The Nineteenth Byte

Martin Büttner

9:59 AM

@EricTressler yes, that sounds reasonable

Soham Chowdhury

10:12 AM

Hello, everyone!

Martin Büttner

hi there

(you won't find "everyone" in here on a weekend)

Soham Chowdhury

@MartinBüttner I'm working on a proof-of-concept cheat bot that recognises whether the opponent is your RandomBot or the Center bot and (basically) has fun. ;-)

^ Unsportsmanlike indeed.

Martin Büttner

Well, no, if you write a bot that actually tries to perform well by fingerprinting the opponent and using a dedicated strategy against each of them, I think that's fine.

What I was referring to is a bot whose only purpose is to defeat one other bot. We had that recently, where a user had several submissions which were all beaten by some other guy. So he added another bot whose only purpose was to incapacitate the winning bot.

Soham Chowdhury

Oh.

Have you had a look at the arbiter?

The code, I mean.

Martin Büttner

No I haven't followed that KotH at all.

New Meta Posts

10:19 AM

0

Q: Should we split per-language tips for different versions?

The recently added list for golfing tips in ECMAScript 6 sparked a bit of a discussion in the comments (and the close/reopen votes) whether tips for different versions of one language should go in the same list or whether we should create a new list. There is a precedent for creating separate qu...

Martin Büttner

@Rainbolt feel free to add a third answer along the lines of "We wouldn't have this problem if we used individual questions instead of lists!" ^

@PeterTaylor thanks, fixed the link

Soham Chowdhury

Is anyone interested in a Spellbinder/Waving Hands KotH (there's one in the Sandbox)//

Martin Büttner

That was Peter's idea. I'd love to see that realised (or realise it myself), but I think Peter dropped it. I left a comment, but he never replied.

Peter Taylor

@SohamChowdhury, there seemed to be a lot of interest from other people.

Oh, sorry, will have a look.

Soham Chowdhury

That could be awesome if done properly. I just had a look at the rules today, seems to provide a lot of options in terms of AI-making.

Peter Taylor

10:27 AM

But my position is that I think KotH was better in the early days when the games were simpler. When I saw that the trend is to games where just understanding it takes an hour or two and writing a decent competitor takes all your spare time for two weeks, I reconsidered its suitability.

Martin Büttner

I think the rules are also not entirely unambiguous, so coming up with a solid spec and a solid controller will be tough.

@PeterTaylor I see. In that case, maybe Rainbolt should get his dining philosophers on track ;)

Soham Chowdhury

Have you heard of this?

Chopsticks (hand game)

Chopsticks (also called Numbers, Swords, Sticks, Fingers, Magic Fingers, Split, Cherries, and Bananas) is a hand game for two players, in which players extend a number of fingers from each hand and transfer those scores by taking turns to tap one hand against another. The basic version is an example of a solved game in that so long as both players play optimally, the game's victor can be predicted at any point. == Rules == Each player uses both hands to play the game, the number of digits extended on a hand showing the number of points that the hand has. Both players start with each hand having...

Peter Taylor

@MartinBüttner, on the different versions meta-question: you might want to make it a bit clearer what kind of "different versions" are in scope. I think that the heart of the issue is about new versions which make significant syntactical changes, but I might be wrong.

Martin Büttner

Yes, that's right. I'll clarify.

Peter Taylor

Chopsticks reminds me of one of the questions in the sandbox. Possibly one of Eric's ideas?

Martin Büttner

10:31 AM

Regarding Waving Hands, I still think it would work quite nicely because you can start off simple and build on it. It seems more promising than my two KotHs in the sandbox.

Soham Chowdhury

The tank battle proposal is also cool.

Martin Büttner

the one with the customisable tanks?

the ones I'm really looking forward to are Mafia and Tetromino Game

Peter Taylor

I need to go buy some RAM before the shops shut. TTYL

Martin Büttner

alright, see you

Soham Chowdhury

Yes, the Tetromino thing is cool.

Martin Büttner

10:39 AM

@cjfaure you still with us? ;)

(hope that ping still works)

Soham Chowdhury

@MartinBüttner you German, right?

