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5:09 PM
chat ees ded
no big surprise
 
Have we had a tag system challenge?
 
Like simulate a tag system
 
@undergroundmonorail No, a Stack Exchange tag system.
 
5:13 PM
@undergroundmonorail yes
 
Does someone here have a list of all of the feed bots' jokes?
 
the feed bots don't make jokes, the mods edit feed bot posts to have jokes in them
 
You know those aren't automated right? The mods edit them
ninjad but only because I'm on mobile
 
@undergroundmonorail Does someone here have a list of all the edited feed bots' posts?
 
okay, i wasn't sure if that was what you were asking
sorry, i do not
 
5:18 PM
Just search for all their starred posts
 
@quartata No, you've been ninja'd by @undergroundmonorail.
@quartata The search isn't as advanced, and I cannot log in as a feed bot.
 
Why does it say the last message here was an hour ago (by FlagAsSpam) in the little chat preview on the right side of challenge pages?
 
it updates very slowly
 
I guess I've just never noticed that then
 
5:20 PM
think it's at the same rate as the feeds
 
That would make sense
 
> That would make snes
 
love my snes
 
Stupid fingers, they don't always cooprertate
 
:D
 
5:22 PM
Does someone here have a link to an advanced SE chat search engine?
 
site:chat.stackexchange.com
 
you wouldn't be able to search for starred messages though
 
We should build an advanced search engine for chat.SE
 
looks like we've had cyclic tag system but not a generic tag system
 
@ETHproductions Yeah good luck scraping every single chat message ever with no API
 
5:25 PM
@ETHproductions 'Cause I'm speshul.
 
I'm trying to assemble a list of questions so I can flood main and get us to 10 Qs/day
So far I have 4
 
looks like i opened Pandora's box with the regex challenges
 
We're currently at 7.2 questions per day. I am responsible for a little under 0.5 of that :D
 
@Doorknob I haven't posted any in 3 months :(
 
need moar regex challenges
 
5:29 PM
(The q/day stat is in the past month, and I started my New Year's Resolution... about a month ago)
 
hmmm what else
 
I have a question I've had sandboxed in Notepad++ for 2 months now, it's about time to post it to the real sandbox...
 
What do you guys do when you think you've run out of question ideas?
 
Die.
We'll live forever, though.
 
go back to work
 
5:37 PM
Well, I'm going back to sleep. Night
 
EAT CORNDOGS UNTIL I'M FULL AND PUMP ME FULL OF CORNDOGS ~~AlexA.
 
Based on
22 hours ago, by New Main Posts
PUMP ME FULL OF COOOOOOOOOORNDOOOOOOOOGS
 
Oh quick question idea: Make a regex that determine of two strings of ints (e.g. "1891" and "456") which int is larger
Or gcd since we have already have a primality regex
 
Sounds cool.
How would you score it?
 
5:41 PM
Bear in mind @FlagAsSpam, that it is past midnight and my brain is a little fried from earlier illness, but would regular scoring by bytes not work here?
 
Have we had Cramer's rule?
I'm guessing yes
hmm power sets we've had that
 
I really want another challenge like Martin's Sierpinski path-finding challenge, but I'm not sure how that would work
 
5:56 PM

 Code Golfer's Corner

Discussion specific to golfing code. For general PPCG chatter ...
It's frozen.
 
we don't golf code here :P
 
i thought of a nice array manipulation challenge to balance out the 3 string challenges I've thought of
bogobogosort
 
anyone got any thoughts on meta.codegolf.stackexchange.com/a/8239/9206 ?
 
That makes 5 challenges. I think that'll be enough to start with
I want to flood main but I don't want to lose too much rep to a mortarboard
 
6:12 PM
It's not too late to set a goal of 182 challenges in a year like I did :P
(That corresponds to one every two days)
 
too lazy
 
@quartata why...
 
I can't see replies. Why what?
 
Go into your chat preferences and activate the new mobile chat. It's sick.
Anyway... Why flood main with 5 challenges?
 
