I thought it was “each number is double” and then tried to disprove that theory and got a “Yes” I tried a few others and then guessed “Any number sequence is allowed” sicne I never got a “No.” Funny how my mind never tested a descending sequence!
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I used the rule “no holes, one hole, two holes” (enclosed spaces in the numeral). It worked for several tries, then I got bored and stopped. Just goes to show… something
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All this does is prove how deceptive one sample of data can be. I’m sure I’ll use the wrong terminology here, but if even one, or 2, more random sets of x<y<z was included the in the examples, the results would be radically different.
How the F the original NYT author gets from this to invading Iraq is a puzzle though - Multiple sources of data were actively ignored in that case - It wasn’t just generalizing from a single, inadequate point.
(- And BTW, FU Judith Miller, and your abettor the NYTimes. Is this some sort of smokescreen for Bush Era criminality?)
edit: at ‘x’ insert ‘x, less than y, less than z’ as a demo of “The Rule”. I tried to use the keyboard “Less Than” sign - and failed (Did I violate some html rule?)
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I don’t think this puzzle really works to show confirmation bias (at least not for me). I was extremely happy to start getting negative results. In fact, I did a few extras just to “prove” to myself that my conjecture was correct. I got a little jolt of happiness when my conjecture was confirmed. Oh, wait…I guess that exactly proves confirmation bias.
It also doesn’t accept quaternions and octonions, but that’s sort of ok because they’re not ordered 
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Furthermore, it’s limited to decimal and binary; no hexadecimal numbers are allowed. Amazingly, it has no such qualms with scientific notation!
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Shows they used some function like atof() for converting the string to the number.
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