salamanca-dictation.ts

// How long would it have taken Hector Salamanca's nephews to transcribe his
// letter off the bell board, one character at a time?  (bun run this file)
//
// Short answer: roughly an hour and a half. Output's at the bottom if you'd
// rather not run it.
//
// The letter is from Better Call Saul "Fun and Games" (S6E9), where Bolsa reads
// it to the cartel. He reads it in Spanish; the English on screen is a subtitle,
// so the Spanish is what the cousins actually spelled out. I lifted the words
// off the scene audio with whisper.
//
// The board is the 6x6 grid Hector points at. It's not A-Z in order: every row
// starts on a vowel, with the digits crammed into the two short rows. (Row 6
// past "5 6" is a guess - there's no clean shot of the whole board - but it
// doesn't matter here, the letter has no numbers.)
//
// Method, as shown on screen: someone reads the first letter of each row until
// Hector rings, then reads across that row until he rings again. Two rings,
// and (row + column) reads, per character.

const board = ["ABCD12", "EFGH34", "IJKLMN", "OPQRST", "UVWXYZ", "567890"];

const at = new Map<string, [number, number]>();
board.forEach((row, r) => [...row].forEach((c, i) => at.set(c, [r + 1, i + 1])));

const letter = `El atentado contra mi sobrino en su hacienda falló. Lalo le ganó a los
asesinos. El día después del ataque, Lalo me llamó. Escuché la verdad de sus
propios labios. Fue Fring quien mandó a los asesinos, no a los peruanos.
Mantuvimos en secreto que Lalo sobrevivió. Mi sobrino estaba a punto de
vengarse del traidor. Frente a frente. Pero desapareció. Esto fue obra del
pollero. Don Eladio, mire a Fring a los ojos. Allí verá la verdad. El pollero
lo odia. Es nuestro enemigo. Él conspira en contra de nosotros. Yo exijo
sangre por sangre.`;

// Cadence never made it on screen, so these are guesses: [read, ring, perChar, perWord].
const speeds: Record<string, number[]> = {
  brisk: [1.0, 1.5, 0.5, 0.0],
  realistic: [1.5, 2.0, 1.0, 1.0],
  deliberate: [2.5, 3.0, 2.0, 2.0],
};

// The board is an English one (Hector spells "SUCK MY" at the DEA in English),
// so accents come off and anything not on the board is dropped.
const text = letter.normalize("NFD").replace(/[̀-ͯ]/g, "").toUpperCase();

let reads = 0;
let chars = 0;
let words = 0;
for (const ch of text.replace(/\s+/g, " ")) {
  if (ch === " ") words++;
  else if (at.has(ch)) {
    const [row, col] = at.get(ch)!;
    reads += row + col;
    chars++;
  }
}

const hms = (s: number) => `${Math.floor(s / 3600)}h ${Math.floor((s % 3600) / 60)}m`;

console.log(`${chars} characters, ${reads} reads, ${chars * 2} rings\n`);
for (const [name, [read, ring, perChar, perWord]] of Object.entries(speeds)) {
  const s = reads * read + chars * 2 * ring + chars * perChar + words * perWord;
  console.log(`${name.padEnd(11)} ${hms(s)}  (${Math.round(s / 60)} min)`);
}

// 423 characters, 2388 reads, 846 rings
//
// brisk       1h 4m  (64 min)
// realistic   1h 36m  (97 min)
// deliberate  2h 39m  (159 min)