Talk:2684: Road Space Comparison

Hold on, I'm trying to concoct an interesting 30 goats/20 cabbages/10 wolves problem... GreatWyrmGold (talk) 20:53, 12 October 2022 (UTC) S3C0ND P0ST 172.71.150.131 21:12, 12 October 2022 (UTC)

You have no idea how many car-centric infrastructure arguments happen in my discord servers, this is a fantastic comic to post for that188.114.102.55 21:23, 12 October 2022 (UTC)

What if the last panel also references other river crossing puzzles like the "Missionaries and cannibals problem" or the Flash "Japanese River Crossing" puzzle so you have extra rules for each member of each species? 172.71.98.97 22:11, 12 October 2022 (UTC) Alex

My name is GreyFox, and I added the transcript for this page. 172.71.150.171 22:13, 12 October 2022 (UTC)

So the takeway is... we can put humans in hamster balls by the handful all season and feel no worse about it than about cars driving down the road? This is awesome! 162.158.2.215 22:20, 12 October 2022 (UTC)

No, unfortunately the comic is missleading! Even though it is labelled as 50 hamsterballs the image only shows 39! Lupo (talk)

The comic never said it was one person per hamsterball. There's plenty of space in those for the hamster equivalent of a sidecar. GreatWyrmGold (talk) 05:30, 13 October 2022 (UTC)

But the image shows only one shioulette per hamsterball. I assume this picture is intentionally misleading and Randall was payd by the hamsterball-industry in order to manipulate society towards being pro hamster-ball Lupo (talk)

Regarding the hamster wheels: I think the description is missing a reference to sphere packing. It’s the first thing I thought of when I saw panel 8: how many circles/spheres can you fit/pack into a given space is a famous mathematical problem that I believe Randall has played with before. 75.174.26.24213:14UTC, 13 October 2022 (UTC)

Saw this one recently, can't be a coincidence NL Fietsersbond Ruimtegebruik 108.162.221.105 22:25, 12 October 2022 (UTC)

No, it can not. --172.71.142.39 16:13, 13 October 2022 (UTC)

I'm a bit unsure about the linked "52 person tandem" (also, the way it is currently made a bottom-of-page reference link, which we avoid on this site). It took me a while (behind all the popups the referenced link gave me, typically) to realise the only picture of it was the miniscule thumbnail planted at the start. Which explained the anomolous wheel-count, if I understand the low-res image correctly. I would dispute Ripleys'/Guiness's acceptance of that thing as a 'tandem'. It is clearly a multi-stage Rann Trailer-style construction (possibly with individual tandem-'trailers' in there to get the wheel count down to no more than the rider-count). Also, how on earth would a linked line of trailers actually start bursting tyres? The load of riders plus frames would spread out about as evenly as for any given single occupant bike (certainly less than the forces on the wheels of a proper tandem/trandem, or even a tandem-trike!), so I'm not sure how they even buckled a wheel. So I'd like to know what the longest two-/three-wheel tandem is (and certainly how anything like Randall's slightly snaking frame does not buckle), if anybody has their finger on that rather more relevent information, rather than that faux-tandem. 172.71.178.137 03:03, 13 October 2022 (UTC)

Is it just me, or is the last block also a subtle dig at Putin's blown-up Kerch bridge? 172.70.175.146 12:22, 13 October 2022 (UTC)

then it would be 50 people with 30 sleeping bags, 20 guns and 10 medikits :) Lupo (talk)

Intrinsic problems to the multi-human/goat/cabbage/wolf riddle:

- How many generic objects can you take at once? (If you can take 110+, there is no riddle here)

- How many goats can one person transport at once? (Can you put 30 goats on a boat without pandemonium?)

- How many people are required to corral the goats? (Will the goats all run away when they get to the other side?)

- Are the humans able to catch the goats? And, if the humans *can* catch the goats, does that mean the wolves can, too?

- Is there a way to restrain the wolves?

- Can a wolf be lonely?--Cwallenpoole (talk) 13:23, 13 October 2022 (UTC)

"Can you put 30 goats on a boat without pandemonium?" - nicely done. :o)172.70.162.147 13:51, 13 October 2022 (UTC)

If one person only is needed to "corral" 30 Goats/Wolves/Cabbages, then the problem is moot - the first boat ride just leaves a human on the other side of the water to watch over whatever is brought

172.70.230.105 14:20, 13 October 2022 (UTC)

I suppose instead of being critical numbers it has to be done with critical ratios. Gives you a little more wiggle room in the ordering of the trips and optimization but would read basically as the solution to the original but 25 times in a row. 108.162.241.51

*raises eyebrows at the suggestion that a 50-person tandem is only impractical in a city...*172.70.162.147 13:52, 13 October 2022 (UTC)

The multiseater 'bike' drawing is off, for me. A tandem (including trandem, quad, quint, etc) tends to root the stoker's(/subsequent stokers') handlebars directly under the seat of the rider in front of them (steersman/intermediate stokers) in any decent scratch-built frame, not well behind the seated body (and presmably a head/hat of each person, seated upright). It's closer in longitudinal scale to what you get of an overhead view of a compound bike with handlebars on or just behind the towing-point (though now it looks a little too close, practically, as there might not be room between the bottom-bracket/down-tube/head-tube to clear the rear wheel of the bike-rear in front of them... if not Moulton-sized units, which causes other building problems). Which also perhaps accounts for the slightly snaking plan view, being articulated. If well constructed with the right attachment geometries, this could actually travel city streets quite well by ensuring the wheel track of each compound unit follows the path of the weaving wheel(s) ahead of them. Although it'd need practiced riders to prevent lateral oscilations causing rolling forces to drag the whole thing sideways down to hit the ground. But I'll forgive Randall, as he clearly doesn't have enough practical experience with bike/tandem construction. Anyway, as the original '52 seat tandem bicycle' link was not a tandem (nor a bicycle) I looked up what I think is the correct most-seated tandem (tried checking Guiness Book Of Records website, just in case, but its cookie-authorisation popovers made it impossible to read) and added that as well as caveating the existing presumption of tandemness for the drawing and the already suggested machine. 172.71.178.5 18:54, 13 October 2022 (UTC)

There used to be a lot of videos on YouTube with rigid human-sized hamster balls, but the only ones I can find are the flexible inflatables now, and all the stunts seem to be with concentric inner compartment inside a shock-absorbed outer core. Wasn't there some horrible injury in the news some years back? 172.69.34.54 08:30, 14 October 2022 (UTC)

The “one giant pulled by many smalls” thing has been done by Märklin (manufacturer of H0-scale locomotives). 200 H0-scale locomotives pulled one real passenger wagon. Of course, similar stuff has been done by other groups.