The Nineteenth Byte

@trichoplax Dang. I'd like to involve this idea of Romeo and Juliet somehow. It's just too perfect.

Not necessarily in this format.

I can't predict how people will vote for certain. My guess is that you'd need to restrict the output slightly more to make it pass as a programming contest

@VTCAKAVSMoACE It should be Romeo, not Montague I believe (phrases.org.uk/meanings/262200.html) (unless that was intentional?)

It is, and I'm aware of that.

@Calvin'sHobbies Indeed. Even though it's the Montague part of the name that is causing Juliet a problem. Maybe Shakespeare was having a bad day when he wrote that

2:06 PM

I'll take down the question in meta, but if someone can think of a way to implement this Romeo and Juliet idea as a juxtaposed Code Golf and Code Review.

@VTCAKAVSMoACE This is definitely an art contest. Writing a clever poem seems to be the primary focus, and the corresponding programs are trivial to write (e.g. print(mypoem))

@VTCAKAVSMoACE But it's not an apt analogy. We're not star crossed lovers.

Yeah, that's why I was going to add a "creative output" thing. But that seemed be a generally disregarded idea as well, so I'm removing said art contest.

We're plain rivals (barely)

@Calvin'sHobbies Never said you were. Capulet and Montague were rivals. Juliet and Romeo just happened to be the breakpoint of that.

We're the forgotten ex-rivals

2:09 PM

Are we even rivals? I know there was the one meta post and a half-meme about it, but the two sites are not really anything alike.

Anonymous

The thing with CR is, they keep saying our suggestions are "poor practice" and result in "unreadable code".

It was just spin. There are plenty of people happily posting to both

@Mego That's ok, because theirs are terribly golfed.

we both teach people how to program better

Anonymous

CR: "Name that variable something useful and descriptive." PCCG: "Why are you using 2-byte variable names? You haven't used up all the single-byte ones yet!"

2:10 PM

@VTCAKAVSMoACE But a hundred other rivalry stories could apply as well. R+J would only apply if one of their mods came here and vice versa or something.

@NathanMerrill So do SO and Programmers, but I wouldn't consider them our rivals ;)

Anonymous

@Geobits Rival would imply they could compete with us

Yep. And I see no point of actual competition between us and CR.

@Geobits so none of us are rivals

sounds like a good solution to me :P

Except, maybe, "graduation date", which we all know is happening next month anyway.

2:14 PM

lol

@Geobits November 17th. Mark your calendars.

2

Can we move it a day? The 17th is no good for me.

Most complicated MTG answer I think I've ever written: boardgames.stackexchange.com/a/27308/6692

do it on the 17th at midnight

@Calvin'sHobbies Hmm... very well.

2:15 PM

so its simultaneously on the 17th and the 18th

Makes you wonder how people play Magic at all

I would star Geobits' post but then everyone would know it was fake

@Geobits They'll arrange it so your interface doesn't update until the 19th.

@trichoplax That's why Calvin's is getting the stars :D

Indeed :)

2:16 PM

Calvin's post doesn't mention graduating. Not star-worthy.

Anonymous

Wait I thought it was November 1st

It's like people don't trust me :(

@Geobits I love the fact that you used "Calvin's is" in a grammatically correct sentence

Calvin's's would've been better.

Yes, Calvin's's'd've been much better

5

Anonymous

2:17 PM

@Rainbolt neeeerd

Is it nerdy or geeky? I feel like it's nerdy, but I play Magic at Geek World, so I'm not sure about the distinction anymore

Some geeks are nerdy

Doesn't matter. It's coming from a pythonista, so you can disregard it.

Anonymous

Did I just get called a pythonista?

I think so :)

2:19 PM

@Mego Relax it's a huge compliment

Anonymous

I am not nearly good enough at programming Python or quoting Monty Python to be called a pythonista

Wasn't meant as an insult. Just sayin', someone who answers mainly in python on a code golfing site doesn't have much room to be calling people nerds ;)

Anonymous

I was joking anyway :P

I always assumed we were a geek site??

Anonymous

I also play MTG

Anonymous

2:21 PM

Python is just much easier to write than my other strong languages

@Mego neeeerd

So many people here play MTG (or played... or have kids that play)

We even have a few challenges about it

@Rainbolt Tried it a few times. Meh (same with D&D)

Anonymous

Python (2 and 3), C, C++, C#, Java, and VB are my main languages that I know

@Rainbolt Why is it a gathering?

2:22 PM

That's why I brag here about my unsung accomplishments. I wrote that enormous answer and the other guy added a half sentence to his first paragraph to make it correct.

