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5:24 PM
@quartata As you can see from the transcript, I was in shock after this :)
 
haha
 
He thought I said it :(
 
in PPCG Code Snippet Chat Bot, 35 mins ago, by VoteToClose
@quartata Did you see the thing about chroot?
 
I saw it
 
@Geobits Surely that's a positive? I'm even more impressed with Marky that I was expecting to be. (Don't tell him though.)
 
5:25 PM
@VoteToClose did @StackedCrooked respond?
 
@trichoplax He's no dummy don't underestimate him
 
@trichoplax I won't tell him. I've been told he has enough ego as it is.
 
Marky is gud
 
@Geobits Indeed
I can only assume that means there has been a lot of ego floating around TNB the last few years...
 
@orlp Yeah. :D
Thanks.
That was, in fact, what I was looking for.
 
5:28 PM
He helped you?
Good :)
I want a kitty :(
like this one:
 
@orlp d'awhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
 
ISNT IT A CUTE KIWTTY
 

Memes

3 mins ago, 1 minute total – 11 messages, 2 users, 0 stars

Bookmarked 10 secs ago by quartata

 
@MartinBüttner capturing \r in Retina makes weird things, e.g. if you use it in a substitute pattern, the pre-\r part of the result string seems to be dropped
 
that's because of your terminal though
\r is a carriage return without moving to the next line
so I'd call that the expected behaviour
 
5:42 PM
oh, I see
that explains a lot :)
 
I decided to try to recreate something I made in build battle once
But I no longer have the screenshot I took of the original version
 
in Beep Boop Maggot, 17 secs ago, by Calvin's Hobbies
Will you be the next US president?
in Beep Boop Maggot, 27 secs ago, by Marky Markov
@Calvin'sHobbies yes
watch out trump we got Marky Tensorflow Markov in the house
 
in Beep Boop Maggot, 1 min ago, by Marky Markov
@quartata ( I'm not sure if I'm not sure if I'm not sure how to do that. )
 
Markov/Geobits for 2016
4
 
6:06 PM
Who needs double negative when you can have triple noncommital
2
 
if you stumble upon an old, upvoted/accepted meta answer that contradicts current policy, is it a good idea to comment "hi, i'm from the future, please don't do this any more" just in case someone sees it and thinks it's a good idea
 
6:41 PM
I'm currently working on the electrons in wire challenge. Can anyone else verify that f(36) = 174762?
 
@PhiNotPi someone mentioned that a few hours ago
in fact there was a discussion because it was the only one that didn't fit a list that they'd found in OEIS.
(the list wasn't about that challenge but a similar cellular automaton result)
 
I've been trying to work on a recursive function for it.
if n+1 is a power of 2, then f(n) = 1
else if n is odd, f(n) = 2 * f((n-1)/2)
if n is even, ??? (almost everything fits the form of 2^s-2)
 
if n+1 is a power of two, why does f(n) have to be 1? Then couldn't it technically be 3, 7, etc.
are you saying f(1) = 1?
 
yes
 
Oh okay that makes more sense.
if n+1 is a power of two, then f(n) = n+1 * 2; f(1) = 1;?
doesn't that work?
 
6:56 PM
No, unless I am understanding you incorrectly.
 
I'm probably wrong hold on let me think for a second.
 
f(1)=1, f(3)=1, f(7)=1, f(15)=1, etc.
 
Oh okay.
Actually I'm logging off now I'm just trying to find distractions for myself so I can avoid doing my work. Ive gotta focus.
=/
 
0
Q: Predict result from combinations of number

belviAssuming you are given a number 822486, summation of all the characters as digit in the number gives you 30. that is, 8 + 2 + 2 + 4 + 8 + 6 = 30. Now, given 17 9 (9 in 17 places) and a constant C = 3 (in this illustration), we are able to compute the value as (99 * 5) + (999 * 2) + (9999 * 2) +...

 
user image
6
 
7:03 PM
hahahaha
@NewMainPosts Does this challenge make absolutely no sense to anyone else?
 
Interpret my close vote as you wish.
 
oh, heh, didn't notice
 
It actually feels like someone was just trolling
 
was it marky?
 
