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14:04
Rubio sleeping for 2 hours isn't sleep
I keep hearing of this "sleep" thing.
Sid
Sid
@ffao there you go. Congrats on 10k!
@MOehm what rabbit?
Sid
Sid
@Rubio Sleep doesn't exist. It's a fragment of people's imagination to stop you from doing what you do best.
grats ffao
14:08
@n_palum GAmen! "His ghanta's clangor among us rings" Not that finding it has brought me closer to the solution, though.
Gamen all
Sid
Sid
Wow.. there are people on weekends. Surprise!
I'm stuck on 49995, dammit.
Time to write a steganography puzzle.
Sid
Sid
@Randal'Thor Better idea is to accept some answers..
14:26
^^ true :)
@Techidiot Do you know who helped you?
@MOehm gaMen! I see... I may not be able to look at it much but good spot
Not sure. The new hint gives away what we were supposed to find with the hidden stuff, and I have absolutely no clue how this coul relate.
Wait a sec, is it proper etiquette to capitalize the letter in gamen corresponding to your current time zone?
Yep, it is.
@MikeQ So many rules, eh? hehe
14:39
Oh, it's not a rule, merely a convention.
What I'm confused about is what to say when one goes to sleep at 3am. Is that GameN because I'm saying good night? Is that GaMen because it's actually "morning"? Is that GaMeN because it's actually morning but I'm saying good night? So many questions.
Complicated by the suggestion that GaMeN be used for "good midnight". hehe
If it's AM, you say GAMen, obviously.
or GAMen, good afternoon, men
14:42
Wow. That's even more deliciously horrible than I would have ever dreamed up.
What would I do without you all.
which one? :P
The question is whether one uses gamen at all when one signs off.
i've never
Actually I thought the idea originally was to just say "Gamen" as its time-zone agnostic
then people started making it GaMen to say good morning for themselves and good $(timezone) to everyone else, and likewise GameN to say good night
I don't use it at all.
14:44
i think it's stupid
then it exploded into saying whatever your own timezone is, for any type of greeting or whatever
@thecoder16 Don't hold back, we're all amongst friends here. ;)
err what? lol
A bit of silliness can't hurt, what with all the serious stuff we're discussing here.
@Rubio Hold on. Let me check my history
heh. so I'm actually apparently going to have to give a hint on my hint. The hintception is real.
14:46
@MOehm Feel free to ping me with more findings, but I won't be around much today, going hiking for the afternoon.
And with that, adieu o/
@n_palum Sounds like a good plan. Have fun. I'm out now for a little walk, too. Cheers!
@Rubio Here I think they are the ones who helped.
@n_palum Have fun!
Ok. Thought so. I tried what little I could, to no avail; it's going to have to get kicked higher up the food chain to actually fix. Niitaku already made the request.
Sid
Sid
14:49
Okay. Which user has the advantage?
Once a message is deleted, only mods can see it anyway.
@Sid Oh, no, surely not. I'll give a hint to solve the hint, but I won't give the answer.
And ROs, but around here someone just gave them diamonds.
ROs can't see deleted messages
Says who?
14:54
A RO of 3 rooms who has never been able to see deleted messages
I assume rep is involved
And possibly the formation of demonic pacts
@n_palum Yes they can.
Okay well I cannot
Not with that attitude
Sid
Sid
Wait, Rand made a puzzle based on Mith's missing notebook. Maybe Rubio's puzzle has something similar..
14:58
Rand is right, I am a silly sod... ignore me
6
Bye for real this time
Rand never said you're a silly sod o_O
I did ... in a deleted message in a room owned by n_palum ;-)
:P
(and bye @n_palum)
Sid
Sid
ignores n_palum
Does upvoting questions contribute to HNQ?
15:05
Yes.
Ok, thanks.
66
A: How do the "arbitrary hotness points" work on the new Stack Exchange home page?

