No Fun at All

Apropos the discussion of printer problems, Dilbert this morning seems pretty topical. Funny how often Dilbert can seem to reflect whatever you've already been thinking about, like a properly written horoscope.

Here at TOP, we just passed our 50,000th published reader comment since we moved to TypePad in June of 2007. I noticed this just after the magic number passed by, and I thought, just for fun, I'd count back and see what the actual 50,000th comment was, and maybe cobble together some sort of tongue-in-cheek prize. So I counted back, and...I was the 50,000th commenter. No fun at all. However, now that I know that, I can retroactively announce that the prize for the 50,000th comment is a new car.

And, in other news, if you put a dozen monkeys in a room with typewriters, sooner or later they'd write a Shakespeare play, but if you let me play golf for a billion years I'd never go eagle-eagle-birdie. I'm just sayin'.

Mike

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Original contents copyright 2010 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved.

Featured Comment by Dennis Allshouse: "Okay, I'm being a spoil-sport. The monkey/typewriter story is a total myth. The probability of getting Hamlet is roughly 10^(–164345) i.e. 10 raised to the negative power shown. The probability of getting Hamlet in the lifetime of the current universe is 10^(–164316). Reference: Thermal Physics by Charles Kittel and Herbert Kroemer, p. 57. I'm not sure how to calculate the probability of the golf event described."

Mike replies: Dennis, I believe you about the first. The probability of the golf event as described is 100%, believe me.

Comments

[Bob Stevenson]

This is very similar to the quote by a proffesor (who's name escapes my memory) which goes;

"...It used to be suposed that if tenthousand chimpanzees were sat at typewriters it would only be amatter ot itme before they came up with the entire works of Shakespeare. However, with the advent of the internet we now know that this idea is completely wrong".

[Mark Janness]

Mike

There is hope.

"And, in other news, if you put a dozen monkeys in a room with typewriters, sooner or later they'd write a Shakespeare play, but if you let me play golf for a billion years I'd never go eagle-eagle-birdie. I'm just sayin'."

The evolutionists use the above logic to claim the world evolved just that way.

I'm just sayin'.

[robert e]

Congratulations on your new Ferrari 599, Mike!

I'd like to thank you and the authors of comments 49,960th through 50,004th (rough guess) for again dissuading me from buying a wider-format printer. I flirt with the idea every now and then, but then something happens, like I actually sit down and calculate the cost of making prints on the better printers, including ink and paper, including proofing and calibration runs, maintenance cycles, a learning curve, and a realistic percentage of misses and errors. Or, I'll read something like yesterday's thread.

After that, just about any other option looks like a better deal.

I wonder what the word count is on those 50,000 comments and the posts that inspired them. Also, does the count include comments that were moderated out?

[rogerc]

Now about these monkeys.
You might want to take a look at this link.
http://plus.maths.org/issue54/risk/index.html
I think it shows that there are some people in England with more time on their hands than is good for them!
Sorry, must go now - my dog has just walked in with a piece of paper in his mouth with the words of "Jailhouse Rock" typed on it.
So near and yet so far.

[Daniel Fealko]

You were the 50,000th, commenter?!? I demand a recount! And, I'll take my car in red.

[Paul]

Monkeys can't type. I always think that's a bit like saying if you put me in a room long enough, I'd eventually be able to manufacture, by hand, an inkjet printer that is easy to use, produces great quality prints, for <$600. You could put me in that room infinitely long, and it's not going to happen.

I don't know golf but I think your chances are significantly better.

[marten]

Congratulations on winning the car!. Is it true that Elvis P. will make the presentation?

[Kevin Schoenmakers]

Now Mike, what if you miscalculated? Would you have to buy someone else a new car?

[Joe]

Let me be the first to say, get the 599.

[Blasius Bauer]

VW is the easy choice. Who would want a land boat that looks like
all the other boats coming out of the east? But those wheels need to go.

[John Camp]

About the monkey thing, I believe Mike misspoke. The usual formulation, I think, is "If you give an infinite number of monkeys an infinite amount of time..."

Of course, if you had an infinite number of monkeys, they really wouldn't need an infinite amount of time. They'd only need as much time as it took to hit the keys the requisite number of times to produce the works. And if you really had an infinite number of monkeys, it would only take a fraction of a second before they generated a sequence of characters, someplace in the infinite string of characters, that would replicate the works of Shakespeare. Of course, there wouldn't be enough time left in the universe to find them, but they'd be there.

I don't know about Mike, because I've never seen him play golf, but I can no longer reach par-5s in two. So, my only chance to have such a run would be to can two shots in a row on par 4s, and then birdie the third hole. I have gotten a number of eagles by canning shots from the fairway, and expect to get more. The chances, of the eagle-eagle-birdie sequence, though tiny, are really probably better than winning the lottery.

JC

[Dennis Allshouse]

Re: the golf thing, as a totally undedicated duffer I know whereof you speak!! LOL big time.