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00:10
@LukasRotter Not very well?
 
4 hours later…
@Sconibulus I'd say so
Interesting puzzle. Is that supposed to be an I or a 1 in the box, or just a non-specific line whose meaning we have to determine?
Also, for this one I think I'd recommend you put the row/column headers in as text.
Oh, that's a cursor with a highlight
it's not necessarily particularly important
oh. i didn't get that at all. glad I asked.
Is "[/sLEW]" intentional? not "[\sLEW]" ?
and same question for [/sTERN]+
oops, crap
I can fix it
I think I posted a pre-check picture
need to edit again.
04:48
Glad I asked. :)
I think it was probably solvable the other way, but not necessarily as cleanly
Although I'm not certain, sorry, I am tireder than I thought I was going to be, and I needed to get it up for reasons
I forgot about Daylight Savings when I was planning around my hockey game
05:10
i think you are missing a + or {2} or something after the first grouping in row 2's label
Don't think so
hm ok then
oh. duh. nvm, i apparently can't read
I am now going to sleep though
have fun!
Good night and thanks :)
 
4 hours later…
09:02
Hi
@ABcDexter Hi
how're you?
Not bad, not bad
:)
here is something which one might find interesting...
09:18
Oh, that just seems wicked.
yes,
observing the sides, it seems more of a 3x3x3 mirror cube, but the faces being painted in a pattern.
it's fascinating that the center of the visualized, as visible, pattern lies on the corner piece :0
Have you guys given any thought to the "Rhyme of the century!" riddle?
I've given a LOT of thought to it
and wasted a lot of machine time looking at different anagrams
haven't been solving much,
just let me check...
there are what looks like contextual clues to what we should be anagramming but I haven't found anything that looks relevant
09:29
I can't get anything out of "A Housed Tin"
But I thought that maybe each line give two words that start with the same letter
LOST, LOOK; GRIND, GRAPH; HOLD, HAND; FERRARI, FIREMEN?
outshine,outshined is in "A Housed Tin" but leaves some awkward letters left over
I have no idea where that's going though it could just be a rabbit hole that leads to a dead end
and even those words don't seem to get any closer to solving anything
I know :(
"seen" "Tin"
the rhyme scheme seems a bit pushed!
09:33
And why is observe capitalised? This riddle is killing me!
yeah - I was wondering if you anagram things to find new rhyming words
i am looking for a probable acrostics
but that exercise led me down dark murky paths with no end
It could depend on your accent, whether they rhyme or not
Hand seems like a good fit for keeping five best friends close[d]
Observe is fishy (capitalized); ditto "A Housed Tin". Moil is suspicious too, with the weird comma and the fact that it's not a fitting word.
i tried anagramming all 5, got nowhere with it
09:35
and what could be up with the "for the ones who hoes" line
yah, that just screams "anagram me"
it doesn't make grammatical sense, is that intentional?
but i can't find anything at all there
I thought it might be a misspelling of hose. But he surely would have proof read it
 
3 hours later…
12:13
nd s
oops, keyboard fail
The word that jumps out at me from "A Housed Tin" is "thousand" but "thousand IE" seems useless. I agree about Observe, Moil, "the ones who hoes". I really hope this ends up being really clever rather than really stupid :-).
 
