The Nineteenth Byte

That is three too many exclamation points

SuperJedi224

Yeah, it probably is. Do you know who owns that room?

. chat.stackexchange.com/rooms/info/33451/mc-stuff

SuperJedi224

Just checked. @BlockCoder1392 does.

aditsu

12:00 am/pm is Schrödinger's time, you need to give it a minute to collapse the wave function

quintopia

7:05 PM

@MartinBüttner If only I had cared enough to start sooner :P

new-years is most definitely a meta tag, no? I'm going to nuke it.

Q: How to print 2016 using only the number 2?

@Doorknob冰 Ah yes, a tag relevant on a single day once per year.

@SuperJedi224 5 hours

@trichoplax Take Stack Apps as an extreme example. They award +10 rep for question upvotes. That said, it's exceptionally difficult to obtain said votes on that site because that requires actually building an application that interfaces with the site. We're in a similar (albeit less extreme) situation where it's difficult to rep farm with questions because it takes effort to write a decent challenge.

New Main Posts

0

How to print 2016 using only the number 2? You can use any operator or native language library but no other digits other than 2 can occur in your code and no characters or strings. The objective is to output an integer 2016 without the use of other digits other than 2. no characters / string...

Obviously we get crap challenges that get massive upvotes but I think they're relatively few. I think one thing we should try to emphasize to the community is to not be afraid to downvote.

It's necessary for maintaining the site's overall quality and health.

@quintopia Yes, we figured

@quintopia I made them in Microsoft Word

7:21 PM

@NewMainPosts Why does this have 3 reopen votes??? ಠ_ಠ

@AlexA. I disagree. Downvotes are extremely discouraging for the “victim”, much more so than experienced community members (esp. mods) realize

Why moderators especially?

@NewMainPosts Someone added the code-challenge tag but it still has no objective win condition

4 reopen now

I'm waiting to re-hammer :P

I think it's not ready to be reopened

There's a winning criterion, but then every single answer is gonna tie

x = 2; x ** x ** x * x ** x ** x * x * x * x - x ** x ** x * x

@Doorknob冰 What's the winning criterion? I've reread it several times and haven't figured that out.

7:23 PM

@AlexA. I took a look and it’s obviously a perfectly fine challenge, I don’t get why it would even get closed. Looks like overly trigger-happy mods to me.

> The code that uses the least number of 2s in the code wins.

@Timwi The initial revision was most definitely close-worthy

Optimizer

Well, I am already living in the next year.. you all are things of past

codegolf.stackexchange.com/revisions/68292/1

@Doorknob冰 No, it wasn’t. It was edit-worthy.

7:24 PM

@Optimizer 02 h 36 min 14 sec left for me

@Timwi There wasn't much to go on—a single sentence, in fact.

This is exactly why "closed" was renamed "on hold"—to encourage editing/reforming and reopening.

@Timwi Challenges should get put on hold before they're straightened out, so they won't wind up with a ton of answers that get invalidated by the edits.

New Main Posts

1

Q: Waiting for 2016

Task Constantly having to check on television, or the time on your computer to see if its 2016 is a tedious task. Being programmers, we should be able to automate this task. Write a program that will output 2016 when the system time hits Friday, January 01, 2016 00:00:00. or rather 1451624400000...

code-golf new-years

Are we now getting thousands of 2016 puzzles?

Apparently

7:34 PM

Who makes the official 2016 challenge?

Santa Claus

Joe Z. has been the annual New Year's challenge writer, by tradition

A: Sandbox for Proposed Challenges

Joe Z. == Santa Claus confirmed

New Meta Posts

ignore this message I am a boot

3

New Sandboxed Posts

0

How to print 2016 using only the number 2? Print 2016 using only the digit 2 operators and native language built-in functions. The objective is to Output the integer 2016 without using any digits except 2. no characters / strings are allowed, i.e. no tricks like ord('b') The code that uses t...

Maltysen

7:45 PM

hello peoples

Hello!

@AlexA. Hmmm - based on comparative effort I guess our questions should be worth around 7 or 8 then :)

I wonder if SE would actually do that. o_O I've only ever seen upvotes worth a multiple of 5 (with said multiple always being 1 or 2).

