Haha I totally noticed that too!

>> ^vaire2ube:

whoa! was that an ascii cock in a chat box at :15! game raelly has everything

i think it is true for a perfect random number (ascii symbol) generator, but monkeys like humans are not perfect they would fall into patterns, or like a particular sound of click in the typewriter or shape of letters better, or they would bash the keys never reaching the others and so on...

It's easy to calculate the real probability. A single byte can represent 256 different values, so for example in ASCII each character is encoded as a single byte, since there are less than 256 characters in the alphabet. Lets assume that the monkey's keyboard has keys for all 256 values, for simplicity. Let's also assume the complete works of Shakespeare add up to 10 megabytes. The chance that the monkey gets any single byte correct is 1/256. The chance that he gets two bytes right is (1/256)^2, three bytes is (1/256)^3, and so on. So then the chance that the monkey gets it all right is (1/256)^10,000,000. That's 1 divided by (256 raised to the 10 millionth power).

You could get a more accurate number by making x be the number of different types of characters and punctuations in the works, y be the actual count of all those things, then the probability would be 1/(x^y).

Actually I don't think the issue of representation is critical here. I think it's very easy to point out where Ariane went wrong:

"What are the odds that the random number generator would spit out the Shakespeare number? About 1 in infinity."

That's our intuition, but it's wrong. That's why this thought experiment is interesting. The likelihood is perhaps 1 in 10^10000000, but it is very much not "about 1 in infinity".


>> ^Sotto_Voce:

>> ^Ariane:
Pilkington is right. It would never happen. Lets just reduce this whole idea to mathematics. The complete works of Shakespeare can be translated to a number, by converting every character to ASCII, and ASCII to binary, so you end up with a really large binary number, which you can convert to decimal if you are so inclined.
So we have one number representing the complete works of Shakespeare. Then instead on Monkeys with typewriters, we have a random number generator, that can spit out any number from 1 to infinity. What are the odds that the random number generator would spit out the Shakespeare number? About 1 in infinity. Or for you calculus geeks, the limit of 1/x as x approaches infinity = 0.
So what happens if you ran the number generator an infinite number of times. Turns out infinity x infinity = infinity. Or again to be more exact aleph-naught times aleph-naught equals aleph-naught. So we are still at 0. What if we had an infinite number of number generators. That would be aleph-naught cubed, which is still equal to aleph-naught. Therefore, the odds are still zero.

You're using the wrong probability distribution. If we do what you suggest and convert each possible string of characters into a binary number, then the monkey experiment will not give us a uniform distribution over the binary numbers. It won't be like a random number generator. The monkey experiment gives us a uniform distribution over individual characters, and this does not translate into a uniform distribution over strings. As an example, consider the string "ee" vs. the string corresponding to Tolstoy's "War and Peace". Each of these corresponds to a single binary number, and if your random number generator analogy is right, then they should be equally likely. But obviously a monkey is far more likely to type "ee" than "War and Peace".

>> ^Ariane:

Pilkington is right. It would never happen. Lets just reduce this whole idea to mathematics. The complete works of Shakespeare can be translated to a number, by converting every character to ASCII, and ASCII to binary, so you end up with a really large binary number, which you can convert to decimal if you are so inclined.
So we have one number representing the complete works of Shakespeare. Then instead on Monkeys with typewriters, we have a random number generator, that can spit out any number from 1 to infinity. What are the odds that the random number generator would spit out the Shakespeare number? About 1 in infinity. Or for you calculus geeks, the limit of 1/x as x approaches infinity = 0.
So what happens if you ran the number generator an infinite number of times. Turns out infinity x infinity = infinity. Or again to be more exact aleph-naught times aleph-naught equals aleph-naught. So we are still at 0. What if we had an infinite number of number generators. That would be aleph-naught cubed, which is still equal to aleph-naught. Therefore, the odds are still zero.


You're using the wrong probability distribution. If we do what you suggest and convert each possible string of characters into a binary number, then the monkey experiment will not give us a uniform distribution over the binary numbers. It won't be like a random number generator. The monkey experiment gives us a uniform distribution over individual characters, and this does not translate into a uniform distribution over strings. As an example, consider the string "ee" vs. the string corresponding to Tolstoy's "War and Peace". Each of these corresponds to a single binary number, and if your random number generator analogy is right, then they should be equally likely. But obviously a monkey is far more likely to type "ee" than "War and Peace".

