The Nineteenth Byte

Anonymous

7:01 AM

@ASCII-only This made me realize that Seriously is a really nice code jam library :P

ASCII-only

@Mego Wait, you can use Seriously as a library?

Anonymous

Why wouldn't you be able to?

Anonymous

import seriously

feersum

In GCJ you run the code on your own machine.

Rahul2001

@Sherlock9 I hope I do :)

@ASCII-only Okay...

ASCII-only

7:02 AM

@Mego I mean can you use individual functions

Anonymous

@feersum Yeah, but you have to submit the code so that they can rule out any shenanigans

Sherlock9

There's a set of competitive programming books as by Steven and Felix Halim that my friends used when they were studying for a programming competition

Anonymous

@ASCII-only from seriously.lib import is_prime

Anonymous

A lot of the functions are defined to take a Seriously object as their sole argument and modify it, so you'll have to take that into account, but it's perfectly usable as a general-use library.

ASCII-only

@Mego :O wow I should probably use that next year if I try GCJ again

Anonymous

7:05 AM

I don't know GCJ's rules for external libraries

Anonymous

I just always used a few utility modules and included them in the source zipfile

Anonymous

By the time the next GCJ rolls around, I might even have the Actually-to-Python compiler working

Anonymous

It's strange to think that, next GCJ, there's a good chance I won't be eligible to compete

ASCII-only

@Mego As long as it's freely available it's fine

Rahul2001

@Mego Why so?

Anonymous

7:09 AM

@Rahul2001 Employees aren't allowed to participate

Rahul2001

@Mego You work at Google? Cool!

Anonymous

@Rahul2001 Not yet. I will find out next week if I get to.

Rahul2001

@Mego Oh. Good Luck!

Anonymous

Thanks :)

Qwerp-Derp

Hello!

Jonathan Allan

7:21 AM

@Qwerp-Derp definitely some regularity (next n with the same value of S(n) after some initial mix goes up in powers of 2)

e.g. person "10" remains when n is [22, 54, 86, 150, 278, 534, 1046, 2070,...], differences are [32, 32, 64, 128, 256, 512, 1024, ...]

Anonymous

@ASCII-only Since you were curious, I set up a test bed for Seriously

Qwerp-Derp

@JonathanAllan Whoa kule

Can you give me the code?

Jonathan Allan

You already did it, no? That is just a matplotlib.pyplot.plt

Qwerp-Derp

7:37 AM

Oh

Destructible Watermelon

Hi

Kritixi Lithos

Hiya

Destructible Watermelon

How can I make a python thing that connects to the interent, and can take input from there?

or just another player or something

Kritixi Lithos

I don't know python

ASCII-only

@Mego :( factor breaks on 0, but I guess I shouldn't be giving 0 to factor anyway

Destructible Watermelon

7:41 AM

@KritixiLithos Well, implicitly I only wanted a response from someone who did

Anonymous

@ASCII-only Yep, I noticed that too. Working on a fix

Kritixi Lithos

@DestructibleWatermelon I was just moving the conversation along shrugs

Anonymous

It's fixed now

Anonymous

It raises a ValueError exception now with n = 0

Destructible Watermelon

s/shrugs/¯\\\\_(ツ)_\/¯/

Kritixi Lithos

7:45 AM

You forgot the : before the s

Destructible Watermelon

no

I didn't

That is vim, and thats just entering the ex mode

Kritixi Lithos

I know it's vim, but I was thinking about the normal command mode

I have never used the ex mode

Destructible Watermelon

wait, that isn't right... It is pretty much just the thing that says to execute a command still

Kritixi Lithos

But you still have to type the : in command mode

Destructible Watermelon

Either way, that's vim

sed is sed

Kritixi Lithos

7:53 AM

I was talking about vim

Destructible Watermelon

I was referring to how you said I forgot a :

Anonymous

Never forget the time when wizz fell for the classic Geobits troll

10

Anonymous

That must live on for eternity

Destructible Watermelon

or maybe he was trying to be part of the joke

Kritixi Lithos

betseg

7:57 AM

But seriously, why PPCG doesn't have a design?

Kritixi Lithos

Seriously

betseg

:|

DLosc

@KritixiLithos I doubt the reason we don't have a design is actually Seriously.