^^
 
6:16 PM
where are chat preferences?
 
i found them by clicking on my avatar over on the right, clicking "view profile" and "prefs" is a tab
 
@MartinBüttner if SE insists on treating A51 stats as all important than we'll need more questions
 
@quartata Except they don't
 
and even if they did
flooding main with a bunch of questions all at once, even if they're good questions, is a really transparent way to game the stats
 
6:19 PM
I think we could use more non-golf questions
There is only 1 open non-golf question on the newest qusetions list
 
nothing changed
 
a) I'd rather remain in beta than artificially increase our challenge rate, as I don't think we have the corresponding increased activity of answerers either. b) if we do hit 10 I'm sure they'd look at the stats in detail and if 10% (or whatever) of the question volume are due to a single user, that's not good either
 
oh, you think we are ever gonna hit 10q/d?
 
We would if anyone decided to start posting 2 challenges a day
 
@feersum why haven't you answered meta.codegolf.stackexchange.com/q/8121/3808 then? ;)
 
6:22 PM
@Doorknob How is that relevant?
 
@MartinBüttner that probably would require permanent job of posting challenges.. or a permanent joblessness
 
0
Q: Code words in integer sequences

Luis MendoIntroduction Pareidolia: From Ancient Greek; παρα ‎(para, “concurrent, alongside”) + εἴδωλον ‎(eídōlon, “image”). The tendency to interpret a vague stimulus as something known to the observer, such as interpreting marks on Mars as canals, seeing shapes in clouds, or hearing hidden messages in mu...

 
@MartinBüttner how many answerers would we need to give 10q/d the attention they deserve?
 
well i have a new challenge to post
 
6:34 PM
(y)
(Y)
hmmm
 
the latter is more butt-like
 
@feersum I do agree some more code challenges would be nice but they're very hard to come up with
@undergroundmonorail all right
 
Take any classic optimization problem and throw in some extra constraints
 
fastest code has other issues
 
why don't we schedule a weekly challenge jam where the only goal is to bat challenge ideas around. It could last several hours with the goal of everyone in attendance getting at least one new challenge into or out of sandbox, but no pressure or anything
 
6:38 PM
@quartata What do you mean?
 
i wish for more challenges like nonographic magnitude optimizer. modeling things as ILPs is fun.
 
I think we should post simple challenges (like this one today) more often. That wouls increase the number of challenges, and it also helps people get into code golf
 
how about you post simple challenges. they are great rep farms after all
 
@feersum I'm asuming you're referring to fastest code. Do you mean a different kind of problem?
 
then again, a well-designed KoTH is also a good rep farm, though requires far more initial effort
 
6:43 PM
@quartata An optimization problem is where you try to find the solution that maximizes some objective function.
 
@feersum sorry I thought you specifically meant speed/time complexity
 
if anyone's interested in an algorithmic graph theory problem, here is some shameless self-promotion:
0
Q: Is there an efficient algorithm for this vertex cycle cover problem?

Martin BüttnerI've been trying to find an algorithm to find a maximum vertex cycle cover of a directed graph $G$ — that is, a set of disjoint cycles which contain all the vertices in $G$, with as many cycles as possible. I know that the problem of finding a minimum vertex cycle cover, as well as finding a vert...

 
That sounds interesting! But I have no clue
 
context is this challenge I sandboxed: meta.codegolf.stackexchange.com/a/8228/8478 ... the problem is quite trivial for distinct list elements but it's a lot trickier otherwise
 
@MartinBüttner to be clear, this is about finding a subset of arcs?
 
6:54 PM
what's an arc?
 
edge
it sounds like "find a subset of edges such that every edge is in one and only one cycle, and the number of cycles is maximized"
i have a strong feeling it's NP-complete. it's an interesting problem.
 
@MartinBüttner If the problem is as complex as it seems, you might be get more help posting at Mathoverflow
 
@quintopia uh, yes. I think you should formulate it on vertices though
@LuisMendo I considered cstheory but on either of them I don't think I have sufficient academic background in the field to be sure that it would be appropriate
 
Incidentally, I wonder if we could have another fractal path-finding challenge
 
@MartinBüttner I guess you'd get that feedback from math.SE if necessary
 
7:05 PM
I love how the highest voted question tagged with is closed
 
Someone should have answered "Yes."
 
