The Nineteenth Byte - 2021-03-01

« first day (3684 days earlier) ← previous day next day → last day (1152 days later) »

1:17 AM

afternoon y'all

1:58 AM

Where everyone?

Probably too tired lol

That's why y'all need to sleep

hi

1 hour later…

3:09 AM

@Anush Making a challenge on this site is really hard, mostly because people find all the ways to post a borderline invalid answer.

~~Although it's sometimes because people don't understand the specification and vote to close anyway~~

It would be interesting to see an answer in a static language (those without eval) to this question, but otherwise, different ways to do it in dynamic languages are okay too.

13

Q: Writing erasable code

My phone number (which I will not be sharing here) has a neat property where there is a two digit number, which when iteratively removed from my phone number will eventually remove all the digits. For example if my phone number were abaababbab Then by repeatedly removing ab we would eventually ...

string code-challenge source-layout

thinking How many phone numbers actually have that property. Is it feasible to spam all of them?

6 hours later…

9:35 AM

I think that the next best answer is going to have something to do with continued fraction. — user202729 10 secs ago

Could try to write one myself, but not now...

9:46 AM

-1

Q: Assembly "Hello, World!" without loop (bootloader)

Create a bootloader that prints "Hello, world!" without loop. The shortest code will be accepted.

code-golf hello-world assembly

10:20 AM

Since March has started, Factor is now the Language of The Month!

1 hour later…

11:24 AM

@user202729 good point

11:49 AM

-3

Q: Assembly Fork Bomb boot virus

Create an Assembly Fork Bomb virus that runs at boot. Rules Works on DOS Compile with nasm -f bin The shortest code will be accepted.

code-golf assembly

12:05 PM

@NewMainPosts ah, those script kiddies, who don't understand that boot viruses can't fork

Kamila Szewczyk

ah, these script kiddies, who don't understand that modern machines have more than a BSP.

but i'll agree that the challenge is pointless and stupid

New Sandboxed Posts

12:52 PM

0

A: Sandbox for Proposed Challenges

Dedekind, cut! Objective Given a Dedekind cut and a nonnegative integer \$n\$, print the real number represented by the Dedekind cut up to \$n\$ precisions, rounded. Dedekind cut A Dedekind cut representing a real number \$x\$ is a boolean-valued function on \$\mathbb{Q}\$ that gives a falsy valu...

1:44 PM

@user202729 I kind of want to say that the next poster is probably Anders Kaseorg too, but that's too much.

caird coinheringaahing

2:26 PM

Why is this included at the bottom of the "Ask a Question" page?

> Before you post, take some time to read through the forbidden loopholes if you haven't done so already.

I can think of much better links to include when asking than the standard loopholes

Redwolf Programs

The things to avoid would be much more useful if they aren't already

caird coinheringaahing

Either that or the Sandbox

2:59 PM

@Lyxal I'm sorry I doubted you.

caird coinheringaahing

@Razetime I guess @Bubbler should make a Meta post for it then?

3:33 PM

-1

Q: Draw This ASCII art In The Least Amount Of Bytes

your challenge is to draw this ASCII art: | | |——————— | | |———————| |———| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |———————| |———— | | | |...

code-golf ascii-art kolmogorov-complexity

New Bounties With No Deadlines

0

A: List of bounties with no deadline

500 rep to the shortest Dyalog APL submission to Is it almost-prime? that is less than 8 bytes Once I see such an answer less than 8 bytes, I'll start a bounty lasting several days, following which I will award it to the shortest Dyalog APL solution at the end of the bounty. Dyalog APL refers to ...

3

caird coinheringaahing

3:56 PM

@10k+ users: The deletion mod tools have had the same few posts sat there for around a month now. It'd be good to get the last couple of VTDs necessary to clear it up a bit

2

Q: Generalise perfect numbers

Let \$\sigma(n)\$ represent the divisor sum of \$n\$ and \$\sigma^m(n)\$ represent the repeated application of the divisor function \$m\$ times. Perfect numbers are numbers whose divisor sum equals their double or \$\sigma(n) = 2n\$. For example, \$\sigma(6) = 12 = 2\times6\$ Superperfect numbers...

code-golf math sequence number-theory

caird coinheringaahing

@NewMainPosts Right, only 5 more people are allowed to answer this today, cause I only have 5 votes left :P

@cairdcoinheringaahing I guess so

Or one of us can make it idk

4:29 PM

@cairdcoinheringaahing Use your delete votes instead :P

caird coinheringaahing

4:45 PM

@cairdcoinheringaahing I do believe that's included from the gradscript

New Sandboxed Posts

5:00 PM

0

A: Sandbox for Proposed Challenges

First sequence with no square differences Consider the sequence \$(a_n)\$ defined in the following way. \$a_0=0\$ For all \$n\geq1\$, \$a_n\$ is the smallest positive integer such that \$a_n-a_i\$ is not a square number, for any \$0\leq i<n\$ In other words, this is the lexicographically first ...

