Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by unnouinceput 1913 days ago
No. It comes from choosing somebody at random from a whole group. Get thin sticks (branches from any tree), cut them all around 10 cm and one of them cut it shorter (like 5 cm for example). Now hold the entire bunch of sticks in your hand, carefully to have them same height at visible end (hiding in your hand which one is the short one) and let everybody except yourself draw a stick at random. Whoever gets the short one is the one that would do the task at hand. If everybody draws all long sticks you're the one with the short one at the end. Hence the phrasing.