2 hours later…
14:20
Yeah my big fear is it will be anagramming words from different spots together which leaves so many possibilities open that it's hard to get started at all
Sid
Sid
14:30
the rhyme of the century?
@Deusovi Hey I was wondering: the doesn't state how it must be solved, however, you can ask clearly what the objective is, right? As in, "you must find this", etc?
Sid
Sid
@Alenanno You wouldn't want to tell the solver, how to solve, would you?
Good tool for finding word(tm) questions that don't have the tag and getting free edits (already suggested edits for the current two): data.stackexchange.com/puzzling/revision/573497/721749
@Sid Not the how, but the what.
Sid
Sid
That would be explicitly stated in the question, I believe.
14:35
Ok, thanks. That's what I was looking for. :D
Sid
Sid
@Alenanno A new puzzle?
@Sid Yes. If I manage to finish it in time, it's for the challenge.
Sid
Sid
You still got many days.
@Sid Seven days, no?
Sid
Sid
Yep, till children's day...
Oh, sorry, never mind....
14:39
@Sid ? lol
Sid
Sid
This fortnightly challenge has been pretty good. Quite a few puzzles with unconventional tags...
I agree, it's also quite... challenging.
I never thought it would go this well... I'm quite surprised, actually :P
Sid
Sid
I am going to ask again, is cipher+cryptic clues unconventional?
@Sid Not sure. IIRC in your case they're just cryptic clues that tell you how to solve the cipher, so I'm not sure whether you could call that "genuinely merged" or even unconventional.
14:47
@Sid There are 2 questions where they appear together.
Sid
Sid
Yeah... I thought so as well. Fine... I probably need to think of another one...
@Sid 2 out of 8000 is not that much. :D If you need an idea, you can tell me what tag you'd like to use, and I'll tell you what you can use along with that.
I don't see the value of this answer. He's asking questions and says "AT ANY RATE, this may just be the wrong answer."... With 80 rep he should be able to post comments.
nvm, I misread the answer. Forget everything :P
@LukasRotter Too late! lol
Muphry's law is haunting me ;(
15:16
@Alenanno Sure! Actually, you should give the solver an idea of what they're supposed to find. Just not how to find it.
@Deusovi Ok thanks. :)
Sid
Sid
@LukasRotter That shouldn't have been an answer... Should have been a comment
There is no cipher tag in the puzzle.
Again, the guy is asking clarifications from the OP by posting an answer...
@Deusovi The spots are filled for your meta puzzle?
@Sid Unfortunately, yeah. I sent out the answers two days ago. :c
Yup, and my puzzle's practically done
Sid
Sid
When is it due?
15:22
Two weeks from last friday
Hello
Sid
Sid
Which translates to around 20th November.
'lo
Is self-cancelled appropriate for the series "What is a ... Word"? I mean, does that mean something in english?
15:24
I would say self-cancelling
Sure. It makes sense to me. I wouldn't say it's a common word, of course.
Sounds better, in my opinion
@Sid: If this is successful, I'll definitely be doing another one! (And of course, anyone else could make their own metapuzzle, too!)
Sid
Sid
@Deusovi I wouldn't be around for the another one..
15:25
Huh?
Thanks, self-cancelling or self-canceling? One or 2 L?
Sid
Sid
No, I mean, I would be away from the site for the next 3-4 months....
Double L's @IAmInPLS
@Sid Aw, why? (And you can always join in after you come back if this is well-received enough to do more.)
Hm... I just had an idea for a puzzle, but it would presumably look horrible on mobile. Probably even unsolvable because it'll irritate solvers. Is that a dealbreaker?
Why would it look especially bad on mobile?
15:30
You could just post it as an image.
@Sconibulus I don't want to say too much, but the whole format would be messed up. @Deusovi No, I unfortunately can't.
Sid
Sid
@Sconibulus Pretty good puzzle that. You beat me to the presidential election gimmick... :P
@Deusovi Important exams, etc.
Hm, interesting. I don't think that should affect anything too much. I say go ahead.
@Sid Ah, alright. Well, you're always welcome if you get some spare time!
I need to fix it when I get back to the computer I have the components on
I don't know if self-cancelling would fit, uh
Sid
Sid
15:35
I am just wondering..(This is out of topic) Anyone feels Trump has any chance to be the president?
The puzzle is ready but I can't find an adjective that would fit for this type of words
@Sid I hope not
@Sid I hope not, too
The problem is that Hillary doesn't seem to fit better...
I'd prefer someone other than Trump or Hillary, but if it has to be one of them I think Hillary's the lesser of two evils.
I think if the media had focused on policy, like at all, Hillary would have won in a landslide. Making it about personal scandals allows for a tribalistic false equivalency.
15:38
Yes, unfortunately a thrid party candidate has almost no chance to be elected :/
Clinton is a competent politician who voted with Sanders in 93% of situations (IIRC). Trump has admitted to tax evasion and sexual assault.
@IAmInPLS I know... The US's politics are pretty screwed up
@Sconibulus Agreed.
@Sconibulus That's how most elections have been the last few decades, just this one is worst than the last few.
Sid
Sid
newindianexpress.com/opinions/columns/shankkar-aiyar/2016/nov/… - An article on the US elections here in India. Do have a read at this...
15:41
Honestly, I'm just glad it's almost over. The US election cycle is incredibly annoying.
Sid
Sid
Although, I still can't believe Trump admits to all those felonies and is still only 3-5% behind Clinton if Polls are to be believed. Any other candidate would have been screwed by now...
In my country the elections were first scheduled on 1st July IIRC, but it's been changed twice since then, primarily because it was rigged.... Now it's on 4th December. (hopefully)
People don't even want to vote anymore here :P
People don't even want to vote anymore here either. :)
Is there anyway to make a line break without having any top/bottom margin in the SE editor? I already tried it in blockquotes, code blocks and <kbd>.
@Sid This is where I quote a rule from a fantasy series: "People are stupid, they'll believe something because they want it to be true, or because they're afraid it's true"
15:48
I'm not sure. SE formatting annoys me (though that may be because I've recently started using LaTeX, where literally everything is customizable).
@Deusovi Ooooh nice. :D What are you using it for?
@Alenanno Mostly just my math and chemistry notes/homework.
@LukasRotter Not sure what you mean, but if you mean forcing a line break without leaving a line empty, then put two spaces after the line with the linebreak, then go to the new line and keep writing.