Chat mini-challenge: calculate the amount of finite groups of order n, without built-ins.
 
that's trivial: 0ri:Re!Rm*{:Tz0=R,=[R,Te_]m!{~ff{T==}e_}/=&},{:T,e!{:PPff{T==P#}}%$}%Q|,+
 
^ that does not look trivial
 
@Cyoce: plot twist, I copied Dennis's answer from the actual finite groups challenge on main ;)
 
7:14 PM
:O
 
2
Q: Hypercube elements

FatalizeWrite a function or program that outputs the number of each type of element (vertex, edge, face, etc.) of an N-dimensional hypercube. As an example, the 3 dimensional cube has 1 cell (i.e. 1 3-dimensional cube), 6 faces (i.e. 6 2-dimensional cubes), 12 edges (i.e. 12 2-dimensional cubes) and 8 v...

 
@MartinBüttner I forgot there was a challenge on finite groups.
 
@MartinBüttner you have to add a condition that no vertex is part of multiple cycles, but you still need to describe the solution as a subset of arcs
 
Chat mini-challenge: given a number n, return the first n numbers of the Kolakoski sequence: a(n) is length of n-th run; a(1) = 1; sequence consists just of 1's and 2's.
 
@MartinBüttner wouldn't that be better in CS website?
 
7:28 PM
@Lembik Peter suggested it would be equally valid on either, so I went for math. SE
 
@MartinBüttner it's not so much the validity question but more the interests of the readers
 
@Lembik CS?
 
@MartinBüttner in any case, I now feel fairly confident I can polynomial-time reduce your cycle problem to the maximum independent set problem
 
I.e. you are more likely to get a useful answer on cstheory
@MartinBüttner I just suggested a tag in any case
 
@Lembik oh well I wasn't gonna post on cstheory. I can't tell if this is sufficiently "research level" and I certainly haven't looked into it at research level myself
 
7:31 PM
so the question is: can I reduce the maximum vertex cover problem to it? it seems a natural route for investigation
 
@MartinBüttner ok.. there is also cs.stackexchange but it has a lower activity rate in my experience
or could pose it as a fastest code challenge here :)
and see what happens
 
@Lembik that's why I chose math instead of cs :P
 
@MartinBüttner :) Or even SO!
but they may or may not randomly close questions
 
eh, there will be like 3 people viewing it on SO
 
@MartinBüttner that's not quite right.. there are some experts there too
 
7:33 PM
there are amazingly skilled people there, but the question volume is so much that your questions get a lot less exposure
I only ask on SO if that's actually the most appropriate site
 
@MartinBüttner stackoverflow.com/questions/876293/… for example
 
so basically when it's plain programming that isn't in Mathematica
 
@MartinBüttner this was particularly fun stackoverflow.com/questions/19306692/…
 
Yeah SO wouldn't be the right place for that
Are there any theoretical CS sites?
 
@Lembik I like that your accepted answer is from a PPCG user :P
 
7:35 PM
@quartata cstheory and cs.se
 
@quartata two
ninja'd
 
@MartinBüttner :)
 
oh hm I didn't know
 
cs.se is quite low traffic
cstheory isn't quite as research level as they would like :)
and not as high quality as I would like
but it is OK
@MartinBüttner justhalf's answer is awesome
@MartinBüttner why is the set of vertices not an answer?
to your maximum vertex cover question
 
I want to know how many cycles there are
(at most)
and ideally the vertices in each cycle as well
 
7:42 PM
so there are always n where n is the number of vertices
can you have more than n?
I find this sentence hard to read "The vertices of the graph will all pairs[...]"
is that a typo?
 
@Lembik yes
@Lembik a single vertex doesn't constitute a cycle if there is no loop (and there isn't). I'll clarify that
 
ok thanks... I think normally a vertex would constitute a cycle
in general I can't parse the paragraph that starts "The vertices of the graph will". Is n the number of vertices?
 
0
Q: The state of the popularity contest tag

MegoRecently, there's been a strong push against popularity-contest challenges. This post sums up the general feelings of the community pretty well, in my opinion. Even when challenge authors do everything right (like with Patch the Image), the challenges still attract close votes. The issue is begin...

 
@Lembik I don't actually think so because then DAGs wouldn't exist, but I've clarified it anyway
 
"The vertices of the graph will all pairs" still doesn't make sense
 
7:51 PM
yeah I know, the doorbell rang :P
I fixed that too
 
you say a vertex is a pair
but what does that mean?
I understand an edge being a pair (from, to) but why are you referring to vertices as pairs?
ok I think I can work it out
but I think you need some plain English motivation for the way you have defined the graph
 
We are down to 7.2 questions per day...
1829
Code Golf & Programming Puzzlescodegolf.stackexchange.com

Beta Q&A site for code golfers and for those who interested in code golfing (from beginners to experts), and programming puzzles.