Martin Büttner

yup

user2179021

11:52 AM

hi

Martin Büttner

hi

ProgramFOX

hi

Martin Büttner

okay, stop it right there

how is it going?

Eric Tressler

wtf

Martin Büttner

?

Eric Tressler

12:02 PM

my computer rebooted overnight

i was running things, and now I can't even remember what, exactly

oh, yeah. I was making a ridiculous version of that bifurcation diagram, because I want to print it out

I really need to change that code so that it's not run-once

Martin Büttner

that bifurcation diagram?

Eric Tressler

THE bifurcation diagram

hah. I mean the logistic one I submitted to tweetable art

Martin Büttner

the logistic map?

k

Eric Tressler

though, to be fair, it really is the most famous bifurcation by far

I'm trying to output it at poster-size

Martin Büttner

yeah true

Eric Tressler

12:06 PM

i'm encountering major problems with 1) fine-tuning and 2) time

Martin Büttner

I generated one of my random paintings on 3k x 4k or something

Eric Tressler

I don't know much about printing, but you want like 300 ppi, right?

Martin Büttner

yes

so for poster size you need a LOT more

Eric Tressler

why do we even use inches as the standard there? anyway

I forget what the dimensions of a poster are, but let's say 600x1000 cm

wait

wait.

Martin Büttner

I doubt it :D

Eric Tressler

12:09 PM

WAIT

Martin Büttner

that would be a sick poster :D

Eric Tressler

60*100 cm

Martin Büttner

okay so that's what... 24x40 inches?

Eric Tressler

is that not a reasonable size? i was eyeballing it

that's roughly 7200x10000 pixels

maybe 18x24 inches is more normal

we could settle this right now with google, but arguing is fun :)

Martin Büttner

:D

actually I need to get some lunch

Eric Tressler

12:12 PM

godspeed

user2179021

12:30 PM

just added a bounty to codegolf.stackexchange.com/questions/37620/…

I hope someone will give it a go!

I do have an idea myself if anyone is interested

Soham Chowdhury

^ Write one, noh? It'd be cool.

user2179021

ah.. you don't know I am the OP :)

my nick is just mucked up

I don't want to ruin the challenge

Soham Chowdhury

kk

ProgramFOX

@user2179021 If you change your Stack Overflow nick, it also will be reflected in chat. Or you can change your parent site to PPCG, that also works.

Martin Büttner

1:14 PM

is anyone else annoyed by the fact that the text area for SE posts isn't wide enough to fit in lines, which do fit in a monospaced code block in the answer?

VisualMelon

I'd not noticed, but I'm sure I will be if/when I do notice it

Martin Büttner

it's really annoying when you're trying to use the full length of the code block without creating a scrollbar (happens when you want to inline comment a regex or other code)

because then every bloody line wraps in the textarea

githubphagocyte

@MartinBüttner that does sound like something worth fixing. Has anyone ever raised a meta post on MSE or MSO?

Martin Büttner

no clue, I can have a look around

githubphagocyte

In your particular case would it be practical to use a separate text editor to get it just right and then paste it in?

VisualMelon

1:27 PM

I always write my answers in notepad first so I'm unlikely to suffer this, and when I'm golfing for code-golf I comment the code as I go along because I know I'll be too lazy to do it when I'm ready to post (and don't worry about aligning too much, because it's C#)

Martin Büttner

yeah, but then I'd have to first check how long each line can be etc. it would be nice if that was immediately obvious in the browser

githubphagocyte

@MartinBüttner if you find/post a meta feature request let us know so we can upvote...

Martin Büttner

@githubphagocyte will do

@VisualMelon well I noticed this long before I came to PPCG, when posting more complicated regexes on SO

e.g. these beauties: stackoverflow.com/a/17176756/1633117

VisualMelon

@MartinBüttner ah, sorry, I forgot that SE had practical uses

ah, yes, I've seen that answer before ;)

Martin Büttner

1:40 PM

Okay: 1. Search for/write feature request. 2. Write sandbox proposal. 3. Clean up desk. 4. Write Tetris controller. 5. ??? 6. Profit!