Kritixi Lithos

@DLosc @betseg said "seriously"

^^^^^^^^^

betseg

How many carrots are there?

DLosc

8:00 AM

Yes, so I said "actually." ;)

Kritixi Lithos

Soon, every sentence will contain a name of an esolang...

DLosc

True. Soon, there will be esolangs named after every word in the English language...

Kritixi Lithos

After that, every username will also be the name of an esolang...

betseg

I have an idea for an esolang yaaay

DLosc

@betseg Do tell (perhaps in the Esolangs room).

Kritixi Lithos

8:07 AM

@betseg What's it going to be called?

betseg

@KritixiLithos BS (named after my username)

Kritixi Lithos

4 mins ago, by Kritixi Lithos

After that, every username will also be the name of an esolang...

betseg

Or is this joke getting old^^

Kritixi Lithos

The future is unfolding!!!

DLosc

Incredible, My Baby On Fire

►

betseg

8:17 AM

You can write a sentence in this lang (if you try hard)

Transpiling to BF

betseg

9:40 AM

ill have fanatic tomorrow

Destructible Watermelon

10:02 AM

What exactly is this esolang?

Also I have two esolang ideas

one is nearly implemented, the other not at all

I have to implement the last command

I'm trying to build a search and replace command for my esolang

It does not work the same as ///, because that repeats on the replacement text as well

ASCII-only

10:29 AM

@DestructibleWatermelon Is it not just re.sub

Destructible Watermelon

hmmmm

I must investigate whether that works

also, I'm using a list, I guess I could join it, but that seems wasteful somehow

ehh

also I'm not using a standard regex flavour in my lang

TuxCopter

Hey

Destructible Watermelon

hi!

also

I just realised I'm going to need to use re.sub for my pattern in re.sub

also, not sure how I should use multiple substitution rules. is there a re function for that

Qwerp-Derp

Hello

TuxCopter

Hi

Destructible Watermelon

10:39 AM

I'm trying to figure out how to make a substitution for my language

TuxCopter

I have an esolang idea

Destructible Watermelon

I think I might as well implement the substitution, because I'm going to have to do a lot to get this working without implementing anyway

TuxCopter

The program is an electronic circuit

Destructible Watermelon

@TuxCopter You always have an esolang idea

@TuxCopter fair sure thats been done

TuxCopter

But the only available components are PLAs

ASCII-only

10:57 AM

@Dennis Can you pull Charcoal? Thanks!

New Sandboxed Posts

12:25 PM

0

A: Sandbox for Proposed Challenges

This will be a popularity-contest with graphical-output. What would you do with Apple's Touch Bar and a maximum 64k? This is my first idea for a popularity contest. Is it thought out enough? Is the idea itself good? Is there room for improvement (it sure is)? Thanks a lo for any feedback. tl...

betseg

#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <ctype.h>

int main() {
    int c, d;
    c = getchar();
    d = getchar();
    while(c != EOF && d != EOF) {
        putchar(
            (islower(c) && islower(d))
             ? (c - d) % 2
                 ? '-' : '+'
          : (islower(c) && isupper(d))
              ? (c - d) % 2
                  ? '.' : ','
          : (isupper(c) && islower(d))
              ? (c - d) % 2
                  ? '<' : '>'
          : (isupper(c) && isupper(d))

my new lang

transpiling to bf

Kritixi Lithos

12:39 PM

Why don't you post it at Chatroom for esoteric programming languages?

betseg

k

TuxCopter

github.com/aloisdg/OpenPizza

> OpenPizza is a community driven open source initiative to create a YAML-based standard and database for pizza recipes.

11/10

Sp3000

@feersum I'll take a closer look some time later, but nice work :)

mınxomaτ

12:58 PM

debian is so damn confusing

and verbose

I want arch back :(

Zacharee1

@mınxomaτ you complain that Debian is verbose and then say you miss Arch? xD

Kritixi Lithos

@mınxomaτ You should try Java

TuxCopter

@mınxomaτ Arch is way more confusing

ASCII-only

Verbose?

mınxomaτ

arch is way less verbose

ASCII-only

1:00 PM

Examples?