0

A: Sandbox for Proposed Challenges

First sequence with no square differences Consider the sequence \$(a_n)\$ defined in the following way. \$a_0=0\$ For all \$n\geq1\$, \$a_n\$ is the smallest positive integer such that \$a_n-a_i\$ is not a square number, for any \$0\leq i<n\$ In other words, this is the lexicographically first ...

caird coinheringaahing

Anyone here good with SEDE?

Redwolf Programs

How good?

caird coinheringaahing

Able to write a query that finds users' first questions, sorted by "newest first question first"

Because I do not know SQL :P

Redwolf Programs

I know a bit, but not enough to do that :p

caird coinheringaahing

5:30 PM

\o/ I hit 25k!

3

1

Q: Convert Gemtext to HTML

Gemtext is a very simple markup format used by the alternative web protocol Gemini. Write a Gemtext to HTML converter. From the Wiki: A line of text is a paragraph, to be wrapped by the client. It is is independent from the lines coming before or after it. A list item starts with an asterisk an...

code-golf string

caird coinheringaahing

6:12 PM

Draft for an upcoming Meta question. Is it clear enough?

Unrelated String

I think maybe one thing worth adding might be that the "Our automated system checked for ways to improve your question and found none." thing isn't just a missed opportunity for helping new challenge authors, but something that they might read as an implicit endorsement

caird coinheringaahing

@UnrelatedString That's a really good point, I didn't think of that

Redwolf Programs

6:40 PM

Looks well written and clear to me

7:19 PM

hi, quick question: if I add a comment to my own solution, or edit it, will the person that initially downvoted see that/get notified? I don't mind a downvote once in a while, but it is sad I don't have any feedback as to why, since the submission is correct.

@seshoumara No, they won't get notified, unfortunately, but they might see it anyway.

If you're sure your answer's correct, don't worry too much about a single downvote. It's just -2 rep anyway.

it is, I double checked the edge cases. Ok, you're right.

New Sandboxed Posts

0

A: Sandbox for Proposed Challenges

Posted at Convert Gemtext to HTML but moved here to discuss Gemtext is a very simple markup format used by the alternative web protocol Gemini. Write a Gemtext to HTML converter. From the Wiki: A line of text is a paragraph, to be wrapped by the client. It is is independent from the lines comin...

caird coinheringaahing

7:34 PM

@cairdcoinheringaahing Goddamn it, I posted that on the 5th anniversary of us graduating and I didn't even know ಠ_ಠ

2

Redwolf Programs

8:17 PM

This user has 104 Necromancer badges

But not a single gold badge

caird coinheringaahing

@RedwolfPrograms They have 157 answers to codegolf.stackexchange.com/questions/102370/…

Redwolf Programs

98% of their rep is from that

caird coinheringaahing

I'm not sure I fully get the CV stats:

Close reason	Closed	% of total	Edited	% of closed	Reopened	% of closed	Edited and Reopened	% of edited
Opinion-based	1	1.59 %	1	100.00 %	1	100.00 %	0	0.00 %

Because that's hard to read: In the last 90 days, we had 1 question closed as Opinion-based. It got edited, and also reopened, but not edited and reopened

?

Redwolf Programs

Maybe that's the % that's edited by the reopen voters?

Also how did something get closed as opinion based? Is there a link?

caird coinheringaahing

8:24 PM

Hovering over it doesn't give any more information :/

I actually remember the post, lemme find it

I’m voting to close this as primarily opinion-based due to “similar languages (at my discretion) are disallowed” — caird coinheringaahing Feb 3 at 21:17

OP then edited it and it got reopened

Doesn't seem to be a big improvement

Redwolf Programs

Yeah, I'd guess Edited and reopened refers either to the reopen voters editing it, or somebody using the Edit and reopen button in the queue

3

Q: Topologically distinct ways of dissecting a square into rectangles

I was asked by OEIS contributor Andrew Howroyd to post a Code Golf Challenge to extend OEIS sequence A049021. Would be super great to get a couple more terms for [...] A049021. Kind of thing [...] team golf would excel at. Besides wanting more terms in the sequence, I think it's a positively lo...

math grid fastest-code set-partitions topology

caird coinheringaahing

@user Yeah, but I'd rather a not-great quality open question than a poor quality closed question

9:03 PM

0

Q: How can we improve the quality of new users' challenges?

