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12:00 AM
For example, if you need 100 votes to win and get 150, those 50 go to second choices.
 
Oh cool.
MAYBE THERE'S SOME HOPE FOR GRACE AFTER ALL.
 
Well, but none go to third.
 
haha guess that means no votes for you Arda hahahahaha snarrrrrrrrrrrrrk
 
@ArdaXi The same reasoning applies when transferring vote weight from 2nd to 3rd
 
pokes Arda continuously BOTHER BOTHER BOTHER
 
12:04 AM
@badp Exactly. 50 - 100 < 0
So no votes are passed to third.
 
Say you need 100 votes to win.
Let's look at the first choices: Grace gets 150, Juan gets 90, Arda gets 0, etc.
Grace is elected.
 
If there are 400 votes, you need 100 to win.
It's (votes)/4
 
Thus 50/150ths of the 150 first choice votes go to the second.
Let's say they all choose Juan, because they're smart.
Now we have Juan with 140, Arda with 0, etc.
Juan is elected with an excess of 40 votes.
 
@tzenes I'd like to pick your brain about maths so I can try to move closer to a more reasonable answer on the ore question. :)
 
that is, 40/140th of the weight goes to the next choice
If you voted Juan first, your second choice then is worth 40/140ths of a vote.
 
12:08 AM
So, basically, I'm not being elected.
 
If they're smart, their second votes were Grace, so the third choice gets 40/140ths
If you voted Juan for second choice, your third choice gets 40/140ths of 50/150ths
 
Which, if you're smart, is? (Choose from the actual nominees)
 
@ArdaXi Oak.
Unfortunately somebody was smart enough to make everybody else look foolish
 
Answer the question.
 
I have.
 
12:10 AM
1 min ago, by Arda Xi
Which, if you're smart, is? (Choose from the actual nominees)
 
I don't know who to give my 3rd choice
 
@Oak hasn't nominated.
@badp I do.
 
@ArdaXi Then don't tell me.
 
@badp Me! (No, seriously, I wasn't going to.)
 
I'll give myself the third choice just to see if I can vote for myself, then I'll decide.
 
12:11 AM
Hmm, it's getting late in the One True Timezone, I think I'll go to bed.
 
By the way, the way I described the process is quite oversimplified
MeekSTV does all kinds of math nuances to make things extra fair
 
I got a cr48 today - 53m ago by Mechko
"The device has been modified. You can now shoot orange portals, but the relevant trigger is stuck. Maybe you need to unlock it somehow!" - 1h ago by badp

Awesomely out of context.
 
If you want to game the elections read the whole thing
 
@badp IT WATCHES
 
@ArdaXi Game well!
You know you have a great avatar when you can let it do all the talking for you.
 
12:14 AM
Wait... who?
There are many ways to count votes in Single Transferable Vote elections. Voting If a class of children were choosing representatives, say, they could line-up behind the candidate of their choice. They would all know that each candidate only needs a certain number of classmates to vote for them to be elected. So some of those standing in line for a candidate who has more than enough votes would choose to not waste their vote and would instead move to another line to help someone else to win. Naturally, they would not move to a line that already has enough to win. Likewise, those childr...
tl;dr We're a class of children choosing representatives.
So hang on... seeing as everyone will put @GraceNote as their first choice, the second choice becomes an impromptu first choice.
 
@ArdaXi Basically.
 
Yay! There is still hope!
 
Then basically who gets the most 3rd choices gets the slot, given that we only make 3, not 5 choices.
...but then again even if we gave the diamond immediately to grace and oak
um, no, it's not the same thing unless somebody has 50% of votes. Unpossible.
 
We should just nail the diamond to Oak while he still has it.
3
Or, you know, superglue.
 
I guess there's a tradeoff to be made between simplicity and fairness
oh well!
So all in all @GraceNote even if you get all 2nd votes and 0 1st votes, you can still be elected. There though needs to be one person with enough 1st choice to win on his own.
 
12:23 AM
Whomever mentioned Beyond Good and Evil earlier today, apparently the Xbox 360 version of BG&E HD now has a release date of March 2nd, and a price of 800 MS points.
 
12:44 AM
Oh cool. @Powerlord
Too bad I have no 360.
 