Currently in public beta.

:(
 
8:08 PM
@RikerW Questions per day are OK - Okay, A healthy site generates lots of good content to make sure users keep coming back.
 
1
Q: "I know that language - that's Java. No? It's Perl?"

pal schIntroduction A known fact is that Jon Skeet can code Perl and make it look like Java. In this challenge you will try to do something similar. Challenge Write a piece of code of any length that can be executed without any errors/exceptions in two different languages. Your program can take input...

 
in meta.codegolf.stackexchange.com/a/8239/9206 is it reasonable to ask people to write their own timing code?
 
IDK.
@Lembik I wouldn't.
But it is up to you.
 
8:28 PM
> Jon Skeet can divide by zero.
 
> Jon Skeet > Infinity is true
 
> Jon Skeet can recite π. Backwards.
 
hardcore
 
> When Jon Skeet points to null, null quakes in fear.
 
> Jon Skeet can travel back in time in absolute zero
 
8:31 PM
How have I never seen this post before?
 
which one?
 
366
Q: Jon Skeet Facts

Bill the LizardI'm looking for Chuck Norris Facts style answers. In case anyone is curious, this question was inspired by Jon's own comment to this question. EDIT: If you're into cryptography, you may enjoy these facts. Now with official sanction from the powers that be!

 
hey, so I just created at least one new
not sure if its funny enough to be added..
 
> When Jon Skeet's code fails to compile the compiler apologises.
>


Q: Can Jon Skeet ask a question that even Jon Skeet can't answer?

A: Yes. And he can answer it, too.
 
8:35 PM
^
 
@Lembik the pairs are labels for the vertices
 
Does that qualify him as a PPCG hero as well?
 
no
it has to be 0 bytes for PPCG hero
 
Actually, I don't know if that or HQ9+ was created first
> He could have easily done with zero bytes, "but that would have been silly."
 
so how about my time travel one?
 
Anonymous
8:36 PM
Seriously says hi
 
@ETHproductions Jon Skeet cannot be silly
 
definition of silly will change to mean genius.
 
@Lembik do you find the new wording clearer?
 
> The Jon Skeet badge is awarded for posting a better answer than Jon Skeet. Only Jon Skeet can earn this badge.
 
8:39 PM
> Jon Skeet can make IE obey his CSS rules.
 
Anonymous
> Jon Skeet can make The Nineteenth Byte more off-topic than usual.
 
Jon Skeet wrote an operating system in unary
 
0
Q: Physics (Finding angle between two displacements)

Rachele Scaparotti NaglerConsider two displacements, one of magnitude 6 m and another of magnitude 8 m. What angle between the directions of this two displacements give a resultant displacement of magnitude (a) 14 m, (b) 2 m, and (c) 10 m.

 
> Jon Skeet can make PPCG graduate
but he won't do it :(
 
> Jon Skeet wins popularity contests without even participating.
 
8:43 PM
Selecting someone else's reason for a close vote automatically upvotes their automatic comment? Didn't know that.
 
^
 
> Jon Skeet can close a question without even close voting
 
> If Jon Skeet posts a duplicate question on StackOverflow, the original question will be closed as a duplicate.
 
> Jon Skeet simply wills the universe to close the question, and it closes.
 
lets restrict ourselves to new original ones
 
8:45 PM
> Jon Skeet can complete all of the regex crosswords in under 30 seconds
 
@ETHproductions What really bothers me is that you can't unupvote that comment.
> Jon Skeet's prime calculating programs print the last prime first.
> a.k.a. the sieve of jon skeet
 
> Jon Skeet can completely fill up the starboard in any SE chatroom without even entering the room
 
Well that is not actually that difficult. We've had multiple people do that before=)
> After Jon Skeet used C#, it becoms C-dull.
 
> without even entering the room
 
> Jon Skeet's arrays are always sorted.
 
8:51 PM
Jon Skeet has filled the starboard.
 
> Jon Skeet can write a RegEx that will match against a syntactically correct Perl script.
 
Anonymous
This is dumb
 
Obai Mego.
 
> In Soviet Russia, Jon Skeet asks YOU!!!!!
 
