so I think I am missing one letter after #12

wait, I think I may be missing more

@GarethMcCaughan Or you (or he) have an extra

because my brain refuses to see the blue letters as bold even when they are

oh, yeah, I didn't notice any off-color bolds

leftofbrightofrrottw

I suspect there may be another letter at the end I've missed that decrypts to "o"

Damn, now that my message is on the starboard, I notice I left out the word "know" DX

(yes, there was)

@Ankoganit Hah, I hadn't even noticed. My brain just read it like it was there

so left of b, right of r, rot two

I missed e, from eleven, you missed blue s from ps

oh, you found it :)

yup

on a qwerty keyboard "left of b" would be "v" and "right of r" would be "t", and then rot2 would yield xv or tr, depending on which way we go, but none of that seems much use

@dcfyj So did I make a mistake by noticing my mistake? :O

@Ankoganit Apparently hehe

I was trying rotating left or right by two, but that doesn't seem to help at all

it'd either start fq or jm

@GarethMcCaughan Perhaps that's only a piece of what you need

Wow, you guys have solved it? I am just away for 15 minutes and I see the puzzle that I linked is almost solved? Woah..

I don't know about almost, but parts of it are solved

no, we've done the first layer or so but are now stuck again

well, first two layers

ah

b=blue

r=red

so maybe take the letters preceding the blue ones and following the red ones

and then rot2 the result

makes sense

ugh, more transcription from an image

I get "gomtral park" but suspect I screwed up the first two letters and it should be "central park"

ah yeah

I went in the wrong direction for those two

"central park"

so I guess we have our rendezvous

perhaps Techidiot should update his answer (Techidiot, are you still there?)

Central Park?

People usually respond faster if pinged :P

@Sid yes, Central Park. In New York.

@Techidiot, are you still around?

Where did you get New York? Or is that a real Place?

Yeah

Central Park is a (famous) real place in New York

Oh, you have matching gravitars today, @GarethMcCaughan

Watching the wonder being built :)

Which one?

as in the little verse by Ogden Nash (IIRC). "If you should happen after dark / To find yourself in Central Park, / Ignore the paths that beckon you / And hurry, hurry, to the Zoo / And creep into the tigers' lair. / Frankly, you'll be safer there."

There are poems about real places!

that seems pretty harsh :)

bad reputation for crime, I think

A good place to avoid...

@Sid A bad place too, a void

For all I know it may now be nothing like it was when Ogden Nash was writing.

@Ankoganit Does that work as a cryptic clue?

@Sid haha idk

maybe it does

or probably not. oh well.

Whosoever answers my new puzzle(When I post it), please don't expect to see +15 in your reputation tab soon..

@Sid why?

Going to be a tad busy in the next couple of days...

good-busy or bad-busy?

What's good busy?

In the same light, what's bad busy?

well, e.g., good busy would be "I am a consultant and just got a new contract that is going to require a lot of work and bring in a ton of money" or "I just had a baby".

That second example just had me in fits of laughter... :P

Bad busy would be "I am working for a company that makes computer games and the game we're working on is over schedule and management has said we're all working six 12-hour days a week until further notice". Or "my partner just died and I have to sort out funerals and things".

@GarethMcCaughan Some people might put that second under the "bad-busy" category

I agree it's unlikely that someone called Sid will be having a baby any time soon (though you never know), but "my partner just had a baby" is also busy-making.

Bad busy...

sorry to hear that. I hope whatever it is works out OK.

Not purely bad busy, but 70-30 to bad busy..

and @Techidiot are you going to update your answer to the eccentric-uncle puzzle with all the stuff that got done here?

@Sid So Neutral Evil busy? :P

@dcfyj That probably is the best one. Neutral Evil Busy, it is.

@GarethMcCaughan And Sid is Not my real name. So, Your baby-theory would work if you simply "we" after someone and called./

@Sid actually I guessed that Sid wasn't your real name (I'm pretty sure you said you were from India and I don't think Sid is a common name anywhere in India) but I wouldn't expect it to be a name a woman would adopt.

Lol.. No,

He was saying it should say "...someone we call Sid..."

yeah, that would work

@Sid As I recall you're in high school, no?

ah, that would also make babies relatively unlikely

Yep, final year of high school..

@GarethMcCaughan but far more likely to be bad :)

Not nowadays

@GarethMcCaughan Not in the USA sadly...

Or more specifically, today was the last day of a full-day in high school.

Oh, so you're graduating then

3 months till graduation.

Exams around March..

Interesting way to do it

even in the USA it's relatively unusual to have babies while still in high school. Also, negatively correlated (for whatever reason) with intelligence and academic success.

