[semi-extrinsic]

There are ~3.1e9 seconds in a century, and ~7.5e9 people on Earth. So if every human makes a git commit every second for a century, the odds of a single false positive is ~5.3e-7 (i.e. less than one in a million).

[sillysaurus3]

if every human makes a git commit every second for a century

Will someone please write a dystopian novel around this premise? It almost writes itself. GitHub turns evil, forcing the world population into subservience from birth; using Git is all anyone is ever allowed to do, and is how people conceptualize the universe and access entertainment; various cults form with the belief that randomness can be influenced via the right ceremony...

You can source inspiration from https://twitter.com/DystopianYA

[stevesearer]

I was recently thinking of another idea where humanity works for Google and everyone's job is to solve recaptchas. Everything is free for people who earn enough credits by solving the puzzles.

[apearson]

Isn't this an episode of black mirror?

[StavrosK]

It is.

[stevesearer]

Oh funny, which episode? I've never seen the show before.

Someone here had mentioned that they try to incorrectly answer recaptchas as a way to spite them for trying to steal free labor from them. My mind took that to the extreme of everyone working for Google... :)

[frei]

I believe the parent poster is referring to the second episode [0], where people must earn credits for cycling on exercise bikes.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fifteen_Million_Merits

[MrRadar]

Sounds like the plot to For-Profit Online University[1]. "I'm a digital gardener."

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XQLdhVpLBVE

[tmsldd]

If it is not a movie yet.. you should definitely write one :D

[paulddraper]

> various cults form

...each believing in a Supreme branching strategy

[sillysaurus3]

And your status in society is determined by the number of consecutive digits of the hash of your very first git commit.

[myhf]

http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/violation-of-the-t...

[ntumlin]

Alternative premise, tech interviews continue to become increasingly competitive, and if you want to be a true dev hirable by Google, etc. this is the output you need.

[boyter]

I could even see a matrix like aspect where those who are unplugged do so by creating hash collisions to hide what they are really doing.

[caf]

It's actually less, more like 1.878e-8:

http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=1-%28%281-2^-90%29^%283...

[semi-extrinsic]

You're right, I suck at probabilities and did it wrong: (3.1e9*7.5e9)/2^90 .