Sometimes, when people don't want to get lost, they drop rice in their trail. How nice! What a wonderously intuitive idea for tracing your steps! Someone should get a medal for that idea. That is, until I found a fatal flaw...

So, two parties are tracing steps and they get crossed. NO! Now, when we get back to camp, its in shambles, the clothes don't fit, the meat was left out of the cooler. What fiends took over this natural abode whilst we played among the lillies? Wait, was that rice the same... Oh, shit. We crossed rice paths with another group... Damn! Second time this month! Well, its all good man, just buy colored rice, and you'll never have that mixup again.

Some would say that if two parties have the same color then they are still SOL. Very good observation, little mind, but I've manufactured 265 million colors of rice, so your chances are slim, especially considering the fact that almost nobody uses rice to trace their steps anymore.
-- daseva, Jun 20 2005

It may aslo avoid the other fatal floor, since birds may be put off by the gaudy colours. Or was that breadcrumbs?

I guess this works with string, in multi-use labarynths too?
-- zen_tom, Jun 20 2005


String is just so passé.
-- daseva, Jun 20 2005


It's pros and Cons - allow me to (crudely)tabulate:

. . . . . . . . . . . .Birds. . . . . . . . .Minotaurs. . . . . . . . .Dragons(FB)
String. . . . . . . . . .Y . . . . . . . . . .Y. . . . . . . . . . . . . .N
Rice. . . . . . . . . . .N . . . . . . . . . .N. . . . . . . . . . . . . .Y
B.Crumbs . . . . . . .N . . . . . . . . . .N. . . . . . . . . . . . . .N
G.Pwder . . . . . . . .Y . . . . . . . . . .Y. . . . . . . . . . . . . .N

As you can see, string works in areas inhabited by both birds AND minotaurs, and as such is the preferred choice for 9/10 adventurers when navigating unmapped locations.
-- zen_tom, Jun 20 2005


Doesn't anyone use GPS anymore?
-- Worldgineer, Jun 20 2005


Minotaurs like to grind the rice into their paved floors, making it even easier to be hoovered up by birds, ants and other starch-loving species. You might be onto something with them eating the birds though. Despite these problems, and string's apparent superiority over rice I still think this is a good idea [+]
-- zen_tom, Jun 20 2005


You're unbiased critisisms are always welcome, [zen_tom]...

But I will be calling you into the Anti-Minotaur Commission. You sound fresh from a staging with one of these beasts... even smell a little funny... telling you first is the least I can do.
-- daseva, Jun 20 2005


May I point out in the rice v string debate the string is superior. String has vector quality, where as rice has only scalar quality.

I agree that your 265 million colours of rice do much to remove this difference, but still each grain of rice does not inform the adventurer of the next grain of rice to follow, especially in the slim chance where they chose the wrong colour in a 265 million + 1 labyrinth... You can leave as much rice as you want, but you cannot be sure you have found the next grain.

String, by it's very nature, has precise vector qualities allowing you to know the next section of string to follow, however many string wielders there are in your area.

This string argument does have two failings,

1) Important user instruction - use one long piece of continuous string. Do not disassemble.

2) May not work so well near Gordium.
-- afrocelt, Jun 21 2005


Fine idea [Pa`ve] except in sulfurous, volcanic underworld labyrinths, peopled by firey demons, or dragons. I'll try and add it to my table...
-- zen_tom, Jun 21 2005


[zen_tom], excellent updates! Just to summarize, rice is third (out of four) in overall effectiveness, and the only safe navigational tool amongst dragon infested landscapes.
-- daseva, Jun 21 2005



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