For example:
blablabla <— spaces
newblabla
you can also <br> wherever
I like the newblabla better than the blablabla
15:50
@Rubio That's what I already do, I'll post an image of what I mean
this will be line 1<br>and this will be line 2
@dcfyj And now?
Fixed :P
@dcfyj Ok lol
@Deusovi LaTeX is love, LaTeX is life. You can use it for everything.
15:52
@Deusovi Feel free to ask me if you need help. Or ask on Tex SE. :P
I used it recently for my resume
I used it for my thesis as well, but I have been using long before that and even now.
@IAmInPLS I find that word is quite sufficient for that
@dcfyj Sacrilege!
15:52
@Alenanno I've already asked one question there, and I've used a lot of the others! I'm still fairly new to it, though.
that's a whole new level of nerdy. "Here, this USB key has the source code for my resume."
@Deusovi Eheh nice! :D
I can make matrices pretty well :)
@LukasRotter oh. you're trying to do that.
@dcfyj Once you go LaTeX, you never go Word again
15:53
@LukasRotter Do you want to build an image with mini-images? Horizontal lines will appear, I'm afraid. :P
I'll refer you to the LaTeX wonks - I'm not sure any other markup is going to give you enough control to avoid that
Since runnable code snippets are also disabled on PSE, I guess I can give up. lol
Aw. What was the plan? (Or would you prefer to keep it secret to use it later?)
out of curiosity, is there any way to embed non-MathJax markup inside a $$...$$ block ?
@Rubio: No, but you can always use \mathbf, etc. I think.
15:58
@Rubio Well, Latex syntax could work. At least the basic one.
LaTeX matrix syntax annoys me, to be honest. I mean, I understand why it's like that, it's just fairly difficult to work with. The \begin{bmatrix}...\end{bmatrix} is kind of unwieldy.
@Rubio By the way, $...$ is enough.
@IAmInPLS Not true, and I much prefer using VB.NET or C#. I can make my own stuff :P
What would an image of mini-images gain you over a single larger image? Multiple links?
well - i was looking more for, say, [tag:whatever] inside it
15:58
Then again, there's not really a better way to input them.
stuff there's no MathJax for, but doesn't work in MathJax
@Deusovi I wanted to make treasure-map, split it into a grid, and then hide information/clues/hints/puzzles/whatever in each cell (when you click on it it "zooms" in and shows another image).
@LukasRotter The horizontal lines will ruin your map, unfortunately.
Ahh, well, the 'Grid' could be made out of white space in theory
@Sconibulus Or that.
15:59
@LukasRotter This gap is the reason, why Alconja used pixel art in his puzzle.
Yeah that's probably what I'd do in that case
@LukasRotter Wait, what tags would you be using?
@LukasRotter This might help you achieve that, just look at the edit codes.
@dcfyj It's a whole new world!
Thanks all, white borders might really solve this problem. @Alenanno Probably , , and whatever the puzzle is about [riddle, cipher, etc]. I haven't even started with the puzzle, so I'm not sure what other tags I might add.
16:03
I'm not Aladdin, I like my world :P
@LukasRotter Oh ok. I'm also doing a , that's why I asked lol
Sid
Sid
@Sleafar Another multi-multi-layered puzzle?
Nope.
And no ciphers. :)
What if it's a layered-layered-multi puzzle?
@dcfyj Or a multi-layered multi-puzzle
16:47
@Deusovi still here? I can't find a proper adjective for my word puzzle, need your input
@IAmInPLS Yeah, I'm here.
Is it possible to speak about it in private? I'll spoil everything unfortunately (so you won't be able to participate :p)
@IAmInPLS self-destructive maybe?
@LukasRotter it is more an idea of cancelling unfortunately
You could call it a Cancelling Word. :P
"Self-cancelling" would also seem fine to me.
16:51
Ok, I'll go with it but I hope it is relevant enough to the solution
You could look up synonyms for "cancel". Maybe one of those will spark an idea.
I had nullify but I don't find this word very attractive :-)
Look up synonyms :P
I already did @dcfyj! I think cancel is the verb that fits the most though
I'm pretty good at words, I can help if you want
Cancel strikes me as... too broad to be the best possible word
16:56
Thank you @Sconibulus but I think cancel or nullify are the best ones to fit for the puzzle I'm about to post
Based only on the stuff you've said so far, without knowing anything about the underlying structure, I'd guess you really want Negate, Countermand, or Revoke
nullify isn't bad either
Well, here's another approach : how do you call it when magnetic forces "cancel" each other?
repel
I think negate would fit that best
though my puzzle has nothing to do with magnetic forces/fields
16:58
they don't cancel... they balance, right?
offset, mutually annihilate
Ah, yeah, repel or balance
bad example from me
Counterbalance maybe?
Mmh
Countermand seems not bad
I thought about annihilate too
annihilate is very... destructive
16:59
Yes :/
I think I'll go with cancel at the moment
Though it may not be the best choice
although, actually, you were talking about self-cancelling weren't you
maybe you want something like impotent vs potent or something
with the reasoning being something that negates itself is powerless
because self-cancelling, while valid, is kinda ugly
Potent/impotent is not a good fit I think
I agree that self-cancelling is ugly though :-)
Alright, it's posted. I hope this will not be too hard or too easy :-)
@Sconibulus Self-destructing?
17:10
curse you @IAmInPLS. i thought i had something and then I didn't. :)
Wow. 8000 questions.
@IAmInPLS By the way, you mean "cancelling" as in revoking, annulling?
I got the feeling he meant negating, nullifying
@Rubio It's just that "cancel" has other meanings in other languages and since it seems English is not his first language, I wanted to make sure of the meaning.
17:39
Huh... today's XKCD is... a bit different
@Sconibulus Aw. I'd've thought a Clinton/Trump ambigram, at least.
@Sconibulus BTW nice idea for your puzzle today.
@Alenanno Annuling, nullifying
@Rubio Ha ha, good luck :-)
@IAmInPLS Thanks. I think. :)
@RosieF Thanks, it was fun to make; I'm not really surprised XKCD is unequivocally pro-Hillary though, just surprised it was stated in such a blatant way without fancy graphs or humor
Maybe he'll put up a trump one tomorrow?
17:51
No chance
oy. TSLF's latest puzzle's writeup needs to be taken out back and shot.
why?
@dcfyj I'm pretty sure Peregrine Rook has the right answer to what the puzzle probably is supposed to be, but I'm not at all sure the puzzle the way he wrote it fits that answer.
18:09
How so? He says to move 8 kids to get it to balance.
18:20
actually nevermind, maybe. it just took me a lot of effort to properly parse his final comment.
 
