The Nineteenth Byte

random question: if at every second an event could occur with (independent but constant) probability p, what distribution do the intervals between events have?

do you get a Poisson distribution or something?

quartata

@MartinBüttner Unrelated to your question but I always laugh every time I see "Poisson distribution" because poisson means fish in French.

Martin Büttner

hm, Poisson distribution is actually defined as the number of events in a fixed interval with the same setup

randomra

@quartata well, it is named after a French person called Poisson

quartata

5:32 PM

@randomra Yes I know.

Martin Büttner

ah no, you get an exponential distribution.

quartata

I still find it funny.

Martin Büttner

thanks Wikipedia

Dennis

Does anyone else think this question should be called Santa's choice?

Martin Büttner

I don't know.

Dennis

5:38 PM

Stupid internet! Can't even delete...

RikerW

@Dennis Yes.

quartata

@Dennis Eh.

I think "decision" implies more weight.

I like that better.

RikerW

But choice is catchier.

Dennis

^

RikerW

Read this, and scroll until the second set of definitions.

This is a excerpt:

With choice, it is more of a mindset approach, meaning we have a perception of what the right or wrong choice may be.

Santa definitely has a right or wrong choice.

Ergo, choice is better than decision.

quartata

5:44 PM

All right.

RikerW

@quartata Thank you for submitting to the power of my logic.

Any leads on your onion knight hat?

quartata

Nope.

RikerW

TimmyD has it too, right?

Anybody else that you know of?

quartata

Yeah. There's a meta post.

One second.

16

A: Winter Bash 2015 Secret Hats

Onion Knight Appears to be based on the Onion Knight job class, and involves starting weak, but rapidly gaining power after a certain level. Hat on PPCG Hat on Mathematica Hat on Server Fault Hat on Mathematics Another hat on Mathematics Hat on SciFi Hat on MSE Hat on HWR Hat o...

It's a little out of date

Since we have so many on PPCG

I believe the people with it on PPCG are me, Timmy, isaacg and Doorknob.

RikerW

I wonder if there is something about PPCG that earns it fast.

It might be have an answer with low viewage/votes that skyrockets later.

That guy quill seemed to get it somehow. He has like what, 30 hats?

SuperJedi224

6:03 PM

@quartata I've reached a googol.

You can also see what I have so far here:

googledrive.com/host/0B66Q2_YrkhNnQkYzY0hyck04NWc/…

SuperJedi224

6:14 PM

@RikerW That's a lot of hats.

RikerW

I checked and forgot to edit, he actually has 28..

SuperJedi224

That's still a lot.

RikerW

Somehow he got the onion knight.

SuperJedi224

Yes, you mentioned that.

RikerW

How many do you have?

SuperJedi224

6:15 PM

6 so far

RikerW

I have 8, but I am not really searching them out.

Except I had to torture Jon Ericson, it was just so fun. :P

SuperJedi224

I'm not really putting much effort into getting hats either

RikerW

Does that make me a bad person?

SuperJedi224

Not really.

Have you checked out the preview I posted of my number list yet?

RikerW

I wonder how many inbox notification Doorknob has, because his post on the hat list seems to be a hairboat target.

@SuperJedi224 Yes, but what is it for? Fun? :P

SuperJedi224

6:18 PM

Pretty much.

RikerW

Oh, should this challenge be Santa's Decision or Santa's Choice?

SuperJedi224

Either one.

RikerW

I think Choice.

SuperJedi224

Also, Latex seems to render towers of more than about 3 exponents a bit wierdly.

RikerW

@SuperJedi224 I noticed that.

mınxomaτ

6:20 PM

SuperJedi224

...I forgot to specify the unit on one of the distances

mınxomaτ

Almost

RikerW

@SuperJedi224 I have to say it looks really cool.

SuperJedi224

The 0.98357 is feet, by the way

RikerW

@mınxomaτ :P. Your computer crashes tommorow. NOOOOOOO!!!

