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Palindrome Day 20200202

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Re: Palindrome Day 20200202

#131

Post by dcuthbertson »

Lio wrote: post #48
rags2riches wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about the Fourth of July then?

I don’t know, I always imagined that you said “4th of July” because up to that point you were Brits and that’s how we say it. ...and then the very next day, without adult supervision, you started saying your dates weirdly and dropping the “u”s out of words, stuff like that.* * DISCLAIMER: May not be an accurate representation of history. :P

> I always imagined that you said “4th of July” because up to that point you were Brits

True, but nowadays we say "Independence Day" :-)

Re: Palindrome Day 20200202

#132

Post by CameronBanga »

freyir wrote: post #21

The Human Palindrome will be born tomorrow and die on 2121-12-12 at the age of 101. And in true palindromic fashion, his life will start and end with diapers.

Note that there are ~360,000 babies born everyday.

On average today, 70% of Americans live to the age of 65. That rate varies greatly from country to country, but let’s assume that due to improvements in medical science and wealth, the likelihood of anyone born today, worldwide, being 50%.

After that, it’s a bit tougher. But today, the likelihood of a person aged 65 reaching the age of 100 is 3%. I couldn’t find data on the odds of 101, but let’s assume that this percentage will also be 3% in the future.

This means that there are approximately 5400 babies born today, that should reach 101. So almost certainly there is someone who will qualify as a Human Palindrome?

As mentioned, there are only two of these special 101 year gaps, in the 10,000 years from 0 to 10,000. Almost certainly there were no cases of this from 1000 to 1100?

So some baby born today will almost certainly become a trivia question answer for hundreds (thousands?) of years to come? Based on nothing more than the day they were born.

Re: Palindrome Day 20200202

#133

Post by eganist »

CrazyStat wrote: post #130
eganist wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The difference between a hypothetical person and a fictional character is that the former can exist and the latter cannot. Your argument was not dismissed, it was deliberately engaged. The person could exist with a nontrivial degree of probability, and therefore, gendering the person is inappropriate.

Plenty of lengthier literary works describe characters who could exist with a nontrivial degree of probability--indeed, with probability approaching one. All it takes is a minor character with minimal identifying information, which happens all the time. A store clerk who the main character briefly interacts with, for example. Should these characters not be gendered? Also you're ignoring the mis-diapering issue.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man, regarding your literary works argument, but I'll bite.

The person described could exist, so gendering them is inappropriate if we're to fix our issues with inclusion in tech. If you're asserting that the person described is definitely fictional, sure, give them any gender. But they're not, they're a hypothetical person with non-trivial likelihood.

Characters in novels have a trivial/negligible likelihood of existing because the specificity of events described in the story rules out their existence to a large degree. Whereas here, all that's described is a potential person born today and dies 12-12-2121. Of the ~360,000 people born today, you're looking at a sizeable likelihood that someone will live that long and pass on that day.

So, since the person described is somewhat likely to actually exist, do our own culture of inclusion a favor and don't presume gender.

How hard can this be?

---

Edit:

I feel myself becoming frustrated at my inability to convey the point, so I'll opt out. I regret I couldn't bring you around.

Re: Palindrome Day 20200202

#134

Post by [deleted] »

eganist wrote: post #126
CrazyStat wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course the two are comparable. In both cases an author is inventing a person and situations and narrating their invention. Calling them incomparable is a transparent attempt to shoot down the argument without actually engaging with it. The joke described a hypothetical person who was born and died on certain dates, and then fleshed that out with additional invented details: gender and use of diapers at both the be…

The difference between a hypothetical person and a fictional character is that the former can exist and the latter cannot. Your argument was not dismissed, it was deliberately engaged. The person could exist with a nontrivial degree of probability, and therefore, gendering the person is inappropriate.

[deleted]

Re: Palindrome Day 20200202

#135

Post by freyir »

eganist wrote: post #133
CrazyStat wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Plenty of lengthier literary works describe characters who could exist with a nontrivial degree of probability--indeed, with probability approaching one. All it takes is a minor character with minimal identifying information, which happens all the time. A store clerk who the main character briefly interacts with, for example. Should these characters not be gendered? Also you're ignoring the mis-diapering issue.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man , regarding your literary works argument, but I'll bite. The person described could exist, so gendering them is inappropriate if we're to fix our issues with inclusion in tech. If you're asserting that the person described is definitely fictional, sure, give them any gender. But they're not, they're a hypothetical person with non-trivial likelihood. Characters in novels have a…

If I had said “a human palindrome will be born...”, I think your argument would have more some validity. But I gave him a proper title (e.g., the capitalized The Human Palidrome), which makes him fictional.