Zacharee1

@KritixiLithos public static ArrayList<Character>() { return ArrayList<Character> hello = new ArrayList<Character>() {{ add("y"); add("e"); add("s");}}; }

Kritixi Lithos

#Java, 139 bytes

Zacharee1

:p

mınxomaτ

Say you want to upgrade the kernel (imagine for a second arch didn't do that automatically). You would uncomment the testing repo in your pacman sources and simply upgrade. On debian, you have to add either testing or experimental, update apt, upgrade the kernel package and specify the experimental repo manually (-t experimental) again. And then you're left with other dependencies you have to resolve manually.

Kritixi Lithos

@Zacharee1 139 bytes excluding import statements

Zacharee1

1:03 PM

@mınxomaτ that's not verbose, that's just complex

TuxCopter

I don't have this problem, I never upgrade the kernel ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Zacharee1

@KritixiLithos oh right, import java.lang.ArrayList or whatever

mınxomaτ

@Zacharee1 It's verbose in the literal sense of the word, since you have to enter and modify way more text.

Zacharee1

> using or expressed in more words than are needed.

ehhhhh

Kritixi Lithos

Well, I don't know what a kernel is...

quartata

1:04 PM

@TuxCopter That's a problem in and of itself

mınxomaτ

@Zacharee1 Well, they are not needed. On a sane OS!

Zacharee1

@mınxomaτ but it isn't expressing more words than needed

It requires more steps than you think should be needed. That's not the same thing

mınxomaτ

@TuxCopter Yeah, but Debian's acient 3.16 kernel doesn't even support my laptops internal keyboard.

TuxCopter

@mınxomaτ wtf

Zacharee1

@mınxomaτ in any case, the comparison isn't really fair. Debian is built to be more end-user friendly, while Arch is made for experiments and advanced Linuxing.

Wait, Linuxing is a word/??

@mınxomaτ why not just use Ubuntu?

mınxomaτ

1:07 PM

@Zacharee1 Because Debian is the only OS that implements mixed UEFI bitness (chainloading). Otherwise I'd use arch.

Zacharee1

@mınxomaτ Ubuntu is Debian-based. I get the feeling it has that

We also have kernel 4.8 in 16.10

mınxomaτ

@Zacharee1 No it doesn't.

Zacharee1

It doesn't?

mınxomaτ

No. What's unclear about "Debian is the only OS that"?

Ubuntu doesn't include the modified grub nor the detection routines that Debian has: wiki.debian.org/…

Zacharee1

It looks like it isn't that hard to put it into the installation sturmflut.github.io/linux/ubuntu/2015/01/21/…

mınxomaτ

1:11 PM

@Zacharee1 So? 1) I don't want ubuntu, and 2) that has all the problems of the current Debian solution.

Zacharee1

or askubuntu.com/questions/392719/32-bit-uefi-boot-support

@mınxomaτ why does it?

mınxomaτ

Why would I know why? It says so right in the link you posted. You need USB keyboard, mouse and WiFi adapters.

Zacharee1

@mınxomaτ most things need a keyboard and mouse

and the WiFi adapter is only recommended in case that tablet's adapter doesn't work on Ubuntu

mınxomaτ

Debian actually has a Wiki reference for my exact device. Ubuntu would be more work to get a system I don't need or want. Debian works, but it's a paint to use and install.

I don't know why you are linking to ubuntu, If I said before that I have no use for Ubuntu.

Zacharee1

Just trying to show you that it might work

mınxomaτ

1:15 PM

It's pretty pointless to install a debian-based system with more manual work if Debian already works.

Zacharee1

I thought Debian didn't work

mınxomaτ

I never said that

I said it's unnecessarily complex.

Zacharee1

hmm

what about watchmysys.com/blog/2015/12/…

mınxomaτ

It's verbose in the same way Java is: It takes more steps and code (shell) in this case, to do the same things as in a more concise OS (/language).

@Zacharee1 I know it can be done manually. But I want an OS where this is officially supported. Which Debian is the only one.

Zacharee1

alright fine

@mınxomaτ But that isn't what verbose means. Verbose means producing more output than necessary, not requiring a lot of steps to complete

mınxomaτ

1:19 PM

@Zacharee1 It is what verbose mean here.

Verbose is commonly used to describe things that require more input/code to do the same thing. See first comment here: codegolf.stackexchange.com/a/59353/42643

Zacharee1

you just cited yourself

mınxomaτ

There, take two other people: chat.stackexchange.com/search?q=java+verbose&room=240

Zacharee1

people upvote the message because of the content, not the correctness of the word

Yeah, but I don't think that's the correct usage

just like we always say things like "me and him are gonna go to the mall" or "who are you giving that to?"

mınxomaτ

That doesn't matter if everyone knows what it means.

