They say if you put an infinite amount of monkeys at an infinite amount of typewriters, one would soon produce the greatest novel ever written. How many monkeys at how many typewriters would it take for them to soon produce a column more insightful than the average tripe from Maureen Dowd?
My guess is eight.
What do you think?
I’m guessing nine. Eight would equal, nine would be more insightful.
Not first.
It’s a trick question. 1st time every time.
Given infinite time, a single monkey will produce just as much work as infinite monkeys.
Tellu54 is correct. But if we’re looking at an expected “stopping time” question, and we want the stopping time to be less than a day, it may take many, many monkeys (if we want the column in English).
If you just want something more insightful than a MoDo coln, then I monkey could pound out 1000 characters or so in an hour, I’d think. Depends on if you’ve given the monkey coffee.
Drunk Monkey wants to know if this is one of those rhetorical questions???
http://www.flickr.com/photos/1404458_2e8f67d40a.jpg
Trick question. Since the term “insightful” can not be applied to a Maureen Dowd column, then no quantity of monkeys could produce work that is more insightful. It is kinda like the 0>null problem that us computer geeks contend with.
How do we know that Dowd isn’t a monkey?
She’s kind of evil.
Here is what my single monkey produced in fifteen seconds. Clearly better than Dowd. So, the answer is one monkey, fifteen seconds:
dflkfdsalkj fdsa;ljfdsal safoijfdsa fdsh hdsahjfdsa;lkj fhdkja; hfhaifdsoifdsj lkjflkjfdsah lfkajf ohsa hfdsahw38fhfds hj fsas dlkj
It was the best of times, it was the blurst of times…
negative one monkeys
monkeys are too logical. in this regard they are like vulcans. the ability to totally suspend factual evidence or draw logical conclusions is only found in crazy liberals. Monkeys and Vulcans simply cannot write fiction.
However, both monkeys and VUlcans would have taken dowd, at birth, and thrown her into a volcano to rid the world of her evil. But where are monkeys or Vulcans when you need them?
But where are monkeys or Vulcans when you need them?
stops flinging poo
Wha?! Someone ask about monkeys?
I prefer Marmosets, their sources are more reliable… Plus they taste good wrapped in bacon
However, I must wager 6 monkeys
Frank,
Know you hate monkeys but this is almost too ignorant towards them. There never could be a monkey as hateful and self absorbed as the dowdy Dowd… ever think that the word dowdy came as a derivation of her name??
Mongo like
Giving monkeys typewriters!?!?!? Thats just a tool to spread venemous pro-monkey propoganda.
Frank, I expected better from you.
The fact that monkeys are evil should not be construed to mean that they have no standards of behavior amongst themselves. Monkeys have a well defined, albeit evil, social structure which precludes one monkey from doing something that would make him/her the object of scorn and derision by the rest of the group. While one drunk monkey could, in theory, produce a column more insightful than MoDow, no monkey would undertake the task. It’s just too demeaning, even for a monkey.
Isn’t this a bit like comparing apples to apples?
A north-facing monkey’s south end regularly produces something of more substance and use than Dowd.
Blenster
It depends; can the typewriters produce a superscript “th”?
Can we verify that they are real monkeys?
How do we know one of them isn’t really Dan Rather in a monkey suit?
I guess it doesn’t really matter… Dan Rather would be less insightful than a monkey. Just as evil, though.
I don’t know how many it would take, but the number of monkeys with typewriters would be a factor of pi less than the number of monkeys it would take that had access to bags full of Scrabble tiles.
That means something.
Lets find out. ah-one, ah-two, ah-three. BANG BANG BANG. ah-three.
(dead monkeys, that is)
extra points if you get the reference.
