Rad Geek People's Daily

Suppose you are a maintenance tech who works on an island with many different robots, in three different models. (1) Truthinator 9000, (2) D-Seevr 4.0, and (3) Benders. All three kinds of robots look exactly alike, so you can’t tell them apart based on what they look like. They all know everything there is to know. But Truthinators are programmed always to tell the truth; D-Seevrs are programmed always to tell lies. Benders mostly lie, of course, but they can choose to say false things and they also can choose to say true things. All of them only output intelligible declarative sentences with definite consistent truth values.^[1]

Now suppose that a robot needs a repair and wants to identify its model to you. Truthinator 9000 would say “I am Truthinator 9000.” But then, D-Seevr might also say that, and so might Bender, if he chooses to lie, which he often does. Bender could truthfully say “I’m a Bender, bub” but a D-Seevr might say that too.

1. Is there one sentence that a Bender could say that would allow you, as a sufficiently logical maintenance tech, to identify the robot as a Bender rather than a Truthinator or a D-Seevr? If so, what?

2. Is there one sentence that a Truthinator could say that would allow you to definitely identify the robot as a Truthinator and not as a Bender or a D-Seevr? If so, what?

3. Is there anything that a D-Seevr could say in one sentence that would allow you to definitely identify the robot as a D-Seevr, and not as a Truthinator or a Bender?

1. ^[1]This is of course a modified Knights and Knaves problem, of the sort popularized by Raymond Smullyan. But the presence of Benders on the island should significantly change the sort of strategies available.↩

This is of course immensely foolish and destructive of city life in Austin. One of the awful things about it is that the privileged band of goons going around doing it professes to be the "city of Austin," in the living flesh, when in fact they are nothing but raiders mounting an armed attack on the city and its physical, technological and human transportation infrastructure.

I’ve been out and about the last few Sundays, so I’ve been recreant to my duties on this blog. If it’s any excuse, this is where we were a couple of Sundays ago:^[1]

But what about you, gentle reader? What have you been up to lately? What have you been working on? Got anything big coming up? Anything you've written lately? Leave a link and a short description for your post in the comments. Or fire away about anything else you might want to talk about.

Don't hold back. Let's get Shameless again.

1. ^[1]Hot Springs, North Carolina. We went camping in the Smokies for our anniversary that weekend; most of the time was spent hiking and staying in a tent around Cades Cove, Tenn., but on the way back we stopped off to stay at a Bed & Breakfast and see Hot Springs, the town where my grandmother grew up and went to school.↩

Mike Hubbard — formerly Speaker of the Alabama House of Representatives, Chair of the Alabama state Republican party, and representative of Alabama House district 79 (which includes most of the majority-white neighborhoods in Auburn) — has been found guilty on multiple ethics charges, and has been removed from office.

A Lee County jury of 12 citizens has found former Auburn Republican and Alabama House Speaker Mike Hubbard guilty of 12 felony charges of violating the state’s ethics law — the very same ethics law he was instrumental in passing.

After only a little more than seven hours, the jury reached a historic verdict in a four-year investigation into Hubbard’s use of his offices as both House speaker and chairman of the Alabama Republican Party.

After Lee County Circuit Judge Jacob Walker read the jury’s convictions, Hubbard’s bond was set at $160,000. He later made bond and was released from the Lee County Justice Center’s jail. He snuck around journalists through a back entrance into a black Chevrolet Corvette parked in the grass.

After he entered the Corvette, Hubbard sped off through a field instead of using the parking lot, attempting to avoid journalists seeking comment.

–Chip Brownlee, Former House Speaker Mike Hubbard guilty
Auburn Plainsman (10 June 2016)

So that’s one branch of government down, two to go. So while we’re at it, let’s impeach the Governor. Also, of course, let’s re-remove Judge Roy Moore.

Impeach everybody. ¡Que se vayan todos!