12:55 AM
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heh, the tag.
 
...
game with robots in it?
really?
 
His username is the same as the song I'm listening to.
 
1:13 AM
0
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edelwaterThank you for your help on the other puzzle from the stone I am now working on "7:9 Letterhead" ( http://www.scarecrowsfield.com/index.php?page=showpuzzle&site=1&group=1&left=7&right=4 ) I have one "close" (pretty obvious) and have tried a gazillion answers but I think I'm compl...

 
1:28 AM
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1 hour later…
2:49 AM
@tzenes You there?
 
occationally
 
Wanted to pick your brain on the 90th percentile stuff. I don't completely grok how to use the equation you gave me to get the desired result and I wanted to give it at least an honest attempt.
 
ok, maybe its best to discuss what 90th percentile means in the context of binary events
 
I don't really think my answer was worth half the bounty. I was hoping it would just help someone else answer the question more completely.
 
don't worry about that, you deserve much more than that rep from other things
so imagine a ideal coin: 50% chance of heads, 50% chance of tails
and we flip the coin N number of times
and at the end we got 60% heads and 40% tails
what is the probability that would occur?
 
2:56 AM
0
Q: Where have I heard the voice of Forgemaster Throngus before?

Nick TRan Grim Batol a while ago and the second boss, Forgemaster Throngus had a voice that was very familiar to me, but I can't place it. Any ideas?

 
3:25 AM
@tzenes (10! / (6! * 4!)) * (.5)^6 * (.5)^4, or ~20.5%. Had to refresh myself on how to calculate that.
 
no, that's the probability for 6 out of 10 heads
this is 60% of N heads
 
binomial probability distribution?
 
ya
we're calculating p values
 
Probability was never something I had a lot of schooling with. I'm using tzenes' question as a method of learning a little bit about it.
 
the idea is the larger your sample size the more certain you are about your measurement, and the less likely it is to occur (if it's wrong)
the goal here being to find a measurement, which when given a specific sample size, gives a probability of p<.1
 
3:42 AM
.5^n is the probability of any single set of coin tosses. I think I'm confusing myself by assuming ordering is important to this question.
(n! / ((n*.6)! * (n*.4)!)) * .5^(n*.6) * .5^(n*.4) Would get you what you're asking, but I'm not sure if I am approaching this how you're intending me to do so.
 
its pretty simple, you just optimize for 90% probability
the only issue is that you are solved for two variables, so its a line
but that's ok because we also know that p*n = k, where k is the number of levels you need
 
4:32 AM
0
Q: Left For Dead Characters

RigilAre the characters in left for dead 1 and 2 modeled after real life people?

0
Q: THE SUDOKU GAMING THEORY

Ssegawa Victorwhat are the relevant steps to easily complete a sudoku game within just a few minutes.what are the rules that are followed when handling the game

 
4:48 AM
@Feeds ... [tech-support]? shakes head
 
Yeah, just saw that
 
I saw the title and thought it was going to be spam advertising some sudoku solving software.
 
How do you review proposed edits?
that only for released sites?
 
Approved your edit. :)
It appears as edit (0) or something next to the edit link.
I believe 10k users and mods have them appear under the mod tools, but I'm not sure.
 
Yeah, 10K users can see suggested edits on the /review path.
 
4:58 AM
But if you can edit (3k) then you can see it to approve it anyway?
 
Well, you see it on the specific question the edits awaiting approval are on.
So I went the question and edit (0) appears instead of edit, and clicking it allows you to view the edits.
 
hmm
 
In other words, 10K users can view all the edits on one page, but 2K users can only see it if they visit the specific question.
 
ya
 
Setting world records is fun.
even if it'll be broken tomorrow.
 
5:05 AM
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KatieKAfter beating one of the legacy bosses (Zoma, for instance), I'm offered the choice to let the boss have the experience from the battle. What are the advantages to doing this? Is the boss the more likely to drop rare treasure?

 
I guess the existence of legacy bosses is a spoiler?
 
5:21 AM
 
...
 
@Mana Seriously downhill. :(
 
I have no words.
 
I have plenty of words, but they're mostly profanity as this perl script attempts some 156 billion iterations on a problem.
 
That's a lot of iterations!
 