SuperJedi224

6:21 PM

I should note that on the list

mınxomaτ

@RikerW "Tomorrow" is in 5 hours.

RikerW

It could still crash.

mınxomaτ

Still have a phone :)

RikerW

It could die.

The world could be against you.

New Main Posts

4

Q: Hexadecimal and the Alphabet

Hexadecimal and the Alphabet In this challenge, you will receive an input, convert it to hexadecimal, make a couple changes, and output the result. Because they are only 16 characters in hexadecimal, your code will need to be as short as possible. Examples Examples are separated by a blank ...

RikerW

6:37 PM

Thank you, @NewMainPosts.

cat

That challenge is harder than it seems if your language of choice doesn't know about strings.

quintopia

7:13 PM

There are a lot of Sierpinski questions, but is there one that is just "output the sequence oeis.org/A001317 "?

Thomas Kwa

I just wrote and tested an answer to the hexadecimal question in Pyth with a broken mouse.

cat

@ThomasKwa I think you should use a Mouse next time :)

Martin Büttner

@quintopia I'm not aware of one. sounds good :)

cat

@quintopia will it be a catalogue?

Martin Büttner

:/

cat

7:17 PM

?

Martin Büttner

@quintopia it's fairly simple though: ri1a{(j_2*^}j

@cat don't do catalogues. just don't accept an answer and allow newer languages. (and include a leaderboard if there are more than N answers)

cat

@MartinBüttner i was mostly curious if it would be a "the shortest solution" or "the shortest solution in each language"

Martin Büttner

my point is, I think that's something that should be up to everyone's own interpretation. if you don't like "the shortest solution" because you're not using Pyth, then just ignore the checkmark if there is one. if you want to know which answer is shortest overall, but there is no accepted answer, just check the leaderboard.

just because the author of the question decides to pick an overall winner doesn't mean you can't enjoy competition within each language individually

@quintopia using recursion was a bit stupid. 1ri{_2*^}*

quartata

@SuperJedi224 Nice

SuperJedi224

7:47 PM

Does anyone here know if there's a special name for the hundredth factorial?

Or should I just continue the other naming system I was using and call it "Hundred-bang"?

Dennis

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

^ That?

SuperJedi224

No, this:

100!

Dennis

(Oh! That's the hundred-first factorial if you ask me.)

Cᴏɴᴏʀ O'Bʀɪᴇɴ

How often is rawgit updated?

SuperJedi224

0! is obviously the zeroth factorial

And 0!=1! anyway

Dennis

7:50 PM

Zeroth? Brr...

Cᴏɴᴏʀ O'Bʀɪᴇɴ

Zeroeth. ^_^

Alex A.

@PeterTaylor Granted, as far as I know, Walker Texas Ranger reruns continue to be on television to this day. So I imagine they were on in the early 2000s when the meme hit peak popularity.

Peter Taylor

8:33 PM

@AlexA. Ok, so it's not so much before my time as didn't cross the pond.

El'endia Starman

@MartinBüttner I'd upvote you again if I could.

Martin Büttner

@El'endiaStarman thanks ;)

El'endia Starman

:)

@LegionMammal978 You're lucky I read the transcript and saw this. Direct-reply to one of my messages next time. Anyway, there isn't yet a way to play with only one ship. If you want to do really methodical testing, uncheck the "Gravity?" checkbox and then hit the Reset button.

wizzwizz4

@CᴏɴᴏʀO'Bʀɪᴇɴ We could easily work that out by writing a script which constantly pushes a commit changing a given file to the current Unix time, and logging the server's payload from the site... It would make an interesting codegolf!

Cᴏɴᴏʀ O'Bʀɪᴇɴ

@wizzwizz4 o_o that sounds like a DoS attack

Alex A.