In the end, there can be only one

Anonymous

I should hop back on the PCCG MC server

Anonymous

And make my house less of a small cottage in the woods

@Calvin'sHobbies No particular reason. They added some words because "Magic" was too generic to be trademarked.

What does PCCG stand for?

2:24 PM

@Mego Is that your spiraling wood tower?

Anonymous

@Calvin'sHobbies No I'm just happy to see you

@trichoplax He means PPCG (and my minecraft server)

@Calvin'sHobbies I know - I was being awkward - I should stop that

Anonymous

In seriousness, no, I think VTAhskjhasjfbja might have built that

Anonymous

I always type PCCG instead of PPCG - challenges replaces puzzles in my head

2:26 PM

I'd actually prefer that as the name

in PPCG Minecraft Server Chat Relay, 12 hours ago, by Chat Relay

<VTCAKAVSMoACE> Vintage Trench Coat Also Known As Vintage Steve Man or A****** C**** E***, last of which are my name

(~-.-)~

Alex got to the bottom of it

Optimizer

Can I expand this to include the new ES7 features, or would that work better in a separate question? — ETHproductions 12 hours ago

How about changing it to ESNext?

I did not build a spiraling wood tower. c:

Optimizer

2:27 PM

@ETHproductions ---------------------------------^

Anonymous

I know there's a spiraling stone tower near mine

Anonymous

On a mountain next to Phi's

I used to get this guy confused with Alex A. for the longest time: boardgames.stackexchange.com/q/27299/6692

Oh, hey, I can see the spiral wood tower from my house.

Anonymous

@VTCAKAVSMoACE That's really weird because we're talking about Minecraft

2:36 PM

...

Anonymous

There's a spiral wood tower in England?

Anonymous

One of my British gaming friends in a chat said she was going to visit the Tower of London

Anonymous

Everyone else, on cue: "What are you in for?"

Is the joke that she's a girl and all the guys spoke simultaneously?

Anonymous

No, it's because the Tower of London used to be a jail

2:40 PM

Oh, I thought "What are you in for?" was a UK way of saying "What are you visiting for?"

Anonymous

No, I'm American :P

Anonymous

It's slang for "what did you get sent to jail for"

How do you and all of your friends all know that the Tower of London used to be a jail?

Anonymous

Because it's pretty well known?

^ He's right.

2:43 PM

I wonder if there is a pattern behind this. I just googled something, and got 154,000,000 results. I Googled 154,000,000, and got 202,000 results. I Googled that and got a different number. Etc. Etc.

3

Eventually I think I would hit a cycle

o-o

Until someone added a new page...

orlp

guys

we should tackle agar.io together

and write the ultimate player-crushing AI

Anonymous

yes hello i am a guy most days

Anonymous

agar.io sucks now

Anonymous

2:55 PM

Although an agar.io-based koth challenge would be fun

orlp

@Mego but why not actually own the actual thing?

Anonymous

I'm not against writing a beautifully-golfed agar.io bot

Uh. KOTH, where we host a small server and test them all together?

@Rainbolt Interesting idea

@Rainbolt When I started with test I ended up in a 441,000 -> 546,000 -> 441,000 cycle after maybe 10 searches

orlp

3:10 PM

@Rainbolt similar are wikipedia cycles

Starting with 1 I get to the same place, just slower:

1
25,270,000,000
4,110
42,500,000
339,000
1,370,000
482,000
623,000
419,000
1,040,000
595,000
1,280,000
658,000
461,000
547,000
447,000
486,000
527,000
441,000
546,000
441,000 <- cycle

Chat-challenge: Find a different cycle.

Anonymous

Wikipedia trivia: if you take any article, click on the first link in the article text not in parentheses or italics, and then repeat, you will eventually end up at "Philosophy".

Anonymous

Err

Anonymous

Wrong one

Anonymous

Oh wait it is the right one

Anonymous

3:13 PM

It's the hovertext

Better yet, find a number that results in that amount of results.

Anonymous

@orlp see above xkcd

There's also an actual wiki page about that (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Getting_to_Philosophy)

But I like this google version better

New Sandboxed Posts

0

Which language is shortest? This is a very raw text, and I haven't fully figured out the rules, but I wanted to get some feedback before I spent the rest of my afternoon on it. Can I post a challenge similar like the one below? Create a program that find the latest 50 challenges with the code...

xefer.com//wikipedia

If someone can make it for Wikipedia, surely one of you can make one for Google

3:32 PM

Wait I did that like a week ago

Q: Imperfections dans mes français

Well, crap. I think I need a new job.

I hate job searching.