Zacharee1

@mınxomaτ but that's not what I'm discussing here

mınxomaτ

1:26 PM

@Zacharee1 It doesn't really matter what you discuss. If I say verbose in this room, I know that other people know what I mean. This makes Debian more verbose than arch. In both senses of the word. Since debian's system utils also output way more fluff by default.

To say the same things.

Zacharee1

OK, but again, I'm talking about the correctness of that word, not whether or not people understand it

mınxomaτ

@Zacharee1 Correct is never, in any human language, a good measure for anything. What counts in communication is if words are appropriate for their use (putlearningfirst.com/language/07crect/07crect.html). Whether they are correct per some definition (which is not canonical, since language is not law) is not relevant and adds nothing to a discussion.

Zacharee1

Alright, well I don't find verbose to be appropriate for that usage.

Fatalize

@mınxomaτ Which is also why Lojban is ridiculous

TuxCopter

> Lojban is ridiculous

citation-needed

betseg

1:34 PM

halp how do i close a c program that accepts input when user sends EOT

quartata

Just kill it or send EOF?

mınxomaτ

@TuxCopter forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/11860553/…

Zacharee1

if input == EOT break?

quartata

I think he meas he ran it and can't stop it

Zacharee1

oh lol

wizzwizz4

1:36 PM

@betseg Nuke it from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.

Though seriously, have you tried crashing a satellite into it? Most rouge fitness algorithms can't use telekinesis, so wouldn't be able to prevent a large metal space rock from falling through the atmosphere.

If it's a genuine AGI though, please don't kill it.

betseg

ಠ_ಠ

TuxCopter

@betseg Open a Solaris system and type killall.

betseg

> open a solaris system

lul

TuxCopter

It should kill the program (and everything, but nobody care)

betseg

input == 4 && system(killall);

wizzwizz4

1:41 PM

@DestructibleWatermelon No, I actually fell for it. If I hadn't fallen for it, I wouldn't have edited something on main.

mınxomaτ

In other news, researches create mice without legs using snake DNA: cell.com/action/showImagesData?pii=S0092-8674%2816%2931310-1 (open Figure S3)

TuxCopter

@mınxomaτ dafuq

mınxomaτ

For science!

wizzwizz4

@mınxomaτ You monster.

(that was a quote, that was a quote!)

TuxCopter

What kind of genetic shit is this

mınxomaτ

1:44 PM

@TuxCopter phenotypic

literally.

wizzwizz4

Once we know enough about how DNA works, it'll be just like programming. Or so we hope.

TuxCopter

Ah I see it's some Cas9 magic

mınxomaτ

@wizzwizz4 We know enough about DNA to program it. Problem is that it's largely non-deterministic. I actually worked on creating algorithms for that for two years at a local university (Research was: "Computer-assisted identification of transcription factor binding sites in context of the hourglass model of animal embryo-genesis")

The first and last time I had to use Java.

GLASSIC

I need the programming language which can be learned and used easily (i can't use brainfuck) by any person in the world for my presentation.

mınxomaτ

Some BASIC dialect?

GLASSIC

1:52 PM

no

mınxomaτ

Why not?

TuxCopter

GolfScript

mınxomaτ

It doesn't really get any easier than basic BASIC. Well, maybe just pseudocode.

GLASSIC

a more readable one. i'm thinking of logo or noweb

Eᴀsᴛᴇʀʟʏ Iʀᴋ

basic is quite readable

TuxCopter

1:53 PM

BASIC is readeable

mınxomaτ

How is basic not readable? It's basically english.

no pun intended

GLASSIC

Ok

mınxomaτ

Or do you mean "simple", as in the amount of tokens (since you mentioned BF)?

Though for presentations (unless the code needs to run), pseudocode is probably a better choice. Or a flowchart for really trivial stuff.

El'endia Starman

@mınxomaτ So, kinda like Malbolge?

mınxomaτ

@El'endiaStarman Probably. (get it)

TuxCopter

2:06 PM

So programming DNA is like programming in Malbolge?

