The Nineteenth Byte

9:00 PM

0

Q: Should you edit other people's answer with lower byte counts?

I've often come across answers like this: Python3, 40 bytes i=0 while i>10: i+=1 print(str(i)) When you could golf it down to Python3, 33 bytes for i in range(10): print(str(i)) Should you edit it, or leave it how it is and leave a helpful comment?

Geobits

@AlexA. I have a suspicion, that's all. I think I know who it is.

mbomb007

Compare your browser with others for HTML5 support.

Geobits

@NewMetaPosts Q: Should you post a question to meta that has several duplicates?

mbomb007

@Geobits Nice Futurama reference. :D

At least, I think it is...?

Geobits

Yep. Good ol' Bender.

El'endia Starman

9:02 PM

Ah, that's why it felt familiar.

Alex A.

@Geobits A: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

VoteToClose

@Geobits I see (and tend to upvote) all answers on my questions.

El'endia Starman

Interesting thing to think about: let's say we play a game where I flip a fair, unbiased coin until it comes up tails, and then pay you 2^n dollars where n is the number of heads. Let's also say that I charge you $100 to play it. Should you play?

Anonymous

@Dennis Yeah, it turns out I accidentally borked the last merge I did. The latest commit should have everything fixed.

Geobits

@VoteToClose Oh! I didn't realize it was your challenge. I'll just slowly fade into the background now...

@El'endiaStarman For $100? I'm pretty sure it's not worth it.

VoteToClose

9:13 PM

@El'endiaStarman Uh. No?

Geobits

The odds of hitting a big payoff are terrible.

TimmyD

@mbomb007 That's good, since IE10 is obsolete anyway

El'endia Starman

@Geobits Alright then, what would be an appropriate charge?

Geobits

That's a better question I think, but I hate probability :D

El'endia Starman

haha

Anonymous

9:14 PM

$2

Alex A.

A sandwich and a six-pack

Anonymous

Well, $1

Anonymous

Actually no 50 cents

VoteToClose

If he wants bias to win, he should charge 2 dollars.

Anonymous

Wait there's a simple solution for this that I'm derping on

VoteToClose

9:15 PM

If he wants it to be fair, he should make it 1 dollar.

El'endia Starman

Let's go for total fairness.

Both parties should break even in the long run.

Anonymous

Yeah $1

Anonymous

The average number of heads you'll flip before getting a tail is 1

Alex A.

£2

Geobits

Well the payout for every win is the inverse of the odds of getting that payout, right?

VoteToClose

9:16 PM

@Mego .5

Anonymous

Err, $2, since it's $2^n

Anonymous

@VoteToClose (1-p)/p

El'endia Starman

@Geobits Yep.

Anonymous

Where p is 0.5

Alex A.

2,50€

Anonymous

9:17 PM

It's a geometric distribution

Fricative Melon

The expected value is infinite

VoteToClose

@Mego The average price you'll flip before getting a tail is 1.

Alex A.

This ain't the Cauchy distribution, son

Geobits

Yea, I've seen this problem somewhere, well explained. I just can't think of the name of it.

Alex A.

It's called a gambling problem

10

TimmyD

9:18 PM

What if I snag the coin out of the air an run away with it? Then I'm up the value of the coin.

Geobits

I can quit any time I want to!

El'endia Starman

@Geobits This. (Spoilers.)

Anonymous

The expected value of a random variable drawn from a geometric distribution is (1-p)/p

El'endia Starman

@Mego You're not accounting properly for the varying payoff, I think.

Geobits

@El'endiaStarman Thanks :)

Anonymous

9:19 PM

For a coin, that's 1. So, the cost to enter should be 2^1=2

Martin Büttner

@mbomb007 I meant something like this:

+`((?(1)\1|\d))+(?=.*_)_?
$#1$1

VoteToClose

@Mego Ohhh, I was interpreting 0 as tails, heads as 1. Split the difference, get .5 chance of each. Then, you multiply the payment (2^n) by .5, and since you'll get an average of 1 head per tail, you do (2^1)*.5=1.

The entry price should be one.

Fricative Melon

E(x)=1/2*1+1/2*(2*E(x))=1/2+1/2(1+2*E(x))=1/2+1/2+1/2*(1+2*E(x))->infinity

El'endia Starman

@Mego and @VoteToClose, look at it this way: the probability of getting 1 head is 1/2, with a payoff of $2; the probability of getting 2 heads is 1/4, with a payoff of $4; the probability of getting 3 heads is 1/8, with a payoff of $8; and so on.