5:32 AM
indeed.
Knapsack problems et al, are tricky like that
 
I find that when I'm frustrated Beach House helps to take away all the problems.
 
Beach House is pretty good
 
they're my chilling music
chilling with friends, chilling with myself, chilling with compiling code: Beach House.
but now is not the time to chill. Dead Space 2 just finished installing.
eyes twitch AM I READY FOR MY MOM TO HATE ME. or wait no hate Dead Space 2.
 
hello
 
Yo!
 
5:36 AM
sony and piracy
 
Oh man. A CAD comic in which the characters are supposed to have dull emotionless expressions?
 
yes, indeed
 
heh. Nice comic, thanks for that. :33
 
LOLs aside, that is the only solution to piracy. They should realize that and go open source :P
 
shrug
Dead Space 2 beckons. Cheers!
 
5:40 AM
gl+hf
/help
/commands
/?
 
Yay stupid perl script is done
 
6:39 AM
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2 hours later…
8:29 AM
oh man.
this is so scary :(
 
in The Tavern (General) on Meta Stack Overflow Chat, 10 mins ago, by Dan Grossman
By an extraordinarily improbable set of events we have simultaneously lost multiple @awscloud EBS disks at once, trashing several DB slaves
this?
 
Uh
well that too
 
8:48 AM
@TimStone No matter how he clicks on the puzzle, nothing happens! imagines this man moving a mouse frantically on the printed sudoku
 
9:07 AM
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9:46 AM
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10:25 AM
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10:46 AM
Expect the rate of chart updates to drop once I do give this exam :P
 
10:58 AM
@badp How're you making them anyway?
 
@ArdaXi GDocs and hand updating?
 
@badp Would you mind if I replaced you with a very small shell script?
 
@ArdaXi @YiJiang tried and failed due to API shenanigans
 
(I know, it's an old joke)
 
go ahead and make your day though
with Mechanizer and some trickery it's definitely possible to automate this
 
10:59 AM
Honestly, it can't be that hard to do evilly.
Seeing as the site already uses some form of AJAX to fetch vote counts.
 
well, you first have to do the openid dance and hope it doesn't require JS magic
 
@badp Ew Ruby
 
then you need to screen scrape the page, study the undocumented API etc.
@ArdaXi Python too
 
@badp No I don't. I just need the cookie.
 
actually was Perl, originally.
@ArdaXi unreliable
 
11:01 AM
@badp Reliable enough.
Google Chrome, I love you. It actually shows the code for anonymous event listeners
 
@ArdaXi that's jQuery stuff
 
@badp Err... no it isn't.
 
function (){return typeof c!=="undefined"&&!c.event.triggered?.event.handle.apply(o.elem,arguments):B}
 
Oh. Huh.
 
0
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11:05 AM
@badp But that makes no sense...
That's probably jQuery magic to add event listeners, for some reason.
 
Yeah, I think so.
You'll just have to intercept the network requests
 
could've been worse.
 
It's in here. Somewhere.
 
Whatcha you guys doing?
 
11:08 AM
@YiJiang Arda toys with the idea of fetching accurate vote counts through the 1k rep power.
 
Basically, the way it should never be done. Which is why I'm doing it.
 
@badp For the elections posts?
 
@YiJiang yeah, so far I've been replacing the void created by the API with hand made charts (scroll up).
 
Why not... just simulate a click on the vote number using trigger, then catch the displayed count and do it from there?
 
@YiJiang because that requires javascript + DOM?
 
11:10 AM
@YiJiang Because I don't want to use a browser extension, I want a fast, headless approach.
 
You still have to authenticate even if you're just simulating the ajax request
 
Mechanizer + BeautifulSoup + JSON libs should do the trick.
 
@YiJiang Cookie.
 
@YiJiang I know, or you'd have found a workaround to put vote tallies on the primary pages.
 
Found the relevant bit of code. Not sure where to get the id though, all I get returned is an empty array.
 
11:13 AM
...actually @YiJiang why not try and inject the results of those internal API calls through script tags?
wouldn't my cookies be sent along the request, allowing the call to scceed?
 
@badp X-domain, my dear sir
 
@YiJiang didn't adding <script> tags work around that?
 