El'endia Starman

@GLASSIC Aside from BASIC, which is an option I'd suggest as well, you could perhaps use Python. For simple stuff, it should be fairly intuitive.

Lynn

Well Malbolge is deterministic

mınxomaτ

But jokes aside, it was a great research effort. Our whole team significantly improved all kinds of processes involved in TFBS identification. This'll help medical research for years to come. Actually, three people of the original team are still working on that.

El'endia Starman

@mınxomaτ Took me several moments to spot the pun. :P

wizzwizz4

@El'endiaStarman What pun? I... still don't get it. :-(

El'endia Starman

2:11 PM

@wizzwizz4 DNA programming is largely non-deterministic, meaning probabilistic...

Not the easiest pun to get, that's for sure.

wizzwizz4

We're comparing DNA to Malbolge?

I must have missed a lot.

mınxomaτ

@El'endiaStarman Yeah, it's hit or miss.

El'endia Starman

@Lynn That's true. I think though that the amount of work involved to make either kind of program would be fairly similar.

Ignoring the fact that we have all the rules for Malbolge already and don't have to figure them out.

mınxomaτ

I think Lenovo is just trying really hard to have the worst customer experience.

You'd think that if you have a laptop, and a Windows install medium (+ key) shipped with it, that this is all you need to reinstall Windows. Turns out you need to buy a $50 usb drive with proprietary drivers to install Windows again on this machine. Jesus...

TuxCopter

???

mınxomaτ

2:20 PM

Yep-

Windows 10 update (read: upgrade) overwrites the badly written recovery system. Should you ever need to reinstall Windows, you need to buy that USB.

Lynn

@Fatalize As someone who speaks intermediate Lojban… yeahhhh agree

PhiNotPi

Lojban is a syntactically unambiguous language that attempts to be semantically unambiguous.

DJMcMayhem

@mınxomaτ I know what you mean. I Recently got a Lenovo laptop that came with 10, and I had to install 7 on it. It doesn't support 7 very well, so it took me almost a whole day of kludgey hacks to install it

In the end, I had to inject USB 3 drivers into the windows installer for it to work

TuxCopter

Chicken!

wizzwizz4

An extract from a very scientific scientific paper:

TuxCopter

2:33 PM

(Don't ask me how the hell I found that)

wizzwizz4

> Chicken chicken chicken—chicken chicken chicken chicken chi-
cken, chicken chicken chicken chicken chicken chicken chicken
chicken chicken
C
(log
n
) [2]. Chicken
p. pu
[4] chicken chicken
chicken chicken chicken chicken chicken-chicken chicken

PhiNotPi

pdos.csail.mit.edu/archive/scigen

wizzwizz4

@PhiNotPi I don't think it used that; that program actually generates legitimate-looking papers.

PhiNotPi

Yeah I know.

scigen.csail.mit.edu/scicache/934/…

wizzwizz4

Although that did come to mind when I saw it.

PhiNotPi

2:35 PM

> Robots Considered Harmful

TuxCopter

> the visualization of e-commerce might never have occurred.

THAT'S NOT POSSIBLE

wizzwizz4

scigen.csail.mit.edu/scicache/786/…

Very scientific.

TuxCopter

> Comparing E-Commerce and Von Neumann Machines

This made my day

scigen.csail.mit.edu/scicache/589/…

PhiNotPi

I always like their graphs.

wizzwizz4

It took ages to write ScareJoe; Chatgoat wasn't even familiar with the programming languages involved at the start of the project.

TuxCopter

2:37 PM

TIL complexity is mesured in Joules and time in nanometers

PhiNotPi

trick: change .html to .pdf in the URL

looks legit: scigen.csail.mit.edu/scicache/589/…

TuxCopter

> A wireless tool for controlling web browsers.

Wait I understand the paper

Flip-flop gates are harmful because you can control web browsers using flip-flops :O

And the solution is to use an IPv7 architecture named "Wasium"

Seems legit

El'endia Starman

Wasium is the 128th chemical element.

PhiNotPi

@El'endiaStarman source? All I've found is this: en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wasium

TuxCopter

Mobile Wikipedia link spotted

El'endia Starman

2:44 PM

@PhiNotPi We haven't even synthesized element #128 yet, but you heard it here first. It'll be named Wasium!

