Talk:1277: Ayn Random

I think that should be /(\b[plurandy]+\b ?){2}/i.

173.66.108.213 05:12, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

I agree. I was confused for a while about what the b's were doing.

99.126.178.56 06:57, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

Maybe it's time to have an Ayn Rand category? --141.89.226.146 07:34, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

Can someone explain to the mathematically challenged *how* the list of names fits the regular expression? 141.2.75.23 09:14, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

Agreed, I would like to understand what the hell is going on with that. --Zagorath (talk) 09:20, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

How specific do you want it? Basically it matches two words consisting of the letters plurandy. The list of names is just a random selection of two part names that only consists of these letters. More specifically it matches: Two groups ({2}), each consisting of a word boundary (\b), followed by a non-empty sequence of the letters plurandy ([plurandy]+), followed by a word boundary (\b), finally followed by an optional space ( ?). Pmakholm (talk) 09:33, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

Also, the /'s on the end delimit the regex proper, and the `i` on the end denotes case insensitivity. --75.66.178.177 09:39, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

Some examples:

• "Ru Paul" would match, because it is two sequences, each containing only capital or lowercase versions of the listed letters.
• "Randall Flagg" would not match, because the letters F and G are not in the bracketed list.
• "Aura Anaya Adlar" would not match; even though the letters are all in the list, there are more than two sequences.

Hope this helps!

Swartzer (talk) 20:24, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

209.132.186.34 09:26, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

I do not think Randal would make such mistake, he would probably use \< \> anyway... unless, he wants us to think he did mistake, or that backslash was eliminated in html/javascript... thus poining ut to source code of the page... is there something interesting?

I skimmed over the source and didn't see anything unusual. The '\'s are absent from the source too. I think it's just that Randall (or a tool he's using) was so affraid of Bobby Tables that he stripped all backslashes from the alt text. -- Jahvascriptmaniac (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

The title text at xkcd.com now has the missing backslashes. Do you normally update the comic here to reflect updates?--108.17.2.71 16:14, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

Already updated. You were saying?

Can someone explain to me where "In their view, if some humans are born more capable of satisfying their desires than other people, they deserve to reap greater rewards from life than others" comes from? I'm somewhat familiar with objectivist philosophy and I've never heard this put forward as an actual principle. 50.90.39.56 14:14, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

Most people would write the regexp as /(\b[adlnpruy]+\b ?){2}/i. Using "plurandy" makes it look like a word, which is more confusing than using the letters' natural order. --Ralfoide (talk) 15:58, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

Would it be better to identify Alan Alda not for his role as Hawkeye Pierce in MASH, but for his role in The West Wing as Arnold Vinick, a fiscally-conservative Republican presidential candidate? 193.67.17.36 16:03, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

Depends, are we trying to remind him to general audience (I think MASH is more known) or find out why he was included in list? -- Hkmaly (talk) 08:50, 16 October 2013 (UTC)

There is probably an additional joke or three in that the regex is the minimum needed to capture the first three names together (hinted at by "plurandy" eg plural rand) , but also captures the others. on top of which all of the listed people are considered "intrinsically better" (by virtue of fame if nothing else)74.213.201.51 03:14, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

Alan Ladd may have been a founding member of the Secret Council of /(\b[plurandy]+\b ?){2}/i. 71.190.237.117 07:15, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

It's probably obvious to most programmers, but is it worth pointing out that part of the pun is that the random number generator function is called rand() in most C-family languages? 130.60.156.183 14:07, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

Another member of this secret society is Randall P 79.182.178.53 16:45, 15 October 2013 (UTC)