I wonder if Marky has made a sock account yet.
 
7:12 PM
lets check it out
 
@Dennis Unfortunately the infinitely small chips always get lost when you try to dip them in guacamole.
 
I love it when this happens: I just answered a challenge I was trying to golf further in another language, which made me realize that a different approach for the first answer would golf off 28.5 % of the byte count.
Hm, that sounded clearer in my head.
 
I think I understood it
I wouldn't vote to close as unclear
 
I'm relieved.
 
too broad though
 
7:17 PM
I wouldn't hammer it as too broad but I'd cast the fifth vote.
 
Links or it didn't happen :P
 
is there word with a b in it that means the same as declare/initialize/allocate
 
@Calvin'sHobbies Beclare, binitialize, ballocate
 
dub
I dub thee myInteger.
3
 
7:19 PM
hahaha
 
Sounds like a programming language based on Arthurian legend.
 
@AlexA. Why guacamole?
 
@SuperJedi224 Why not guacamole? In what situation is guacamole not appropriate? None.
It's the closest thing I know of to avocado juic.
 
@AlexA. Embalming fluid
 
7:21 PM
4
A: Maximise the squared difference

DennisJelly, 24 21 15 14 10 bytes RµżUµ«/€ị" To compute the total squared difference, append µ_ṙ1$²S to the code. Try it online!

 
@Calvin'sHobbies I guess you could put some guacamole in there but it might make a mess.
 
It would probably turn brown too fast :(
 
I was going to make a joke about turning a cadaver into a bowl for guacamole but then I realized that I might make myself barf.
 
@AlexA. Good thing you didn't bring it up
 
I didn't go into detail
 
7:24 PM
> bring it up
 
> up
 
bring up
1. To take care of and educate (a child); rear.
2. To introduce into discussion; mention.
3. To vomit.
4. To cause to come to a sudden stop.
 
Marky needs a bed :/
 
@trichoplax I don't think I've ever heard it used in case 4.
 
@AlexA. Nor me
 
7:26 PM
I have, but usually about horses.
 
Marky can be such a turd sometimes.
 
Speaking of bots, is there a challenge like "implement the original ELIZA".
 
I think 'bring up' should have a fifth definition. The use 'bring up the rear' doesn't seem to fit well in those four.
 
I have a friend named Eliza, but to implemented her you'd probably have to talk her parents into some stuff.
 
:/
 
7:29 PM
@AlexA. I can be very convincing ( ͜。 ͡ʖ ͜。)
I mean this btw:
ELIZA is a computer program and an early example of primitive natural language processing. ELIZA operated by processing users' responses to scripts, the most famous of which was DOCTOR, a simulation of a Rogerian psychotherapist. Using almost no information about human thought or emotion, DOCTOR sometimes provided a startlingly human-like interaction. ELIZA was written at MIT by Joseph Weizenbaum between 1964 and 1966. When the "patient" exceeded the very small knowledge base, DOCTOR might provide a generic response, for example, responding to "My head hurts" with "Why do you say your head hurts...
 
I know
 
I had a DOCTOR done in BASIC. Was much fun when I was a kid :)
 
@Calvin'sHobbies "Be", as in i, be the int 0
 
Oh I like that.
 
To be or not to be, that depends on the implementation.
 
7:32 PM
'become' works as well.
 
@Zgarb Good idea, actually (become too)
 
Does Python have a function to get the char code of a "wide" unicode character?
 
@Calvin'sHobbies You could use "be" for initialization and "become" for assignment.
 
Is bstriped a cooler name than any of these b-to-a anagrams: DIPTERAS DRAPIEST RAPIDEST SPIRATED TARSIPED TRAIPSED?
 
"Drapiest"?
 
7:34 PM
How is RAPIDEST not the best without any further thought?
 
This language will not be fast...
 
Even better.
 
leaning towards Spirated actually
 
PI TRADES
 
I was going to say Spirated
Sπrated
 
7:36 PM
TRIP AS ED
 
Sπr8ed
 
DIET SPAR
 
Aw, not full @Sparr?
RIP TEASD
( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
 
DEAR PITS
 
@quartata Well, hurry up and undelay it!
 
