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

Tallest Lego building with 4 pieces?

medium.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 102 posts

Re: Tallest Lego building with 4 pieces?

#51

Post by panic »

falsedan wrote: post #32
gerdesj wrote: post #28

One commentator here questioned why is this on HN (and was DVd somewhat) There is the fact that dad teaches stuff to daughter. The lesson is fun and interactive. The concepts dealt with are pretty profound and can be quite deep: constraints, maxima and minima. Well done dad - you've covered some complex stuff in a fun and accessible way. Good skills. If anyone else doubts why this is valid Hacker News, they may want…

Slamming my nerd card down so hard the whole table spins around It's hacker news, not motivational team building shared insight news. I'd expect a GA solver which selected the four pieces which could be constructed into the tallest possible structure (with all the dirty tricks e.g. a boat hull attached to a wobbly assemblage of Giant Base/wing plates with a 12x24 brick balanced on the top), with a Speculation section…

Genetic algorithms? What is this, 1995? Show me the TensorFlow dataset or this post is as good as [dead].

More seriously, though -- I think problems like this can actually be more interesting than solutions. They get you thinking about what the solution might be. Lots of interesting work starts with a problem rather than a particular solution technique. That said, I'd be interested to see your GA solver solution, or any other solution someone can find!

Re: Tallest Lego building with 4 pieces?

#52

Post by eriknstr »

panic wrote: post #51
falsedan wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Slamming my nerd card down so hard the whole table spins around It's hacker news, not motivational team building shared insight news. I'd expect a GA solver which selected the four pieces which could be constructed into the tallest possible structure (with all the dirty tricks e.g. a boat hull attached to a wobbly assemblage of Giant Base/wing plates with a 12x24 brick balanced on the top), with a Speculation section…

Genetic algorithms? What is this, 1995? Show me the TensorFlow dataset or this post is as good as [dead]. More seriously, though -- I think problems like this can actually be more interesting than solutions. They get you thinking about what the solution might be. Lots of interesting work starts with a problem rather than a particular solution technique. That said, I'd be interested to see your GA solver solution, or…

>I think problems like this can actually be more interesting than solutions

Reminds me of an animated shortfilm I saw not too long ago but not that recently either.

There's this person that has a box full of questions and s/he encounters an elderly person that has "all the answers", and I'm not going to spoil the rest.

I just can't for the life of me remember what it was called and I can't find it with any web search I can think of either. Anyone know which one I'm thinking of?

Re: Tallest Lego building with 4 pieces?

#53

Post by gerdesj »

panic wrote: post #51
falsedan wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Slamming my nerd card down so hard the whole table spins around It's hacker news, not motivational team building shared insight news. I'd expect a GA solver which selected the four pieces which could be constructed into the tallest possible structure (with all the dirty tricks e.g. a boat hull attached to a wobbly assemblage of Giant Base/wing plates with a 12x24 brick balanced on the top), with a Speculation section…

Genetic algorithms? What is this, 1995? Show me the TensorFlow dataset or this post is as good as [dead]. More seriously, though -- I think problems like this can actually be more interesting than solutions. They get you thinking about what the solution might be. Lots of interesting work starts with a problem rather than a particular solution technique. That said, I'd be interested to see your GA solver solution, or…

Bugger GA (whatever) thingies. I've got some super glue - stick all Lego bits together on their longest axis: problem solved as posed but probably not as intended.

The large thing between my ears beats the crap out of a GA thingie any day, provided that the problem is loosely defined 8)

Re: Tallest Lego building with 4 pieces?

#55

Post by dnautics »

jacquesm wrote: post #40
5ilv3r wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People like you ruin rubix cubes. :p

Nah, they break one piece out, flip it and then put it back in, then mess up the pattern and gift it to someone for their birthday.

I got my girlfriend a 5x5x5 for her birthday and she accused me of swapping tiles when she got stuck on the last two. Almost ended the relationship.

Re: Tallest Lego building with 4 pieces?

#56

Post by timwaagh »

gerdesj wrote: post #28

One commentator here questioned why is this on HN (and was DVd somewhat) There is the fact that dad teaches stuff to daughter. The lesson is fun and interactive. The concepts dealt with are pretty profound and can be quite deep: constraints, maxima and minima. Well done dad - you've covered some complex stuff in a fun and accessible way. Good skills. If anyone else doubts why this is valid Hacker News, they may want…

here is mine. collectible somewhere across the atlantic ocean. dont get me wrong i loved lego. but my playing days are about 20 years behind me.

Re: Tallest Lego building with 4 pieces?

#57

Post by flukus »

timwaagh wrote: post #56
gerdesj wrote: post #28

One commentator here questioned why is this on HN (and was DVd somewhat) There is the fact that dad teaches stuff to daughter. The lesson is fun and interactive. The concepts dealt with are pretty profound and can be quite deep: constraints, maxima and minima. Well done dad - you've covered some complex stuff in a fun and accessible way. Good skills. If anyone else doubts why this is valid Hacker News, they may want…

here is mine. collectible somewhere across the atlantic ocean. dont get me wrong i loved lego. but my playing days are about 20 years behind me.

Have you tried recently? It's still fun, just unfairly stigmatized as a kids only thing.

As an adult no one bats an eye if you play something like Cities: Skylines, minecraft or dwarf fortress. There's an army of adults playing FarmVille. So why not lego?

Re: Tallest Lego building with 4 pieces?

#58

Post by spydum »

spydum wrote: post #54
jacquesm wrote: post #17

Ah, jacquesm bait, ok here is my solution (left), right one is an alternative to yours. http://imgur.com/a/h7HnB just the tops: http://imgur.com/a/wsqCw

I feel like they should be attached and not stacked? https://imgur.com/gallery/W13nR Fwiw: 10.3cm

https://i.imgur.com/zUl5AP8.jpg

Measured 10.7cm: https://i.imgur.com/I637r2v.jpg

What have you done to me!? Can't stop.

Re: Tallest Lego building with 4 pieces?

#59

Post by dang »

asketak wrote: post #20

Does this content really belong to hackernews?

Your comment got treated rather harshly, so let me try to explain. The post is on topic for HN because, although the question is a whimsical one, it gratifies intellectual curiosity (please see https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html). Whimsical submissions like it have always been welcome here, as long as they're uncorrelated with anything that's appeared recently. (Sometimes people start doing the copycat thing of posting follow-up stories on almost the same topic. Those get old quickly unless they're really interesting, so the bar gets higher superlinearly.)

It isn't just a question of the community upvoting it. Plenty of stories get plenty of upvotes yet still don't belong on HN—e.g. most sensational controversies.

Many HN users value the diversity of the stories that appear here and don't take well to comments that appear to want to narrow the site down. That might be why your question got flamed.

Post reply on HN