David FullertonBasically what's documented here: What formula should be used to determine "hot" questions? We have a few tweaks: Succeeding questions from the same site are penalized by increasing amounts. So, the first question from SO in the list gets multiplied by 1.0, the second by 0.98, the third ...

^ more details about how the HNQ formula works
Cool, thanks
May I say that you used to be faster at posting links :P
I'm multitasking :-P
15:23
0
Q: a bumping question

NavinThis is a question from technothlon 2014 paper I tried hard to solve this question but no progress.I think that some more information is needed.

15:44
Is this on-topic?
0
Q: Why always hyperlinks to imgur.com?

Serafina ReisingerWhy do the puzzlers always link to imgur.com and never to another site for images? How does steganography work? I don't understand how to solve the puzzles here. Can anybody help me?

Completely off topic
I'm having trouble figuring out the reason
The first question is a matter of convention and maybe could go on the meta
Puzzlers don't always link to imgur, but a lot of people do because it's convenient
There are actually three questions
The first is one like you said
second one is too broad
15:46
Way too broad, and I believe it was questioned recently?
third one is probably opinion based
Third is "please help me solve puzzles"
@MikeQ yep
I can't decide on the reason
The 2nd (and possibly 3rd) can be considered duplicates of marius's recent question, if not others
...aaaand Rand answered it anyway.
Wow, rand's fast
15:49
VTC -> "off-topic" -> "belongs on another site" -> meta.
Hm ok
This is an unusual case when VTCing and answering can be appropriate :-)
tbh I won't be very happy to see this on meta
It is less inappropriate on the meta than in its current place
15:52
@Ankoganit Why not? The first question is a valid question about how SE works; the second is a valid question about what a particular tag on this SE is for; the third is more of a plea than anything answerable, but we can at least answer it by being encouraging.
Also, @rand congrats on 50k
Woo, 50k! :-D
Thanks!
@Randal'Thor Of course, but the question definitely needs improvement
(I've already VTCed >meta FWIW)
Those numbers are very tidy
Now it says 49,995
16:01
Really?
now it says 50005
It says 50005 for me
quick! someone unupvote a question :P
Oh I see, I was looking at rand's meta rep.
16:02
Probably the meta stats take a while to update
There. I'm now officially Rand al'Thor and not rand al'thor.
What's this!? rand al'thor is evolving!
B B B B B B B B B B B B
[/cancels evolution]
rip
Your magikarp's everstone has broken!
who plays that game
awman
now I need to update my puzzle.
I went with the PSE capitalization vs the chat capitalization
16:12
hint hint hint jk lol
@Rubio Just wait until I delete my PPCG account ...
@MikeQ I'm not going to tell you whether or not to answer that technothlon question but personally I'm kinda done with this person cut and pasting questions from there with no effort beyond "I couldn't solve this"
@Randal'Thor lol. That would make me sad.
0
Q: Why always hyperlinks to imgur.com?

Serafina ReisingerWhy do the puzzlers always link to imgur.com and never to another site for images? How does steganography work? I don't understand how to solve the puzzles here. Can anybody help me?