@ArdaXi You can parse the elections page for the id's, that's what I did
 
0
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Denilson SáThis is not obvious from the FAQ. Are (logic) puzzle games on-topic? Although some logic puzzles are made on paper, most of them are available as computer games (even the ones that are also made on paper). So, for instance, Lights Out was on-topic (but some people thought it should have gone to...

 
or do they need to be incapsulated in a function call?
 
11:14 AM
@badp Need to be encapsulated - jsonp
 
@YiJiang which I guess isn't available on the internal SO api
 
@YiJiang Doesn't that return the same id as the 'history' link does?
 
oh well.
 
@ArdaXi You're parsing the history links for the id?
 
@YiJiang I'm just testing. I don't really want to code anything before I know my approach works.
According to this, gaming.stackexchange.com/election{id}/votes should return a JSON array, but it returns []. Well, it is an array, but it's an empty one.
 
11:17 AM
2
Q: Elections nominations posts not showing up in API

Yi JiangI know that it's probably unintended that the Primary voting scores were leaked by the API, but I think if you're going to remove it, then at least make it official, so I won't have to wonder if it's just a transient bug. Anyway, some background: It's possible to collect the score and up/downvo...

 
That's still an empty array
I just clicked the Google-Chrome-option-we-don't-know-what-it-does and it crashed.
Oh, it's gaming.stackexchange.com/posts{id}/vote-counts
Oh God, Firefox offers a document served up as application/json for download, rather than displaying it.
 
@ArdaXi There's an add-on for that
JSONView
 
Meh, for the one time I use Fx I'll put up with it.
Awesome, it works without cookie.
And you guys doubted me!
 
@ArdaXi Hmmm?
 
http://gaming.stackexchange.com/posts/{id}/vote-counts
 
11:31 AM
404 without cookie
 
For an election post?
 
Then... how did it work in Chrome and Firefox?
 
load it in incognito
 
404 with cookie too
So that's wrong somehow
 
11:32 AM
uh, okay.
 
vote_count*s*
 
@YiJiang whoops.
 
See. I'm not dumb.
 
and yes, it works from anon too
whips @YiJiang
I trusted you!
 
11:33 AM
I win!
whips @badp
You doubted me!
 
@ArdaXi [status-bydesign]
reports bug on MSO to make @ArdaXi wrong
 
[status-declined]
Hmm, this exploit only works for election posts though.
Well, fair enough. It works.
Now for that very small shell script...
 
@ArdaXi The API exposes split vote count for every other post on the site
 
@YiJiang Not anonymously. Wait.. what?
 
@ArdaXi I'm not wrong on that count ;)
 
11:36 AM
Tell me something. What's the point of making something a privilege whilst also making it public?
 
(The API operates without authentication)
@ArdaXi I have no idea
 
@ArdaXi Also, on the public timeline page you can see the vote tally day by day
(for every other question on the site)
 
Ah well. Now I need to make a shell script to generate a Google Charts url.
 
I'll let you have fun because GDocs don't have a JSON importing function
goes back to exam
 
@badp Who said anything about GDocs?
 
11:38 AM
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Apache FanHi, I am really concerned that my XBOX kinnect cds will get damaged from overuse. Installing the games to HDD is not an option because i have 4GB version and there isent much of space left in it. So what are my options? Can i just copy the disk to a blank DVD? Thanks,

 
@ArdaXi That's what I was using. That's what you are replacing.
 
@ArdaXi api.meta.stackoverflow.com/1.0/answers/23571 See split vote count? Yeah...
 
1 min ago, by Arda Xi
Ah well. Now I need to make a shell script to generate a Google Charts url.
Emphasis on Google Charts URL
 
morning all
 
@ArdaXi Yes, I see you're confusing GDocs with GCharts
 
11:39 AM
@badp No, I see you're confusing inferior with superior.
The former probably uses the latter behind the scenes anyway.
 
Fight! Fight! Fight! Fight! Fight!
 
@ArdaXi convenience is a huge privilege, see employee of the month parking spaces
 
@CRoss There's actually a GM script that pulls in the data for you
 
also the GCharts API are actually painful to work against
 
@badp I've used them before, never found them painful.
 