Behold my latest addition to Jellys' interpreter:

def identity(argument):
	return argument

@AlexA. I was joking - I definitely want to see at least 10

quintopia

7:54 PM

very useful

@Dennis s/\t/ /

That would break everything.

@trichoplax Oh I know, I'm just curious now as to whether it's possible.

@Dennis Then fix everything

@AlexA. Let's not ask in case we end up with less rep per question...

Haha sounds good :P

quintopia

7:55 PM

@Dennis do you have some combinators to make good use of this function?

Yes. I've just implemented floor locally.

	'F': attrdict(
		arity = 1,
		depth = 0,
		call = lambda z: helper.overload((helper.math.floor, helper.identity), z)
	),

It tries to floor, but calls the identity function if it can't, so floor(inf) == inf.

Does Jelly have specific numeric types? That is, does it differentiate between integers and floats?

(internally, I mean)

Yes, Jelly has big integers, floats and complex numbers.

Nice

I'm considering switching from floats to decimals.

8:07 PM

I'm not familiar with the difference

Decimals are stored in base 10. 0.3 is exactly 0.3, not some weird binary approximation.

:O

Is that a standard Python type?

Yes.

>>> 0.1 + 0.1 + 0.1 == 0.3
False
>>> import decimal
>>> decimal.Decimal(0.1)
Decimal('0.1000000000000000055511151231257827021181583404541015625')
>>> decimal.Decimal('0.1')
Decimal('0.1')
>>> decimal.Decimal('0.1') + decimal.Decimal('0.1') + decimal.Decimal('0.1') == decimal.Decimal('0.3')
True

Oh, but it requires an import. That's why I haven't seen it. :P

Even square roots require an import in Python...

But yeah, it makes a difference for code golf.

8:10 PM

I'm surprised using printing and control flow doesn't require an import.

As long as importing doesn't require an import, I don't care about the rest.

hahah

meta import importing as import
import ifstatement as if

That would make a nice esolang.

Sure, if by "nice" you mean "painful." :P

And it would still beat Java.

8:12 PM

Undoubtedly

Using an abacus could beat Java

8:26 PM

@AlexA. Ruby has Rational which does the same thing

@Doorknob冰 Julia also has Rational!

And Rust has num::rational::BigRational

@Doorknob冰 Rational and Decimal is not the same. Decimal stores a fixed number of places after the comma, Rational stores all numbers as quotients.

BlockCoder1392

Hoo

import import as import; import.import("import")

@Dennis Oh, that's how Python's works? So it can't precisely store 1/3?

8:31 PM

I think Python also has a rational type (called fraction maybe?) but it requires importing something.

@Doorknob冰 Python has Decimal and fractions.

Ninjeroni and cheese

@Dennis ahh, okay.

Hm. I should used Decimal in my Bernoulli numbers answer

I doubt that would have helped.

Rationals are another story though.

8:35 PM

Also, I was considering how to follow up on my quipu challenge. Print as a base-4 DNA helix thing? Hmm

@Dennis Why wouldn't it have helped with the accuracy?

I love the quipu challenge. I had a solution that worked in some cases and not in others. I think I could have fixed it into a working solution that was reasonably golfy but I accidentally overwrote the file.

@Sherlock9 Because even tiny rounding errors in the Bernoulli numbers result in gigantic errors after a few iterations.

Blah. You're right

Oh, happy New Year, @Sherlock9! It's 2016 in Jakarta now, isn't it?

@AlexA Good luck writing a new answer. Can't wait to see it :)

It's 0338 in Jakarta!

Military time, that is

8:38 PM

@Sherlock9 I'm undecided on whether I'm going to rewrite it. When I overwrote the file was just about a day after you first posted the challenge, so it's been a while. :P

Happy new year to you in about 8 hours!

*2 hours!

=P

@Sherlock9 Haha I meant 2016 the year, not 2016 as in 8:16 PM. :P

Ah ok. I'd still give it a try, though. I'm surprised by the notable absence of Pyth and CJam answers

It's really hard.

I would of course be doing it in Julia because apparently I don't know any other languages.