@Rubio What the heck?
Sid
Sid
Woo.. Congrats on 50k, @rand
16:16
I can understand where you're coming from, but from where I'm standing, I don't really care where the puzzler came up with the puzzle and what they intend to do with the solution.
As long as the puzzle isn't too spammy, I'd like to try it on its own merits (independent of my opinions toward the user).
In all the fun of creating and solving each other's puzzles, let's not forget SE's original goal of helping people with their problems.
I was always one of the biggest advocates for allowing challenge 'questions' as well as actual questions - am I now going to have to start campaigning for allowing actual questions asking for help as well as challenge 'questions'?
Actual questions should be fine - I mean that's why we have stuff like the cryptic/cipher guides. I do agree with the move of this question to meta though, since it's more specifically asking about this site's puzzles
My point is this is 3 in a row taken from the same source with literally no effort shown beyond cut and paste of a screen capture of the puzzle. That's getting me increasingly wary that they are not showing good faith in asking for "help", but are instead just tearing problems out of an old contest and posting them for reputation.
Like I mentioned in my comment, someone looking for help with their problems usually tells us what they've tried and what has/hasn't worked (look, for example, at the PUZZLE cubes puzzle from last night).
Sid
Sid
@rubio we did have a similar problem a few months back, if I am not wrong, about someone simply posting logic problems.
I had no problems at all with the cubes question, as it's exactly the kind of helping people with their problems question that is on-topic for Puzzling.
Sid
Sid
16:23
How was that handled?
(woop you're talking about something else - steps back)
@Sp3000 No, Rubio is talking about this question‌​, not the one migrated to meta.
@Sid I remember they got some similar negative feedback about their approach after the first couple, and eventually started getting voted into oblivion and stopped
@Rubio "for reputation" - how about a little benefit of the doubt here? Couldn't they be simply going through questions from an old contest, perhaps in preparation for taking part in this year's contest, and asking for help with the ones they're stuck on?
I didn't say they are doing it for reputation. I said, and meant, that it's "getting me increasingly wary that they are not showing good faith in asking for "help", but are instead just tearing problems out of an old contest and posting them for reputation." I find after 3 in a row, all following the identical zero-effort approach, that this is at least as likely a motivation.
Even if not, pointing out that it could be construed that way (which is what I did in my comment on the question) is ideally going to help them formulate a "help me" question more tailored to what they're actually stuck on.
16:31
Do we know anything about their English skills?
They may find it hard to formulate a proper explanation of their progress so far, which is why they're mainly posting screenshots.
0
Q: Total no of squares on a Chess Board

user37434Is there any formula than calculates the total number of squares on chessboard? For example in $8\times8$ chessboard, there are $1\times1$, $2\times2$, $\ldots$, $8\times8$ squares So I want to know their total number. Actually it's example but suppose there is n×n no of squares available than...

^ Hm.
Then they may find it difficult to ask a proper "help me" question on Stack Exchange. That's not the fault of the potential answerers, or of the network. A question that is objectively incomprehensible because the asker's English skills are insufficient to the task is going to be "unclear what you're asking" - English skills or lack thereof don't make a bad post good, nor an off-topic one on-topic, nor end-run around any other such intrinsic insufficiency.
> About Me is limited to 3000 characters; you entered 5278
Well bleh.
16:46
my ability to post an answer is weirdly broken at the moment. no preview window.
and it made me do a "Verify you're human" to boot.
Ahh. I turned on some GreaseMonkey scripts last night to test. It seems one of them has broken me badly.
That's what you get for messing about with greasy monkeys ...
Yah. Now I get to figure out which script broke things. Whee!
17:20
@humn, throw a ping randwards next time you find yourself sphinxically located - I have some songs for you.
Sid
Sid
@rubio how did you do the "verify you're human" part? You are a dog, remember? :P
@Randal'Thor Glancing quickly at this I saw "sphincter".
@Sid That's why it's a serious problem!
@Rubio Language can be a beautiful thing ... with pitfalls.
Indeed. :)
Hmm, I ping humn and @manshu turns up. More evidence for the humanshuification?
17:31
I don't suppose anyone happens to be able to point me at the image n_palum posted of me with my diet coke
Sid
Sid
I can link it.
@Randal'Thor You need more than just an evidence. Am I @humn or am I just manshu? Is there any difference between them? Was there any? I guess we'll never know.
Rubio seems very cute :p
@Rubio This? ... oh, beaten to it.
17:33
yeah I just found it too.
furiously polishes chat-search-fu skills
3
May 8 at 15:49, by n_palum
user image
why does yours have the m in it? mobile?
I did have the disadvantage of not being present in that conversation, not knowing what image Rubio was referring to, and therefore having no clue what to search for.
Sid
Sid
And I am on mobile, you slowpokes! :P
anyone wanna play spyfall/codenames?
17:37
o/
0
Q: What is the pattern in this puzzle?