Pilkington is right. It would never happen. Lets just reduce this whole idea to mathematics. The complete works of Shakespeare can be translated to a number, by converting every character to ASCII, and ASCII to binary, so you end up with a really large binary number, which you can convert to decimal if you are so inclined.

So we have one number representing the complete works of Shakespeare. Then instead on Monkeys with typewriters, we have a random number generator, that can spit out any number from 1 to infinity. What are the odds that the random number generator would spit out the Shakespeare number? About 1 in infinity. Or for you calculus geeks, the limit of 1/x as x approaches infinity = 0.

So what happens if you ran the number generator an infinite number of times. Turns out infinity x infinity = infinity. Or again to be more exact aleph-naught times aleph-naught equals aleph-naught. So we are still at 0. What if we had an infinite number of number generators. That would be aleph-naught cubed, which is still equal to aleph-naught. Therefore, the odds are still zero.

>> ^rottenseed:

I was referring to ascii coding and the understanding a reconstruction of Sagan's image>> ^Stormsinger:
>> ^rottenseed:
This has got to be the best hoax ever...not in the enormity of how many people it fooled, or in the entertainment value gathered, but from the amount of knowledge the pranksters needed to have in order to pull it off. Not to mention, crop circles look badass...

It's much the same as all the tricks we were taught in grade school, about solving geometric problems with a compass and ruler. Crop circles just take a board and some rope.



Oh...I took it for commenting on the more general case. You're right, there is a distinct bit of geek background there.

I was referring to ascii coding and the understanding a reconstruction of Sagan's image>> ^Stormsinger:

>> ^rottenseed:
This has got to be the best hoax ever...not in the enormity of how many people it fooled, or in the entertainment value gathered, but from the amount of knowledge the pranksters needed to have in order to pull it off. Not to mention, crop circles look badass...

It's much the same as all the tricks we were taught in grade school, about solving geometric problems with a compass and ruler. Crop circles just take a board and some rope.

We'll take the skyline to the beach trail, which passes through Big Basin, and then out to the ocean.

In reply to this comment by peggedbea:
gahh!! i want one!!
i want to take it hiking. through the redwood forest. to the beach.
In reply to this comment by eric3579:
exposed

gahh!! i want one!!
i want to take it hiking. through the redwood forest. to the beach.
In reply to this comment by eric3579:
exposed

exposed

^All you philosophical/psychological yappers up there, at least have the dignity to format your textwalls into ASCII boobs.

Thanks.

Minecraft is also a one man team Though I believe he is now expanding a little due to the enormous success.

Though yes, it is a great world to have both these games sparking creativity in people whom otherwise would not show it. I've never been able to get in to DF but I've read some great stories of people's experiences. One that I'll remember forever, was a story that had an action packed encounter with an elephant, then I looked at a screenshot of that situation and it was like a little ASCII smiley face, meeting a '@' symbol (I think). I just burst out laughing for a good while, even now it gives me a chuckle haha. What people can imagine from such basic graphics, brilliant

>> ^d00kie:

Minecraft has always struck me as a 3D and First Person version of Dwarf Fortress (http://www.bay12games.com/dwarves/) (For a more user-friendly version of DF i'd suggest a tileset such as the Phoebus set which should be available here: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=57557.0) which I'd also strongly recommend.
That said, Dwarf Fortress does have a difficulty curve similar to a brick wall, but with a bit of persistence it's really very rewarding, and the sheer freedom offered is quite astounding. Options range from simple fortress defence, through to training Magmanauts to search volcanos, to fully self-aware fortresses using the highest standard of dwarf-puting!
While I don't know the scale of the production team for Minecraft, I have to admit that I've always been impressed with DF especially as the entire production team is one bloke and his cat...
Either way, I'm glad that Minecraft has recaptured people's imaginations to start puttering around in an environment where virtually anything is possible. Muchos Kudos to them all.

@demon_ix it's impossible to do ascii really well with this font.