[phusion]

I love these old write ups on classic Simpsons episodes. The first 7-8 seasons or so are pure magic and we'll miss John Swartzwelder always.

[larrik]

It's funny, I think 7-11 are the peak. Everyone has a different range.

[jpfed]

(Jonathan Frink voice) If there are more than 784 people assigning ranges, then your argument is contradicted by the pigeonhole principle.

[shalmanese]

(Jonathan Frink voice intensifies) For a single assigning of range, you have a start point and end point which allows for 784 * 783 / 2 combinations which is ~300,000 but since some people might opt for multiple ranges (ie: S02E07 - S09E17 & S21E13 - S31E11), that expands the result space. At it's limit, people could simply list their qualifying and non-qualifying episodes in a binary fashion which results in 2^784 combinations which is approximately 10^(784/10*3) (because 2^10~10^3) or 10^235. This is far more than the global population so pigeonhole principle wouldn't apply.

[aanm1988]

How do you figure?

Assuming ranges are A-B, where A <= B (you could like one season) and A, B are in [1, 28] then there should be just 406 ranges (28 that start at season 1, 27 at 2, etc...).

[jpfed]

D'oh! I just squared 28 instead of getting the 28th triangle number.

[reddytowns]

I always thought the book was better.

[aqme28]

And I always thought (and still think) that season 4 was the pinnacle.

[loop22]

Highly recommend his novels to any classic Simpsons fans.