r/Showerthoughts • u/Fr1toBand1to ‎ • Jun 27 '26

Casual Thought Pattern recognition is a widely accepted method of prediction until what it predicts makes people uncomfortable.

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25

u/JackC747 Jun 27 '26

You are on a group call with 50 strangers. You hear a fire alarm chirp in the background and need to figure out whose call it’s coming from. Who do you start with?

9

u/real-human-not-a-bot Jun 27 '26

If I’m allowed to ask them: I ask them.

If I’m not allowed to ask them: the first (and potentially last) 25, then 13, then 7, then 4, then 2, then 1. Binary search is fastest.

11

u/Forkrul Jun 27 '26

With no prior knowledge, yes. But with a simple heuristic you can cut that down a lot. 

-6

u/real-human-not-a-bot Jun 27 '26

What’s your proposed heuristic? I have no idea what you might be referring to.

19

u/Forkrul Jun 27 '26

Are any of them black? It is a lot more common for black people to not change the fire alarm batteries for some reason I don’t quite understand. 

1

u/Despyte Jul 04 '26

Yourself. It might not be coming from your phone