2 hours later…
19:51
Quick! Someone upvote one of my answers, I'm on 9989! :P
Damn. Someone downvotes so now I'm on 9987...
@BeastlyGerbil I see 9999 on your profile.
@BeastlyGerbil That was me btw, just wanted to tease you with a downvote for a bit and then remove it :P
Huh! You evil being! :P
aaaaaah.... :P
20:21
@BeastlyGerbil Nice man! Grats!
All the 00's and 2's. Very pretty :)
@BeastlyGerbil Subtle. Well done!
@Rubio @RosieF Thanks!
I'm just enjoying my new moderator privileges ;)
we're all doomed. DOOMED!
Mwa ha ha ha!
20:38
@BeastlyGerbil Ah, but you're not one of the real mods, you just get access to their toys. :)
@RosieF I could still now vote to delete all your posts :P
20:51
#AbuseOfPower
21:26
It's like I always say - what use is power if you can't abuse it?
2
SO moderator election started today. I always hope there's a corrupt nominee in there that will sneekily do evil :P I wonder how well moderators moderate moderators, but I think a bunch of "mistakes" here and there won't get too much attention :P
22:24
I feel like I'm standing on the sidelines cheering Phlarx on toward the Dargloc finish line.
 
1 hour later…
23:24
@LukasRotter It depends on the mistake. :P

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