7:42 PM
@Downgoat Would ord not work for some reason?
 
@Geobits Maybe I'll just say that the preferred name is "Spirated" but any valid multi-word anagrams count as names as well.
 
@Dennis nope, it can't handle surrogates properly
 
You should also allow any anagram of a variable/keyword to act as it.
 
@Downgoat There are no surrogates in UTF-8.
 
@Geobits no :P
 
7:44 PM
Oh, a Chrome update is waiting. But I have like 40 Tabs and three windows open ...
 
Awww :(
 
@Dennis Basically, I need to get the ord of this character:
 
@Downgoat I'm pretty sure your code will only work for inputs that are listed in OEIS?
 
@MartinBüttner Yeah, that's okay right?
@Dennis Hm, I get TypeError: ord() expected a character, but string of length 3 found
 
7:46 PM
That's in Python 2. Unicode support in Python 2 is weird and crappy.
Also, that's a character of the BMP, so surrogates couldn't be a problem.
 
@Dennis I guess I'll be installing python3 then
 
Silly question, but here it goes. Imagine that in a compiler for your language you want to include some function obtained externally (made public by someone else with permission to use it with the appropriate copyright notice). My question is: what's a standard name for a folder containing this kind of functions? external? resources? ...? I'm not really a programmer, so I wonder if there's a more or less established name for this.
 
@Downgoat Unicode in Python2 and some issues: docs.python.org/2/howto/unicode.html
Just for context.
 
@Downgoat Good idea. Python 2 will die soon anyway.
 
@AlexA. Well, there's some work to do: python3wos.appspot.com
 
7:51 PM
The moz ones are all Mozilla things, right? Basically all of their Python codebases are Python 2 because for a project with a bunch of dependencies, there will always be one that doesn't support Python 3.
 
@LuisMendo External functions are usually called "libraries", "imports" or "user defined functions" (UDF). However, if a third party wrote it, just call it "thirdparty" imo.
 
@AlexA. Here's the python devs talking about the adoption of P3: programmers.stackexchange.com/a/63935/187041
 
@mınxomaτ Yeah, I've read that.
 
@mınxomaτ "Third party" sounds good. Thanks!
 
7:54 PM
Before I fix it, how "valid" is this answer, it's not really breaking any loopholes
-1
A: xkcd-Style Page Numbering

DowngoatPutt, 3 bytes Non-competing because Putt was made after this challenge. ¥´ This contains an unprintable at the end. The code is equal to: '\xa5\xb4\x03'. I don't know how "valid" this is, as I haven't seen a consensus on how "legal" this is. Putt does fulfill the requirements of a programmin...

 
If you have to say "it's not really breaking any loopholes", there's probably something wrong :P
 
@Downgoat So we already have a name? :-)
 
So the whole language is "look up this number in OEIS"?
-1 boring
 
175
A: Loopholes that are forbidden by default

Peter TaylorFetching the desired output from an external source This includes doing an HTTP request to fetch the page with the question and extracting a solution from that page. This was mildly amusing back in 2011, but now is derivative and uninteresting.

 
Hm, it's documentation is... minimalist
 
7:56 PM
At best
 
93
A: Loopholes that are forbidden by default

Victor StafusaOutsourcing the real answer I still did not see people using this thing here in serious answers (just in some jokes ones), but already saw it being used seriously elsewhere. To circumvent restrictions and rules in the question (normally size), the answerer writes a small program that downloads t...

 
I'm sorry but I have to use RegEx to parse HTML
^^^ :-D
 
I was literally just about to paste that in here
 
@Doorknob the reason I was debating is I'm not outsourcing the answer it's the language
 
The pony HE COMES
Hahahaha
 
7:57 PM
I just reached level 3 on planet minecraft \o/
 
46
A: Loopholes that are forbidden by default

ProgramFOXUsing a different name for something that's prohibited The title is not very clear, I know, but this is what it means: if a specific function is prohibited, someone can use a language where another term than "function" is used (for example "subroutine"), and then that user can claim that their s...

