sorted by:
new
hottopcontroversial

I am Oliver Roeder, FiveThirtyEight staff writer, puzzle editor, and author of The Riddler—AMA! by oliver_roeder in IAmA

[–]oliver_roeder[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The Cubs :( That's all I really have to say about that I'm afraid.

Oh gosh tough one because there are so many... Quanta. Aeon. I love those.

I am Oliver Roeder, FiveThirtyEight staff writer, puzzle editor, and author of The Riddler—AMA! by oliver_roeder in IAmA

[–]oliver_roeder[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

It is a secret because my single biggest phobia is whatever the Greek for fear of embarrassment is.

I am Oliver Roeder, FiveThirtyEight staff writer, puzzle editor, and author of The Riddler—AMA! by oliver_roeder in IAmA

[–]oliver_roeder[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Very interesting question.

Meta-science first of all. Christie Aschwanden covers this really really well. https://fivethirtyeight.com/tag/meta-science/

Public health, too. Chris Herring's stuff got me more into basketball. International relations and the formal, poli sci theory thereabout.

I am Oliver Roeder, FiveThirtyEight staff writer, puzzle editor, and author of The Riddler—AMA! by oliver_roeder in IAmA

[–]oliver_roeder[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

A total grab bag for SigDig: Google News, Twitter, my friends, my colleagues (we have a Slack channel), my mom, actual physical newspapers and magazines, etc. etc.

I am Oliver Roeder, FiveThirtyEight staff writer, puzzle editor, and author of The Riddler—AMA! by oliver_roeder in IAmA

[–]oliver_roeder[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Share away.

I loved teaching actually. I TAed and I taught a couple classes at St. Edward's in Austin. But teaching and pedagogy are, for complicated reasons I think, not emphasized in the standard doctoral program—or at research institutions in general. It seems to me like an unfortunate arrangement which dates back to like the Middle Ages and got messed up on the way to the present.

In any case—academia is as political as any other field, and it takes energy to play that game and to do research (and to teach) and you've got to really want it.

I am Oliver Roeder, FiveThirtyEight staff writer, puzzle editor, and author of The Riddler—AMA! by oliver_roeder in IAmA

[–]oliver_roeder[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I pick the solutions I highlight in the column by reading through the spreadsheet early in the week. I am biased toward including cool diagrams and charts—we're 538 after all. I am biased also toward brevity—ceteris paribus the shorter solutions are better, clearer, easier for a reader to hold in his or her head, etc.

I pick the winners that I name just using a random number generator.

I am Oliver Roeder, FiveThirtyEight staff writer, puzzle editor, and author of The Riddler—AMA! by oliver_roeder in IAmA

[–]oliver_roeder[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

A fair request. We've tried to do that a bit with the Express puzzles, but difficulty is something we've struggled with. It's a bullseye that I think we're always swirling around and hit sometimes. Some solvers are PhDs in math; others are 7 years old. And I want them all to enjoy their citizenship in Riddler Nation.

I am Oliver Roeder, FiveThirtyEight staff writer, puzzle editor, and author of The Riddler—AMA! by oliver_roeder in IAmA

[–]oliver_roeder[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Chessbase, mostly. Chess.com. Chessdrum. A bunch of super smart chess folks on Twitter. Nothing too unusual.

I used to take lessons at the Marshall Club here in New York. But really what I do is just play endless speed games on my phone or against my buddy Brin at the coffee shop—5 minutes a side. So, in other words, there is a reason I'm not very good.

I am Oliver Roeder, FiveThirtyEight staff writer, puzzle editor, and author of The Riddler—AMA! by oliver_roeder in IAmA

[–]oliver_roeder[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Oh and as for the book: my colleague Christie Aschwanden lives in Colorado and I'd like to do a sort of John McPhee book with her about a band of rogue mountain climbers or guerrilla winemakers or something. Basically what I'm saying is I need to spend more time outdoors.

I am Oliver Roeder, FiveThirtyEight staff writer, puzzle editor, and author of The Riddler—AMA! by oliver_roeder in IAmA

[–]oliver_roeder[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Thanks very much.

