G'day eyepopslikeamosquito,

When logging back in after several hours since this morning, I was quite astonished to see that.

I thought maybe a bit might have been flipped, but you'd need to flip at least seven bits to get from 8 to 1008; potentially more if it was less than 8 before the 1000 was added.

$ perl -E 'say sprintf "%010b", $_ for 8, 1008'
0000001000
1111110000
[download]

I also wondered, with somewhat of a grin, if one of the gods had been hitting the nectar a little too vigorously, thought my post was utterly hilarious, and added 1000 votes as a birthday present. :-)

It certainly looks like a 1000 was added in one hit; as opposed to 1000 monks separately upvoting it. When I logged back in, I saw "You gained 6 experience points."; which seemed a reasonable amount for the various posts I'd recently made. Anyway, those extra 1000 Rep points did not appear to give me any extra XP.

It also knocked a genuine high-Rep node of mine off the top 20 list: "Emoji Progress Spinners" (current Rep 39).

If someone can find out what the problem was and remove the extra 1000 Rep, that's fine with me.

Update: I changed the wording slightly regarding the number of bits needing to be flipped. Also note that the 1008 (to which I've referred) was the current Rep shown in the top 20 of the year at the time of writing. Obviously, that number is not static.

The only thing i'm aware of that was unusual in the monastery during that timeframe is that i was testing and using my new chatterbox client.

To be clear, this should have nothing to do with your case, but i'll mention this anyway. I hope i didn't break something.

perl -e 'use Crypt::Digest::SHA256 qw[sha256_hex]; print substr(sha256_hex("the Answer To Life, The Universe And Everything"), 6, 2), "\n";'

Thanks for the info. Like you, I can't imagine how the CB could have anything to do with this.

If it's just a 24-hour prank, it should be gone in 6-7 hours when UTC clicks over to 23rd January.

If it ends up as a curious artefact of the Monastery, like vroom's extra 1,000,000 XP, I don't think it really matters that much. It's only a node Rep: it hasn't affected my XP; it hasn't affected my level, still a Bishop; and, it's had no effect on my ranking, still 24 in "Saints in our Book". It will stick around in the Best Nodes' lists; finally disappearing completely this time next year.

— Ken

In the last few hours, the problem has gone away:

• Since originally posted, the Rep had gone up to 1018. 1000 has gone. The current Rep is 18.
• There has been no noticable effect with respect to my XP.
• I don't see any other issues: level, ranking, etc. all look good.

I don't see any posts indicating that someone fixed this.

The fact that it did happen, may be indicative of some greater problem: I'd recommend some investigation be carried out.

I did it. No need to worry about the integrity of the voting/rep system.

I did it.

It was Meeeee!!!!!

Nice prank! And kudos to kcott for spending his birthday composing a post so hilarious and imaginative that it deserved a 1000-vote virtual birthday present -- even if it was just for a day. :)

Update: Reading that back, kudos to kcott has a nice ring to it! Might start using that as a set phrase. :)

OK. Thanks.

— Ken

> The fact that it did happen, may be indicative of some greater problem: I'd recommend some investigation be carried out.

I think your announcement of your birthday coincided with jdporter's sense of humor and erzuuli's access to the database.

I don't think that "bug" can be patched ... ;-)

Cheers Rolf
_{(addicted to the Perl Programming Language :)
Wikisyntax for the Monastery}

"I don't think that "bug" can be patched ... ;-)"

I just had a hilarious vision of jdporter's ineffably resplendent form with a large bandage covering the site where the patch had been applied. :-)

— Ken

The answer's obvious: rounding.

Wait, no . . . IEEE floats?

Aaah, I've got it. It must be . . .

Ha ha, didn't think of aliens. My first thought was a prank of some sort, checked the date, didn't want to get caught out like poor old zetetes from Switzerland ... maybe kcott's birthday will become a new PM prank day. :)

Perl Monks History

• The First Ten Perl Monks
• The First Ten Perl Obfus
• The Top Ten Perl Obfus
• The Top Ten Perl Poems
• History of the Perl News section by jdporter

Perl Monks Level System

• Voting/Experience System
• A Level Playing Field by Petruchio (2005) - new level system announced
• I Was a Saint (sung to the tune of "I Will Survive") by sauoq (2005) - Perl poem composed in response to Petruchio's new level system
• Translation of the Perlmonks levels ... by ZlR (2005) - translation of PM levels into French (and other languages in replies)
• Re^2: The First Ten Perl Monks (vroom gives himself a million XP)
• We Have a New Pope by kcott (2013) (Corion tops 100,000 XP; at 12-June-2023, the Patriarchs are: BrowserUk 171828, Corion 159650, ikegami 139669)
• Re^3: We Have a New Pope (Spooty and khayos are saints with zero posts! AdamQuark and RavingGoat with 4 posts, cguevara and roke with 5)
• Demotions of monks by syphilis (2022) - when and why were BrowserUk, Corion and ikegami demoted from Pope to Patriarch?
• Re^2: Demotions of monks by me - we need more levels between Patriarch and His Eminence
• Re^4: Demotions of monks by me - concerned for the super-elite top three, striving for vroom's unreachable one million XP target
• Levels of Monks: missing a row by kcott (2023) - pointing out an inconsistency between Voting/Experience System (29 levels) and Levels of Monks (28 levels)