Nathan Merrill

@Sparr I added the offset after talking to ccarton (the owner of the bot that was the biggest offender)

Martin Büttner

1:54 PM

@githubphagocyte hm I just noticed, that that's actually only true on some (including beta) sites. SO uses a larger font for the code, so this doesn't actually happen there

yeah, so uses 14px, beta sites use 12px

githubphagocyte

@MartinBüttner a larger font? Do you mean the presented answer code is in a larger font, so the maximum line length before scrolling is lower, so the shorter lines fit into the text entry box without line breaking?

Martin Büttner

exactly

githubphagocyte

Right.

So if we had that change made, it would be a restriction of what we can currently fit into an answer. Would there be other circumstances where this would bother you?

Martin Büttner

I could ask for the beta sites layout to use 14px, but I'm sure CR would cry out that they need the smaller font to fit more code on the screen

githubphagocyte

Although in Code Review the number of characters in a code line is already more than most languages would recommend restricting to.

I think it's over 90, and reviewers generally recommend restricting to 80

Martin Büttner

1:59 PM

hm k

githubphagocyte

I know how strict that is depends on the language, but I think asking for a review of code with very long lines is a little inconsiderate anyway

Martin Büttner

still... I'm not gonna request a feature which will affect tons of other sides which I don't know

well the font size also affects how many lines you get before scrolling

githubphagocyte

Perhaps we need a meta question for things we are going to request one day for our full site after beta

Martin Büttner

...one day ^^

githubphagocyte

@MartinBüttner ah yes I hadn't considered that - in that case I'd prefer to have more lines

Martin Büttner

2:01 PM

okay

point 2 on the list: write sandbox proposal

githubphagocyte

what's the proposal?

I assume you mean a new challenge, not a proposed change to the sandbox?

Martin Büttner

yes new challenge

implement floating point square root using integer and bit arithmetic

githubphagocyte

Is this a result of discovering how poorly implemented the square root is in most languages?

Martin Büttner

no

it's the result of wondering how I could use my newly created floating-point tag :D

my initial idea was just implementing a simpler operation like addition

githubphagocyte

I thought it was bordering on real world useful for a moment ;)

Martin Büttner

2:04 PM

but...

12

Q: Implement an IEEE 754 64-bit binary floating point number through integer manipulation

(I've tagged the question "C" for the time being, but if you're aware of another language that supports unions, you can also use that.) Your task is to build the four standard mathematical operators + - * / for the following struct: union intfloat{ double f; uint8_t h[8]; uint16_t i...

code-golf c c++ floating-point

githubphagocyte

@MartinBüttner that looks like it was posted by you but with a very pixelated avatar...

Martin Büttner

:D

githubphagocyte

You added floating-point to that since?

Martin Büttner

peter did

githubphagocyte

Ah OK

I'm trying to think of what else the tag would apply to. Maybe something impractical

Like manipulating unsigned integers as if they were floats

Martin Büttner

2:09 PM

I might scrap my proposal for now... getting the standard down to a presentable form that makes the challenge still sound interesting is beyond me at the moment

@githubphagocyte that's what I meant though ^^

I wouldn't use the struct approach Joe Z. had

VisualMelon

type-unsaftey ?

githubphagocyte

OK - so you'd take an integer and output an integer, but the binary representations would be the same as a float and it's float square root?

Martin Büttner

just take an integer, return an integer, and the bit-representations should be interpreted as floats (by the programmer, not the program)

exactly

githubphagocyte

cool

As long as you can refer to a standard for both int and float so it's not language specific, you should be able to get the description and rules fairly short (I think, without considering it properly...:) )

Martin Büttner

well IEEE 754 isn't available free of charge. and all the references I find are a bit more convoluted than necessary. so I'd want to include a full specification of the format in the question.

and there are a lot of gritty details like implied leading 1, exponent bias, infinity, NaN, etc...

githubphagocyte

2:14 PM

I wonder if it would be interesting with strings too? Find words/phrases that are made up only of upper and lower case letters and spaces, and whose square root also fits the same pattern. It would have to be restricted to sizes that make sense to interpret as floats somehow

I can't think of any clever ways around it though

Martin Büttner

hm, I can't quite visualise how that would work

the floating point format might be too rigid for that

I guess I won't get around cleaning my desk any longer.

