A Quick Puzzle to Test Your Problem Solving • Hacker News Board

Re: A Quick Puzzle to Test Your Problem Solving

#91

Post by jerf » Thu, Jul 02, 2015, 4:34 PM UTC

ddlatham wrote: post #3

I'm curious to see more about the distribution of questions and answers people had, and how the HN population may differ from the NYT's. There will certainly be self selection bias here, but if you're willing to share how you did with others, please enter it here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/17e5BIL0lH8OHsGj89Zdtdl8GeCV... The result summary is visible here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/17e5BIL0lH8OHsGj89Zdtdl…

This is now the fourth time I've seen this exact rule. Another example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vKA4w2O61Xo

It's probably not "fair" to say I got it in zero... but I did. :)

Now that the NYT has done it, this puzzle has probably attained enough popularity now that you really ought to change it up a bit now if you're going to run it yourself. Granted, the space of hypotheses as simple as "increasing/decreasing" is pretty small, but your ability to fool people with the first sample run is almost unbounded, so that helps.

Re: A Quick Puzzle to Test Your Problem Solving

#92

Post by Retr0spectrum » Thu, Jul 02, 2015, 4:37 PM UTC

binarymax wrote: post #87

The puzzle is not nearly as interesting as the code being able to understand my answer! My answer: The numbers increase from left to right Application response: As you seem to have guessed, the answer was extremely basic

I said "The numbers are in ascending order", which it didn't seem to recognise.

Re: A Quick Puzzle to Test Your Problem Solving

#93

Post by lowmagnet » Thu, Jul 02, 2015, 4:38 PM UTC

afitnerd wrote: post #80

Seems busted now - clicking the "I think I know" button does nothing. I thought the answer was: Let the first number be x. If x is 0, then the second number is 1. Otherwise, the second number is two times the absolute value of x. The third number is 2 times the value of the second number.

I had to turn off µBlock to make it work.

Re: A Quick Puzzle to Test Your Problem Solving

#94

Post by stillsut » Thu, Jul 02, 2015, 4:38 PM UTC

ddlatham wrote: post #3

I'm curious to see more about the distribution of questions and answers people had, and how the HN population may differ from the NYT's. There will certainly be self selection bias here, but if you're willing to share how you did with others, please enter it here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/17e5BIL0lH8OHsGj89Zdtdl8GeCV... The result summary is visible here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/17e5BIL0lH8OHsGj89Zdtdl…

to be pedantic: "monotonically increasing" is incorrect. It should be "strictly increasing"

Re: A Quick Puzzle to Test Your Problem Solving

#95

Post by snowwrestler » Thu, Jul 02, 2015, 4:39 PM UTC

pitchups wrote: post #76

ddlatham wrote: post #3

I'm curious to see more about the distribution of questions and answers people had, and how the HN population may differ from the NYT's. There will certainly be self selection bias here, but if you're willing to share how you did with others, please enter it here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/17e5BIL0lH8OHsGj89Zdtdl8GeCV... The result summary is visible here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/17e5BIL0lH8OHsGj89Zdtdl…

Intersting that the split of correct/wrong answers from the HN crowd is 78%/22% - the exact opposite of the general population : 22% / 78%! The HN community does think different :)

Or at least, the portion of the HN community who reported their results, reported that they think different. :-)

Re: A Quick Puzzle to Test Your Problem Solving

#96

Post by snowwrestler » Thu, Jul 02, 2015, 4:41 PM UTC

graycat wrote: post #90

Typical NYT psycho-babble: I got the right answer but with several Yes answers and also several No answers and without their confirmation bias and other nonsense. And, I do know about "problem solving", thank you, with some of my solutions responsible for my peer-reviewed published papers and Ph.D. in some STEM work at a world class research university. Sorry, NYT: I don't regard your organization as able to "test" "…

Jeez man, it's just an article.

Re: A Quick Puzzle to Test Your Problem Solving

#97

Post by philh » Thu, Jul 02, 2015, 4:45 PM UTC

pitchups wrote: post #76

ddlatham wrote: post #3

I'm curious to see more about the distribution of questions and answers people had, and how the HN population may differ from the NYT's. There will certainly be self selection bias here, but if you're willing to share how you did with others, please enter it here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/17e5BIL0lH8OHsGj89Zdtdl8GeCV... The result summary is visible here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/17e5BIL0lH8OHsGj89Zdtdl…

Intersting that the split of correct/wrong answers from the HN crowd is 78%/22% - the exact opposite of the general population : 22% / 78%! The HN community does think different :)

If you're taking that from the article, I think you misread it.

> Remarkably, 78 percent of people who have played this game so far have guessed the answer without first hearing a single no.

Some of those 78% probably got it right, and some of the remainder would have got it wrong.

Re: A Quick Puzzle to Test Your Problem Solving

#98

Post by pdpi » Thu, Jul 02, 2015, 4:45 PM UTC

bediger4000 wrote: post #6

The official answer to this puzzle makes a huge assumption: that there is one correct answer. There is not one correct answer. (x, 2x, 4x) gives you a "yes" every time, therefore it is a correct answer, at least as automatically checkable, and there's an infinite number of such tuples. To find a "no" you're reduced to random guessing. That's not a puzzle, that's crap. The confirmation bias material might be true, but…

You got the problem completely wrong.

The idea isn't to come up with tuples that satisfy the predicate. The idea is to figure out what the predicate is in the first place.

Also, you're not in any way, shape, or form reduced to random guessing. If you have an idea of what the rule might be, you build a counterexample. There's a ton of value in _trying_ to get a no but getting a yes instead.

Re: A Quick Puzzle to Test Your Problem Solving

#99

Post by teahat » Thu, Jul 02, 2015, 4:46 PM UTC

pitchups wrote: post #76

ddlatham wrote: post #3

I'm curious to see more about the distribution of questions and answers people had, and how the HN population may differ from the NYT's. There will certainly be self selection bias here, but if you're willing to share how you did with others, please enter it here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/17e5BIL0lH8OHsGj89Zdtdl8GeCV... The result summary is visible here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/17e5BIL0lH8OHsGj89Zdtdl…

Intersting that the split of correct/wrong answers from the HN crowd is 78%/22% - the exact opposite of the general population : 22% / 78%! The HN community does think different :)

The article doesn't actually specify that 78% guessed correctly or incorrectly, just that 78% guessed without ever entering an invalid sequence.

Re: A Quick Puzzle to Test Your Problem Solving

#100

Post by dendriteseeker » Thu, Jul 02, 2015, 4:51 PM UTC

qznc wrote: post #22

> A mere 8 percent heard at least three nos I guessed correctly with only 2 nos. Since there is no penalty for guessing incorrectly here, I felt safe enough with my theory. I might have checked for more nos, if I had to announce my theory publicly (Twitter, comment, etc). However, I also knew about Confirmation Bias beforehand.

I also guessed correctly with only 2 nos -- my real confirmation came from the fact that "-1, 0, 300000000" (or some number of 0s) was correct, meaning it couldn't be any really meaningful sequence.