Larry Niven constantly has his characters doing the moral equivalent ... going somewhere they think is obvious, or doing something they think their separated colleagues will notice. I have to say I was skeptical of this as a plot device, too. The chances that I would end up on the Empire State Building while my friend loiters around the Statue of Liberty, or the like, seem very large. On Fri, May 19, 2017 at 8:20 PM, Gareth McCaughan < gareth.mccaughan@pobox.com> wrote:
On 19/05/2017 21:31, Brent Meeker wrote:
Sounds like a psychology problem: What's the first place you think of
when you hear "New York City". So you go to Times Square. Of course it's and old friend you're to meet, you might recall a place in NYC you met before.
I'm sure this is essentially the intended solution. However, introspect as I may I cannot with confidence identify the single most obvious place in NYC. Times Square? Empire State Building? Central Park? Grand Central Terminal? It doesn't help that some of these are pretty big. (For what it's worth, Mosteller ends up going for the top of the Empire State Building, precisely because Times Square is big.)
So I think what I would actually do is this: on arrival in NYC, start buttonholing people and asking where is the single most famous place in NYC. (Perhaps even explain to them that I'm trying to meet someone but we failed to agree where.) Once I'm in (say) Times Square, continue: "what's the obvious place in Times Square to meet someone?".
With a bit of luck, my counterpart will do the same thing too, but even if s/he doesn't I think this approach will have more chance of choosing the same place as s/he did than just picking the most salient place in NYC for *me*.
-- g
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