On: When are two proofs essentially the same? (2007)

[VikingCoder]

I was working with a friend writing a paper about the Ship of Theseus, but my friend kept replacing all of my arguments.

[lisper → VikingCoder]

I had a similar experience, but my collaborator had a touch of OCD and just kept micro-editing my original draft, each time replacing exactly one word with a different word that had nearly the same meaning. By the end of the process, my collaborator had produced a word-for-word copy of William Shakespeare's "Julius Caesar". It is a remarkable coincidence that my original draft just happened to have the same number of words to begin with to make this transformation possible.

My collaborator then translated the original paper into Greek. Or maybe he translated "Julius Caesar" into Greek. I don't speak Greek so I have no way of knowing.

;-)

[lanstin → lisper]

I assume this is a joke related to Borges' don Quixote story?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19143496

[lisper → lanstin]

It is a joke, but not related to Borges, at least not intentionally.

[js8 → lisper]

Ahh, the language diffusion model! You start with a word salad and end up with a Shakespeare's play.