11:41 AM
@ArdaXi I guess you weren't plotting enough data then ;)
 
@YiJiang I shudder to think the amount of GM written for SE ...
 
You know, the fact that this route is exposed without authentication unlike that for normal posts could very well be a bug
@CRoss You haven't seen the ones written to operate Facebook games automatically then
 
=INT(REGEXEXTRACT(IMPORTDATA("http://gaming.stackexchange.com/posts/" & E2 & "/vote-counts"), "\+[0-9]+"))
Somewhere, someplace, bobince is having a fit
2
 
@badp s/fit/epileptic seizure/
 
@badp At least it's not HTML, no?
 
11:43 AM
@YiJiang no, I haven't. That sounds AWESOME
 
yay for flashless games!
jQuery TASes ftw!
 
Would be awesome to make a Google-O-Meter for each candidate.
 
@ArdaXi I thought the Google-o-meter graph sucks
It's really really ugly
 
It is, but the idea is neat.
 
I can make one myself out of HTML elements and CSS3 transformations
 
11:45 AM
does the data they release on the elections include primary votes?
 
That formula doesn't work, you need to add a catch around the [0-9]+
 
Man, I just rejected 4 out of 5 active edit suggestions on SO
 
That one on the immediate right is obvious, I would think.
 
@ArdaXi IT GOES UP TO ELEVEN!!!
 
you know what the fun part is
 
11:48 AM
@badp I still assume this is a bug that would be closed down sometime
 
oh. Actually it isn't.
The fun part is the "You may only fetch vote counts once every second" response
 
@badp Entirely client side?
 
@ArdaXi Thanks for the legend! It's helpful!
 
It keeps spamming images when I click the upload button. Anyway, now with legend.
 
11:50 AM
@badp Indeed! I mean, it's all Grace Note anyway, isn't it?
 
Hang on. I can make it actually helpful.
 
by the way you screwed up with the parsing of the candidate names
unless you hardcoded them, then bad arda!
 
I just made this by hand.
I'm not actually coding a Google-O-Meter. I'm not that self-deprecating.
 
hmmm, little cluster of fourth ...
anyway, if anyone knows a way to pull old primary scores without scraping the page, @ me
 
@CRoss What do you mean 'old'?
 
11:54 AM
@CRoss Jeff says exposing elections properly through the API is a WIP
 
@ArdaXi "not live"
 
I kinda doubt that but we'll see
 
@CRoss Pretty much have to, since you'd have to get the list of candidates somehow
 
@badp But, after 6 to 8 weeks the elections are long over.
 
@CRoss update the links to use /election/1/ instead of /election/
 
11:54 AM
@ArdaXi that's fine with me
I want to analyze whether the outcome of the election is predicted by the primary
I think the election phase is superfluous
 
considers whether it's worth the trouble to pull in Primary votes using this method
 
rather, you think the primary heavily influences elections :)
 
@YiJiang Trouble?
 
@YiJiang probably, except you have to make one call per second
 
The only trouble you might have is parsing the data.
 
11:56 AM
@ArdaXi I would need to consider parsing and throttling
 
With 30 candidates it's going to take one minute.
 
@badp Which is the main problem
 
@badp Half a minute, by my count.
 
@ArdaXi give yourself a bit of extra time to avoid failed calls
 
If you hit limit, though, your IP is banned for 5 min
 
11:57 AM
45 seconds, maybe.
 
@YiJiang Just do it in the background, after the page is loaded.
 
@badp I think there is a high correlation. correlation is statistics. causality is speculation
 
@CRoss Yeah, but correlations wouldn't make the elections superfluous, they'd make the primaries too similar to the elections
which would disprove my point that showing primary votes for candidates during the elections is a bad idea
 
if both give you the same results ...
 
@CRoss ...then you need to improve the primaries.
 
11:58 AM
Except you get to vote unlimitedly in the primaries, so the barrier is lower.
 
@ArdaXi Sigh, now I have to go back and rewrite the Primary codes
 
I think they're necessary
 
@YiJiang You're welcome. :)
 
I've even pulled the template because I was pretty much convinced that the feature is a goner
 
Ideally we ought to not just pick the top three votes, but order the candidates by preference
 
11:59 AM
@badp And weight it how?
 

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