I need some fast music :D

Sparr

2:40 PM

@NathanMerrill offset like we had temporarily in CB1?

githubphagocyte

@MartinBüttner I will assist in your desk tidying by stopping talking. Now you just have to shut up the rest of the internet... :)

Martin Büttner

I'm actually already done (well, not "done done"... but done enough :D)

Sparr

@NathanMerrill that Borg bot in CB2 looks pretty awesome

user2179021

3:55 PM

hi @Sparr

Nathan Merrill

4:14 PM

@Sparr yes to both

user2179021

4:29 PM

hi

Eric Tressler

4:47 PM

Hello

@githubphagocyte did you ever calculate the fractal dimension of those images?

githubphagocyte

@EricTressler I didn't, no.

Eric Tressler

@githubphagocyte >:-O

hi @githubphagocyte

what eric said

@user2179021 hi

4:51 PM

there are programs out there that already do it, but they're a mix between 1995-2005 programs, paid software, or both

it's insane

githubphagocyte

It would be an interesting thing to add to the answer. I haven't ruled it out.

Eric Tressler

the algorithm isn't that complicated

githubphagocyte

It would be straightforward using a grid approximation, yes

Eric Tressler

i guess there was a spike in interest in fractals 15 years ago

user2179021

would anyone be interested in codegolf.stackexchange.com/questions/37620/… ?

at the moment it is very easy to win :)

githubphagocyte

4:52 PM

I wonder whether the occasional spikes in interest in fractals exhibits fractal behaviour

2

Eric Tressler

you have to use a grid approximation, because your images are discrete

hah

but the history of Mandelbrot is interesting

he was discounted by his colleagues for a long time

Martin Büttner

I recently read about that

Eric Tressler

because he doesn't really do any serious math

Martin Büttner

apparently he had no formal training and his geometric/visual approach to everything wasn't taken very seriously for ages

Eric Tressler

yeah, but it's par for the course, and perhaps for good reason

he sounded like a crackpot

and he was treated as one for a long time; there are many more crackpots than visionaries in math

people came around

user2179021

4:55 PM

thanks for the upvote someone :)

now I just need an answer too :)

what is your name

mine?

yours

Lembik

why?

Eric Tressler

why not make it your username across SE

user2179021

4:56 PM

I have discussed this a number of times. It was once

then something went wrong

Martin Büttner

and now you can't be bothered to fix it :P

user2179021

I think it's caused by multiple people using this computer and stackexchange's desperate need to hold on to cookies

Eric Tressler

my apologies, i wasn't party to that

user2179021

exactly

because it will just break again in 2 minutes

githubphagocyte

same happens when I fix my gravatar identicon on Area 51

user2179021

4:57 PM

if stackexchange were less aggressive about holding on to cookies or gave you an easy "switch user on all stackexchange sites" button that would help

githubphagocyte

It just reverts to the incorrect one next time I sign in

Eric Tressler

@user2179021 I'm sorry, I just want people on SE to use their real names

it's stupid, but it subverts a lot of things

user2179021

I don't even understand how it holds on to them so aggressively. If I delete all cookies it still seems to keep track of me unless I quit the browser and restart

@EricTressler can you suggest a "switch user" option?

Eric Tressler

nah, nobody listens to me

you may have some things in cache, btw

so if you delete cookies, it might only be in stored memory and not cache?

Martin Büttner

@user2179021 you can suggest a switch user option

user2179021

4:59 PM

it must be

Martin Büttner

that's what meta.SE is for

user2179021

@MartinBüttner who to?

meta.stackexchange.com ?

Martin Büttner

just post a question tagged with feature-request on meta.SE

user2179021

If so, i will do it now

Martin Büttner

yes

Eric Tressler

5:00 PM

yes

But the primary use of that would be to post something under a pseudonym and then treat it as coming from outside

so if I were a mod, I'd naysay it

It would make it easier for bots to get SE points

Martin Büttner

sock puppeting is already a thing

Eric Tressler

wait

user2179021

@EricTressler don;t you have to have a valid email address to be able to get an account?

