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Overthinking

aentan.com

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Re: Overthinking

#41

Post by rpsw »

xarien wrote: post #16

I solved the second one in a couple minutes in my head with value substitutions. Unless you were to do with with a pen and paper, it'd be pretty difficult to pick up on the closed loops. Generating the following list took less than 30 secs when I looked it over, so obviously the example of it taking a long time to solve is a bit contrived. What threw me off a bit at first was that the number 4 was not used at all. I…

That is how I did it. I actually don't understand what is meant by looking for shapes or closed loops.

Re: Overthinking

#42

Post by instakill »

I hate that story. The reason pencils weren't used was because broken bits of graphite can cause havoc if it floats into electronic crevices.

Re: Overthinking

#43

Post by aen »

muyuu wrote: post #22

It's not overthinking, it's called context. If you give an engineering problem to an engineer in a corporate environment, he will try to do what he's been told to be a good job: good precision and low cost, complexity not being a problem as far as the solution is achieved. If he's given 1 hour, then using 59 minutes is just as valid as using 5. And rightly so. As for the numeric problem, same thing. You are not givin…

I'm sorry that my article offended you.

Re: Overthinking

#44

Post by aen »

ryandvm wrote: post #29
fsniper wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That was what I answered on Quora. But there is a simpler solution; baking a rectangular pizza and cutting rectangular pieces.

You guys are still overthinking it. The real answer is to tell the customer to go to hell.

LOL.

Re: Overthinking

#45

Post by toddnessa »

I believe that one reason why things can get overcomplicated is because often this has proven to be profitable. Why did it cost millions of dollars to create a pen in space when a pencil would do? Obviously, someone benefited greatly financially from the government contracts that were given to them for the purpose of creating a pen that would work in space- even when it wasn't truly necessary. Many believe the old saying that "money makes the world go round." Could this be the reason why else we have legally allowed for financial instruments such as derivatives which are so complex that the majority of the public does not even understand them? Is it profitable for someone to have something such as this be so complicated that the general public will fail to see their inherent danger? While overthink is dangerous for productivity, someone has also figured out that it is profitable- at least for them.

Re: Overthinking

#47

Post by adeelk »

drostie wrote: post #30
oskarth wrote: post #5

The space pen affair is a well known urban myth, see for example http://io9.com/5838635/the-million-dollar-space-pen-hoax The second example is funny but it is a classic example of misdirection. It is made out to be about mathematics but has got nothing to with it. How exactly is that about overthinking something? The third example is a ingenious solution by the author himself, a solution that is the product of think…

It is made out to be about mathematics but has got nothing to with it. Well, as I understood it Andrew Wiles' proof of Fermat's last theorem ultimately also came down to counting doughnut holes in things which you wouldn't normally regard as doughnuts, so there is some mathematics there. But yes, you would "normally" expect the mathematician to cut the pizza into five slices (which look like four, he explains, becaus…

Andrew Wiles' proof of Fermat's last theorem ultimately also came down to counting doughnut holes in things which you wouldn't normally regard as doughnuts

No...

Re: Overthinking

#48

Post by muyuu »

aen wrote: post #43
muyuu wrote: post #22

It's not overthinking, it's called context. If you give an engineering problem to an engineer in a corporate environment, he will try to do what he's been told to be a good job: good precision and low cost, complexity not being a problem as far as the solution is achieved. If he's given 1 hour, then using 59 minutes is just as valid as using 5. And rightly so. As for the numeric problem, same thing. You are not givin…

I'm sorry that my article offended you.

It didn't.

When I'm presented bullshit like that IRL I get pissed off, but I can generally take the challenge of pointing out how and why is it bullshit.

Being presented it in HN, it's a good chance to educate more people on why this is NOT thinking out of the box or being clever, and why these are NOT proper tests unless adequate context is provided.

Re: Overthinking

#49

Post by mastef »

xarien wrote: post #16

I solved the second one in a couple minutes in my head with value substitutions. Unless you were to do with with a pen and paper, it'd be pretty difficult to pick up on the closed loops. Generating the following list took less than 30 secs when I looked it over, so obviously the example of it taking a long time to solve is a bit contrived. What threw me off a bit at first was that the number 4 was not used at all. I…

I came to the same conclusion alas with some different thought process behind it - all prime numbers are actually 0, the 0 we increase to 1. Then what's left dividable by 3 a 1, and what's left dividable by 2 a 2...

I guess that might be some sort of overcomplicating it, but I was quite happy until I scrolled to the bottom

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