telling me where it is hidden. The manual said Spanish words to the effect of "Go to tools -> set language to change the language the selected text is in". Well, except there is no "tools" menu item in Office 2007. So I'm thinking that some magic will restore the tools bar. Google searches don't reveal anything helpful. My client, at this point, is calling up a friend and we're trying to figure out how to change the !@#$ language in Office 2007.
We finally found it. Below the text, it tells you what language Word thinks the document is in. You can select text and pull this up as a menu item to change the language. No tools bar in sight.
In order words, the documentation Office 2007 was out of date. To the point where it did more harm than good. I guess Spanish-speaking Microsoft users have too much pride or whatever to RTFM when lost.
