this post was submitted on 16 Jan 2024
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xkcd

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cross-posted from: https://programming.dev/post/8619086


Title text:

It's like the traveling salesman problem, but the endpoints are different and you can't ask your friends for help because they're sitting three seats down.

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[–] [email protected] 26 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Good thing I don't know enough people for me to ever go to the movies in that big a group.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 11 months ago

the problem here is technically not you knowing people but that the people you know can also know people that you don't know, expanding the graph beyond the first layer that you personally observe.

tl;dr: don't allow recursive invites

[–] [email protected] 20 points 11 months ago (2 children)

You also need to account for where the really tall people are in the row in front of you. Social optimization be damned, I want to see!

[–] [email protected] 6 points 11 months ago (1 children)

And group people based on how loud their snacks are.

Also, am I the only one hating that person who keeps talking how the seating is suboptimal while everyone else tries to watch the movie?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago

Those ones you group outside the movie theater.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 11 months ago

Yeah, well we want to have enough space to sit lower, but it's not always an option unfortunately! :-)

[–] [email protected] 7 points 11 months ago

Optimal seating for this group would probable be this graph left to right, except for one-way crush person, they go on the very right.

First couple > bottom friend > top friend > second couple > top right friend > 1-way crusher

Friends are within 1 seat of each other.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

My biggest pet peeve was working in a restaurant and trying to seat a large group. That hatred has been with me for decades, that I actively refuse to involve myself in dinners larger than 6 people. It's noisy. It's too much management. There's multiple conversations. It's awful.

Even during family outings in public areas, I assemble little groups and pretend like we don't know each other.

And before anybody even asks, I absolutely segmented my wedding into different 6-person teams when we went out in public.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

The group in this comic is bizarrely low connectivity for what is supposedly a friendship group. Not a single 3-cycle of actual friends among them?