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01:00 - 20:0020:00 - 22:00

TIL the derivative of a parabola is a straight line and that's so cool
 
0
Q: Students in the Lunch Line

Venkatamurthy NarayanasubramanS students are waiting in line to get lunch. There are anywhere between 1 and 2000 students in line, today is a very busy day for lunch! One student can only see another student if a third student is not blocking them. This means, if one was to draw a line segment between student A and student B,...

 
@Seggan Makes sense, a Parabola is x^2
 
 
3 hours later…
4:20 AM
@Ginger I just remembered where I've seen these before
they look like how they used to on the mobile app
y'all these buttons ain't anything new it's just straight up reusing assets :p
 
0
A: Sandbox for Proposed Challenges

DadsdySplit a string on unnested commas Create the shortest program/function/whatever that splits an inputted string along un-nested commas. A comma is considered nested if it is either within parentheses, brackets, or braces. Input and output Output should be a list, without commas. The input may con...

 
I think I actually kinda like the new vote buttons
makes it clearer whether I've voted or not
 
4:52 AM
it's actually less clear on meta though
 
@lyxal the fact that only color indicates voting is really bad tho (it was also like that before tbf)
also incompatible with a lot of accessibility specs
 
@Bubbler seems about as clear as it is on main
hard to miss the orange filled circle
 
huh? it's very faint gray for me
 
orange
wait that's because I use a dark mode extension
 
5:09 AM
 
I saw that when I disabled it
that explains why the vote icons have always been orange despite the site theme being green :p
 
also the aliasing of the circle border is horrible
 
they killed the mobile app only to bring it back to desktop but worse
 
lol
 
aw the app keeps crashing now
all that effort to find the apk in my google drive for nothing :p
gonna have to charge up my old phone to see if it's just an android 13 thing
 
5:54 AM
dang they really actually did kill the app
like it doesn't even load content on a phone where it used to work
 
6:06 AM
voting arrows look weird; the update sucks
 
 
2 hours later…
7:38 AM
looks like both of you forgot to remove the focus shadow though
 
...no?
it was a fresh load on mobile
 
8:39 AM
-105
A: What is the network policy regarding AI Generated content?

PhilippeWe recently performed a set of analyses on the current approach to AI-generated content moderation. The conclusions of these analyses strongly indicate to us that AI-generated content is not being properly identified across the network, and that the potential for false-positives is very high. Thr...

WTF
 
8:54 AM
I mean, I can see that SE wants to pivot into AI and all that but yikes how the hell do you manage to conclude that the rate of false positives is "very high"
Sounds to me like they're putting stuff in place to ban ai that isn't theirs
 
The AI detectors are terrible but I talked to mods before and they already use multiple sources before issuing a suspension
 
Like "ai is bad but stop being so harsh on ai stuff you'll end up infringing on our investments into ai"
The best way to test if something is an AI is to tell it you've put it into a microwave. Most ais just say "noooo why would you do that sad face emoji" but humans would respond "ayo tf you mean"
 
Stack overflow traffic sharply dropped when chatGPT came out so I get why they are scared but just becoming the same thing isn't beneficial. There will just be 2 sources of incorrect information, one of which takes a bit longer to get a answer in
For everyone else equally infuriated by this decision, strike discussions have started up. — Zoe stands with Ukraine 13 hours ago
 
0
A: Sandbox for Proposed Challenges

HippopotomonstrosesquipedalianTwo mean logs Why are these logs being so mean to me!?! Oh right, the challenge. The mean of an operation \$\circ\$ on 2 variables \$x\$ and \$y\$ is the number \$x\circ n\$ such that \$y=(x\circ n)\circ n\$. In this challenge, the operation is \$\uparrow\$. The formula for the exponential mean o...

 
@SandboxPosts yeah I haven’t written it well. But I hope you understand the concept.
Plus, my previous challenge put me in the top 0.99% this week!
 
9:10 AM
Your previous challenge was quite good
 
9:35 AM
Do we still have the option/ability to have MathJax disabled on the site, or is that something that's locked in now?
 
Why would we want that?
 
To stop people posting challenges that consist solely of mathematical notation, without offering a plain English description of the task or adding worked examples.
 
I don't think disabling mathjax is the solution
I for one find math notation much easier to read than sentances
 
@mousetail If not then we need a concerted community effort to discourage people posting challenges with MathJax only specs by commenting on them in the Sandbox and downvoting and/or closing them as unclear when they're posted to main. It's become far too prevalent lately.
 
Do we have a rule prohibiting this?
 
