Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

What comes next: π/2, π/2, π/2, π/2, π/2, π/2, π/2, ...?

thebigquestions.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–58 of 58 posts

Re: What comes next: π/2, π/2, π/2, π/2, π/2, π/2, π/2, ...?

#51

Post by Symmetry »

dedward wrote: post #46
Symmetry wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's actually a fairly neat question for sifting different types of Utilitarians. Do you care about other people's happiness, or about their utility as they define it? In B you're really screwing over one of the couples, but they won't be around to be unhappy about it.

you are part of the equation, no?

Yes, but unless they have a very strong attachment to one or both of the couples our hypothetical utilitarian judge is going to be a very small part of the equation. For the record, I'm not a pure utilitarian myself.

Re: What comes next: π/2, π/2, π/2, π/2, π/2, π/2, π/2, ...?

#52

Post by JadeNB »

pestaa wrote: post #10
benjoffe wrote: post #2

While the story at the end about the bug report is humourous, it's a pretty mean thing to do. Perhaps 3 days lost work was longer than the expected damage, but one would imagine it would waste at least a few hours of someone's time, which is not something I'd feel good about. On an unrelated note, sometimes using a computer not configured to British English I get spelling corrections for words like "humourous" above,…

The first thing I would have done if I was assigned to this case is to check whether it is really a bug or just a feature.

Are you sure that it wouldn't have taken you 3 days to check that?

Re: What comes next: π/2, π/2, π/2, π/2, π/2, π/2, π/2, ...?

#53

Post by waqf »

m_for_monkey wrote: post #15
benjoffe wrote: post #2

While the story at the end about the bug report is humourous, it's a pretty mean thing to do. Perhaps 3 days lost work was longer than the expected damage, but one would imagine it would waste at least a few hours of someone's time, which is not something I'd feel good about. On an unrelated note, sometimes using a computer not configured to British English I get spelling corrections for words like "humourous" above,…

Interestingly, while humor/humour is a US/British difference, humorous/humourous is not, the latter is just rare/unusual. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/humour https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/humourous

> rare/unusual

Or "misspelt/misspelled", as we prescriptivists like to call it.

Though when I see hypercorrections like "humourous" on the internet, I begin to suspect that people are using UK/Commonwealth spellings because they think they should, not because they're actually more familiar with those spelling conventions.

Re: What comes next: π/2, π/2, π/2, π/2, π/2, π/2, π/2, ...?

#54

Post by [deleted] »

dedward wrote: post #41
civild wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oops, quite right!

0 is correct pragmatacally, and makes the puzzle harder for those not wise that 0!=1 by the definition of factorial. (as opposed to proof.... factorial being a shorthand for math and ths being convenient. if there were a proof it would be a theorem, which its not.) i knew factorial but i had to read up on 0!, news to me too. on another note, without context, we could say there is an infinite set of functions that sat…

[deleted]

Re: What comes next: π/2, π/2, π/2, π/2, π/2, π/2, π/2, ...?

#55

Post by waqf »

civild wrote: post #13
conanite wrote: post #5

This reminds me of another "surprise" series: 0, 1, 2, 720!, ...

You gave it away with a slight error - the sequence is 0, 1, 2, 720... For the curious, the sequence follows factorial (!) applied twice, i.e. (0!)!, (1!)! etc. (3!)! is 720, and (4!)! is 6.20448402 × 10^23.

No, the sequence is correct as originally posted and the rule is:

0, 1!, (2!)!, ((3!)!)!, (((4!)!)!)!, ...

Re: What comes next: π/2, π/2, π/2, π/2, π/2, π/2, π/2, ...?

#56

Post by IsaacSchlueter »

noblethrasher wrote: post #50
Splines wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Keep in mind that there is a non-zero cost to the un-remembered, in that they may be cognizant that they will not be remembered prior to their death. I would tell the couples that I am going to choose A, but instead choose B.

> I would tell the couples that I am going to choose A, but instead choose B. Which makes you a bad with respect to most varieties of deontological and virtue ethics.

But deontology and virtue ethics are just shorthand heuristics for consequentialism, to deal with the fact that humans tend to be very bad at doing utilitarianism properly.

When the consequences are clear, and you have no other options, the rational choice is to ignore virtue ethics.

Of course, in real life, there is almost never such a clear-cut problem as this, and pat examples are often used by those who want to throw away virtue ethics out of convenience rather than actual utilitarian benefits.

Re: What comes next: π/2, π/2, π/2, π/2, π/2, π/2, π/2, ...?

#57

Post by dedward »

Symmetry wrote: post #51
dedward wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you are part of the equation, no?

Yes, but unless they have a very strong attachment to one or both of the couples our hypothetical utilitarian judge is going to be a very small part of the equation. For the record, I'm not a pure utilitarian myself.

the question indicates you do care about them, specifically.

Re: What comes next: π/2, π/2, π/2, π/2, π/2, π/2, π/2, ...?

#58

Post by pestaa »

JadeNB wrote: post #52
pestaa wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The first thing I would have done if I was assigned to this case is to check whether it is really a bug or just a feature.

Are you sure that it wouldn't have taken you 3 days to check that?

It'd take me 3 weeks to check since I'm really poor at this level of math. Probably the reason I'm not going to maintain such software. ;)
Post reply on HN