Perl Monks Node Reputation Changes over the Years

• Re: Selected best nodes - nothing recent, why? (Node Reputation Ranges Over the Years) (contains historical Best Nodes reputation ranges: 2007-present)
• Re: Is PM more active or less active than X years ago?
• Nostradamus Five Year Node Reputation Prophecy Expires Today! - five year XP prophecy by davies (2011-2016)
• Selected Best Nodes: 2011-2015
• Perl Monks in numbers?
• Re: Perl Monks in numbers?
• Terminal decline?
• Re^4: Terminal decline?

XP Nodes Added Later

• Googlish approach to voting/XP? by ajdelore (2003) - lots of replies (including a 2023 necropost by Bod)

Bizarre/Interesting Experience Point Anecdotes

• Weird anomaly in brian_d_foy experience points (as it was unfolding, it was like reading a gripping mystery novel; it remains an unsolved mystery today)
• Re^6: Peculiar hash behavior (brian d foy) (was brian_d_foy a Perl 3 user? Doubtful. He bought "Programming Perl" from Clerk No. 28 at Barnes & Noble, Auburn MA, for $29.95 on Saturday the 24th of June 1995 at 1:45 pm)
• Let's make BBQ a Saint! (heart-warming community effort to upvote enough of BBQ's historic nodes for him to finally and deservedly be listed at Saints in our Book) (2023)
• planetscape and me: 1282 nodes apiece - planetscape and me tied (29891 XP, 1289 Writeups apiece) on Saints in our Book on Jul 8, 2015 (see also many interesting replies from chacham)
• Re: planetscape and me: 1282 nodes apiece - adjacent Saints in our Book with the same number of posts
• Re: Twenty laborious years -- and I'm glad to be here - epic duel between talexb and jdporter, with talexb reaching Chancellor first (by just 3 XP) on Dec 19 2021
• Chancellor of the Exchequer - talexb and jdporter are joined by afoken in this race to the top 50 Perl Monks of all time (2023)
• Re^7: Chancellor of the Exchequer (Target Reached) - LanX predicts the exact date for afoken to win this race (2023)
• Re^3: Chancellor of the Exchequer - afoken and talexb tied on 2264 posts apiece (2023)
• Re^6: When can the character length of a Perl Scalar become an issue? (Easy Lover) - LanX is Nostradamus, predicts the exact date philipbailey will become a Saint (2023)
• The Highest Rated Node of All Time (kcott pranked by jdporter aka erzuuli) (2022)
• Notification of XP increase has gone wild (maybe) by davido (seeing big bumps in XP, recently congratulated for +92 XP on login!) (2022)
• Automatic downvote by harangzsolt33 (like SunnyD, asks if he's being downvoted by a BOT) (2023)
• Re: Do we ever want to freeze threads? by harangzsolt33 (replies to a twenty year old talexb thread and talexb is still here to respond :) (2023)
• Re: A small step...and a giant leap for Bod by me (compares the XP of some monks after making about 1000 posts) (2023)
• Re^2: When can the character length of a Perl Scalar become an issue? by LanX (warns philipbailey that eyepops will soon be taking bets on your sanctification) (2023)
• Re^5: When can the character length of a Perl Scalar become an issue? (Easy Lover) by LanX
• Re^4: Larger profile pic than 80KB? by LanX (congrats on your 2222nd post) (2023)
• Re^5: Larger profile pic than 80KB? (2222 posts) - me 2222, karlgoethebier 2239, talexb 2264, afoken 2272

Other Anecdotes

• How to use the -T file op as a one-liner - kcott responds to new post by kwolcott - both Ken and both with cott in their surname :) (2023)
• Re^4: How to use the -T file op as a one-liner (kcott's relatives at Perl Monks) - joined by clscott and dcscott
• Re^5: first stumbling steps in PDL - jo37 promoted to Deacon on Feb 08, 2024 ... next level Saints in our Book!

See Also

• Re: Add "Image Miniatures" to your HTML (Fun References)
• Re^2: Controversial!! - Get rid of the -- vote option (Downvote References)
• Re^3: Strawberry Perl can't find a module installed at a non-standard location (Perl Monks Boo-boos References)

Updated: The list of References above were added much later, long after the original reply was made

"... maybe kcott's birthday will become a new PM prank day. :)"

I'd be happy with that if the rule is you can prank anyone on 22nd January whose username isn't kcott.

— Ken

Huh. So weird.

I mean, I've been writing posts on my monkiversary to encourage people to Keep Learning (and that includes myself), but it looks like kcott managed to zoom past my 5-6 week old post like a Tesla Plaid in just over 24 hours. Magic. :)