Geobits

The probability of getting zero heads is 1/2.

El'endia Starman

9:24 PM

With a payoff of 0. That doesn't really affect the conclusion.

Or, if you like, the payoff is negative whatever you paid.

Fricative Melon

The payoff for 0 heads is 1

Geobits

Right, but doesn't that mean the odds of one head are 1/4 instead?

El'endia Starman

@FricativeMelon Ack, whoops, what a simple mistake. -_-

Geobits

It still doesn't change the conclusion I think.

El'endia Starman

@Geobits Oh yes, you're right.

TimmyD

9:25 PM

@FricativeMelon Wait, so I get a payoff no matter what?

El'endia Starman

And indeed, doesn't change the conclusion.

TimmyD

And the minimum payoff is $1?

Martin Büttner

@mbomb007 turns out you can actually save a byte by avoiding the conditional:

+`(\d)(?<1>\1)*(?=.*_)_?
$#1$1

Geobits

@TimmyD Well 2^0 is 1 :)

Fricative Melon

It means that spending $1 means you can't lose money, so the average value you want to bet should be greater than that, at least

TimmyD

9:26 PM

So, the most I'll bet is $1. And I'll just continue playing the game again and again until you give me all your money.

El'endia Starman

@TimmyD Hahaha. The game master, having been forewarned of your tactic, will only let you play one game.

TimmyD

Fine. I'll still only bet $1. Cheap way to get up on stage in Las Vegas.

El'endia Starman

lol

Martin Büttner

@mbomb007 hah, this also works (saving 3 more):

Geobits

If I can only play it once, I'll just toss a buck in for kicks and not expect anything.

Martin Büttner

9:27 PM

+`(\d)(\1?)*(?=.*_)_?
$#2$1

Alex A.

I'll bet $1 then trick a bunch of friends into playing your game too, and take their money once they're done.

Anonymous

@El'endiaStarman Please do not edit the challenge after answers have already been posted which would be invalidated by the edit(s).

2

Alex A.

XD

El'endia Starman

-_-

Dennis

@Mego Yes, it seems to be working now.

TimmyD

9:29 PM

This reminds me of a game show that was on US television a while back. After the game, the two players would secretly choose friend or foe. If they both chose friend, they split the winnings. If one chose foe and the other friend, the foe won the whole amount and the friend won nothing. If both chose foe, no one received the winnings.

Anonymous

@Dennis Sorry about messing it up :P Merging is hard when your trunk is 12 commits ahead of the pr

Anonymous

@TimmyD Prisoners Dilemma?

Alex A.

@Mego Trunk? What is this, subversion?

El'endia Starman

@Mego Sounds exactly like it.

TimmyD

@Mego Pretty much. But it was surprising how often the results were friend/foe with one person winning the whole pot.

Anonymous

9:30 PM

@AlexA. No it's my brain reverting to svn lingo because I couldn't remember the word "head"

Geobits

@TimmyD Not too surprising. People are dicks.

Alex A.

@Mego So you had that thought in your trunk then?

Anonymous

@AlexA. Yep, it was junk

TimmyD

It was maybe a 25%/25%/50% split friend-friend / foe-foe / friend-foe

Alex A.

@Geobits Especially people named Richard.

El'endia Starman

9:30 PM

@Geobits The surprising part is how often one of them wasn't.

Dennis

@Mego No worries. I constantly mess up my commits, but since I also manage TIO, nobody notices. :P

Anonymous

@Dennis goes and snoops through your commits

Dennis

I delete messed up commits. :P

El'endia Starman

I should make a little webpage for playing that game mentioned up there.

The answer, by the way, is that you should play it at any price.

VoteToClose

@TimmyD This is called Golden Balls in England.

El'endia Starman

9:32 PM

The expected value (i.e., the average winnings in the long run) is infinite.

TimmyD

@El'endiaStarman Provided I have an infinite amount of time to play it.

Alex A.