8:45 PM

haha

wizzwizz4

@CᴏɴᴏʀO'Bʀɪᴇɴ We could do it every second instead of every millisecond! :-p

Cᴏɴᴏʀ O'Bʀɪᴇɴ

@wizzwizz4 no, no, millisecond is good. Maybe nanosecond, just to be sure

I mean, uh, yeah, good idea.

;)

wizzwizz4

@CᴏɴᴏʀO'Bʀɪᴇɴ Maybe I could send them a link to my question, and a small link farm to get it ranked high on Google...

I mean, as the commit!

Cᴏɴᴏʀ O'Bʀɪᴇɴ

XD

mınxomaτ

I ordered one burger and a salad. I got two different burgers, a small coke and one tiny pot of salad dressing (no salad). ... what.

wizzwizz4

8:55 PM

@Doorknob You really should put a ♦ on in this chat room!

Doorknob 冰

makes the chatroom private

Timwi

♦

There, I’ve done it

Cᴏɴᴏʀ O'Bʀɪᴇɴ

♦♦

(Doubled)

Timwi

9♦
(badgered)

Cᴏɴᴏʀ O'Bʀɪᴇɴ

Doorknob 冰 ♦
(Knobbed)

Alex A.

8:56 PM

@mınxomaτ The "salad" burger is new on the menu. It's a regular burger but it comes with a side of dressing.

SuperJedi224

@wizzwizz4 What does the ♦ mean?

wizzwizz4

@SuperJedi224 It means Moderator.

Alex A.

Employees also have diamonds though

Cᴏɴᴏʀ O'Bʀɪᴇɴ

Every time a mod speaks, it should look like this:

♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦ BEGIN MODERATOR SIGNED MESSAGE ♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦
hi
♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦  END MODERATOR SIGNED MESSAGE  ♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦

Alex A.

♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦ BEGIN MODERATOR SIGNED MESSAGE ♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦
I'm hungry.
♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦  END MODERATOR SIGNED MESSAGE  ♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦

El'endia Starman

8:59 PM

♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦ BEGIN MODERATOR SIGNED MESSAGE ♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦
Me included, huh?
♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦ END MODERATOR SIGNED MESSAGE ♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦

Doorknob 冰

-1 not enough monospace

2

Cᴏɴᴏʀ O'Bʀɪᴇɴ

+1 comment ^

Downvoting comments feature-request

2

mınxomaτ

If you want to be extra safe, check that there's a big block of jumbled characters at the bottom.

Cᴏɴᴏʀ O'Bʀɪᴇɴ

@mınxomaτ :D Someone got it

Doorknob 冰

23 hours ago, by Alex A.

"Heh," I thought to myself upon reading Timmy's Pyth joke. A sudden bout of laziness overcame my fingers, and the thought did not make it from brain to keyboard.

s/Timmy's Pyth/Conor's PGP/

Cᴏɴᴏʀ O'Bʀɪᴇɴ

9:02 PM

@Doorknob冰 s/Conor/Cᴏɴᴏʀ/

Lines containg s/.../.../... should actually perform the replacement stated feature-request-in-hell

FlagAsSpam

9:14 PM

0

A: The Random Walker Printer

Vitsy, 50 Bytes I'm certain this can be golfed down a bit more. V85*1+RD1M-v\[a". "4R2-v+D([2+]D85*M([2-]Dv\DXZVw] V Capture the delay as a global final variable. 85*1+RD1M-v Push an int in the range [0,41) (so, really [0,40]) and save it as a variabl...

Shameless ad.

Martin Büttner

Shameless downvote.

3

FlagAsSpam

Shameless sad face.

SuperJedi224

Also, my #4 most upvoted question still has no answers

mınxomaτ

Faceless sadvote.

3

wizzwizz4

@FlagAsSpam How do you make shameless ads?

FlagAsSpam

9:16 PM

@wizzwizz4 Without shame.

wizzwizz4

@SuperJedi224 My #1 most upvoted question has no answers!

