...it's the most wonderful time of the year... ;)

@samcarter Look also at the glasses of the first Winter Bash hat

@DavidCarlisle tex.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/7475/…

ooh a puppy

hihi

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{tikzducks}
\begin{document}

\begin{picture}(200,100)
\put(30,40){\line(1,0){150}}
\put(30,40){\line(0,1){60}}
\put(30,100){\line(1,0){20}}
\put(50,100){\line(1,-4){10}}
\put(60,60){\line(1,0){100}}
\put(160,60){\line(1,-1){20}}
\put(100,50){\line(0,-1){80}}
\put(130,50){\line(0,-1){80}}
\put(100,-30){\line(1,0){30}}
\put(100,61){\line(0,1){49}}
\put(130,61){\line(0,1){49}}
\put(100,110){\line(1,0){30}}
\put(133,40){\begin{tikzpicture}[overlay,xscale=-1,scale=0.6]

@CarLaTeX ^^^^

@UlrikeFischer ooh

@UlrikeFischer Oooh, a duck pilot <3<3<3

@CarLaTeX :) i.stack.imgur.com/WdjBl.png

@samcarter Oooh we already have it!

@UlrikeFischer Ducks are perfect as pilots, they don't need a parachute in case something goes wrong

@CarLaTeX it can certainly be improved :)

@CarLaTeX What about the glasses?

@samcarter ooh a WWII-like duck aviator

Out of curiosity, do we have a package for drawing Tetris-like blocks? :) I know we can do it from scratch. :)

@PauloCereda Surprisingly no hits on CTAN for 'tetris'. The only relevant question on the site seems to be tex.stackexchange.com/questions/110248/…

@TorbjørnT. Indeed, I found the same reference. :) I might take a look at 1D cellular automata rules, as they use Tetris-like T shapes to denote a transformation. :)

@samcarter They aren't circles, more glasses-shape

@egreg ^^

@PauloCereda Actually people just read the table of contents.

@egreg oh :)

@PauloCereda I usually recommend not to have a “Conclusions” chapter; that part should end the introduction. This helps, because nobody reads the introduction, so work is spared.

I got a secret hat!

@egreg ooooh

@egreg i like the cap!

@egreg I can't see it ... fortunately :)

@egreg @PauloCereda Btw, is there any hat for "I get to read in the Bible every day at least in Advent"?

@yo' A menorah one. :)

@UlrikeFischer you should have used my picture mode duck :(

@DavidCarlisle ooh a picture mode duck?

@PauloCereda posted here one day not sure I have it now...

@PauloCereda or:

@JosephWright -- looks like this might be one for you: tex.stackexchange.com/q/405980

@PauloCereda Maybe the new pixelart package could be used to draw tetris blocks?

@samcarter oh :)

@CarLaTeX Oh, yes. I can add something like this as additional shape for glasses.

@PauloCereda see uweziegenhagen.de/?p=3732

@DavidCarlisle Oh. If I had remembered this duck I would have used it in the Grand Finale of the video ;-(.

@UlrikeFischer much more realistic than that obviously fake tikz thing you had before

^^ one for @AlanMunn :)

@PauloCereda As with all 'how many' questions relating to syntax, the answer is always "as many as you like." :)

@AlanMunn ooh that was smooth

Maybe even @barbarabeeton will agree that this is a "good" bit of recursion. :)

@AlanMunn :D

There's actually a whole class of these sentences, so long as you have a zero plural noun that also has verbal meaning. E.g., fish, police, etc.

@DavidCarlisle you are mean

@DavidCarlisle Clearly some have not internalized the true import of Dijkstra 1968.

TikZ people:

\documentclass[margin=0.2cm]{standalone}
\usepackage{tikz}
\usetikzlibrary{positioning}
\begin{document}
\begin{tikzpicture}
\node [draw, rectangle, fill=red] (a1) {};
\node [draw, rectangle, fill=white, right=-0.5pt of a1] (a2) {};
\node [draw, rectangle, fill=yellow, right=-0.5pt of a2] (a3) {};
\node [draw, rectangle, fill=blue, below=-0.5pt of a2] (a4) {};
\end{tikzpicture}
\end{document}

This looks so hackish... Any suggestions on improving?

I can post it as a question too. :)

@PauloCereda Use a tikz matrix

@PauloCereda Hackish in what way?