@VoteToClose ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

Anonymous

@Dennis I don't. That's why Seriously's commit history is so full of crap

VoteToClose

Golden Balls

Golden Balls is a British daytime game show presented by Jasper Carrott. It aired on the ITV network from 18 June 2007 to 18 December 2009. It was filmed at the BBC Television Centre. From 25 February 2008 to 13 February 2009, the show was sponsored by ITV Bingo (powered by Party Gaming) (STV Bingo in Scotland); from 2 November to 18 December 2009, the show was sponsored by Carpet Right; and from January 2013 to February 2013, whilst repeated on Challenge, the show was sponsored by Sky Bingo. Golden Balls Ltd licensed their name to Endemol for the game show and merchandise. == GameplayEdit == ...

Geobits

Leave it to the British to name it Golden Balls.

Alex A.

9:32 PM

Hey, at least they aren't blue.

El'endia Starman

@TimmyD Even if you only have a finite amount of time, the more time you have, the more you are likely to win.

Geobits

> ...they will discuss who they think is lying, and try to establish who has the worst set of balls.

mbomb007

@TimmyD I know it is, but that doesn't mean everyone will upgrade. It's be much easier if companies would use Firefox or Chrome...

TimmyD

Friend or Foe? (TV series)

Friend or Foe? is an American game show based on knowledge and trust which aired on Game Show Network. Three teams of two strangers attempted to persuade their partner into sharing their accumulated winnings rather than stealing it for themselves. The show premiered June 3, 2002, and aired for two seasons totaling 130 episodes. It was hosted by Kennedy, except for the April Fool's Day 2003 episode (the final first-run episode), in which Mark L. Walberg hosted. The show "re-debuted" in 2008, re-airing episodes from the series during that year. == RulesEdit == At the start of the game, three of the...

Alex A.

@Geobits "I'll show you mine if you show me yours."

mbomb007

9:34 PM

@MartinBüttner Wow, that's so much easier to understand at a glance.

Martin Büttner

@mbomb007 the only tricky bit is understanding why (\1?)* reliably gives you one more capture than it matches characters.

TimmyD

@mbomb007 Except that mass configuring things like security settings, home page, pushed bookmarks, etc., are waaaaaaaaaay easier in IE, if not outright impossible in other browsers.

Geobits

Mass configuring home page should be outlawed anyway :P

TimmyD

Yeah, but users are stupid.

mbomb007

@TimmyD Any workplace that does that is too controlling.

I have IE which I use to run apps I work on, and I use Chrome for everything else

Geobits

9:37 PM

I agree with the security settings (and possibly bookmarks, depending on policy), but home page is too far for my taste.

Worst is the ones that try to stickify the home page, so it has a habit of reverting. DoD used to do that.

Cᴏɴᴏʀ O'Bʀɪᴇɴ

> I have IE

TimmyD

If we didn't force the home page, I'm pretty convinced that users here wouldn't use the employee resource portal (which has links for things like ordering printer paper or toner, reporting broken light fixtures, requesting permissions changes, etc.) that flows through our multi-faceted ticketing system, and would instead just call the IT helpdesk for everything.

Geobits

Meh. Facilitating the bad users at the expense of the better ones never made much sense to me ;)

mbomb007

@CᴏɴᴏʀO'Bʀɪᴇɴ Sure, it's installed automatically. :P

Cᴏɴᴏʀ O'Bʀɪᴇɴ

Uninstall it.

mbomb007

9:40 PM

It can be removed.

I have to have it for work.

Cᴏɴᴏʀ O'Bʀɪᴇɴ

Oh.

Geobits

It's a pain to uninstall on later versions, IIRC.

Cᴏɴᴏʀ O'Bʀɪᴇɴ

removes ಠ_ಠ

mbomb007

"I have IE which I use to run apps I work on"

Anonymous

@Geobits Forcing a home page isn't that big of a deal. It's n+1 keypresses at most to get to the site you want to be (with a URL of length n)

Cᴏɴᴏʀ O'Bʀɪᴇɴ

9:40 PM

Well, working on apps is different from using it for work.

mbomb007

I develop applications at work.

Some of the apps technically only support IE 11

TimmyD

I ~~hang out on PPCG~~ maintain the messaging environment.

2

Geobits

@Mego Depends on the home page I guess. Ours was a portal page that took forever to load, and was pretty useless in general. When it appears at first glance to hang every time you open the browser, it's not optimal at the very least.

Alex A.

@TimmyD XD

Anonymous

@Geobits That's a problem with the website, then, not the policy

Alex A.

