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A Quick Puzzle to Test Your Problem Solving

nytimes.com

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Re: A Quick Puzzle to Test Your Problem Solving

#151

Post by tomerico »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #40
cabirum wrote: post #23

function judgeSentence(sentence, numNo) var probablyWrong = ["doubl", "expon", "multipl", "^", " ", "power", "two", "2", "twice", "as big", "nth", "rais"]; var seemsRight = ["larger", "increas", "greater", "small", "less", "big", ">", " Been expecting something more interesting than that

It's surprising how far you can go by such heuristics. I run an IRC bot that uses matches like this (I'm working on a proper solution right now though) to parse natural language queries and I managed to trick few people into thinking they're talking with human. As long as it's ok for 90% of most common cases, people often won't notice.

Which is another case of confirmation bias

Re: A Quick Puzzle to Test Your Problem Solving

#152

Post by [deleted] »

LoSboccacc wrote: post #132
benihana wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was just writing this out! I believe practice in unit testing is what let me get this question right. I almost submitted n^1, n^2, n^3 before I realized I didn't get any wrong answers and something didn't feel right. I credit this 'instinct' to having written thousands of tests, and trying to make them fail to make sure my tests weren't lying to me.

got tricked even if I tested 1, 1, 1

[deleted]

Re: A Quick Puzzle to Test Your Problem Solving

#153

Post by yequalsx »

MalcolmPF wrote: post #147
yequalsx wrote: post #136

Math person here. I'm curious to know if anyone used decimal numbers in their tests and if negative numbers were used. The rule is increasing real numbers and one can guess that the rule is increasing numbers without realizing this includes all real numbers and not just integers. In addition to getting it right did you use an exhaustive set of tests?

I tried a negative series and a decimal series, just in case the rule was increasing natural numbers. I tried very large numbers to see if there was a limit to the rule, and a series that had large contrast in between each element. For fun I tried to see if the app would recognize "pi", "i", or "e", but, perhaps unsurprisingly, it did not.

I would have checked complex numbers for fun but there is no reasonable ordering of the complex numbers in the way there is for real numbers. It's too bad it didn't recognize pi or e.

Re: A Quick Puzzle to Test Your Problem Solving

#154

Post by pbnjay »

If anyone's curious about the raw numbers, I found the counts here:

http://int.nyt.com/newsgraphics/2015/2015-06-26-rule-guessin...

    {"count": 27723, "numNo":     0, "share": 0.7716051100782098}
    {"count":  2921, "numNo":     1, "share": 0.08129922903504133}
    {"count":  1883, "numNo":     2, "share": 0.05240891758746417}
    {"count":  1285, "numNo":     3, "share": 0.035764980934621056}
    {"count":   880, "numNo":     4, "share": 0.024492749589468118}
    {"count":   525, "numNo":     5, "share": 0.014612151743716774}
    {"count":   288, "numNo":     6, "share": 0.008015808956553202}
    {"count":   156, "numNo":     7, "share": 0.004341896518132985}
    {"count":   108, "numNo":     8, "share": 0.0030059283587074506}
    {"count":    56, "numNo":     9, "share": 0.0015586295193297892}
    {"count":    45, "numNo":    10, "share": 0.001252470149461438}
    {"count":    11, "numNo":    11, "share": 0.00030615936986835146}
    {"count":    22, "numNo":    12, "share": 0.0006123187397367029}
    {"count":     8, "numNo":    13, "share": 0.00022266135990425562}
    {"count":     4, "numNo":    14, "share": 0.00011133067995212781}
    {"count":     5, "numNo":    15, "share": 0.00013916334994015976}
    {"count":     3, "numNo":    17, "share": 0.00008349800996409585}
    {"count":     1, "numNo":    18, "share": 0.000027832669988031953}
    {"count":     3, "numNo":    20, "share": 0.00008349800996409585}
    {"count":     1, "numNo":    21, "share": 0.000027832669988031953}
    {"count":     2, "numNo":  null, "share": 0.000055665339976063906}

Re: A Quick Puzzle to Test Your Problem Solving

#155

Post by pbnjay »

yequalsx wrote: post #136

Math person here. I'm curious to know if anyone used decimal numbers in their tests and if negative numbers were used. The rule is increasing real numbers and one can guess that the rule is increasing numbers without realizing this includes all real numbers and not just integers. In addition to getting it right did you use an exhaustive set of tests?