Eric Tressler

what does that mean to you?

user2179021

my main problem is trying to work out the right tag :)

Eric Tressler

5:04 PM

I use gmail

Martin Büttner

having additional pseudonym (sock puppet) accounts for posting answers

Eric Tressler

if someone compromises that, then I am slain

user2179021

why would it be any easier for a bot?

Martin Büttner

that's allowed unless you do anything that you couldn't do with a single account

user2179021

I mean a bot can delete cookies more easily that a person can

0

Q: Suggestion: a switch user id option

Stackexchange seems to try very hard to hold on to your identity. In particular, even if you delete all cookies and log out, it still somehow often remembers who you are. If you have multiple people using the same computer and different stackexchange sites it can all get very confused and confus...

feature-request login

Eric Tressler

5:06 PM

"somehow"

user2179021

do you understand how?

Eric Tressler

do you know how it tracks users or not?

user2179021

only through cookies

so I think the answer is 60%

Eric Tressler

"somehow" implies that you do not

user2179021

I certainly dno't have a full understanding

I in particular don't understand memory caching of cookies, when this happens, on what browsers etc.

Eric Tressler

5:07 PM

well, 1) It's not inherently bad, but 2)

2) you should know what's going on before you post a question

Martin Büttner

@user2179021 you might want to clarify that your main use case is multiple people using the same browser

Dennis

If multiple users use the same browser, you should create different profiles.

Eric Tressler

what extra-cookie steps can a browser take?

Dennis

That's not just for Stack Exchange. That's for everything.

Eric Tressler

take me as an adversary. what can I do to you to thwart the basic guards against malicious cookies?

user2179021

5:12 PM

@Dennis I added some more clarification

gmail helps you do this

it's not such a strange request :)

Dennis

5:39 PM

Not saying I'm against it, but one profile per user is still a good idea imho.

Logging your out of all SE sites at once could be a hassle. As it is, you're logged in on each site separately, using once of the two gazillion different authentication methods.

user2179021

6:22 PM

@Dennis right.. I don't know how hard it is technically to do that

Martin Büttner

@Dennis I wonder if the Eban numbers code could be even shorter if CJam supported mixed-base conversion :D

Peter Taylor

@EricTressler Depends on what you're printing. How far away will people stand to look at it?

@user2179021 Are you using OpenID? It might be cookies from a different site which you need to clear.

Martin Büttner

6:40 PM

@PeterTaylor Thanks for recommending CJam the other day. I needed a language with concise base conversion for large bases yesterday, so I looked into it, and it was actually good fun (although I've obviously been missing lots of tricks and Dennis golfed off about a third)

Peter Taylor

Glad you enjoy it, although it does mean one more CJammer to beat my GolfScript entries.

Martin Büttner

;)

I'm not sure yet if I'll start golfing regularly in it other than to learn the language.

Golfing in Ruby and Mathematica is still fun, of course.

But Ruby doesn't handle bases beyond 36 and Mathematica... well... the code was more than three times as long ^^

Sparr

damn I need to finish the marbelous interpreter

moving to a new city really slowed down my silly projects temporarily

Martin Büttner

So CJam was an obvious choice there... I guess I'll keep it like that in general... if the languages I want to golf in lack the features to implement the algorithm I have in mind, I might switch to CJam

@Sparr I really need to get back on track regarding all things marbelous :P (and then write a JS-based interpreter ^^)

Peter Taylor

@EricTressler, these printers recommend 100dpi for scientific posters.

Martin Büttner

6:47 PM

but I don't think it's gonna happen any time soon

Sparr

I really want to post some marbelous challenges

I got all the code contributors to agree to a license change, so we can use stuff from SE

Martin Büttner

@PeterTaylor Also, you could.... you know... switch to CJam if being beaten by it really bothers you ;) (which I actually doubt)

btw, how come there is not a single FlogScript submission on PPCG? I only heard about it when you mentioned Anarchy Golf recently (for the domino circuits scoring), because it seems to be used quite a lot there.