TuxCopter

> we deployed 58
Nintendo Gameboys across the 2-node network, and tested our
32 bit architectures accordingly

11/10

PhiNotPi

Totally unrelated: I want to write a computer simulation of the cerebellum.

Seems simple enough, as far as brain stuff goes.

TuxCopter

You want to simulate a part of the brain, and you think it will be simple

...

PhiNotPi

It's been done before.

TuxCopter

linky

PhiNotPi

2:49 PM

ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23200194

TuxCopter

ok

PhiNotPi

They had a million-cell simulation. The cerebellum is actually relatively simple, it's like a giant grid of RAM.

Lynn

@PhiNotPi Oh, Lojban totally embraces semantic ambiguity, actually! That is actually a thing I like about it

You can erase (make ambiguous) every bit of info you express. Tenses, singular/plural, gender, etc. are all optional. It’s pretty fun

Dennis

@ASCII-only Done.

Lynn

You can even replace nouns and verbs with “elliptical” ones, where it’s just, I trust you to infer what I mean from context (or it doesn’t even really matter).

TuxCopter

2:57 PM

So, in Lojban, you can basically say Please smurf a smurf of smurf?

PhiNotPi

Part of semantic ambiguity is that dictionary definitions aren't / can't be perfect.

Lynn

Yeah. Lojban’s really suck :T

TuxCopter

PGA33X6 FTW ._.

El'endia Starman

3:20 PM

> Hell of a lawn decoration if you ask me.

(Cody from Cody's Lab took a long-dead cow skeleton and arranged it on his front lawn.)

TuxCopter

Ok

GLASSIC

One of my friends asked me whether computer burns if they nest 10 loops inside each other, and I answered YES!

TuxCopter

>_>

PhiNotPi

@El'endiaStarman Cody's Lab does some weird stuff.

El'endia Starman

@PhiNotPi I think Cody actually says "I'm so weird." near the end.

PhiNotPi

3:28 PM

@El'endiaStarman nothing will top "magnet fingers"

El'endia Starman

@PhiNotPi Was that from the video where he supercooled a electromagnet+magnet?

PhiNotPi

Diy Magnetic Implant

►

warning: I really do mean magnet fingers

El'endia Starman

@PhiNotPi o.O Well jeez. I thought the piece of magnetic material in his hand was from an accident or something.

feersum

With "content warning" banner, how do I say OK, I want to watch the video?

TuxCopter

Create an account

Downgoat

3:36 PM

@PhiNotPi O___O

TuxCopter

I actually can't watch it ;_; blame-phone-connection

feersum

Apparently I have to replace part of the URL with v/.

Conor O'Brien

3:51 PM

@Downgoat I don't actually :/

Downgoat

@ASCII-only pls halp. u sai to taek ast printer from cheddarfile but no ast printer?

@ConorO'Brien It's the thing so you can write STDLIB functions in cheddar:

# find
func main(item) {
    for (let i := 0; i < self.len; i += 1) {
         if (self[i] == item) {
             return i;
         }
    }
    return -1;
}

New Main Posts

0

Q: Multiple definition when only defined onec

I have the following problem if I include a header file to my program. ( To decrease the length of post I deleted the implementation of functions ) My files look like: // The main file: cturing.cpp #include <iostream> #include <fstream> #include <stdlib.h> #include <time.h> #include "rule.h" #...

c++

flawr

@PhiNotPi I prefer my fingers magnet free, gluten free and organic.

TuxCopter

> Thank you for your assintence,

850/10

flawr

4:08 PM

@LuisMendo bernoulli factories?

Luis Mendo

16 hours ago, by Luis Mendo

@El'endiaStarman You take a sequence of iid Bernoulli variables with parameter p, and transform it into a sequence with parameter f(p), where f is a known function and p is unknown. For example, multiplying two original variables synthesizes the square function

15 hours ago, by Luis Mendo

@El'endiaStarman A Bernoulli variable is a random variable taking values 0 and 1. It's like a coin toss, with head=1 and tail=0. But the probability of head need not be 1/2; it's an arbitrary p

It's a very interesting field!

flawr

I never heard of that.e But to be honest my knowledge in statistics is comparable with the general knowledge of Jon Snow.

