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by jeremysmyth 3778 days ago
Obligatory XKCD: https://xkcd.com/903/

Ah, but unlike any other obligatory XKCD you tend to see on HN, the relevance here isn't in the comic but in the alt-text you get when you hover over the image.

2 comments

While funny, I think that's not the same spirit. In some sense, the XKCD one is observing "if you ask 'why' enough times, then the answer is eventually 'philosophy'"; the fact that these links all lead to 'philosophy' is, in some sense, a (jointly if not singly) intentional human creation, and it has semantic meaning.

The Kruskal count is observing, on the other hand, that 'large' collections of data (even for values of 'large' that are quite small, by statistical measures) inevitably include apparently designed, but actually semantically meaningless, coincidences.

Hmm, let me try again. The fact that all Wikipedia articles eventually lead, by transitive linking, to 'philosophy' means something about philosophy; the fact that all trails from the first 12 words of Alice in Wonderland eventually lead, by letter-counting, to 'sister' means nothing about sisters.

I really should have read the second sentence of your post before looking at the link.

I spent way to much time figuring out how it might be related with TFA.