8:41 PM

Well, I knew that. I was clarifying how far into 2016 we are

Oh haha

Why are you up at 3:30 AM? O_O

Well, I always stay up a few hours after I shut my computer down. Tonight I shut it down close to 1 cause I stayed up for midnight

And now here I am

Seriously, who does that?

3:30 The explanation will have to wait until tomorrow. — Dennis ♦ 14 hours ago

hahaha

Stupid fascinating code golf problems...

8:44 PM

^

^_^)b

@Sherlock9 You shut down your computer? On purpose?

@Sherlock9 Computer abuse!

Those always get me. Remember when I'd stay up still sunrise in the week after I joined?

Windows, guys

@Sherlock9 ಠ_ಠ

8:45 PM

Oh, so not on purpose.

Although I don't think waiting for a BSOD counts as a shutdown.

The memory starts kicking me if I leave it on too long. So I shut it down regularly

2

It's like how my ISP says to report service outages online. ಠ_ಠ

hahahaha

Also, I have ~160 tabs open on Firefox. That chews on the memory something fierce

8:47 PM

ONE HUNDRED AND SIXTY BROWSER TABS?!?!

Has 160 tabs open. Blames Windows for lack of RAM.

^

My record is 210

Hahaha

I know, I know

@trichoplax @PhiNotPi I have finished the hash generator for the challenge

Basically, I hoard tabs and to apologize to my laptop, I let it rest at nights

8:49 PM

You know the things called "bookmarks"?

^

Let me rephrase that:

I probably have twice that many bookmarks

Hahaha

If you shut down your computer, that means all of your tabs will be closed. So when you have turn your computer off, you open 200 tabs in the course of a single day?!

8:49 PM

Trouble is I never check bookmarks

Nope. Session Manager

I have 4 tabs open right now. That's more than usual for me.

OK, I have already three pinned ones.

It's a long-running problem

Basically, Session Manager saves all the tabs to open later

@AlexA. You can usually check a box in the settings that allow to reopen the tabs from the last session automatically.

Oh, okay

Calvin's Hobbies

8:55 PM

Anyone in 2016 yet? How does it look?

How did you live without that???

@Calvin'sHobbies Sherlock is

2h4min to go.

@flawr I always close out of everything and clear my browser cache, cookies, history, etc. every time I close my browser. If I want something the next time I'm at my computer then I'll just navigate to it again. If it's something I'll access multiple times then I'll bookmark it.

You've been doing it wrong your whole life!

8:58 PM

Idk, works fine for me ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I didn't even know that mental health is an issue even among numbers!

Schizophrenic number

A schizophrenic number (also known as mock rational number) is an irrational number that displays certain characteristics of rational numbers. == Definition == The definition of schizophrenic numbers is given in The Universal Book of Mathematics as: An informal name for an irrational number that displays such persistent patterns in its decimal expansion, that it has the appearance of a rational number. A schizophrenic number can be obtained as follows. For any positive integer n let f(n) denote the integer given by the recurrence f(n) = 10 f(n − 1) + n with the initial value f(0) = 0. Thus, f(1...

I should probably do that more often @AlexA

Q: Can a fraction be simplified using Anomalous Cancellation?

~~probably~~

BlockCoder1392

Heloagain

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Anomalous Cancellation (from Wofram Alpha): Anomalous cancellation is a "canceling" of digits of a and b in the numerator and denominator of a fraction a/b which results in a fraction equal to the original. Note that if there are multiple but differering counts of one or more digits in the nu...

code-golf string parsing

9:19 PM

mathworld.wolfram.com/ApocalypseNumber.html

allo

llo

lo!

lol

@Dennis The site does far more than just stop people from posting answers. It prominently plasters the posting with a huge notice that yells in the author’s face “this sucks, you suck, fuck off”. It’s extremely discouraging and destructive. On top of that, in this specific case, the question was also unilaterally closed by an over-eager mod, which leaves no recourse even for the community who want to salvage the posting, much less for the author who is long gone and pissed off at the site.

9:26 PM

The mods who have closed the question were not "over-eager." They were acting as per their responsibility to put the question on hold while issues were being sorted out.

Note that the OP reposted the challenge in the sandbox so I don't think they're long gone or pissed off.