@PauloCereda or a \foreach

@AlanMunn it uses tikz

@DavidCarlisle Ah, of course. I couldn't quite picture it.

@PauloCereda It looks not so good. See this edge:

@PauloCereda I would probably do it with pics:

\documentclass[margin=0.2cm]{standalone}
\usepackage{tikz}
\tikzset{tetris/.pic ={\fill[draw=black,pic actions] (0,0) rectangle (1,1);}}
\begin{document}
\begin{tikzpicture}

\path[very thick]
      (0,0) pic[red]    {tetris}
      (1,0) pic[white]  {tetris}
      (2,0) pic[yellow] {tetris}
      (1,-1) pic[blue]  {tetris}
      (1,-2) pic[green] {tetris};

\end{tikzpicture}

\begin{tikzpicture}

\path[scale=0.2,thick,transform shape]
      (0,0) pic[red]    {tetris}
      (1,0) pic[white]  {tetris}

@CarLaTeX Oh is it possible? That might be good.

@AlanMunn The absolute positions look hackish to me...

@UlrikeFischer oh my!

@UlrikeFischer Thank you, that is fantastic! <3

@UlrikeFischer: Dankeschön!

@AlanMunn /ba dum tss

@JosephWright I don't know if you saw my message yesterday about adding another duplicate link to this closed question. The link in the comment from gusbrs tex.stackexchange.com/q/361486/105447 would be useful to add, as it's a bit more general.

@PauloCereda Ulrike already gave you an excellent solution. I have no time at the moment: condominium assembly tonight!

@CarLaTeX oh no, more work

@AlanMunn -- i'd seen the originals (both chicken and buffalo), but this tops both of those. (big grin!)

@barbarabeeton It's interesting that the original version goes back to 1965. Here's a history cse.buffalo.edu/~rapaport/buffalobuffalo.html

@barbarabeeton @AlanMunn Doing proofreading for some articles: Someone suggested something so strongly that they sugggested it :)

@yo' I would suggest you make a suggestion about that.

@yo' -- sometimes one just gets carrried away.

@barbarabeeton true that :)

If I wish to ask a question which was asked a few years ago but received no answers, should I edit the previous question or start a new one?

@AnagramAtaf simpler to ask a new one

right, thanks

@AnagramAtaf If it got no answers, it must be somehow unclear or (perhaps) not doable ...

@AnagramAtaf A new question seems best

@AnagramAtaf ah, hard:-)

@DavidCarlisle xor shall overcome!

@yo' One for Frank ...

@AnagramAtaf Then it might make more sense to add a bounty to that question?

@AnagramAtaf Because that question is definitely clear.

@AlanMunn bounties expire in less than 30 years

@AlanMunn I can't do that - I don't have enough reputation.

@DavidCarlisle lol

@DavidCarlisle So you think this is more or less undoable?

@egreg One of my most useful regex: \\((l)eft|(r)ight) replaced by \\Big\2\3

@AnagramAtaf if you just have one or two or it's a document where you are prepared to spend time hand positioning the text (and re-doing it if you edit the main text and reflow) then OK, but automatically balancing the three column text while keeping track of which column footnotes are in and then making a matching three column footnote area is straining the limits of what is feasible in latex. It is certainly doable in theory but I don't know of a packag ethat does it and it would require..

@AnagramAtaf rewriting large parts of latex's column and page makeup code

@DavidCarlisle would this be as difficult were footnotes not tied to particular columns but still displayed in three columns?

I tried using bidi and \threecolumnfootnotes with multicols, but the footnotes seem to overflow and the footnote area appears not to adjust based on how much space is available above.

@AnagramAtaf possibly not especially if you made some other simplification such as they never need to split long footnotes on to the next page (but it's still a lot harder than most questions that get asked her:-)

@AnagramAtaf oh bidi as well?, just to make sure it's not too easy:-)

ah well, thanks @DavidCarlisle

@AnagramAtaf but ask the question, you may catch Heiko on a good day and he writes some code over the weekend:-)

I suppose there's no harm to asking the question, so I might as well. Thanks @DavidCarlisle

@DavidCarlisle Then we need bounties that expire in 50 years.

@DavidCarlisle no abntex2 tag

@egreg -- your comment caused me to check -- i got two, and don't know how.

@barbarabeeton Well, I also got the “rep cap”, not really unexpected. ;-)