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.
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(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...