But why delete it? o_O

Because it shouldn't be in the sandbox and on main at the same time.

Where is it in the sandbox?

Uh idk, in the sandbox, sort by active. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

oh, duh

9:28 PM

4. The scoring mechanism of this challenge is horribly broken and would result in a 100-way tie. 5. Not putting a challenge on hold makes it unfixable. Changing the rules after 20 answers have already been posted will do nothing but get evryone mad at the poster.

Sorry, I just woke up.

@Timwi 1. There was nothing unilateral about this. Three mods were present at the time of the closure, and all agreed with it. 2. There's nothing final about a mod's closure. It still takes only 5 votes to reopen a challenge. In this case, the challenge was actually reopened before it was fixed. 3. The author did not react like this. He reposted the challenge in the sandbox.

@Timwi Although I agree that the people who close a question (mods or not) cannot know for certain how the author feels as a result, I wouldn't expect you to either, unless you were the author. If you wanted to get a feel for it, you could start a meta discussion "How did you feel the first time you had a question put on hold" to see if we can find out.

@CᴏɴᴏʀO'Bʀɪᴇɴ No problem :P

A: Sandbox for Proposed Challenges

0

How to print 2016 using only the number 2? Print 2016 using only the digit 2 operators and native language built-in functions. The objective is to Output the integer 2016 without using any digits except 2. no characters / strings literals are allowed, i.e. no tricks like ord('b') The code th...

9:30 PM

TBH it's a better challenge on Puzzling

Though it will get closed if it gets there.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

PhiNotPi

Today is our opportunity to create the first esolang of 2016 (or the last of 2015)

@trichoplax Putting things on hold is just something that happens in the Stack Exchange network. I think a lot of users try to phrase things in nice (or at least neutral) terms so as not to discourage the poster, but that's not something we could change because we can't control how people behave.

@PhiNotPi twentyfuckteen, a trivial BF variant

@PhiNotPi I will take the responsibility.

> one attoparsec per microfortnight approximately equals 1 inch per second

@CᴏɴᴏʀO'Bʀɪᴇɴ ... what? Why?

9:32 PM

@AlexA. I'm not suggesting we change it - and I think putting things on hold is more important here than anywhere. I'm just suggesting that the only way to find out how people feel about it the first time when they don't understand it, is to ask them.

@Doorknob冰 s/TBH/IMO

@trichoplax Oh sure, I agree, I just don't know what we would be able to do with the information other than say, "I'm sorry you feel that way."

@Dennis re “The author did not react like this.” Well, lucky. You will not hear about the ones who do because they simply never post.

^

@trichoplax “you could start a meta discussion” No, you can’t. By definition, you can only get responses from people who have decided to stay and not from the people who were pissed off enough to leave.

PhiNotPi

9:34 PM

🎆 New Year Esolang Design (and puppi…

A place where nobody comes to talk about building the first es...

@Timwi How do you know there are users who react like that?

@Timwi The only measure I have so far is seeing comments from the author after voting to close. I've seen the occasional rant but far more authors were engaging and inquiring (even if upset) than leaving silently.

And if they never post, how do we fix policies if they never give any input?

The problem you've stated is unsolvable. There's no point in speculating.

> There's no point in speculating

Surrre

...there isn't.

Speculation is just that: speculation.

It's not evidence.

9:36 PM

@Timwi If you are worried about users of other sites in the SE network, you could post on Meta Stack Exchange. Even on meta.PPCG I'm fairly sure we have some users who stormed off first time but still came back later

TBH it seems like closing is being made into more of a big deal than it is. We're a Stack Exchange site. Things get closed here just as they would on Stack Overflow, Server Fault, or any other site. We can try to be as friendly as possible but in the end closing is just part of what we do.

@AlexA. But, with investigation of speculation, evidence can be found.

@CᴏɴᴏʀO'Bʀɪᴇɴ How? Emailing users who post here? Stalking them, finding their address, and visiting their house?

climbs out of user's window Oh, so we're not doing that? :/

2

Some people are going to take offense regardless of how you approach things. Some people will leave in response to a friendly comment. All we can do is be as open and helpful as possible, and be here for the people who stay.