IPV68I can't figure this puzzle out. Could you help me with the pattern, please? Thank you in advance.

Sid
Sid
Let me come back from supper..
@G_as_in_Gnome o/
Regarding 52503 - I suppose someone has to ask what the source is, right
17:50
Have you guys taken a stab at decoding:
⚓️🚥🚥🚥🚥⚓️🚥🚥🚥🚥🚥🚥🚥🗺🗺🗺🗺🗺🗺🏰🗺🗺🏰🏰🏰🚦 :/9//&🗿🛩⛩🏚 #🚦lolaklkk🚥🚦⛲️🚝🚦🚞🚢🚂
Yeah, it decodes to "COVFEFE"
@manshu It depends. Were you talking about a specific question?
This is what happens when your 3 year old steals your phone. Thanks Huck! #neverleaveyourphoneunlocked https://twitter.com/shsanders45/status/873524794557333504
@Randal'Thor yes, we were talking about this one: literature.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/560/…
well, since no one has yet, generic joke about that being more coherent than basically anything this year
17:54
@manshu That question is way way more specific and detailed than just "the meaning".
(reading)
Hang on, why do you need to read? Isn't that the question you were referring to?
It's the one linked from that meta post you just cited.
damn..I was referring to this one: literature.stackexchange.com/questions/2695/…
sorry
Ah. Yes, I agree that that's not too broad.
But it could perhaps be improved by including an English translation, especially since (according to one of the comments) there is one available on the very site the OP links to.
Yeah, I agree to it.
But I thought I could help (for the first time in that community). So, I wanted to answer
17:59
@KritixiLithos TIL White House personnel leave phone unlocked
@manshu Go for it!
Sure. (after the dinner) :)
18:12
0
Q: How can I swap opposite corners on the top corner of a 3x3 cube?

Dhaval PatelI have solved bottom white layer and second layer. I have almost solved top layer also. but not able to solve to corner pieces. Normally i can solve this with below sequence: R U2 R' U' R U' R' L' U2 L U L' U L but i have to this twice. Can anyone please help me to solve this with more efficie...

@Randal'Thor done
Sid
Sid
So.. I had to Google what this COVFEFE thing was. Apparently Mr. Trump err... POTUS, mentioned it in a tweet. Is there more to it? Or that's the joke?
The joke is that it's a strong indicator of carelessness. Many people already thought that he has no filter, and this reinforces that belief.
It was an early a.m. tweet, the general consensus is it was a typo intended to say "coverage", it makes him look like a bit of an idiot, and he did a follow-up basically challenging people to figure out what it meant.
searches for political message again
18:27
hehe
it's going to go full circle now
in This is the Realm of Simply Beautiful Art, yesterday, by Mithrandir
in Charcoal HQ, 5 hours ago, by Mithrandir
in The Reading Room, 26 mins ago, by Mithrandir
in The Sphinx's Lair, 3 hours ago, by Mithrandir
The political discussions are everywhere. I can't get away from them...
And so I jokingly said that it's the solution to the tweet that Downgoat posted, because that is also a carelessly tweeted nonsense message by someone in the administration.
Sid
Sid
He probably meant COFFEE. "Look like a bit of an idiot" - well, not something new at least.
The context was "negative press cov____"
nah. it was immediately following "press", in a context where "press coverage" makes perfect sense
er. yeah, what Mike Q said
18:29
Anyway, it was publicly visible (and ridiculed) on Twitter for approx 6 hours before the administration did anything about it (and removed the tweet)
44
Q: What does “covfefe” exactly mean?

Yoichi OishiThe Washington Post (May 31, 2017) reports that “[President] Trump targets ‘negative press covfefe’ ” in his tweet: MORNING MIX: Trump targets ‘negative press covfefe’ in garbled midnight tweet that becomes worldwide joke / Trump tweets ‘covfefe,’ inspiring a semi-comedic act of Congress ...

