Inventions S1E01: 2bit Toss and The Great Indian Note Trick

I have a feeling that there are not enough phrases in English to deal with the complexity of the world we live in. Especially when you're forced to be concise (on Twitter especially). I have decided to invent a few new phrases for the benefit of humanity and this part of my "making the world a better place in your own way" thing. I think this is the good time to remind you that I have not started my GRE preparation yet ;)

2bit Toss

Pingalaka, Sanjivaka, Karataka and Damanaka want to buy a tub of ice cream and eat. All of them had a different flavor in mind and were not able to arrive at a consensus. Now if there were only two, then they could have just tossed a coin to decide in a fair and simple way.

With four people, they have to do two rounds of tossing – two semi-finals and a final which means the coin should be tossed thrice. But life is too short for tossing a coin three times. To solve this problem they need to 2bit toss!

Let me introduce you to the 2bit toss. You toss the coin twice. (Yes, life is just long enough to toss the coin twice!) Heads is 1, Tails is 0. So the outcome of the two tosses is a 2 bit binary number i.e. one of 00, 01, 10 or 11. The four parties in question choose one of 00, 01, 10 and 11 before the toss and whoever wins gets to pick the ice cream flavor.

Problem Solved. 

P.S: It is generally advisable to refrain from 2bit tossing (or any n-bit toss for that matter) if your romantic interest is in the vicinity.

P.P.S: Now if the four Panchatantra characters in question cannot agree on how to assign the four binary digits among themselves, we'll give them a small lecture on elementary probability.

The Great Indian Note Trick

You’re going out with friends and the only money you have on you is a 500 rupee note. (Wonderful feeling isn't it?) You get into an auto to go to the local station. The meter reads 28 bucks. You are the first to get down, pull out your wallet and give your crisp new note. The auto driver naturally replies, “No change”

The fun part begins now. Immediately (almost instinctively) you start searching. You search everywhere. You search your shirt pockets. You search your back pockets. You search your side pockets. You even search that small pocket just above the side pocket of your jeans! And then you move on to your wallet. And you go on until you sweep all the small insignificant corners looking for some loose change. And you do all this searching while being perfectly aware of the fact that you don’t have even one rupee on you (other than the 500 rupee note). You are pretty sure you wont find anything from the moment you got into the auto. Not even some loose change! And yet you do it.

It shows in the way you search too. You don't search search. You know what I mean? All you do is feel your hands over your pockets from the outside! When was the last time you found something you were looking for just by feeling the outside of the pocket? And while you're searching, you look at your friends waiting for one of them to pay the auto guy. By this time, your friends are also sort of doing the same thing (but only more subtly). And this goes on until one of the friends gives up and pays the cash. And then you move on to the pani puri guy for a repeat performance! 

That little show we all put on from time to time is called The Great Indian Note Trick. A normal GINT lasts for about two days but professional GINT practitioners can drag it up to a month!

P.S: The GINT bit can work as a nice stand up routine don't you think?