9:44 AM
I don't know. But, if we don't, we should. It's extremely frustrating.
 
I'd suggest making a meta post about it, it doesn't really bother me but if many others feel the same way we can make a policy
 
Dealing with far too may idiots in work this week; don't have the time nor brainspace to write something up. It'd probably fit best in our list of things to avoid if someone else wants to have a go.
 
10:04 AM
@Shaggy Other than breaking existing posts, it'd mean reverting to ugly Unicode+HTML hacks to approximate formulas.
 
10:17 AM
@mousetail i dont have enough rep to downvote on meta.se anymore because of all those -1s...
 
Ouch
All my rep on meta is from my "show of your hats" post during the winter bash
 
10:31 AM
-12
A: Discussion: Network policy regarding AI Generated content

PlaceReporter99Why don’t we ask ChatGPT for advice? If ChatGPT is generating answers, then ChatGPT will be the best at detecting the answers they made. Prompt: How can I tell if an answer on Stack Exchange was copied from ChatGPT? Determining whether an answer on Stack Exchange was copied from ChatGPT or any o...

Quite possibly the worst possible answer
 
ChatGPT is trained exclusively on data from before chatGPT was released so it's impossible for it to give good answers about itself
 
Yeah lol - not to mention that AI is absolutely not the solution to anything, let alone a problem caused by AI
 
The huggingface model used currently to detect AI posts is technically AI-derived tech but it's not that accurate
Though mods always check multiple sources
 
10:55 AM
Did you post this answer, monkey?
-13
A: Discussion: Network policy regarding AI Generated content

PlaceReporter99Why don’t we ask ChatGPT for advice? If ChatGPT is generating answers, then ChatGPT will be the best at detecting the answers they made. Prompt: How can I tell if an answer on Stack Exchange was copied from ChatGPT? Determining whether an answer on Stack Exchange was copied from ChatGPT or any o...

 
@emanresuA move it back!
 
Please don't post random noise that takes up space
 
@mousetail all my rep is from my two SE-UI-change-reverting answers and also my "Chat is redirecting to Area 51 3: Redirect Harder" post
 
@emanresuA then move those other messages to TN📦
 
11:04 AM
that wouldn't make them not noise
and we do not allow noise in either room
 
@Ginger you mean you don't allow noise in the trash room?
 
wait, what?
what is TN📦
 
♦ The Nineteenth Bakery
Trash for The Nineteenth Byte (commonly known as TN🍞)
@Ginger oh wait i mean TN🍞
Something very unexpected happened:
 
That's normal
 
11:17 AM
Nothing else of interest was posted this week so you have 0 competition
 
11:39 AM
Is this "series" just one question? Why is it a series?
 
12:17 PM
wow, I'm getting a lotta rep out of that vote button fixing script
 
@mousetail probably the first question in that series
 
me whe I'm top 3% this year on MM despite doing almost nothing
 
@PlaceReporter99 There are no others that I can find though and the leaderboard "for the whole series" lists just that one question
 
12:31 PM
@ATaco well I don't know that, I barely know any calculus
 
Generally the derivative of x^b = b*x^(b-1)
 
@mousetail I’m saying that it’s the first in the series and more will probably come out soon.
 
The question is 8 years old
 
@ATaco that’s just one type of parabola
@mousetail oh…
 
@PlaceReporter99 All parabolas are the same
 
12:43 PM
@mousetail (with respect to x)
 
Yep, though with respect to b it's even more fun
 
@mousetail according to cuemath.com: A parabola is a graph of a quadratic function.
 
d/dx e^x = e^x
 
I may or may not have written d(2^x)/dx = x2^(x-1) on a test
tbf it was like in the last five minutes and I didn't do half the questions by then
 
@PlaceReporter99 Yep, so all quadratic functions are similar
 
12:44 PM
@RubenVerg it’s actually $2^x\ln2$
 
ik
 
0
A: Sandbox for Proposed Challenges

noodle manInfinitely spew corporate B.S. (Throwing a touch of shade at some recent decisions made by StackExchange over on Mother Meta) If you've ever read a company's announcement blog post or press release, you've likely thought to yourself "Wow, I couldn't understand a word of that!" This is the effect ...

 
@PlaceReporter99 A parabola of a given line and point which does not lie on said line is the set of all points that are equidistant to the point and the line
 
$\frac d{dx} xe^x=xe^x+e^x$
@mousetail with respect to b it
would just be x
 
No
It would be ln(x)b^x
 
12:53 PM
@mousetail remember, x, a and c are constant.
 
b is not
 
@mousetail I meant b, not x.
 