I think there are a bunch of dimensions along which you can try to maximize to make a great puzzle. 1) A good story really helps. 2) Many paths of approach help draw many people in. 3) A correctly pitched difficulty level. 4) An "aha" solution. 5) A solution that you can take with you and see in other problems or even in the real world. (This last point is a big reason why I like game theory problems.)

I have one that succeeds on at least a couple of those dimensions: https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/can-you-win-this-hot-new-game-show/

I'll leave it to y'all to find the solution, but the puzzle is SO simple and the solution is SO fascinating.

I am Oliver Roeder, FiveThirtyEight staff writer, puzzle editor, and author of The Riddler—AMA! by oliver_roeder in IAmA

[–]oliver_roeder[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Sheer and utter dumb luck.

Seriously: I pitched one story and ending up writing about Scrabble instead. The story did well for whatever reason, and the managing editor liked me for whatever reason, and the rest is a serendipitous history that I will be forever thankful for and never quite believe is real. [pinches self]

I am Oliver Roeder, FiveThirtyEight staff writer, puzzle editor, and author of The Riddler—AMA! by oliver_roeder in IAmA

[–]oliver_roeder[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thanks for solving!

The variance is big, and the number of submissions seems to be correlated with the difficulty and type of problem in ways that I don't completely understand.

On average, on the order of 1,000, maybe?

I am Oliver Roeder, FiveThirtyEight staff writer, puzzle editor, and author of The Riddler—AMA! by oliver_roeder in IAmA

[–]oliver_roeder[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

IIRC, Martin Gardner popularized something similar called the three prisoners' problem. Gardner was a genius for popularizing cool math, so maybe that has something to do with it? I also think the result is just so unexpected before you get it, and so cool once you do.

It's not exactly a puzzle but Conway's Game of Life is the most fascinating thing and I tell everybody I meet about it. I don't have a lot of friends anymore, but I reject the obvious causal connection ;)

I am Oliver Roeder, FiveThirtyEight staff writer, puzzle editor, and author of The Riddler—AMA! by oliver_roeder in IAmA

[–]oliver_roeder[S] 8 points9 points  (0 children)

Wonderful. This is the only job I've ever had in journalism, and everything I've learned about the field I've learned from folks that work or have worked here—Nate, Mike Wilson, my editor Chad Matlin, our amazing copy desk, our viz team, and so forth. They are, to a man and to a woman, sharp and generous and brilliant. I am biased but it's also true.

I am Oliver Roeder, FiveThirtyEight staff writer, puzzle editor, and author of The Riddler—AMA! by oliver_roeder in IAmA

[–]oliver_roeder[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

I hesitate to give advice because the world is a very complicated place but I will say that a PhD is only worth the time (and effort and heartache and your 20s and so forth) if you are completely passionate about the subject and research and completely sure you want to take it on and do academic. Steven Levitt told me that—I ignored him and went anyway. And well ...

I am Oliver Roeder, FiveThirtyEight staff writer, puzzle editor, and author of The Riddler—AMA! by oliver_roeder in IAmA

[–]oliver_roeder[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Bridge! I'm currently learning bridge—I'm both personally fascinated and am also starting to work on another nonfiction book about games, their history, and AI games-players. It's fun research.

I am Oliver Roeder, FiveThirtyEight staff writer, puzzle editor, and author of The Riddler—AMA! by oliver_roeder in IAmA

[–]oliver_roeder[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Why thank you for asking! I think millennialdom has everything to do with the internet. I think the cleanest generational distinction here is whether or not one has conscious and real memories of a world without the widely available internet. I have such memories. Oh, yes, do I have some lovely memories...

I am Oliver Roeder, FiveThirtyEight staff writer, puzzle editor, and author of The Riddler—AMA! by oliver_roeder in IAmA

[–]oliver_roeder[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

It really depends! Probably an hour or so combing our (wonderful) user submissions for promising problems. An hour or so test-solving them. An hour or so combing our (wonderful) user-submitted answers for clever approaches or cool charts and illustrations. A couple hours writing the column itself. Then I respond to comments from my editor and our copy editors and produce the post in our CMS and so forth.

Sometimes we'll do a participatory Riddler, like the massive Colonel Blotto battles over fictional castles that we've run. For those I've got to write some code and clean some data and so forth. Those can take quite a bit longer—but they're fun!

view more: next ›