@flawr /^.*$/
 
8:52 PM
> In Soviet Russia, Jon Skeet asks YOU!!!
 
> Jon Skeet decides when a program halts.
 
We shouldn't be closing an original question as a duplicate, even if the newer post is clearer
This practice is even used as a joke here
 
> Jon Skeet can.
@ZachGates Yeah, I saw that
 
> Jon Skeet outgolfs Dennis using Java.
 
^ That's the best one yet. Deserves 10 stars.
 
8:57 PM
To be honest none of these deserve any stars
Very tempted to sweep the starboard with the "clear stars" button...
 
There's a clear stars button?
 
@Doorknob What makes you say that?
 
What is this?
 
@ETHproductions Because they stop being funny after like the second one
 
mouse hovers over close (4) button Should I be the one to close it? I'm not sure about this... maybe I'll wait for someone else to do it.
 
9:01 PM
> Jon Skeet is Chuck Norris's coding brother.
 
> Jon Skeet is going to sleep now.
 
Maybe we should stop talking about Jon Skeet.
 
That is what I wanted to say with this=)
The best of ppcg is going to end soon!
An idea for a series of challenges: Choose some arbitrary language and search for tasks where this language is particularly good (at golfing). Then the challenge is implementing those programs in other languages as sshort as possible.
a la decathlon
 
9:17 PM
Huh, sounds interesting
 
The challenges themselves will perhaps not be very interesting, but it will highlight the features of some of those languages.
 
Questions like this make me sad: It's like an unintentional rep cartel between posters of easy questions, golfing language users who write super-short answers with built-ins, and HNQ voters who pile tons of upvotes onto both of these.
And it's not the rep that bothers me, but the way these drown out other questions and answers, especially to the HNQ audience.
It's not really anyone's fault, just a behavior that emerges from the system.
 
@ETHproductions But like anybody, Jon Skeet is subject to being outgolfed by Dennis.
Help, WarDoq!
 
@RikerW "Hello, World!" is still one byte in Help, WarDoq!
 
@xnor What are HNQ-voters?
 
9:23 PM
@flawr People who come in from the Hot Network Questions list
 
Where can I find this list?
 
and so aren't part of PPCG, but have an association bonus that lets them upvote
 
Should we increase the rep limit for voting to prevent this?
 
can we do that ourselves?
 
@ETHproductions I though an empty program printed it?
 
9:24 PM
@RikerW Nope. That's Stuck.
 
Okay.
 
@xnor No, but there are various rep-related requests floating around so I wondered if that was a possibility, and if so if anyone would approve of it
 
this request to not let voters use the assoc bonus was declined: meta.stackexchange.com/q/183109/275609
 
Hello I see a missed a starring spree
 
Can I attack the starboard now? -_-
 
9:26 PM
yes
 
please not=)
 
we finihsed=)
 
Literally all jon skeet quotes lmao
 
And I made up so many nice "quotes"=)
@trichoplax On the one hand it would solve that problem, but on the other hand those who come via HNQ might probably stay around more if they can participate. (e.g. in voting)
 
9:27 PM
@trichoplax I suspect drive-by voters are in part to blame, but i'm not sure. It could just be that people on site really like seeing short answers. Or, that each individual voter wants to upvote even if they collectively think having many such answers on topic isn't good.
 
@flawr That's a good point
@xnor Yes PPCG votes may be the cause of this... Also if a question is easy the answers come in quickly and sometimes the answers might be what convinces a voter that it's a good question...
 
I like coming back to old Japt answers on catalogues and seeing that I can golf off 70%
 
Fastest Meta Poster in The West:
0
A: The state of the popularity contest tag

quartataKeep it There's nothing wrong specifically with popularity-contest (indeed it is a good scoring criteria for several popular kinds of challenges, such as image-processing). The main issue is that people misunderstand that popularity-contest does not make your challenge exempt from the standard r...

 
9:41 PM
> Jon Skeet can parse HTML using RegEx
> Jon Skeet wins all of the "Best of PPCG 2015" categories without having a single post on PPCG
 
You are like 60 min behind.
 
at least original
 
Skeet actually has posted here.
also I just had an epiphany underhanded popons are completely off topic with our consensus on objective winning criteria
we need a meta post on that
historical lock perhaps?
 
9:59 PM
Is underhanded in general off topic now?
 

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