All stats given here are correct at the time of writing. I can't promise that they'll stay exactly correct for a significant amount of time (and they most likely won't), but I'd be surprised if the pattern challenges significantly Of the last 50 questions that were posted to main (and that are st...

discussion new-users challenge-quality

My 2 cents are that we can't, new users are not only too unfamiliar with the site but also will probably not put in the effort to make a good challenge. Things like that combined with this sites very liberal IO and other rules means IMO that most people won't be able to turn their idea into something this site views as a good challenge.

Unrelated String

I can't help but feel like new users should take the time to post a few solutions and get a feel for how we do things before trying to write challenges

sorta feel like you have to be a golfer to know what makes for good golf

Agreed

caird coinheringaahing

@rak1507 I don't think we can 100% avoid off-topic/VLQ challenges from new users. But we can aim to minimise it as much as possible, and right now, we aren't

@UnrelatedString Honestly, I wouldn't be opposed to requiring 10 rep to ask

People have to make an effort themselves

@cairdcoinheringaahing make that 1000 and I agree

or maybe, 100

caird coinheringaahing

9:09 PM

@rak1507 That's high

Unrelated String

100 is quite high

caird coinheringaahing

@cairdcoinheringaahing Hadn't heard of the sandbox. I'll remember that! — R Harrington 4 hours ago

100 then, that's reasonable, considering first posts get more upvotes, that's probably 2-4 questions

50

@cairdcoinheringaahing True

50 seems fair

9:09 PM

that's the comment level

50 not from an association bonus

@user yes

caird coinheringaahing

From the most recent question. This is a user who clearly wants to make an effort, and, if they knew about it and could, likely would have used the Sandbox

Redwolf Programs

I very strongly disagree with initial rep requirements to post a challenge.

caird coinheringaahing

My question is quite a lot of "How can we make people more aware of the Sandbox"

9:10 PM

Unfortunately that type of user is an anomaly

Unrelated String

it is funny just how different this is from the situation on the actual q&a sites

There should be some kind of bronze badge for posting in the Sandbox

caird coinheringaahing

@RedwolfPrograms I support a low requirement (5/10) because it takes 1 answer upvote, or a few edits to get there, which shows some familiarity with the site

Unrelated String

where I'd assume a vast majority of new users are there to ask a question, and that's great because they need help with something and the experts are there for that

caird coinheringaahing

I think more than 10 is unreasonable, as it's forcing users to answer, when a lot of people don't enjoy that

9:12 PM

And I've seen some users who ask a lot of (good) questions but have epractically no answers

caird coinheringaahing

But I don't support it enough to make an actual push for it, at least not until we start getting waves of VLQ questions

@user Calvin, the third user IIRC to reach 80k, the user with the second most gold badges and the inventor of answer-chaining has 26 answers and 278 questions

Redwolf Programs

My first post was a challenge, it was awful but I probably would never have written a challenge if I'd been forced to write an answer first.

caird coinheringaahing

Calvin has more Good Question badges than I have questions

I'm only gonna post questions on codidact to try and increase activity

Redwolf Programs

Since a rep requirement to ask would require major changes from SE anyway, I'd suggest making the sandbox special in some way so that upvotes in the sandbox count for something like +2 or +5 rep, then add the rep minimum and replace the "ask question" button with "visit sandbox"

caird coinheringaahing

9:16 PM

And more Nice Question badges than I have badges

Maybe we could "highly encourage" answering a few questions before posting instead of forcing it?

caird coinheringaahing

@user But how do you do that?

@RedwolfPrograms This would be awesome, but could they implement it?

caird coinheringaahing

@user Have it on main

@cairdcoinheringaahing Include it in the tour and when someone asks a question, perhaps?

