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Timeline for The Star-Spangled Code Challenge

Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0

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May 16, 2015 at 22:20 comment added trichoplax is on Codidact now @dan04 my second answer seems to show that the stars don't need to be as near to the edges as I thought, and gives better results than my first answer. Working directly with the mean rather than indirectly through the maximum turns out to be more effective.
May 15, 2015 at 16:56 history edited trichoplax is on Codidact now CC BY-SA 3.0
Add title before posting alternative algorithm as a separate answer
May 15, 2015 at 14:56 comment added trichoplax is on Codidact now @dan04 nor me - I have an idea of why it happens though. The stars near the edge are too close to it for there to be a significant probability of them moving towards it (stars mostly move towards the most isolated points, not points nearby). But they can still move towards the edge indirectly, by alternating between moving towards two distant points near the edge, resulting in a zigzag path. I suspect this means that it is necessary to have stars near the edges, but I'm looking forward to seeing another approach to see if that shares the bug/feature...
May 15, 2015 at 5:54 comment added dan04 After running your animation with various numbers of stars, it seems like it has a tendency to put stars close to the edges of the box. However, not knowing the true optimum arrangement, I can't tell whether this is a bug or a feature.
May 14, 2015 at 13:38 history edited trichoplax is on Codidact now CC BY-SA 3.0
Add headings and present code earlier
May 14, 2015 at 4:08 history edited trichoplax is on Codidact now CC BY-SA 3.0
Reset random number generator so every run is identical
May 14, 2015 at 2:03 history answered trichoplax is on Codidact now CC BY-SA 3.0