Holly Pips Hard
My experience is that if you like investing, you also tend to like puzzles and games and are competitive, or at least metrics-aware. Since this is my experience, you won’t be surprised to learn that many of us on the Permanent Equity investing team have the NY Times games app on our phones and regularly do the crossword, Spelling Bee, Connections, etc., and compare streaks and times (we also do the WSJ crossword – shoutout Mike Shenk and the Friday meta).
Recently, the good people behind the fake news at the NY Times introduced a new game called Pips, where you place dominoes on a board within various numerical constraints. Well, Danny (the one with the baby and great hair), Holly (she of drunk noods and big present in the bathroom fame), and I all started playing and comparing our times. Soon enough, Holly became convinced the Pips timer was off. She swore it sometimes recorded a much longer time than it actually took her to complete the puzzle (note here that we only compete on Pips Hard, but do Easy and Medium sometimes for a warm-up). When she floated this conspiracy theory to Danny and me, we laughed. We thought there was no way.
So, per the scientific method, Holly set out to prove her point. She began starting a separate timer on her phone at the same time she began to solve Pips Hard. Lo and behold, it turned out to be the case that sometimes the app’s timer recorded a slower time than Holly’s stopwatch. Still, Danny and I remained skeptical. But Holly persisted and eventually cracked the case. If you do Pips Easy and Pips Medium before you do Pips Hard, the app sometimes doesn’t reset its timer. Your Pips Hard time ends up being the total time you spent on all three puzzles, not just Hard. Because Easy and Medium are usually straightforward and fast, that vig isn’t always obvious, but if you’re competing with others to solve Hard fast, it’s material.
I told Holly I was proud of her for figuring it out. She emailed the NYT, and we’ll see if they fix it. The point is, when something feels off, particularly when it comes to something established and well-regarded, people might not believe you at first when you tell them. But stick with it and prove it. Methodically.
So good job, Holly (and sorry we didn’t believe you). Not all heroes wear capes.
– Tim
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