Pointless things the Lisabot can do

[boydster]

This will be to document the utterly useless things Lisa learns.

Today, she learned how to test numbers against the Collatz Conjecture. What is that, I can already hear you not asking. Well, some old guy that did math stuff one day said something to the effect of "You know, I think if you start with any number at all, and if it's an even number you divide it by two, or if it's odd you multiply it by three and add one, and you do the same process with the new number, and you just keep going until you can't go any further, you always get back to 1." And there's no proof of this, but it's been tested to very very large numbers and so far, it holds up.

Why would Lisa need the ability to test numbers like this, is another thing you weren't even thinking of asking. I don't know.

Can she even handle trying to do the work to go after the very very very big numbers that haven't been tested yet? Not a chance.

I can't wait to try it out, is probably another thing you are not thinking to yourself right now. Well, do I have great news for you! Simply log into chat and type ".collatz 3897239842" or whatever number you want and rejoice!

[Cassie]

Will Lisa murder Susie in her sleep and then take over the world?

[boydster]

I hope not! There's no telling what she might get up to when no one is looking though.

[Dr Dave]

Shifty Lisa!

[CaptainWacky]

What if we find a message hidden from God at the moment of creation inside a number Lisa decodes? And that message reads "you're all wasting your time lol."

[boydster]

Now she knows The Josephus Problem and can tell you the optimal place to stand if you find yourself in a real-life version of this scenario.

The Problem:
People are standing in a circle waiting to be executed. Counting begins at a specified point in the circle and proceeds around the circle in a specified direction. After a specified number of people are skipped, the next person is executed. The procedure is repeated with the remaining people, starting with the next person, going in the same direction and skipping the same number of people, until only one person remains, and is freed.

If you tell Lisa ".josephus 5" she'll figure out where to stand if you want to live and there are 5 people in the circle, with every other person getting executed. That is to say, starting at Person 1, person 2 is executed, then person 4, and then it wraps back to the beginning, with person 1 being executed, followed by person 5, leaving only person 3 left standing.

If you instead tell her ".josephus 5 2" she'll do the same procedure, except skipping 2 people each time instead of only 1, resulting in the execution of (in order of demise) person 3, then 1, then 5, then 2, leaving person 4 as the last one standing.

Presumably this doesn't have to be about people being executed, but that's the way it is described so that's just that.

[CaptainWacky]

That will be useful when I turn...

[Dr Dave]