FlagAsSpam

@SuperJedi224 I only have 6 questions total. :c

Martin Büttner

@FlagAsSpam are you sure you're handling the boundaries correctly?

FlagAsSpam

Random in [-2,2]?

Martin Büttner

wait, are you are choosing randomly between -2 and 2 (as opposed to from the range [-2,2])

SuperJedi224

9:18 PM

@FlagAsSpam I have 8, not counting the 3 that got closed as duplicates before I discovered the sandbox

FlagAsSpam

Yeah...? Is that not allowed?

SuperJedi224

@FlagAsSpam What?

FlagAsSpam

@SuperJedi224 That was @MartinBüttner c:

Martin Büttner

@FlagAsSpam "Every new step the value will be the last value of the walker plus one of these[-2-1,0,1,2](20% chance each)."

FlagAsSpam

Well, yeah, the steps are decided by a for loop, so the float part doesn't matter. It works the same way as [-2,-1,0,1,2]

Martin Büttner

9:20 PM

also are you starting from a random position?

FlagAsSpam

Yes, in the set [0,40].

Martin Büttner

starting point is fixed at 20

FlagAsSpam

...

That would be a huge reduction. xD

Martin Büttner

I still don't understand how your stepping works though

so do you not choose between -2 and 2, but from a float range from -2 to 2?

FlagAsSpam

Yes, but it adds it on and for loops (which duplicate the space) only pay attention to the truncated integer part.

Martin Büttner

9:22 PM

but if you're only looking at the truncated parts aren't -2 and 2 themselves impossible to get?

and wouldn't 0 be twice as likely as -1 or 1?

FlagAsSpam

No, no - lemme restate:

What I do is I add a float in [-2,2) to the position, to which I use that number minus one spaces to print out.

Then that gets truncated during for loops.

SuperJedi224

Still sounds like it doesn't quite fit the specs

Martin Büttner

^

FlagAsSpam

I can adjust it for range. :P

Martin Büttner

I'm not really following though

I don't see how your treatment of the boundaries can be correct if you always add or subtract 2. if you start at position 1 and move left by one cell, you'd end up at 2 instead of staying where you are.

FlagAsSpam

9:28 PM

Oh, gosh, you're right. Hell. Alright.

See, this is why I always need to discuss my answers with people. xD

Martin Büttner

rather than editing "fixing" into the title, you could just delete it and undelete it when it's working.

FlagAsSpam

...this is also true.

I am tired I was on a jet for 13 hours yesterday.

Martin Büttner

the only reason I can think of to keep it undeleted is that it might accumulate upvotes in the meantime, but a) those wouldn't exactly be deserved and b) it seems more likely that it could accumulate downvotes, which deleting would prevent.

Alex A.

^

FlagAsSpam

Yeah. :P

Doorknob 冰

9:30 PM

^{3}

FlagAsSpam

...that's longer than ^^^.

Doorknob 冰

-_-

Dennis

ಠ{1}_{1}ಠ{1}

2

Alex A.

9/10 insufficiently golfed

Doorknob 冰

(ಠ{1})(?:[___-_]|_){1,1}\1{1}

FlagAsSpam

9:32 PM

I've always misseen the flag on messages as a downward facing thumb.

Doorknob 冰

SE chat should have upvotes and downvotes, like Miaou does.

Martin Büttner

@Dennis ignoring the last {1}, this reminds me of some Star Wars character... probably Sebulba...

Doorknob 冰

@Doorknob冰 This would reduce the ^ clutter as well

Dennis

googles Sebulba

Alex A.

^

Doorknob 冰

9:35 PM

the pod alien guy

Alex A.

googles pod alien guy

Doorknob 冰

-_-

Alex A.

gets unexpected results

Martin Büttner

or what's that guy from episode two with the funny language

Dennis

I was kinda forced to watch the Star Wars movies. I don't remember a lot.

flawr

9:36 PM

Jack Scott - All I See Is Blue (1963)

►

El'endia Starman

Sebulba is from Episode 1.