(I hate it when I try to google something for C and only C++ and C# answers pop up)

Peter Taylor

I've invested enough time in learning GolfScript and writing tools for it that I don't want to switch. Actually, I recently came across Ruboto and now I'm wondering about trying to fork its REPL project and put GolfScript on my PDA.

That would give much faster feedback than my current approach when AFK of writing GolfScript with pencil and paper.

Martin Büttner

So I'm writing the Tetris Tournament in C... does anyone know if C's rand being as bad as it is would make the tetromino sequence too easily predictable?

user2179021

@PeterTaylor No I just click on "log in to stackexchange"

and type in my name and password

I don't mind really.. It just all looks like something fixable

@MartinBüttner you can literally predict all the numbers if you are given two in a sequence I believe

I mean two consecutuve

consecutive

Martin Büttner

7:03 PM

Well, you are given the numbers modulo 7

user2179021

ah

Martin Büttner

No that's not even true

My random generator will be a bit more involved

user2179021

it's not a bad math.stackexchange question :)

Martin Büttner

A lot more information will be lost on the way to the player, so it probably doesn't matter

user2179021

I have this random number generator, is it easily crackable

ok

Martin Büttner

7:04 PM

I'll be generating 7 numbers in a go, and will use their order to determine the order of all 7 tetrominoes. In addition you don't (initially) know where a bag of 7 tetrominoes starts and ends.

user2179021

do you think you will try my puzzle?

I may at long last found a challenge too hard for PPCG :)

Martin Büttner

Sorry, currently not. I'll spend the time I have over the weekend on the tetris controller, testing submissions for False Positives, and maybe some simple recreational golf if a good question comes up. But I don't feel like spending time on a code challenge this weekend.

user2179021

@MartinBüttner ok I understand. There are 7 days left of the bounty so hopefully you will get a chance before then

@Sparr what is a marbelous challenge?

Martin Büttner

@user2179021 github.com/marbelous-lang/marbelous.py

user2179021

thanks

I have some more, possibly hard challenges up my sleeve

I don't quite understand what is acceptable for a pop-con yet

can anyone give me any hints?

Martin Büttner

7:10 PM

cjfaure came up with it, I made a push to come up with a spec and turn it into an actual language and Sparr jumped on it to implement the first interpreter :)

@user2179021 Hm, not really... it's really a case-by-case thing.

If you ask Peter, the answer is "nothing" ;)

user2179021

right :)

ok so here is a mathsy challenge

do you know en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master_theorem ?

Martin Büttner

I think graphical contests are often best done as pop-cons, because you can't "validate" the output. But at the same time you have to be careful that it's still actually a programming challenge and doesn't turn into an art contest.

@user2179021 no

user2179021

true although I did really like the tweet art ones

which were really art contests ;)

@MartinBüttner then my question won't be very interesting to you :)

basically I would like a challenge where your code has to automatically produce math questions with their solutions

Martin Büttner

@user2179021 I believe that one in particular was very much a programming contest. Have you seen the golfing magic some of the answers needed to use to squeeze their code into 3x140 bytes?

user2179021

one type would be recurrence relations

@MartinBüttner you are right but I think there was a lot of artistic skill in some too, Did you see the compression one?

Peter Taylor

7:14 PM

@MartinBüttner Not quite. The answer is "Posting in the chatroom rather than on the main site"

Martin Büttner

Of course, there is, that's part of why it was so fun, but this one definitely made sure that you needed to golf out every last byte if you wanted some crazy results, like phagocyte's action painting.

Sparr

@user2179021 a challenge using only the marbelous language

user2179021

I agree

I have to say stackoverflow.com/a/919989/2179021 is really beautiful

Peter Taylor

@user2179021 There have been a few of those IIRC

user2179021

although not on this site :)

Martin Büttner

7:15 PM

@PeterTaylor is it a pop-con if you can't add a pop-con tag to it? ;)

user2179021

@Sparr hi!