Well I guess the only way to truly tell would be to shoot Dowd w/ a tranquilizer gun and put a monkey in a wig into her office… then pop another monkey in there every 30 minutes or so. Anyone passing by would hear a lot of screeching and maybe see some feces hitting the window… which I’m sure passes for normal with her. >:P
Pretty much any monkey could produce a column more insightful than the average Maureen Dowd column. If you’re looking for a monkey to replicate a MoDo column, that’s another thing altogether. The answer is still one monkey, but the monkey would have to be shot up with a lot of mind-altering drugs first. And probably rabid, too.
Pretty much any monkey could produce a column more insightful than the average Maureen Dowd column. If you’re looking for a monkey to replicate a MoDo column, that’s another thing altogether. The answer is still one monkey, but the monkey would have to be shot up with a lot of mind-altering drugs first. And probably rabid, too.
From her ravings it is obvious Maureen Dowd is an über-monkey, the apotheosis of vileness all monkeys aspire to.
Therefore, your question is tautologous.
Answer: One monkey – one typewritter (with half the keys broken) – 15 minutes
quote
extra points if you get the reference.
Posted by gaskar at November 16, 2004 11:14 AM endquote
Tootsie roll!
http://www.weeklyworldnews.com/features/science/42019
Correction, Tootsie Pop
correction:
Tootsie roll flavored tootsie pop!
What the hell did monkeys ever do you to warrant such an insult? You owe an apology!!!
since the correct reference was a combination of both Scont and Viss’s answers, they will both receive many bonus points.
Stevie:
It is not what the monkeys have done, it is what they will do. It is well documented on this site that they are bent on world domination. I will grant you that the Maureen Dowd connection is rather harsh.
Damn, they’re on to us men! Stop typing and start throwing poo and they’ll go away, stoopid humans!
How about an infinate ammount of monkeys and typewriters in a trash compactor?
then we may get close.
Tyler
37!?!?!
In a row?
I advocate a finite but large, number of starved and horney monkeys, locked in a small office suite with a banana pudding smeared Modo. Keyboard/typewriter optional.
I have pondered that question myself and decided to run the experiment. I lack monkeys so I used my daughters’ hamster. On the second run through the hamster had typed something more intelligent and insightful than Dowd and Ivans together. I, of course, was disappointed it took Jasmine two tries, but I guess the first one can be explained by her touch typing being a bit primative.
It would take one monkey approximately six minutes – only four minutes if the monkey is using two typewriters.
Did someone say, “monkey”???
Why don’t we ask this guy ->
http://www.sorryeverybody.com/upload_files/se9112.jpeg
She’ll start flinging poo within a week.
(Lyrics and music by the Taber-Knuckle-Dragging Flying Space Monkey Mime Chorale and Dickhead Band)
(chorus)…
Maureen Moron Dowd, whos now eighty-two…
works hard for the lefties, this bitchy old shrew…
Moonbats and wookies, and Rather Moore crap…
libtards and whackos, koolaid – then a nap…
(bridge)…
Her asshats made ill, their plans all shot down…
from longing for Bill, But backing a clown…
The Swiftboats are sinking, the memos are fake
their flipflopping coward, got all he could take…
(chorus)
She leads them in song, but gets it all wrong…
her words and her brass, pour out of her ass…
Her writing is bullshit, Witch Dowd of the shrew…
we’ll kick commie asses, two`thousand eight too…
(fini)…
She leads them in song, But gets it all wrong…
her words and her brass, pour out of her ass…
She bangs on her keyboard, she cranks out her spew…
we’ll cheer her departure, deep under State blue…
America … F*** Yeah!!!!!
It depends on if the monkey is allowed to think or not.
Wouldnt ANY self respecting monkey save his invaluable poo and simply fling Maureen at a passerby? The real
problem the monkey would face is that Maureen would always land a bit to the left of intended target.
1 Monkey, 2 Bananas, and 13 minutes and 42 seconds.
The only thing that keeps jumping in my mind is a scene from Zoolander – When Derrick and Hansel are trying to get the files in the computer in the model agents office.
I am still awaiting deployment of monkies to help me – these 12-14 hour days are getting a little much.
How many monkies does it take to get die prints out?