 
If it's not valid I'll write another language because I like the name
 
You actually don't have to use regex to parse HTML; there are HTML parsing libraries for Python. One that I've used for work is Mechanize.
 
@SuperJedi224 good job!
 
Mechanize is a little overkill but it has nice features.
 
7:58 PM
@Downgoat also, it fails like all of the test cases
 
@AlexA. I'm using beautiful soup but not even that can fix the incredibly invalid HTML OEIS uses
 
also
96
A: Loopholes that are forbidden by default

Peter TaylorHard-coding the output Unless the question is an obvious exception (the primary exception being those tagged kolmogorov-complexity), your program is expected to do work, not just print a pre-calculated result. If the question doesn't require input and so a solution which just prints the answer w...

 
@Doorknob Limitation of the language? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Okay :/ fine, I'll kill the language
 
@mınxomaτ Interestingly, protobuf is listed, but according to PyPI it does support Python 3.
 
@LuisMendo RegEx is completely fine for parsing in the right environment. For example CJSSHS. But asking for support when writing such (finite state automata) parsers with RegEx (which are also used in Sublime, TextMate, Visual Studio Code etc. et al) on StackOverflow will get you killed.
 
8:00 PM
I'll still leave it as a OEIS lookup tool
 
s/a/an/
 
@Downgoat Change the description
 
Also, now that we've reached 10Q/D are we graduating?
 
@Downgoat Grace Note already said that we should've tripped the ready-to-graduate check long ago.
But yes, now that we've passed 10 q/d, it's inevitable, I'm sure.
 
@El'endiaStarman \o/
 
8:15 PM
> Over the past two weeks, PPCG has had...
> 10.1 questions per day
> 7.1 answers per question
According to my script ^
That's actually a decline in the number of answers per question
My only fear with 10 questions per day is that each challenge wouldn't get the attention it deserves. But with an average of 7 answers, that's still not bad.
 
Would you be able to get an answers/question ratio over time?
 
Holding steady at 10.1, speaking of which
@El'endiaStarman Data explorer does graphs, so a SQL ninja could
 
@El'endiaStarman Since the beginning of the site? Not without exhausting my API quota. :P
@Doorknob Oh, I can do that.
@El'endiaStarman brb, sqling
 
Hmm, I was thinking we could use the site analytics CSV.
 
8:22 PM
@mınxomaτ I assume you're going to continue "forgetting" to name your commit, yes? :P
 
Skilled Butter :D
 
@El'endiaStarman My usual commit names look like "fixed things", "here have code" or something else. This just makes single iterations easier to identify and makes team meetings more fun :)
For shits and giggles, here's a bigger list of names done by the generator: pastebin.com/j9b4WAV0
 
Wow. 1498 names.
 
My favorite is actually the first, "Cheerful Balcony".
 
8:26 PM
ninja'd @AlexA. even though my SQL skills are solely acquired from Google and looking at other data.SE queries :D
 
dammit
 
@Doorknob That's how I acquired every programming skill I have.
4
 
hahaha :P
 
the query is horrible but it works
the graph is of average answers per question, monthly
 
8:28 PM
@AlexA. Simple challenges with dozens of answers may skew that average.
 
@AlexA. Anyway, it looks like there's quite a bit of fluctuation, but the A/Q ratio seems to be relatively constant. That would imply that each challenge is getting the attention it deserves, even more than it would have in the past.
 
0
A: Sandbox for Proposed Challenges

PhiNotPiImplement the Block Sort sorting algorithm code-golf Block sort is an interesting sorting algorithm (comparatively speaking). Here are some of its important properties: O(n log n) time complexity in worst and average case O(n) time complexity in best case O(1) space complexity (not including...

 
0
Q: Read a retro display

J AtkinArt stolen from What size is the digit? 7-segment digits can be represented in ASCII using _| characters. Here are the digits 0-9: _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ | _| _| |_| |_ |_ | |_| |_| | | | |_ _| | _| |_| | |_| _| |_| Your job is to parse the art into normal numbers....