@cairdcoinheringaahing We might need anther meta question for that, then.

caird coinheringaahing

9:17 PM

@user FYI that wasn't a serious suggestion, the Sandbox on main would be an awful idea

@user Give a minute or two to gather some stats :P

@cairdcoinheringaahing Why would it be an awful idea? We could force users to delete proposals after they're done with the feedback.

caird coinheringaahing

@user Part of the point of the Sandbox is that it doesn't give rep for good/bad proposals, otherwise people would treat it very differently

This was probably the best suggestion we've had about the Sandbox, and it got shot down by SE staff

Hmm, you're right

Redwolf Programs

We could fly to SE's headquarters, then in the dead of night we break in. We pick the lock on the server room and inject a custom payload. The site goes down for a little while. Then, we sneak out through the air ducts. We fly back to our homes, and the next morning the site's magically updated. A few people wonder how, but the meta posts magically vanish. Nobody will ever know.

3

caird coinheringaahing

@RedwolfPrograms Aren't you a hivemind? Surely someone in the hivemind must work at SE :P

9:22 PM

@RedwolfPrograms I suspect it'll be harder to make the custom payload than it would be to break in and crawl through those air ducts.

@cairdcoinheringaahing Everybody is part of the hivemind, including all the staff at SE.

I wish all sites would have a foo.sandbox.stackexchange.com just like there's a foo.meta.stackexchange.com.

Redwolf Programs

I wish we did, but I don't see why most would

Should there be a sandbox for other sites too?

On SO, at least, far too many questions have comments about just providing a more detailed error message and stuff, and a sandbox could help newbies significantly.

caird coinheringaahing

@user I have stats! By my previous definition of "inexperienced challenge author", there are 18 inexperienced authors in the last 50 questions. 12 don't have the Informed badge, 6 do

(Informed = read the Tour page)

@cairdcoinheringaahing That's discouraging

Can we force new users to read the Tour page?

Not without injecting our code into stack exchange somehow

9:31 PM

Anyone here know their way around SE's code?

caird coinheringaahing

@user That's sort of what my question is: "How do we force users to read the Tour page? (or a better alternative, the Tour page ain't great)"

Redwolf Programs

@user No, that's why we inject a payload containing a backdoor

Anyone that manages to execute Redwolf's plan gets 2000 rep in bounties from me.

9:50 PM

if I'm ever near SE head quarters I'll give it a go although I'm not convinced how good at sneaking through vents I'll be

Redwolf Programs

You just have to find a narrow part of the duct, then let the pressure build up so it fires you along the air vent like a bullet

I haven't tried it but I assume it's fun and not at all dangerous or impossible

lmao

10:09 PM

@rak1507 that's a bit sus innit?

amogus

Are you the impostor?

@RedwolfPrograms redwolf is the impostor

*presses emergency meeting button*

What's the most downvoted question that isn't deleted or anything?

(sure it's an easy SEDE query, but I'm an idiot)

nvm I got it with sede

codegolf.stackexchange.com/questions/145222/… -37!

codegolf.stackexchange.com/questions/123808/… lol 0 bytes

Redwolf Programs

10:32 PM

You don't need SEDE, you can filter by votes in search

10:52 PM

@cairdcoinheringaahing @Razetime Thanks for the heads up, I'll make the LotM post

Redwolf Programs

Every question on CGCC (Body + Tags) is only 34M total

caird coinheringaahing

11:16 PM

@rak1507 I remember that being posted. Hit -15 within an hour

weird, without the language restrictions it seems like an ok challenge

caird coinheringaahing

From the first revision:

> May the smartest solution win.

It basically hit all of the “Do not do this” bullet points aside from being code-trolling

ah lol

caird coinheringaahing

11:33 PM

@mods (@JoKing @HyperNeutrino @WheatWizard), can the featured be removed from the Whispers LotM post and the Best of 2020 Votes and added to the Factor LotM?

@cairdcoinheringaahing done

caird coinheringaahing

@JoKing That was quick :P

Regarding SEDE, I'm still confused about which dialect of SQL it is using

Redwolf Programs

There are three questions that contain the word "smartest", with an average score of -1.333 :p

caird coinheringaahing

We hate smart people here

user image

11:56 PM

0

Q: Language of the Month for March 2021: Factor

In accordance with our meta agreement, since one candidate received more votes than the others, we have a new featured language! Throughout March 2021, our Language of the Month, nominated by myself (Bubbler) will be: Factor What's a Language of the Month? See the meta post for nominations. In ...

discussion featured language-of-the-month

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Mar '211

The Nineteenth Byte

The Nineteenth Byte: General discussion for codegolf.stackexc...

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