9:39 PM

@Doorknob冰 Perhaps less applicable on the internet. Carry on.

Kansas - Carry On Wayward Son

►

@AlexA. YES

<3

:P

That song is good

@Timwi There are only two options, and I know which one I prefer: 1. Immediately put an unclear/broken challenge on hold, and reopen it as soon as the problems get fixed. 2. Leaving the challenge open while it gets fixed. The fix invalidates most of the answers. Posters of invalidated answers get upset, posting possibly comments and downvoting the question.

9:40 PM

@CᴏɴᴏʀO'Bʀɪᴇɴ It is! I've never been much of a Kansas fan in general but I do like this song. :)

@AlexA. :D me too

@Dennis Option 2 actually has happened and caused a poster to delete his account.

@Dennis 1. Upset one question author. 2. Upset several answer authors.

@AlexA. I feel like I've hear this exact melody the guitar is playing from a totally different band.

I am not questioning the idea of preventing answers while a question is problematic.

9:42 PM

@Timwi Do you think the wording/label could be improved?

@flawr You know, I listened to this song the other day and I thought the same thing. I can't think of what song it would be though.

I’m questioning the way that posters are told that their posting sucks. It should instead say something more positive, e.g.: “This question will start to accept answers once the following issues with it are addressed: [clear list]”

@AlexA. Toto perhaps?

@Timwi Where in the message does it say that the post sucks?

@Timwi That's a discussion for Meta.SE. We cannot edit the on-hold template.

9:44 PM

The votes the community casts should not be called “close” or even “put on hold”, and/or they should not be shown to the poster.

@Dennis That is a shame

Or Deep purple or so.

@Timwi Why shouldn't they be shown to the poster? It's shown for the express purpose of letting them know what the general issue is with specifics typically given in the comments.

@Doorknob冰 I’m talking about how it sounds or how it feels. It’s the same with downvotes. Nobody says “you suck”, but a downvote really feels the same way as a “you suck”

@Timwi That isn't a no - there's a large audience on Meta.SE and your concern isn't only shared by PPCG users - all the sites would benefit from a discussion on how to make this clearer/more positive.

@Timwi It shouldn't.

Downvotes mean "this post can be improved." They don't mean "you are bad at things and you should feel bad."

Do you have any ideas on how you think that could be communicated more effectively?

9:47 PM

@AlexA. Hm I am quite sure it is a Toto song.

@flawr I can't even remember the last time I listened to a Toto song :O

Haha, I am checking my collection right now=)

I can't remember exactly how I felt as a new user (and I came here from other SE sites so I was never new to SE here) but now I see a downvote as a negative and a close vote as a positive. I downvote things I don't like, and I close vote things I like enough to make sure they get the chance to be ready.

I often both upvote and close vote the same question.

Q: To Downvote or Not to Downvote...or to Wait?

75

Apologies if this has been covered. It's extremely difficult to search for questions on downvotes on meta. I very recently had an exchange with a user where I was told I was "known to be a downvoter" (like that's a bad thing). The situation was, he posted an incorrect answer, I downvoted and l...

discussion down-votes

@AlexA. That is about answers and non-new users

9:51 PM

I know, but if someone gets pissed about a downvote, the answers there serve at least as some consolation that downvotes aren't personal.

Here, a downvote on an answer can show the answer is incorrect, but a downvote on a question I'm not so clear about.

I'm much more likely to close vote a question than downvote it. I can only imagine downvoting a question if I got the impression the author was posting a wilfully bad question.

The hover text for downvotes is "This question does not show any research effort; it is unclear or not useful." The latter two points are more relevant here than the former.

I suppose I would close vote for unclear, and downvote for no effort (I think most questions require research of some sort)

That's true. Even World Big Dosa required looking up Indian recipes and stuff. :P

;)

9:56 PM

Does anyone know a good app/program/website for recognising music?

I'm not strict on having a reference implementation first (perhaps I should be...) but there needs to have been some thought about whether it will work.

@flawr I think Shazam is often used by people with iPhones but I don't know if it's available for platforms other than iOS.

I have to find this song...

If you know the song it is similar to you are probably better off with a standard text based search

"What song sounds like this one"

I tried, but without success so far=(