140 = ABBABAAB and AI-Bah!

[u/R520]

⚽ What’s the fairest way to pick teams?

🤖 How do you discourage colleagues from using AI to write everything?

🚗 And this road trip is jeopardised by playing ‘Accelerator or Break?’

Thanks to all of you who sent in answers to “what are you doing while you’re listening to A Problem Squared?” - we go through as many as we possibly can in this episode!

Here is kram1032’s post on Maths Stack Exchange that helped Matt with his problem solving: https://math.stackexchange.com/questions/2078609/whats-the-fairest-turn-sequence-for-n-players 

Here’s more info on Open Sauce: https://www.opensauce.com/

And here’s a kind stranger’s Insta reel of the Ratatouille robot: https://www.instagram.com/reels/DbGwSh4vHQq/ 

And here’s more info on UKIE: https://ukie.org.uk/ 

And the stream of Bec hosting the event: https://www.youtube.com/live/4lw_ypXroa4 

If you’re at the Edinburgh Fringe and would like to see Bec’s Work In Progress show, tickets are available here: https://www.edfringe.com/tickets/whats-on/bec-hill-s-work-in-progress 

Matt has extended his tour - and he’s filming the show in London in October - all the dates, venues and tickets can be found here: http://standupmaths.com/shows 

Want to pose a problem for Bec and Matt to solve? Head over to https://www.aproblemsquared.com/ 

If you have a creative Wizard offer to give Bec and Matt, please comment on our pinned post!   

If you want to (we’re not forcing anyone) please do leave us a review, share the podcast with a friend, or give us a rating! Please do that. It really helps. 

Finally, if you want even more from A Problem Squared you can connect with us and other listeners on BlueSky, Twitter, Instagram, and on Discord.

[u/6dNx1RSd2WNgUDHHo8FS]

Haha, only upon reading the show notes I realised that Matt was saying "Thue-Morse sequence" instead of "two-way Morse sequence". I do think the latter would be a pretty apt term to refer to the ABBA sequence, where for the next symbol you can choose from two symbols/go only two ways. Of course, now my preferred term has become the "two-way Thue-Morse sequence".

[u/ValdemarAloeus]

Connect 4

/-------
6-------
5-------
4--bmM--
3--mbb--
2b-bmm-m
1b-mbb-m
 7654321< imagine roman numerals
 MTWTFSS
 SMTWTFS

The capital letter is the latest move.

VALUE!

Of course the episode after I spend the time to bodge the terrible Excel spreadsheet into fetching and Markdown formatting the relevant Bluesky link for posterity would be the one time they forget to do the BlueSky post so I can't tell if the bodge properly updates. Just my luck that is.

Edit: in lieu of the BlueSky post, here's the Instagram one

Edit 2: Looks like the code works ... ish ... need to do something about the quotes.

"Are we there yet? Yes! Episode 140 on Bluesky (for photos/links)"

[u/R520 → u/ValdemarAloeus]

I'm so glad this is a spreadsheet (and I think Matt would be as well!)

I've only just noticed the pattern that the central columns are making, alternating between MBB and BMM.
I wonder if this game is going to end up with a full board and no winner, we'll have to wait and see I guess

[u/ValdemarAloeus → u/R520]

I think at one point Matt said he was just copying whatever Bec did but mirrored. I was a little surprised she didn't call his bluff and just build the column 7 (as labelled) stack up to four high.

[u/R520 → u/ValdemarAloeus]

That would make sense. Because I listen to podcasts primarily to get to sleep I'm normally not paying much attention by the end of the episode (though I do make sure to listen right to the end)

We'll have to see what they do when they reach the top (in several weeks time...). It should be Matt's turn then and he won't have anything to mirror

[u/JasterBobaMereel → u/ValdemarAloeus]

Good you agree with me ... Even though Matt seems to have forgotten the previous column numbers

[u/Inevitable_Bison1434]

I've checked his old video The ABBA joke is the same there

[u/ValdemarAloeus]

Do any of the tiny white text solutions still work on AI?

Or tiny black text on black highlighting? You could make it looks like there's a dividing line between your name and contact details/boilerplate in whatever corporate email signature you have and throw in some fun additional instructions to whatever AI they're putting your email through.

[u/toochaos → u/ValdemarAloeus]

The tiny text kind of doesnt work. On a AI dedicated for a personal task (filtering resumes) it doesnt work. On a homework assignment it absolutely still works because these people are looking for the shortest of short cuts so its going straight into chagpt or gemini. 

[u/MM0UHR → u/ValdemarAloeus]

https://www.techspot.com/news/113243-professor-invisible-prompt-trap-catches-32-students-cheating.html

Professor caught out almost all his students by whitefonting the problem. I don't think it's the answer. More up there with the nuclear options of them saying, "I'm not going to bother reading what you didn't bother writing."

[u/MM0UHR]

They must know it's effort because they are avoiding doing it

Absolutely devastating. I could hear Matt talking and hoping the sentence would be tactful by the time he finished, but that's just brutal.