Rip 4chan. For all the bad it did, 4chan also made at least one real contribution to science [1], specifically to the study of superpermutations (aka the Haruhi problem), which was cited by genuine academics. We should try to remember it by that.
[1] https://www.theverge.com/2018/10/24/18019464/4chan-anon-anim...
I'm not understanding the issue. The article isn't so clear to me. Would you mind clarifying what problem they solved?
Per my understanding, there is a show with 14 episodes that the viewer wants to watch in every order possible. How is this not just 14 factorial?
I know this can't be the problem, but it's just not clear to me from the article.
Edit: I found this link that explains it to anyone else as confused as I was: https://old.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1bvn1rz/...
Given a set of characters, find the shortest string with all permutations of that set. With 2 characters a,b the answer would be "aba", length 3 (not 2! like you suggested).
I think this is more of a temporary concussion, it'll be back up by the weekend.
Oh wow, that's genuinely cool.