That ^ got 100,000 views in the first day.
Sid
Sid
He was probably drunk/half-asleep when he typed that.
Then another 100,000 after being closed (and therefore not on HNQ).
From Google, presumably
And at least one meta post about it.
And some angry railing from the OP against the people who closed it.
Apparently it made ELU the #4 highest-traffic site on the network overnight or something.
18:34
Codegolf also had a very amusing challenge about it
331
Q: Covfefify a string

Destructible LemonIn this challenge, you must take a string matching the regex ^[a-zA-Z]+$ or whatever is reasonable (you don't have to consider uppercase or lowercase letters if you want) (you may assume the string is long enough, and has the right structure for all the operations), and output another string, pro...

Bleh. Codegolf can make challenges out of everything.
...said the puzzler
Anyone trying to tackle Rubio's super serious surveillance report?
Sid
Sid
I am still trying to read that and not laugh.
@MikeQ any idea where to start? i'm stuck where sid is ...
Someone figured out that one of the hints was an imgur url clue
I tried picking out the capital letters, nothing meaningful
Then capital letters that start words, still nothing meaningful
18:42
@MikeQ it was stated that it was probably misleading
Sid
Sid
Basically everyone did that. Tech posted it to get some rep for his not, I think
"

Focus less on countries, more on capitals.
In retrospect this hint is perhaps more misleading than helpful, but it is technically a slight nod in the right direction.
"
... *looks over shoulder*
Nah, looking over my shoulder didn't solve anything either, but good thinking
What about them numbers? What do they mean?
Ooh, it looks weird to see my name properly capitalised in a comment on this site.
18:52
0
Q: How interested are you in this kind of puzzle?

ScereyahaHow many people here would be interested in AR like puzzle trails that are limited to the internet and publicly accessible pages? If I have one up now, do you want to play? The pieces are in place, come find my tumblr page to start.

Alright, what's worse, a plagiarized puzzle or an advertisement?
advertisement
honestly why
anyone want to play now? codenames/contact/spyfall/any other game i may not know of
chess? :P
19:00
@G_as_in_Gnome can we go on lichess
If anyone wants to challenge me on chess.com, my username is superplane over there.
i'm mathwhiz16 on lichess, challenge me too :P
VariableXnY on chess.com
forgot my lichess user/pass
I just created a lichess account
I am my name lowercased with space removed
19:14
feel free to send me a challenge :P
@thecoder16 I get this: "The Correspondence rating is provisional."
? screenshot?
don't bother inviting
19:22
just post link
@Sid you mean congrats on 9990? :P
Never thought I'd repcap on a Saturday!
wow
how?
@thecoder16 are there games where each turn is a day long?
you can do that on chess.com
okay
19:25
0
Q: Make 10 out of 1, 1, 5 and 8

GlorfindelA friend of mine shared a puzzle with me this evening. Using the numbers 1, 1, 5 and 8 exactly once, and the basic operations (+, -, /, *) and (optionally) parentheses, form an expression which has the value 10. No trickery involved (base 10, concatenation of numbers is not allowed). It s...

the roman answer got 23 upvotes somehow, so I got 380 rep upvote points today
@Sphinx time to use a brute forcer
@KritixiLithos brute force is slow, too late :P
Well that was fast
19:30
heheh, i love the game of 24
@G_as_in_Gnome 3rd time's the charm? ;)
"game of 24" = "Make 24 out of ______" ?
i figured it would be something non-standard and creative, and nested fractions was the third thing i thought of :)
@Rubio yes xD
@MikeQ 24 out of 4 numbers
19:32
@ffao ? How?
If I were to guess, the SE gods are making fun of the fact that I'm stuck on 9990
3
anyone wanna play spyfall? :)
*awards a ten point bounty* ...oh, wait, that's not possible. Sorry ;)
7
Q: Word Riddler - What am I?