Luis Mendo

@flawr A paper poetically put it as "Generating new coins from old" :-)

El'endia Starman

Is it the case that you can construct any function with any desired probability of getting a 1 by combining a single Bernoulli variable with itself in various ways?

flawr

@LuisMendo You mean money laundering?

Luis Mendo

4:14 PM

@El'endiaStarman No, some functions are known to be impossible. For example, min(2*p,1) is not possible (but min(2*p,1-epsilon) is)

@flawr Heh

@El'endiaStarman Also, if by with itself you mean the same realization no, you need several realizations (several coin tosses with the same p)

El'endia Starman

@LuisMendo And epsilon can be arbitrarily small, right?

@LuisMendo Yeah, I meant the latter.

Luis Mendo

@El'endiaStarman Yup. TBH; I never got the method they used to produce it. But it is possible to generate that function. Also sqrt(p) is possible. And in fact p raised to any positive value (that will be part of the content of my paper; it's a new result as far as I know)

flawr

@LuisMendo So the goal is finding p ?

(Is there any good introduction to that topic?)

Luis Mendo

@flawr No, p is and remains unknow. The goal is to produce a Bernoulli random variable with probability f(p) given a sequence of independent realizations of a Bernoulli random variable with probability p

Let's see if I can find one

flawr

@LuisMendo Oh now I understand!

I just found one that seems somewhat accessible

www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/sci/statistics/staff/academic-research/…

Luis Mendo

4:24 PM

@flawr That one is in my to-do list. There are more readable ones, like Keane, 94 (but it is not free)

@flawr This seems to be a good introduction

El'endia Starman

Is it possible to construct f(p) = 1-p?

Luis Mendo

@El'endiaStarman Sure, that's an easy one. You just logical-negate the original coin

0 becomes 1, and 1 becomes 0

El'endia Starman

Oh yeah, that is easy.

Luis Mendo

The next-easy one is probably p^2 (square of p)

El'endia Starman

How do you get square root?

Luis Mendo

4:30 PM

@El'endiaStarman That's trickier. There's a paper that discusses it. It uses a Taylor expantion of the root, and each term of the series turns out to be easily realizable. Let me find the paper where I originally saw it

Here. Second half of page 6

There's a slightly more efficient version of that algorithm that will be on my paper.

By "more efficient" I mean requiring fewer tosses of the original p-coin, on average

*expansion

Conor O'Brien

so... you're golfing the number of tosses? :D

Luis Mendo

@ConorO'Brien Heh. Who said golfing doesn't have useful applications?

Conor O'Brien

not I!

El'endia Starman

@LuisMendo Huh, cool.

Luis Mendo

@El'endiaStarman That would make a nice challenge here I think. Catalan numbers, well-formed strings of brackets :-)

New Sandboxed Posts

4:41 PM

0

A: Sandbox for Proposed Challenges

How many times does [number] appear in the range [start] to [end] code-golfmath The program should take input (from STDIN or otherwise if your language doesn't have STDIN) the number, the start of the range and the end of the range. Example For example: //Input example 1 3,1,100 //Input exa...

Kritixi Lithos

^ Any help is appreciated!

Luis Mendo

^ I just commented on it. Nice idea!

wizzwizz4

@KritixiLithos Replying is an easier - and subjectively better - way than arrows.

DJMcMayhem

CMC: what's an English word that not very many people know?

wizzwizz4

(Well, easier when chat is high activity)

Luis Mendo

4:47 PM

@DJMcMayhem VTC as too broad

wizzwizz4

@DJMcMayhem agentry?

Not even my spell-checker knew that!

Kritixi Lithos

@DJMcMayhem quizzaciously

PhiNotPi

I'm a fan of "ereyesterday" and "overmorrow"

Downgoat

@DJMcMayhem gaot

4

only valid in certain dialects of english however

wizzwizz4

@Downgoat -1 lots of people know that

Downgoat

4:51 PM

orly?

wizzwizz4

@Downgoat yarly!

Ooh! "yarly" is a word! :-)

DJMcMayhem

@Downgoat orly? I arrdly know er!

TuxCopter

@DJMcMayhem CMC

PhiNotPi

@LuisMendo I think Bernoulli factories are kinda neat. Here's a related question: let's say that you have a target function, but you are limited in your number of flips (to 8 or some other arbitrary number). How closely can someone approximate the target function?

Fatalize

@DJMcMayhem Eucatastrophe

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