9:43 PM

@mbomb007 The company I work for currently has stuff like that. All of our official internal documents are accessed on Sharepoint, which is a huge POS and doesn't work well on Chrome.

mbomb007

@TimmyD I ~~waste too much time~~ constantly improve my skills.

Anonymous

Oh ye gods Sharepoint

Anonymous

@mbomb007 3 dashes

TimmyD

@mbomb007 ---

ninja'd

Cᴏɴᴏʀ O'Bʀɪᴇɴ

ninja'd

Alex A.

9:44 PM

@Mego wut

Cᴏɴᴏʀ O'Bʀɪᴇɴ

NINJA'D

DAMN

Anonymous

@AlexA. it's so bad

Geobits

@Mego It's a problem with both IMO. I've yet to find a good reason to not only set an inital home page, but then check it every so often and revert to it if it's not set.

Anonymous

c-c-c-combo ninja

mbomb007

@Mego I was looking it up in the msg history

Alex A.

9:44 PM

@Mego Yes

TimmyD

SharePoint is fine ... if you have a dedicated team of SharePoint engineers that know WhatTF they're doing.

Alex A.

What Team Fortress? Probably 2.

3

mbomb007

@TimmyD Sharepoint is crap.

Anonymous

@Geobits The alternative policy is having users to check the home portal every so often. Good luck enforcing that.

Cᴏɴᴏʀ O'Bʀɪᴇɴ

@AlexA. TF classic sucks ;-;

mbomb007

9:46 PM

@AlexA. Yep.avi

Alex A.

@Mego That's what they do where I work. You're supposed to check it everyday. There's even a sign in the bathroom that reminds us to check it.

It says, "Have you checked Sharepoint today?" So I wrote on the sign in the bathroom, "Not in here I haven't."

mbomb007

@AlexA. Right next to the sign reminding people to wash their hands with soap?

Geobits

I've yet to work somewhere that had a portal I needed to "check" for anything I guess. Most I've seen are just links to internal apps, which is easily accomplished with bookmarks.

Alex A.

@CᴏɴᴏʀO'Bʀɪᴇɴ I haven't played it in over 10 years but from what I remember it wasn't too bad.

@mbomb007 Haha no, but there's one of those too.

Anonymous

It's much easier and simpler to force the home page, mildly irritating the users who know how to change it and would be bothered by it (which is a really insignificant thing to get annoyed by) and helping out the less-tech-savvy users who couldn't navigate their way out of a paper sack, than to try to enforce regularly visiting the home portal.

Cᴏɴᴏʀ O'Bʀɪᴇɴ

9:48 PM

@AlexA. Well... Relatively speaking.

TimmyD

I've seen SharePoint, when configured correctly with the rest of the environment, work amaze-balls. The meeting organizer invited the room, which was connected into SharePoint, and so created a new workspace there. Invitees used OneNote, which recognized what meeting they were in based on calendar integration and automatically saved notes to that workspace. Recurring meetings with the same subject would be consolidated together.

Alex A.

Do you work for Microsoft? ;)

TimmyD

@CᴏɴᴏʀO'Bʀɪᴇɴ MegaTF is best TF.

Cᴏɴᴏʀ O'Bʀɪᴇɴ

?

TimmyD

@AlexA. No, but the client was a deep Microsoft partner.

Alex A.

9:49 PM

Oh my, a deep partner?

4

Anonymous

( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

TimmyD

@CᴏɴᴏʀO'Bʀɪᴇɴ campu.org/infinity

Geobits

@Mego I agree, depending on the environment. If you work for a tech company where >90% of the employees don't fall into the less-tech-savvy category...

mbomb007

@Mego ~~( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)~~

Alex A.

( ಠ ͜ʖಠ) deep

Geobits

9:50 PM

I mean, cool, set me up a home page. But if I know how to change it, let me.

mbomb007

@AlexA. i0.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/newsfeed/000/103/740/…

Alex A.

oh god that face

Anonymous

@Geobits Maybe. Most of my work experience comes from the banking and electrical wholesale industries. The average tech savviness of the employees there (not counting IT/devs) was negative.

Alex A.

lel

Geobits

Oh I can believe that :)

TimmyD

9:51 PM

Hah. Truth.

Anonymous

Working in IT for a decent-sized local bank was exactly like The IT Crowd

Geobits

I've seen my banking website, so I'm not even sure of their IT guys sometimes ;)