I'm confused there are only 2 options and I have given the derivative for both
 
Oh I thought you were talking about the quadratic polynomial for the parabola
 
0
Q: Adjacent Items Sorting

mousetailGiven a list of sets of numbers like this: [[1], [0,2,3], [3,1], [2,3]] Output a single list of numbers such that 2 numbers A and B appear next to each other at least once if and only if B in l[a]. If A is in L[B] then B is guaranteed to be in L[A], in other words the relationship is symmetric. ...

 
1:05 PM
@mousetail arguably you could also ask d(b^x)/dy
so your options are xb^(x-1), b^x lnb, 0
 
1:17 PM
Correct
 
1:46 PM
Weird that codegolf.stackexchange.com/questions/254081/rgb-to-hexadecimal is now getting answers after a long gap
And that I had to accept a different answer now that Vyxal is outgolfed.... after a long time
 
1:58 PM
Even more odd, I upvoted one of PlaceReporter's answers to my question. I wonder whether I should reverse it...
 
@UndoneStudios No, vote only for the quality of the answer not the person
I'd vote for Leopold II'd posts if they where high quality
 
^^
 
Technically, I voted because it was in Scratch, not because it was short or anything
quality is somewhat subjective here
 
You shouldn't vote based on length
Just on if it's original and well golfed
 
(also @UndoneStudios we generally don't accept answers anymore, for exactly that reason; when new answers get posted that might require the accepted one to be changed, but the author might not be available)
 
2 messages moved to Sandbox
 
thanks!
 
RO ninjaing :-)
 
kachow
 
@Ginger I agree, but I don't want new answerers to be wondering why an old accepted answer is still accepted; usually I am available in most cases
 
2:04 PM
@UndoneStudios but what if a pony falls from the sky and crushes you? :p
 
Though currently I might not be as I run a Python program to download all xkcds possible
 
I'm not going to stop you from accepting answers; just wanted to make sure you knew
 
Oh right
@Ginger sounds implausible
 
but never impossible
 
stranger things have happened here at TNB
 
2:05 PM
Death by falling pony is up by NaN% this year
4
 
(if you live in Florida make sure you're also watching for falling bales of cocaine)
 
NaN could also be -100
@Ginger I'm in UAE
 
NaN is not equal to -100
 
> could also be
Possible
In our case
 
No, -100 is not equal to NaN
 
2:07 PM
it isn't possible though; by definition for any number it is not equal to NaN because a number cannot not be a number
 
NaN technically means anything is possible, right?
 
no
 
No
 
Then what?
 
it means, wait for it, "not a number"
 
2:08 PM
It can indicate some kind of error during calculation
 
^
 
In this case it indicates division by 0
 
(personally I don't like returning NaN for things like division by 0, but that's an argument for another time)
 
Since there where no deaths by pony from the heavens last year and also none this year it's 0/0 which is NaN
The joke is ruined now it's explained :(
 
Wired: Ponys from heavens
Tired: Rods from gods
Expired: ICBMs
 
2:10 PM
@Ginger maybe an argument for PLD?
 
how do you know there were none? happened to my buddy eric last year
 
@Ginger what's an ICBM?
 
intercontinental ballistic missile
 
dammiy, noinja;d
 
@hyper-neutrino It was covered up by the illuminati so didn't appear in my dataset
 
2:10 PM
is a joke? Seriously
 
yawns hello world
 
:wave:
 
hello o/
 
ICBM's can be reality
 
ahoy
 
2:12 PM
like... ok, I don't wanna point fingers here
 
@UndoneStudios so can the underside of my boot but we don't discuss that typically :P
anyways how's everyone today?
 
funny thing is the majority of the time I hear the term ICBM it's talking about the ICBM gambit in chess :P
8
 
chaotic as usual?
 
@ThomasWard I'm downloading all xkcds today
535 seems to be burning my time
 
3:04 PM
Nevermind, I've bypassed it
 
3:28 PM
@mousetail A FALLING PONY!?!
Breaking news: Death by going for a walk after shopping after code golf has risen by 100%
 
3:47 PM
100% implies it happened at least once last year
 
@mousetail but 200% of 0 = 1
 
No, 1/0 is infinity
You don't calculate the number from the percentage, you calculate the percentage from the number
 
4:45 PM
0
A: "Hello, World!"

Dadsdy(,) 375 Bytes ((),()()()()()()()()()())(()(),(())(())(())(())(())(())(()))(,,,(()())()())(()()(),(()())(())(())(())())(,,,(()()()))(()()(),(()()())()()()()()()())(,,,(()()()))(,,,(()()()))(,,,(()()())()()())(,,,(())(())(())(())()()()())(,,,(())(())(())()())(,,,(()())(())()()()()()()())(,,,(()()()...

