human randomness game
Jul. 6th, 2005 10:24 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
guslYou know those Memory Championships?
I'd like to make a Randomness Championship, where people produce a long string of numbers/letters. People are really bad at producing random things, and tend to reuse the same kinds of patterns. Maybe it's because we can't behave as if we were memoryless.
Your performance would be measured by how much can be compressed. If your string can be compressed to less than 5% of the original size, then you've done a bad job. If you achieve higher than 90% incompressibility, that's probably better than most people.
The problem is that people could easily memorize a long random string, and so this would become really just another memorization test... unless you demand that they produce really, really long strings. Can you think of any other way to prevent this sort of cheating, besides brain-scans that would accuse any long-term memory retrieval?
I know I've already played a very simple binary guessing game, where the computer was "truly random" while learning my patterns. Obviously a game you can't expect to win.
I'd like to make a Randomness Championship, where people produce a long string of numbers/letters. People are really bad at producing random things, and tend to reuse the same kinds of patterns. Maybe it's because we can't behave as if we were memoryless.
Your performance would be measured by how much can be compressed. If your string can be compressed to less than 5% of the original size, then you've done a bad job. If you achieve higher than 90% incompressibility, that's probably better than most people.
The problem is that people could easily memorize a long random string, and so this would become really just another memorization test... unless you demand that they produce really, really long strings. Can you think of any other way to prevent this sort of cheating, besides brain-scans that would accuse any long-term memory retrieval?
I know I've already played a very simple binary guessing game, where the computer was "truly random" while learning my patterns. Obviously a game you can't expect to win.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2005-07-06 09:57 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-07-06 10:50 pm (UTC)This is not the same as thinking about women.
Depending on what type of person you are, the most important thing you might ever do is find the love of your life. Can you spend 5, 10 20% of your time doing this.
I took a month off and traveled the world...with the intent...I found my wife on the farthest archipelago in the world (this is true).
I started by making a list of all the things I wanted, and all the things I did not, then cross referenced that to places. For example, since I hate cold weather, I knew Iceland and Alaska were poor choices, so they were at the bottom of the list. I was pretty methodical.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-07-06 11:50 pm (UTC)I'm not really sure what I want. I've gotten pretty used to being single, and haven't had any life-altering relationships. I'm a pretty independent person anyway.
It would be nice to have someone to come home to, give me affection, (or someone to wash for me!), but mostly I just want to have fun, connect to people.
I have, in the past, spent 10% of my time on this. But mostly I don't bother because the yield has been so bad. Although it would probably be a bit better today (better dating sites, better me, etc).
But right now I don't even know how long I can stay in the Netherlands, as I need to find a sponsoring job. My goal now is to be financially independent... and a negative, but not unrelated, goal, is to remain in the 1st world. Living in Brazil sucks, and Brazil is the only place where I have a guaranteed legal right to live.
I'm working on some interesting ideas for educational software, but I think business is a whole different game... which I should learn how to play. I basically want to not have to worry about money. Besides, once you have money, visas follow...
(no subject)
Date: 2005-07-07 12:03 am (UTC)LOL.........er, there are things you really should do for yourself... :)
(no subject)
Date: 2005-07-07 07:36 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-07-07 09:10 am (UTC)You made a list of things, then used that to identify key places and then actually went on a physical trip to try to find the right woman?!
Wow!
With 31 years of being single I've heard plenty of advice, but I've never hear this one before.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-07-07 09:14 am (UTC)However, I also really enjoyed many of the women I met in the same place.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-07-07 09:29 am (UTC)At least after a minute's thought I really haven't got a clue.
Though I'd have to say somewhere where people can speak English would be good. Although I can converse with people here in Italian it's just not the same as being able to say exactly what I want to say and how I want to say it in English.
But other than that I have no idea geographically where I would go.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-07-07 09:41 am (UTC)You have to really think hard about this. What do you like, and what do you hate, about people, cultures, etc.
All of this will end with chemistry. Everything else fails if you don't spark.
I actually really like all the women in my life, I just like the one I'm with now the best, and plan to be with her for the rest of my life.
Hey, I'm going to be speaking in Treviglio, Italy, a few kilometers from Milan, September 30, and Oct 1.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-07-07 09:51 am (UTC)Yeah I live about an hour from Milan. What are you speaking about? I assume you're talking in English?
(no subject)
Date: 2005-07-07 09:59 am (UTC)I'm speaking on the x-Internet, as in what comes after XML HTML, etc. Faster Internet, etc.
Also presenting a big honking complex system I'm building...
(no subject)
Date: 2005-07-07 09:39 am (UTC)...in a woman?
So if I like independent women, I should go to liberal-thinking places like Northern Europe or San Francisco?
Once in those places, how did you sift through the women? Did you tell people that you were looking for a wife? What about filtering the right personality types? What was your filter when you met your wife?
Btw, there are archipelagos farther away than Hawaii (unless your reference point is South Africa).
(no subject)
Date: 2005-07-07 09:56 am (UTC)A: Exactly.
Q: Once in those places, how did you sift through the women? Did you tell people that you were looking for a wife? What about filtering the right personality types? What was your filter when you met your wife?
A: Yes, I told people, and my friends. Some of this is too big of a question for me to answer right now (for one thing it is a lot of text to write), also I was Wind surfing today, so I’m wiped out. Perhaps I will make it a focus of one my Journal posts. Then I can let my wife speak up.
Q: Btw, there are archipelagos farther away than Hawaii (unless your reference point is South Africa).
A: What if your reference point “is” Hawaii? :) Besides, when it comes to measuring this type of stuff, there is never an end to the types of rulers…
OK, so can you find a set (of small islands) that is farther from an international airport? Takes 5 hours to get from LA to Hawaii.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-07-07 10:06 am (UTC)looking forward to it.
Any archipelago in the Indian Ocean or the Indonesia side of the Pacific, or the Greek archipelagos.