New Main Posts

0

To conjugate a verb in l'imparfait, one needs to perform the following steps: Find the "stem" of the word; this is achieved by omitting the -ons from the nous-conjugated form of the word. For example, vivre is nous vivons; removing -ons from vivons yields viv-. Take the stem and add an appropri...

code-golf natural-language

But using python and graph-tool

@BetaDecay I'll show you when I get home

@Geobits What've you done?

@Dr.EmmettBrown Sure :D

@BetaDecay but how would one make it for Google?

First result becomes new search term?

3:37 PM

Believe it or not, nothing. We're transitioning to a new payroll system, and the thing is bugged to hell. I've been told that due to the new system, my (and several other employees) pay would be cut around 6%. It seems batshit crazy. There's no seeming reason for it besides a technical issue, so screw that.

So the options are: Work longer for the same pay, work the same for less pay, or find another job.

I lost a penny once when we transitioned to a new pay system

(per paycheck)

I'd be okay with a penny :)

I lost a penny once because 9.99$

Thomas Kwa

@Geobits ?!

@Dr.EmmettBrown I was thinking more about Calvin's chat challenge

3:40 PM

@ThomasKwa I have a feeling they're going to lose several people very soon.

Oh, haven't seen it

@Geobits I need a job too...

I thought you were a crackpot inventor?

2

Who needs a job when you have a time machine?

The future isn't what I expected

@Dr.EmmettBrown First of all search a random number. Then search the number of search results that search results with. Eventually there should be a loop where you get back to the number you started with or a previous number of search results

Doorknob

@Dr.EmmettBrown yes... why?

3:42 PM

I hope you understand that because I don't

@Doorknob just wanted to change it sooner than the 30 day limit

@BetaDecay sounds pretty easy given that I already have Wikipedia crawler code

Doorknob

you could change it on a different site and tell it to copy your profile to all network sites

Yay comments

Q: Recompile linux with the biggest security issue resolved

Huh

@Geobits Endor's game

New Main Posts

-2

Most vulnerabilities in C are related to buffer overflows in string manipulation. I think the idea to use \0 as end-of-string marker is the worst fault in IT which will hardly ever get fixed. ... but maybe there is a brave hero who can run linux and its user land with a c library which uses a s...

code-challenge c

3:49 PM

Ugh that looks............

............

New Sandboxed Posts

4:03 PM

0

Rectangle factors (better name needed) ascii-art code-challenge Task Given a positive integer below 1000, display all possible rectangles with that area. Let's say the input is 20. We can make a rectangle 20×1, 10×2, or 5×4, so this is a valid output: ******************** ********** ******...

4:20 PM

0

The Alex Fact-Checker As many of you know, the Nineteenth Byte is divided into two camps: those who think that alex-is-wrong, and those who think that alex-is-right. In this challenge, we're going to truly determine once and for all which camp is right. Challenge Given a quote of one of Alex's...

WIP

@Geobits Prime Rectalization > Factory Packing

Anonymous

@quartata thumbs-up

yasss

Still working on it since I need sample outputs

I think this'll be a pretty fun challenge though

And useful!

Anonymous

What's the format for the input?

Q: Implement an API for probability distributions

message - x(m/h/d) or date ago by Alex A.

New Main Posts

4:23 PM

3

Introduction In this challenge, your task is to implement a collection of simple functions that together form a usable mini-library for simple probability distributions. To accommodate some of the more esoteric languages people like to use here, the following implementations are acceptable: A ...

code-golf probability-theory

Like the way it shows up on the starboard

I'm going to make this more clear

This is just a prototype challenge

Anonymous

So it'll be something like "<comment> - <time ago> by Alex A."?

Yes basically

So it might be 2h ago or Oct 13

Anonymous

Having <time ago> as a UNIX timestamp would be fantastic

I don't know how the timestamp looks when it was a year ago so I'll just ignore that

Anonymous

4:25 PM

I'd say 1yr ago

@Mego Yes, but that's not how SE does it sadly. I wanted to design it so that you could literally copy something off the starboard and put it in.

@Mego Hmm. I thought it turned into an actual date when it got that far away though

Anonymous

I dunno

Anonymous

I'm too new

Me too :(

@quartata One of those sets has measure zero.

4:27 PM

@Dennis What?

Oh the alex-is-right people?

:D

Well technically alex himself is in the alex-is-right camp

And since @ಠ_ಠ is his sock I'd probably throw him in there too

Nah, he knows the truth.

So that's 2 people in alex-is-right and the rest of the Nineteenth Byte in alex-is-wrong

Hmm..