 
5:44 PM
> Making code
Should be fairly obvious
what is that language
 
> Running
Use the intepreter
really?!
and here I've been trying to run that program with my bathtub!
 
The code looks like old JS except for the fact that it has async
…the only async function call it has is await sleep(10)
 
Calling a language that looks like that fairly obvious is a bold move
 
if a language has an interpreter, but no documentation, do we allow it?
because that language's documentation is so bad as to be nonexistent
 
Yes, we also allow exploiting bugs in interpreters so I think that's basically the same thing
 
5:56 PM
what?
 
You can use undocumented features
 
Anyway what are we gonna do for the strike?
I guess we should turn off all our bots too
 
what?
 
For the strike
 
5:59 PM
what strike?
 
Smokey and most moderation bots are being turned off
 
did I miss a meeting?
WHAT
holllld on
 
We should probably do the same in solidarity
even though our bots are not that important
 
link please
 
6:00 PM
I can't see that
 
Just grab the role
 
lemme clarify: I can't use Discord
 
Yea that's why I'm saying it here because I know rydwolf can't either and it will be their job
 
but I need more context
surely there's an announcement somewhere else or something
 
I mean there is nothing official yet
 
6:03 PM
so how do you know about it?
 
@mousetail Rydwolf has a discord account, he’s just not on the TNB server
 
Is he in the strike server?
 
no idea
I’m certainly not
 
why isn't this being planned on SE chat?
 
Because staff was censoring some of the discussion
 
6:04 PM
WHAT
ugh, I need more info
ask 'em if I should shut Vyxal Bot down :p
 
I'm not allowed to say much more
 
ಠ_ಠ
 
I guess I’ll join the server to see what it’s about
 
A lot of the major mods are involved, this isn't minory group
 
aaaaaaaaa
I want to help!
 
 
1 hour later…
7:16 PM
hey @RydwolfPrograms do you have any idea what all of the above stuff is about? (the "strike")
 
No clue
 
I'd like to know, because it sounds important, but I can't use Discord
 
There's a general feeling (see this MSE post) that SE is failing the community. As a result, there are discussions about moderators (and other users) going on a moderation strike
 
wow, how tf did I miss that
 
I joined the server, and looked around. Still no clue.
 
7:19 PM
but yeah I agree with that MSE post
if SE decides to go full ahead with AI and such I'm going to seriously reconsider staying on this platform
I probably won't leave, because I really like the CGCC/TNB community and all of yall, but I'm definitely going to think about it
 
I think we've had bigger reasons to leave in the past and couldn't get it to happen at a big enough scale to matter. It's not a solution that I can see being effective or worthwhile.
 
so we're stuck here, on a platform with doubtful leadership and a history of making really bad decisions, and we have very little input as to what it'll do next
 
I'm making a math-based programming language because I think math should be a programming language.
 
I didn't run for mod here, because of the Monica scandal and the need to "replace" the olds mods that quit over it. Now, I was just considering running for mod on PLDI, but then SE has to… FUBAR again.
 
Voting buttons and silly AI bullshit isn't nearly as big as The Incident was. If we couldn't scrape together the motivation at a large scale that we could then, no way we can now
Which, IMO, is good
I'd rather have one subpar community than two fractured ones
 
7:23 PM
but we can't just let them get away with it! d:
 
It isn't so much wanting to milk the content using AI that's the problem; it is the way the community is being treated in the process.
 
Charcoal's an invaluable resource; if they shut down, the chaos level on SO in particular will tick up quite a bit
 
Where exactly is this strike being planned?
 
Discord, for some reason
 
How long would it go on and who's communicating the conditions and stuff to SE?
@Ginger That's not much help:
 
7:25 PM
@RydwolfPrograms You need the role to see the strike channel
 
Unless there's a clear and actionable set of demands this seems like it'll just be a bunch of people not doing a thing(TM)
 
Oh there will be demands
 
who knows
this whole thing seems a little dubious
 
They will probably freeze all chatrooms
 
I think that constitutes diamond abuse
 
7:28 PM
^
 
and besides it'd be trivial for SE to unfreeze them and strip the mods of their diamonds
it's like punching a monkey with its own fist
 
There will be plenty of people willing to take on the role of moderator if existing moderators do things like that
 
Wouldn't that accomplish exactly what they want?
 