Trying to think of who you're referring to from Episode 2...

@MartinBüttner What was the surrounding scene?

Doorknob 冰

Jar Jar? >.<

Martin Büttner

nah, the one with the clicking sounds on Geonosis

El'endia Starman

Jar Jar was in all three.

SuperJedi224

Can you guys think of any interesting numbers of between 10000 and 30000 digits?

Martin Büttner

9:37 PM

in Dooku's council or whatever that was

flawr

@SuperJedi224 Prime numbers?

In what way interesting?

El'endia Starman

@MartinBüttner I think I know who you're talking about? Lemme find a picture.

SuperJedi224

There's a mersenne prime in there, as well as 10000^5000 (Googovbar in one of Joyce's naming schemes). I'm trying to figure out if there's anything else.

flawr

@SuperJedi224 I am sure there is a lot.

Martin Büttner

sitting on the right at 1:17 youtube.com/watch?v=Ivd7CITbunI

FlagAsSpam

9:39 PM

Di*HlR@r5\X has become very important in Vitsy.

El'endia Starman

@MartinBüttner Huh, that guy. Not the one I was thinking of.

SuperJedi224

Really. In that massive range there is exactly one mersenne prime. (The 28th one, by the way).

@FlagAsSpam What does that do?

flawr

@SuperJedi224 Well there aren't all that many mersenne primes at all.

SuperJedi224

@flawr There are quite possibly an infinite number. There are only 48 known ones.

Martin Büttner

@El'endiaStarman yeah this guy: starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Poggle_the_Lesser

FlagAsSpam

9:41 PM

@SuperJedi224 Duplicate, get negative version, find all ints between, get a random number in the range 0 to length, push that item in the stack to the top, reverse, remove all but one item of the stack. Although I realize that it should technically be Di*HlR@rl1-\X

SuperJedi224

Though they do seem to become arbitrarily sparse the higher they get

Martin Büttner

oh, he's actually a geonosian

Dennis

@Doorknob冰 OK, that one, I remember.

flawr

@SuperJedi224 But what I mean is that they are quite spaced out.

El'endia Starman

@MartinBüttner Actually, no.

SuperJedi224

9:42 PM

@flawr That's what I said in my last post

El'endia Starman

Shu Mai, a Gossam.

Martin Büttner

no I mean this guy: youtube.com/watch?v=rFkSRAj0rxU

El'endia Starman

...ha! That IS the guy I thought of!

SuperJedi224

Anyway, can you think of any other interesting specific numbers in that range?

Timwi

@wizzwizz4 Nor does mine (except my own), so... you’re not alone :)

FlagAsSpam

9:49 PM

With a name like wizzwizz, you know something good is bound to happen.

xD Seriously, that name is awesome.

Martin Büttner

@Timwi it has one from Keith Randall ;)

I think Ell might enjoy answering that.

Timwi

Ah, missed that, yeah

How about we revive that question? I think nowadays it might get more interesting answers, and I would love to see a CJam, Pyth or GolfScript one!

Or J or APL :)

Martin Büttner

put a bounty on it?

Timwi

First need to know that it will be more well-received now than it was back then, otherwise it’s a waste.

Martin Büttner

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Timwi

9:56 PM

Well, for what it’s worth, here is the direct link

5

Q: Turn 2D boolean array into (rectilinear) polygons

Challenge Write a program which, given a 2-dimensional boolean array (equivalently, a monochromatic bitmap), outputs a series of polygons that describe the outline of the region that is “true” (1). The input is provided as a sequence of '#' (hash), ' ' (space) and \n (newline) characters. Lines...

code-golf geometry optimized-output

SuperJedi224

@Timwi Have an upvote.

Timwi

Thanks. I’ve also made an edit just now to relax the conditions a little.

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