I regret not using “their,” so the reader could infer whatever gender they want, but I don’t think your argument that this isn’t a fictional person carries weight.

Re: Palindrome Day 20200202

#136

Post by eganist »

freyir wrote: post #135
eganist wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man , regarding your literary works argument, but I'll bite. The person described could exist, so gendering them is inappropriate if we're to fix our issues with inclusion in tech. If you're asserting that the person described is definitely fictional, sure, give them any gender. But they're not, they're a hypothetical person with non-trivial likelihood. Characters in novels have a…

If I had said “a human palindrome will be born...”, I think your argument would have more some validity. But I gave him a proper title (e.g., the capitalized The Human Palidrome), which makes him fictional. I regret not using “their,” so the reader could infer whatever gender they want, but I don’t think your argument that this isn’t a fictional person carries weight.

Fair, thanks for replying. I appreciate you.

Re: Palindrome Day 20200202

#137

Post by [deleted] »

eganist wrote: post #129
iso947 wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The author of the post invented a character born today and who will live for 1010 years. The author’s character was described as “he”. You seem to think that this is wrong despite it not being your character.

101* and they're a hypothetical person who could exist, not a fictional character who could not exist. And really, this whole thing misses the point: if you're describing someone who could exist, you shouldn't put bounds on who the person could be.

[deleted]

Re: Palindrome Day 20200202

#138

Post by techbio »

eganist wrote: post #129
iso947 wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The author of the post invented a character born today and who will live for 1010 years. The author’s character was described as “he”. You seem to think that this is wrong despite it not being your character.

101* and they're a hypothetical person who could exist, not a fictional character who could not exist. And really, this whole thing misses the point: if you're describing someone who could exist, you shouldn't put bounds on who the person could be.

Or how many of them there may be?

Potentially more than zero, certainly fewer than the (large) number of births today, and the argument is that one pronoun is (in)accurate for an individual...what we need here is “they” because there will as likely be a group of “them” as one alone.

Re: Palindrome Day 20200202

#139

Post by susam »

mkagenius wrote: post #41
susam wrote: post #13

The nice thing about today's date, 2020-02-02, is that it is palindrome in three date formats: YYYYMMDD, DDMMYYYY, and MMDDYYYY. This should probably be called "Universal Palindrome Day" because it is a palindrome irrespective of the endianness (big, little, or middle) that is used in various countries. Here is the list of all such dates until the year 9999: 0101-10-10 1010-01-01 1111-11-11 2020-02-02 2121-12-12 3030…

Also they contain only two distinct digits, rest mostly have 3 or more different digits.

Yes, a YYYY-MM-DD format palindrome date that is also a palindrome in DD-MM-YYYY and MM-DD-YYYY formats cannot have more than two distinct digits.

Let us represent the 8 digits of such a date (in YYYY-MM-DD format) as abcd-ef-gh.

Since abcd-ef-gh (i.e., YYYY-MM-DD format) is a palindrome, we get a = h, b = g, c = f, and d = e.

Since ef-gh-abcd (i.e., MM-DD-YYYY format) is a palindrome, we get a = h, b = g, c = f, and d = e.

Since gh-ef-abcd (i.e., DD-MM-YYYY format) is a palindrome, we get a = f, b = e, c = h, and d = g.

Combining all of these, we get a = c = f = h and b = d = e = g.

Therefore, such a date must be of the format abab-ba-ba, i.e., it may have a maximum of only two distinct digits.

Re: Palindrome Day 20200202

#140

Post by datanerd »

Retric wrote: post #127
datanerd wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is obvious that dates are not natural numbers. What is your point? A set of dates obviously has an earliest date. The humour here is that an earliest date within the set of uninteresting dates is itself an interesting date by virtue of being the earliest such date in that set.

> A set of dates obviously has an earliest date. Uhh, no you’re thinking in terms of a finite set. From the set of all dates, what’s the latest possible date, or conversely the earliest possible date. The temptation is to say infinite BC is the earliest possible date, but infinity is not a number.

But there is no infinite BC, right? There cannot be any date earlier than the date of the big bang. That establishes a lower bound for the set of dates, does it not?
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