 
20
A: Why is the detection of gravitational waves so significant?

user35736Chris' answer provides an excellent explanation as to why gravitational waves are useful to detect in general. Here's my take (as someone who works in the theory of black holes) on what is particularly interesting about the signal that was announced yesterday. Many of my thoughts are taken from t...

This is a fantastic explanation of what's so great about the gravitational wave detection announced two days ago. In summary, the signal we saw tells us that we saw two black holes, both about 30 times the mass of the sun, collide and merge into one black hole. In the process, MASSIVE amounts of energy were released. More than all the stars in the UNIVERSE combined.
All because we were able to very precisely measure how much the arms of LIGO shrunk or expanded due to ripples in the fabric of space-time.
 
Ooh, thanks for the tl;dr. :D
@Zgarb Oh certainly.
@El'endiaStarman Yes, that does appear to be the case. :)
 
8:37 PM
@El'endiaStarman Also that this event happened over 1 billion years ago.
 
:D
One of my favorite aspects is that we were able to measure the black holes' masses so precisely.
 
Aaaand, now there's a rendering of the LIGO data from this event:
 
Be sure to read the video description, too.
 
Oh, plus, apparently some scientists from my university, RIT, were involved in the prediction of what the signal would look like (I think). :D
> Time has been slowed down by a factor of about 100.
Jeez, can you imagine these two incredibly massive objects spinning around each other that fast? o_o
The video is 35 seconds long. That means that whole event would've happened in about 1/3 of a second. :O
 
8:53 PM
0
Q: Quotient in base 31 numeral system

IgorI have two numbers $a$ and $b$ in base 31 numeral system and number $~~k \in [1 \dots 10000]~~$. It is known that $b$ is divisor of $a$. I need to find first k 31-based-digits of quotient $~~\frac{a}{b}~~$. Any ideas how to implement this efficiently? Timi limit is 1 second. Thanks in advance.

 
@NewMainPosts 27 seconds
too slow
 
get rekt, @NewMainPosts
 
no, I mean my close time
 
I know
NewMainPosts can still get rekt
 
record is still 11 seconds :P
 
8:54 PM
wat
 
Feb 1 at 22:28, by Doorknob
@NewMainPosts 11-second close :)
 
@Geobits I'm not sure what you're talking about.
 
D:
 
By the way, a black hole with 30 solar masses has a Schwarzschild radius of about 90 km...which means it's a little bigger than London.
 
8:57 PM
Dam Son
 
And we saw two of those combine into one black hole. From a billion years away.
Because in the process of merging, they lost three solar masses as gravitational radiation.
More energy than all the light from all the stars in the universe.
 
Possibly should be reopened? codegolf.stackexchange.com/q/72022/3808
 
> The solution with fastest proved asymptotics wins
How would you demonstrate that would be my question
 
9:13 PM
What if different solutions have their best asymptotic behaviour depending on different inputs?
There isn't just one input so one may be O(n) in a but O(n^2) in k, and another solution may be the other way around. Which one wins?
 
Yeah. I don't think that it currently has an objective winning criterion.
 
Agreed. If it is objective, it certainly isn't clear that it is.
 
should probably comment that example on the question.
I like the idea of best algorithm/fastest code etc, but most of the time I think it is really hard to
 
There is some useful info in the tag wiki
It also mentions needing a tie breaker, which definitely applies here
 
Yeah I'll comment on the post and add the tag link
 
9:18 PM
Goodbye for now
 
bai @SuperJedi224
 
Four PPCG questions in the sidebar HNQ. While looking at another PPCG question that I got to from the sidebar HNQ. :P
 
Has anyone ever tried making a virtual machine for the purpose of clocking challenges?
I know there's golf-cpu, but it's pretty limited right now.
 
@El'endiaStarman I'm suspicious this is the reason we haven't graduated. They don't want to legitimize hnq hogging
 
Meh, they could just tweak the site scaling.
(not that I'm complaining)
 
9:28 PM
They definitely could do it on a per-site basis. Well, at least, they can block specific sites from getting questions on HNQ.
 