G_as_in_GnomeWhen we start, I'm an animal inside an animal. I got a name, just gotta build it. Change a letter and double one that I have, roll me around, oh wait, don't take that! Alright let's come back to the big state because I'm not a fan of that! Now that we're here, let's look ahead. I guess you n...

someone please solve this xD
@thecoder16 you could have en-passanted my pawn
19:38
i don't want to
this is an opening
um okay, this is the first time my pawn has ever ventured that far in a chess game during the opening
I keep looking at @Rubio's puzzle and laughing and having no idea what to do...
hehehe
@Rubio darn it, you made it impossible to try without dying of laughter :P YOU IS EVIL
7
Q: Word Riddler - What am I?

G_as_in_GnomeWhen we start, I'm an animal inside an animal. I got a name, just gotta build it. Change a letter and double one that I have, roll me around, oh wait, don't take that! Alright let's come back to the big state because I'm not a fan of that! Now that we're here, let's look ahead. I guess you n...

19:47
ooh
gimme dat rep @G_as_in_Gnome :P
Welp - for what it's worth, Hint helpfulness level 3 is posted.
@thecoder16 Did you figure it out? I really don't know any more than the previous answers.
no not at all lol
but i'm motivated now :P
hmm, I had a feeling hint 3 was the case
definitely not the "in 3 ways" part, though
@thecoder16 What do you think SK is? Saskatchewan? South Korea?
19:53
those maybe
slovakia
that sounds like a thing maybe
I was thinking "Cat" because caterpillar is an animal and it's a company that produces farming and construction equipment
Then for line 3, changing C->H, adding another T, and anagramming gives THAT, which maybe relates to "don't take that"
But it doesn't fit the rest of the riddle
thinking about the "big state"
20:09
The hints deal with US state abbreviations. Maybe do something with TX or AK?
yeah i'm thinking
@G_as_in_Gnome lichess.org/bQocdwSS
@Rubio ... it's me, isn't it
14 hours ago, by ffao
now that we're onto that subject, why is the hint image dark green on light green
^ If I had a decent image editor, I would have checked it earlier
If you think you have found something, post ;)
20:17
I'll lose rep if I post, since I'm repcapped :P
perverse incentives are a thing
@ffao what if i beat you to it :P
14
Q: The antithesis of a serious problem: What do you do when you have hit 200 daily rep with hours to go, and have a good answer to a new question?

ab2I don't often hit the 200 daily rep ceiling (only 8 times in two years), and am looking for guidance on what to do if it happens fairly early in the day. Do you compose and save up answers to new questions and post them at 00.01 GMT of the next day, or just say the h--- with it and post them whe...

20:34
@Rand are you the dragon reborn or the bragon reborn?
* rimshot *
@MikeQ *\*action**
...Unless there is some other Rand al'Thor character that I'm unaware of, my terrible joke should make sense.
But I'm not bragging about anything.
20:43
I guess that's Rand's not-too-subtle way to tell me to post anyway
I don't like how the rep system is full of perverse incentives
@ffao Not at all. Just sharing an oddly relevant post which I happened across today.
@Randal'Thor I'm just kidding around, sorry if offense had occurred
#00ffa0 ✔ #020521 ✔
@MikeQ Puzzlement more than offence :-)
But I guess that's appropriate for Puzzling.
20:52
Stop worrying about your bally reputation points. They don't really mean anything. — Clare Jun 5 at 5:58
resisting urge to join that SE just to flag that as non-constructive heh
@ab2 really, why bother posting such a waste of time question — Clare Jun 5 at 18:29
^ its immediate followup
Totally worth flagging
Aww, the OP's response to Hot Licks was deleted.
It was really funny.
feel free to share. :)
Go bribe an ELU mod :-P
*summons all the English teachers to the lounge*

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