It only hurts the community, not SE
 
SE'd get slaughtered in the court of public opinion of course, but that hasn't cause issues for them in the past
 
7:29 PM
It has though, they haven't fully recovered from the last time yet
 
not that I've seen
 
You weren't here before then tho
 
I was
 
Talking to Ginger
 
I was quite active on SO at the time
 
7:32 PM
fair, but they sure don't act like they care
The most amazing thing is that SE is going to utterly ignore this discussion, we won't hear even a beep from any staff member. During Monica case there was Yaakov to serve as bridge, but pretty sure he got tired of this and won't do that again. — Shadow The Spring Wizard 12 hours ago
I suppose we'll see if the strike pans out
 
It kinda has to because mods literally can't do their job even if they wanted to
 
@RydwolfPrograms try copy pasting ™ next time
 
I have a keyboard shortcut for the Unicode symbol
But the lo-fi (TM) fits better
(it's AltGr+Shift+V on my custom layout)
 
I could probably shut down Vyxal Bot as an act of solidarity, but that wouldn't really accomplish anything besides pissing off Vyxal Inc.
@RydwolfPrograms unrelatedly, I can't believe I've been here for a year and a half
it feels like it's been less than that
 
NPSP would have a slightly bigger but still tiny effect
 
7:38 PM
yup
 
Should I shut down Utility Bot for this reason?
 
I don't think we, personally, can do anything
 
Altho given how (bragging voice) redundant and robust my software is it may be difficult /s
3
 
besides cast downvotes and pray
@RydwolfPrograms yeah, I was about to note that it's actually harder for me to keep Vyxal Bot up than to shut it down q:
 
Only new posts seems to have a moderation function
 
7:41 PM
> [...] but we've had so many iterations of Stack Overflow Inc not caring all that much about the backbone that makes it successful to begin with, they're turning into anime story arcs at this point.
clearly what we need is a TVTropes page for SE
 
Fun fact: Two iterations of NPSP could actually run in parallel without double posting, with a minor modification
 
@Ginger iterations? Give me the caller function NOW
 
wrong reply?
 
Coding-related joke
 
not really all that funny
 
7:43 PM
> but we've had so many iterations of…
 
But iteration doesn't imply recursion or any sort of function being called :p
 
How about we DDOS so org
 
what
yes, DDOSing the site is clearly a proportionate and reasonable response
 
And also completely legal
 
and won't cause any issues for us
 
7:49 PM
I find it kind of ironic how hushed the talks about this strike are...I don't think the solution to SE making big decisions without involving the community is the mods and bot operators making big decisions without involving the community
 
^
 
@PlaceReporter99 I don't think you'll be able to
@RydwolfPrograms There are staff in the discord so it's not really secret
 
I hate Minecraft's use of ctrl for sprint because every time I open a page that uses WASD controls I accidentally close it
 
...relatable?????
Actually no wtf
 
7:51 PM
And worse I usually hold ctrl+w and close like every page, as I just did
 
it's always weird hearing people who grew up on fpses complaining about mc having shift crouch ctrl sprint because they're used to it being the other way around
because it's the exact opposite for me :P
took ages to get used to shift sprint in drg
and had a couple odd incidents with the laser pointer
This has no value.
 
Incidents with the laser pointer are not that bad at least
 
yeah lmao
 
why can't every team game have spammable voice lines attached to the ping mechanism
 
7:55 PM
I really appreciate btw how modern games like DRG allow you to press shift to toggle sprint instead of having to strain your pinkie to keep it pressed the whole time
 
y'all're using Ctrl for sprint???
 
oh shit do older games make you hold it
that sounds like ass
 
I've always double-tapped W
 
same lol
but sometimes you need to use the actual sprint button
 
Oh I hate games that make double tap sprint
I feather the button a lot to walk more slowly and often do it by accident
 
7:56 PM
at least for that new swimming mechanic they added like three years ago or whenever
i want to say you also need it for creative mode flying
oof
 
I dislike that sprinting can't be triggered whilst flying
 
yeah i really don't know why you can't do it without ctrl
unless it's to make the aforementioned feathering possible :P
 
What I hate about risk of rain is you can sprint while flying but you don't actually go any faster but still can't use weapons
 
wait, Ctrl works while flying?!
 
since it's harder to use crouch to reduce your speed
 
7:57 PM
are you SERIOUS
 
you
didn't know this???????????
WHAT
 
how am I just learning about this now
 
@mousetail amazing
 
I have evidently been living under a rock for the past 5 years
 
not like it matters when you can just use snowballs that summon a ballistic horse that you auto-ride
 
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