Live data from Hacker News

Anime fans stumbled upon a mathematical proof

scientificamerican.com

131–140 of 255 posts

Re: Anime fans stumbled upon a mathematical proof

#131
post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Citations are supposed to be able to be looked up, and 4chan threads are designed to disappear. This only still exists because someone realized it was important (or, more likely, amusing that someone succeeded) and saved it elsewhere.

Lots of boards, including /sci/ (the board in question) have automatic permanent archives. The archive of this thread is linked in the mathsci.wikia.com page ( https://warosu.org/sci/thread/S3751105#p3751197 )

That's true, but over a relatively short timeframe, those archives have proven to be extremely ephemeral. I can recall multiple instances of feature rich, good quality searchable archive sites existing, improving, then one day vanishing with a huge amount of data, sometimes permanently. There's usually low redundancy and a reliance on an individual or two, who can cease keeping the data at a whim. Such archives don't monetise well, if at all. So it's a hobby project for someone. Over the last fifteen years a screenshot has proven incredibly more reliable than an archive link.

Re: Anime fans stumbled upon a mathematical proof

#132
post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 4chan was very early, if not close to first of what we'd describe as a "forum" and persisted through the decades That feels untrue. 4chan was launched only in 2003. Forums are much older than that. Especially if you count forum-like things that aren't called forums, like usenet or bbs.

CompuServe used the term “forums” going back at least to the late 1980s

It's a natural term to use for it. Since about the time of the Romans.

Re: Anime fans stumbled upon a mathematical proof

#133
post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

4chan has a large cesspit, but it gathers a lot of intelligent people who can ignore the noise. For any interest, there’s someone somewhere who made a half decent thread on the topic. There’s decent barriers too (as in the less talked about boards are more thoroughly moderated than the ones that make the news, much like Reddit)

Shhh!!! Don't tell them that 4chan is the best origami/paper craft website on the internet!

They taught me how to model and how to transfer models to pepakura. It's really amazing how everything was just in place and you could ask a person something and have the answer by the next day.

Reddit has shades of this, but it was never truly focused. The upvote system kills small discussions.

Re: Anime fans stumbled upon a mathematical proof

#134

Loath as I am to give 4chan credit for anything positive, I feel like the article subject is slightly dismissive with its use of the phrase "stumbled upon." The anonymous 4chan user clearly did the work , it's not as though they came upon a proof written in the sand. For all we know it was a grad student with an ABD in Statistics who just happened to like anime. But the phrasing almost implies it's not a true accompl…

> Loath as I am to give 4chan credit for anything positive Why, whats wrong with 4chan? Outside of /pol/ and /b/ its just an image board with many different users.

And /v/. Basically, if it would attract a child, it does, and you stay away.

The issue is it's not a fun website. The creative spark is gone.

Re: Anime fans stumbled upon a mathematical proof

#135

At one of my old jobs, the bathroom was locked with a 4 digit code followed by the key symbol. We jokingly made up "Bathroom Code" as an interview question/to nerd snipe each other instead of working, which was "assuming you don't have to press key, and that the bathroom door will unlock if the correct 4 digits are entered in order at any time, write the code to print the shortest possible test sequence to guarantee…

Given that you just care about 4 digit codes (so you don't actually care about a generic algorithm that's not super slow in asymptotic time), can't you just solve it with an easy to code bruteforce algorithm? Or is the combinatorial explosion so big that it's actually intractable that way?

Think about this. You need to calculate the number of permutation for 4 digit codes. Then you need to arrange them in every order possible to brute force. So that’s 4!!. That’s a lot: roughly 620000000000000000000000 combos.

Re: Anime fans stumbled upon a mathematical proof

#136
post #64

I am not surprised that the author of this great article is Manon Bischoff. I have been reading her articles on Spektrum.de for years now, and they are always excellent. Here is a list of all her articles: https://www.spektrum.de/profil/bischoff/manon/1486871 Selected articles get translated and published by SciAm: https://www.scientificamerican.com/author/manon-bischoff/

I am more surpised that the other amateur mathematian appearing in this article is Greg Egan (He has a personal website on https://www.gregegan.net/).

He is one of the best contemporary hard SF writers in the world.

Re: Anime fans stumbled upon a mathematical proof

#137
post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is how I feel about AI/LLM discussions, except it's all a perpetual motion machine demo that people are falling for it. Kind of like crypto

But Copilot exists and people seem to be happy to pay for it.

(Some) people are also happy to pay to have someone piss on them, too. Do you think Microsoft should offer a Golden Shower tier of Copilot, complete with Trickle Down?

Re: Anime fans stumbled upon a mathematical proof

#139

Oddly, the image that Scientific American chose to illustrate their article isn't from any of the Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya projects, but from Aokana - Four Rhythms Across the Blue, a much more obscure title.

They also close with an example for Harui's show and earlier try to explain its premise too... Completely ignoring the fact that fans don't care to watch the whole show in any order, but only the "Endless 8", the 8 episodes actually stuck in a time loop. And even making an example out of 8 episodes would be stupid, as the 8th episode in the Endless is meant to be the very final piece of the loop. It's arguable for th…

True to an extent; there's the broadcast order versus the actual chronological order versus the source material order that all differ a good bit[0]. Broadcast order being the main outlier. It's an episodic series, with some that span more than one episode, along with Endless Eight. If anything, I'd say the permutations should be separated out by the first season and the endless eight it encompasses, as there's no sense in watching an endless eight episode in the midst of the rest.

[0] https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1JWY_VFaF_NAxlmPkYsOA...

Re: Anime fans stumbled upon a mathematical proof

#140
post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But Copilot exists and people seem to be happy to pay for it.

(Some) people are also happy to pay to have someone piss on them, too. Do you think Microsoft should offer a Golden Shower tier of Copilot, complete with Trickle Down?

[deleted]
Post reply on HN