I got it right, using decimals - I was probably a little too exhaustive...

http://imgur.com/6adtvqz

Re: A Quick Puzzle to Test Your Problem Solving

#156

Post by graycat »

snowwrestler wrote: post #96
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.

It's a grotesque insult to you, me, and all of HN with NYT deliberately exploitative psycho-babble where the NYT believes that the exalted, highly self-esteemed NYT is way above their audience that can be so exploited with such nonsense.

It's an insult, a deliberate arrogant insult. Haw haw, hee, hee, the NYT, the highly superior NYT, highly exalted, is going to insult their audience, milk it like their own herd of cows, pass out smelly bait for an ad hook, pat themselves on their backs as they erect themselves as authoritative arbiters of what it means to be able to solve a problem -- sewage.

You are being insulted as much as if you were just walking down a sidewalk and the NYT saw you coming and poured sewage on you from two floors above.

Put up with that treatment if you wish, but know that you are being insultingly exploited by the psycho-babble version of sewage.

Re: A Quick Puzzle to Test Your Problem Solving

#157

Post by Sadgrinner »

dude_abides wrote: post #116

I'm a data scientist, and it relieved me no end that I got this one right: http://i.imgur.com/V5oJ4i4.png I would have had second thoughts about my career choice if I got this wrong :) The correct approach for any data modeling problem is to think in terms of entropy. Each subsequent approach should minimize entropy, until you reach diminishing returns.

Isn't your answer technically wrong, though?

The sequence is not monotonically increasing. It's strictly increasing. If you test [1, 1, 2] or [1, 1, 1] or [1, 2, 2], you'll get "No" answers even though those sequences are monotonically increasing.

Re: A Quick Puzzle to Test Your Problem Solving

#158

Post by pizza »

phantarch wrote: post #81

Funnily enough, I notice confirmation bias quite a bit in a D&D game I am currently DM of. I'm playing with a group of friends who are big into video games, and as a result they consistently seek resolutions to conflicts in D&D by way of what they know from shooters: kill everything in sight. Yes, it's at times a valid answer, but it's not the only one and it's certainly not the most interesting one. The best way tha…

Maybe some positive/negative feedback built into the campaign could help; e.g. for each act of benevolence/violence, add/subtract a 'karma' point from some running total, and alter the gameplay as needed.

Re: A Quick Puzzle to Test Your Problem Solving

#159

Post by aylons »

matchu wrote: post #127
Retr0spectrum wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

"ascending" is one of the words it checks for. Might've typoed it? :/

I tried, coincidentally, the exact same phrase as he did, with no effect.

Re: A Quick Puzzle to Test Your Problem Solving

#160

Post by TylerE »

mikehawkins wrote: post #31
Kenji wrote: post #26

"We’ve chosen a rule that some sequences of three numbers obey — and some do not. Your job is to guess what the rule is." My mistake was to assume that choosing the first number uniquely defines the next ones in the sequence. Since, you know, like all the sequence puzzles I've seen before worked like that, and I didn't read it rigorously enough. Oh, by the way, the doubling thing is wrong if you use negative numbers…

Same here - I was also guilty of feeling a bit clever and avoiding the obvious "oh, the numbers double every time" answer. So, when I found out that if the spelling of each number was one letter longer (4 = four letters, 8 = five letters, 11 = six) I got smug, and didn't bother testing further. Good article - and a humbling experience. :)

I went for the slightly more clever "series of powers" after 3/9/27 validated.
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