0
Q: Whitespace-free Hello World

minerguy31After the previous outrage at work over programmers writing code in Whitespace (the language), Management has decided to disallow whitespace (spaces, newlines and tabs) entirely. You, as a programmer, have to work around this (or of course, get no pay) Your task is to create the most creative pr...

 
Christianity.SE used to be one of those sites, which was a good idea back when stuff like scope issues were being worked out.
 
@Liam Someone made a dedicated server for running fastest-codes and KOTHs, but I forget who it was.
And it never really took off.
 
@Zgarb @PhiNotPi
 
Thanks.
 
9:31 PM
@El'endiaStarman There's already hotness scaling per site IIRC. To level the field a bit between big/little sites.
 
@El'endiaStarman I'm pretty sure every site has an adjustment - otherwise the HNQ would be all SO.
 
@Geobits Stack Overflow definitely has that.
 
I think the PPCG issue is just that we're a relatively small site that gets fast/many answers and votes.
 
ninja'd
 
@trichoplax I don't think there's an adjustment for every site. Stack Overflow does have a specific adjustment.
 
9:32 PM
@El'endiaStarman I can't remember where I saw it and how many sites it applied to - I'll have a quick look
 
45
A: How do the "arbitrary hotness points" work on the new Stack Exchange home page?

David FullertonBasically what's documented here: What formula should be used to determine "hot" questions? We have a few tweaks: Succeeding questions from the same site are penalized by increasing amounts. So, the first question from SO in the list gets multiplied by 1.0, the second by 0.98, the third ...

 
@Doorknob Have you been using :term in NeoVim?
 
> We make a per-site traffic adjustment so SO does not dominate the entire list
 
Oh, actually, there are three sites being penalized: Stack Overflow, Programmers, and The Workplace. Source.
 
Hmm, I read that as those particular sites had/have an extra penalty, in addition to the usual traffic scaling.
 
9:39 PM
> The core of the formula (without the site-based degrading or traffic scaling) is:
(MIN(AnswerCount, 10) * QScore) / 5 + AnswerScore
-------------------------------------------------
         MAX(QAgeInHours + 1, 6) ^ 1.4
 
@AlexA. no :P
 
It's probably the vote-happy culture of PPCG that gets questions on HNQ. :P
10
 
seems kind of pointless when it can just be tmux or two separate terminal windows
 
@Doorknob ಠ_ಠ
 
Ah, so the 11+th answers don't matter except for adding to AnswerScore.
 
9:41 PM
@El'endiaStarman for us, it should be something like + AnswerScore / 3
 
how high can we go?
 
Over 9000
 
Oh god no.
 
We must beat Stack Overflow.
(I kid. Let's not try to do that.)
 
9:42 PM
One new excellent question every 9.6 seconds!
 
Too late
 
@AlexA. That's about one challenge every 10 seconds
 
@Doorknob What's your point
 
.-.
 
Does that number include closed challenges?
 
9:43 PM
I think so
 
yes, but not deleted
 
> Test for yourself, change the word key to poop
Found on Stack Overflow
 
Ew... Word key.
 
Anybody here familiar with crunch.js?
 
I prefer smooth.js. Well, at least when it comes to peanut butter.
2
 
9:48 PM
ಠ_ಠ
 
( ͜ಠ ͡ʖ ͜ಠ)
 
Alex speaks truth.
 
48
Q: Alex is sometimes right

Calvin's HobbiesThis challenge is to lift the spirits of our mod Alex A., who is usually wrong. Suppose you have a friend named Alex who needs help with basic logic and math, specifically mathematical equivalence. He gives you a list of equations of the form [variable] = [variable] where a [variable] is alwa...

 
> Suppose you have a friend named Alex who needs help with basic logic and math
ಠ_ಠ
 
PHP, 13 bytes Alex is wrong Verifies all test cases. — Dennis ♦ Oct 22 '15 at 18:48
Dammit, every time I see How even is a number?, I read it as How is this even a number?
 
9:52 PM
^ New challenge idea
From `man --help` on centos, option -c is catman
> -c, --catman used by catman to reformat out of date cat pages
 

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