@Calvin'sHobbies I agree in a general sense. I was looking for something without prime, though, since the challenge isn't about primes ;)

4:29 PM

I was originally planning on making it check the resulting checksum to see if it was prime but the checksum would be so big it'd take a while

It would probably be funnier though since the probability of him being right would be so low

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Almost_surely alex-is-wrong

New Sandboxed Posts

0

The Alex Fact-Checker As many of you know, the Nineteenth Byte is divided into two camps: those who think that alex-is-wrong, and those who think that alex-is-right. In this challenge, we're going to truly determine once and for all which camp is right. Challenge Given a quote of one of Alex's...

Wow what a slow bot lmao

Took him 15 minutes

Or eleven. Whatever :P

Oh noes a downvote

I guess that means time to actually fix the challenge so it makes sense

@quartata Well, it would make more sense if the veracity of the message did not depend on how long ago it was posted...

I wonder how many languages have md5 and big integers as built-ins...

4:34 PM

@quartata It's just not very interesting except for the forced meme value.

Also, if you actually create alex-is-right and alex-is-wrong on main, Doorknob may slap you with a large trout.

I've been smacked by this trout. It's not fun, but it could be much worse.

Someone should post on meta a competition to Halloweenize the avatars of various folks who are being boring

Deleting

I'm in a challenge slump.

Deleted before I even posted. I'm sad.

4:39 PM

I've already posted a Martin candidate in chat. He did not take the hint ;)

@Rainbolt I was going to do that. I have track record of ridiculously under-specifying these kinds of challenges though :P

Anonymous

The Alex candidates were good

@Geobits Link?

Basic, but it fits the theme well :)

(Original message: chat.stackexchange.com/transcript/message/24850118#24850118)

Anonymous

4:42 PM

I'm a little sad @BetaDecay didn't use the one I made

@Geobits All you need is to give Martin fangs and make his jacket a black cape

@Mego I tried them but they didn't work too well

@BetaDecay Go for it. It's possible that if we spam enough variations in chat, he'll use one of them >_>

I like the current one. The blood looks like blood.

@Geobits Reminds me of this

Optimartin was horrifying. I think Optimizer should use that one

Anonymous

4:43 PM

@Geobits It's also possible that alex-is-right, but we all know the truth

Is it?

@Rainbolt You like my current avatar or Geobits' Martin?

Anonymous

It is almost certain that alex-is-wrong

Anonymous

So even though the probability of alex-is-right is 0, it's still theoretically possible

I guess, even though we won't see it in our lifetimes.

4:46 PM

@BetaDecay Your current avatar

My Martin attempt:

@Rainbolt Man thanks :D

Anonymous

@Calvin'sHobbies Did you use KidPix or something?

paint.net

I think he's frozen in carbonite :)

4:46 PM

Where'd you get the big version of Martin's avatar?

It's blown up

I used the thumbnail in his profile

"Profile page -> open image in new tab" or something like that.

gravatar.com/avatar/…

Oh, that one is larger

Hmm if only it hadn't zoomed in...

4:50 PM

Needs a bit of blur to match the rest.

Then crop to a square and it's good.

Can't wait for @MartinBüttner to wake up...

3

Wake up?

From the dead?

I tried to run Dennis the Menace through MakeMeZombie.com and it couldn't find his face

2

Here's another Martin one: makemezombie.com/shared/4/mmz/1510228/…

5:00 PM

<-- Alright, alright. In the spirit of Halloween.

Very nice :D

What band is that?

Anonymous

Deer god what is that

The Cranberries

Which one was the deer god again?

5:04 PM

It's this thing‌.

Anonymous

I cannot help but wonder WTH Chrome is messing up my avatar...

Anonymous

I can see it fine on your PCG profile

Anonymous

But not in here

Unsure. I'm using Chrome and it appears to be fine here.

5:08 PM

It's not just the new one. Since the last update, Chrome randomly replaces my own avatar with a borken version of someone else's.

What's the logic word for "assumption"

Assuming you meant to use the Cranberries' Zombie image, that is. If not, I have no idea what to say.

Anonymous

@Calvin'sHobbies Given?

@Mego More technical, it might start with p...

presumption?

5:10 PM

Premise?

Anonymous

^

@Dennis Yes!

Thanks

NP

Anonymous

P

General question: I think CyberCoders is pretty much a scam. Is this more or less the feeling others get?

5:16 PM

^ Random avatar of the moment.

Cᴏɴᴏʀ O'Bʀɪᴇɴ

xD

That's definitely borken.

Cᴏɴᴏʀ O'Bʀɪᴇɴ

@Geobits Yeah, it looks nice, but it's all show.

Anonymous

Am I the only one it's showing up for?

Anonymous

5:17 PM

probably

@Mego Kindly refresh your chat tab.

Anonymous

I liked it better when it was broken

Anonymous

Less spoopy