Martin Büttner

@user2179021 that challenge is crazy!

user2179021

@MartinBüttner yep :)

Peter Taylor

@MartinBüttner It was a contest which required programming skill to enter, but I suspect that the voting was 90% on the pictures, so as a contest it was really an art contest.

Martin Büttner

@PeterTaylor Hm, fair point.

user2179021

7:18 PM

@Sparr as someone who did such an amazing job with my last challenge. Can I tempt you with codegolf.stackexchange.com/questions/37620/… ?

Sparr

not right now, perhaps later

user2179021

@Sparr ok cool :)

I do have some ideas of my own

but they are unlikely to be as good as those the community comes up with

Dennis

7:49 PM

@MartinBüttner Probably. I've never used a language with such a feature. Looks like it would have helped with my electrons answer.

Martin Büttner

I don't know if such a language exists

I think not even Mathematica can do it, except for the special case of dates

might be worth suggesting to aditsu

Dennis

I currently have 11 open tickets on his SF page. I think I'll take a little break from suggesting things. :P

Martin Büttner

:D

PhiNotPi

I made a version of that Twitter Image Encoding challenge a while back: codegolf.stackexchange.com/questions/11141/…

How about phinary? en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_ratio_base

Martin Büttner

Oh I wanted to check whether irrational bases work in Mathematica

thanks for reminding me

they should though, even symbolic bases work

sick, they do

PhiNotPi

7:56 PM

Martin Büttner

@Dennis I created a ticket

New Meta Posts

8:22 PM

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Q: Posting closely related challenges: Bonuses or separate questions?

Consider this: I have an idea for a challenge, such as "Find the optimal foos such that the bar is greatest." I also realize that I could alter it slightly and add a more interesting twist to it: "Create an animated GIF that shows the bar approaching the greatest value as the foos change." I don...

discussion

PhiNotPi

Are there any particle physics-based challenges?

Martin Büttner

@PhiNotPi hmmmm standard model and stuff?

I'd be up for that :)

(writing and participating)

Nathan Merrill

Soon, code golf will have all standard programming tasks, and all you need to do is patch together different questions to make any application, pre-minified!

Martin Büttner

@NathanMerrill search for "duct tape coding"

(on PPCG)

PhiNotPi

I wouldn't know enough about the standard model to write a challenge.

Nathan Merrill

8:38 PM

@MartinBüttner there should be more of those

PhiNotPi

I second that.

What would happen if we combine duct tape and Twitter?

Martin Büttner

9:33 PM

I've got 3 duct-taping ideas on my list

but I never bothered to write them up

a) duct tape + code golf instead of pop-con

b) polyglot duct tape

c) prove that duct taping is turing complete

PhiNotPi

9:48 PM

Turing-complete duct tape seems the most interesting out of the three.

Eric Tressler

i just woke up. but thank you, Peter, if you get online later

PhiNotPi

I guess a problem is that there have been several challenges in the past like "Interpret [Turing-complete language]" which could make it too easy.

Eric Tressler

oh, he's online now

@PeterTaylor thanks for the information about science posters

PhiNotPi

10:04 PM

Does anybody know what this thing is?

*----------*          *----------@
|          |           \
|          |            \
|  *----------*          *----------*
*  |       *  |       *----------*  |
|  |        \ |        \         |  |
|  |  *----------*      \   *----------*
|  *  |       *  |       *---\------*  |
*   \ |    *-----|----*       \  *     |
 \   \|  *----------*  \       *----------@
  \   *  |   \   *  |   \   *----------*
   *     |    *   \ |    *   \      *
*--|-----|-*  |    \| *--|----\--*  |
 \ |     *  \ |     *  \ |     *----------*

It's an ASCII art fractal of some kind.

PhiNotPi

10:17 PM

Miscellaneous challenge idea: protein folding

I've taken up a game called Foldit.

Peter Taylor

10:39 PM

@PhiNotPi Looks like a 3D Hilbert curve

Martin Büttner

@PhiNotPi you can't take code from PPCG

just SO

@PhiNotPi a simplified version would have been one of my Gödel, Escher, Bach challenges