@GarethMcCaughan The last part is most likely because typically "geeks" don't go and have sex all that often in high school

that's possible.

I don't like the use of the word "geek" though

I was one, on multiple levels. Never bothered me.

It tends to categorise a group of students on the basis of their academics rather than on their personality..

negatively correlated with academic success makes a lot of sense

other possible explanations include: cleverer people have more foresight; intelligence correlates (again, for whatever reason) with social class and different social groups have different mores; cleverer people have more to lose from having babies early because they're more likely to want to go to college etc.

babies are objectively the worst, especially if you're trying to study

@Sid So does just about any group term referring to high school

ask anyone who has one whether babies are "objectively the worst" and you might get a different answer

(despite the above comment, I of course do not endorse having babies in high school.)

(do it at home or in a hospital.)

most of the people I know who've had them get much happier once they've aged to toddler level

The parents even get more happier when they finally move out :P

You mean beyond toddler? I've seen some rather irratating toddlers recently

@GarethMcCaughan- Yes will update it now. Was in a bit of trauma for last few minutes

@Techidiot eek. I hope everything's resolved now.

Babies are annoying. They can pee at you at anytime.

@Sid That's why you put nappies on them.

@Sid That's why you're supposed to put diapers on them.

(or diapers, depending on dialect)

I screwed up my interview which was scheduled with a Client. Guess what..I was busy puzzling :-X

@Techidiot Oh no!

@Techidiot Ooh, not good

Yeah. Extreme!

@Techidiot Oh dear.

@dcfyj I mean to toddler, they can be annoying, but they're learning to communicate at least. All the parents of 3-month olds or whatever seemed like they were constantly near tears

I hope you managed to patch that up

The recruiters and client were waiting for me on the call.

Well, just sent a patch up mail

@Techidiot Makes me glad I'm a programmer. I don't have to deal with people much ^^

Last week they screwed it up. Today its me. They might be thinking I took some kind of revenge :D

@dcfyj- As a matter of fact, I am a programmer myself. Consultant to be precise.

The recruiter is IBM :D

@Techidiot I don't consult, I do :P So not much talking on my part

What does IBM do now?

I don't think they make computers any more

Well, they are into lot of things. I am more into stuff like integrations, SAP, DW etc

I see, Deusovi earned much of his rep this month by posting a question and answering it. :P

@Sid It was a rather in depth answer

Yep, that's why I mentioned "earned his rep".

I am sort of conflicted. My meta post has 9 upvotes to it. And Emrakul's answer has 9 upvotes to it.

@Sid Why are you conflicted?

While I believe that, the alleged evidence shouldn't be released publicly, Rand's defence also sounds convincing in which he says that People have the right to know that they are voting for what he believes to be a sockpuppet.

I believe that Rand should follow his own convictions, but until I have undeniable proof and/or the mods say so, I'm not going to worry who I vote for.

In this rather sensitive case, Rand's convictions could have a lasting impact on the site.

I have two thoughts on the matter

1: The court of public opinion is usually a terrible idea, we're awful at the Innocent until proven Guilty thing, and several other things

Personally I don't really care about sock puppets. I like getting rep and all, but I'm not overly concerned about someone making puppets.

2: I'm really curious, and personally want to know

@Sconibulus Ask Rand to send you an email with his "evidences"

Unless Rand is fooling us all..

that sounds like making a bigger deal out of it than it probably deserves

Which is precisely why I am somewhat opposed to the idea of posting his "evidences" on meta. For all we know, The mods have probably seen all that and decided it was not enough to punish the user in question.

They've probably seen more than that. Em said they and the CM's had a look at it multiple times and they can't prove without a doubt.

Thanks @dcfyj,@GarethMcCaughan,@Sconibulus and @Ankoganit - Updated the final answer. Phew. That was quite of work.

Pretty sure I didn't do anything lol

Lol, I just added all the names in that conversation. Still recovering from today's misery. :D

Does anyone know, what is the best font to be used to make a document look like it's handwritten?

Christopher Hand is good.

A cursive version 5th Grade Cursive

Or try Martin Sans(dafont.com/martin-sans.font)

If you want it to actually look as if it's handwritten, I suspect no font will help you very much.

@Techidiot A cursive version of Cursive?

Not actually look like handwritten.. Something close to a human hand..

@Randal'Thor Hey, that's plagiarized from Vi Hart!

Ah! Broken spoilers!

@GarethMcCaughan Agreed. I liked how f'' handled it, with a pastebin link in every image.

Speaking of which, what happened to f''? He too disappeared...

Do any of you have experience converting video to gif?

@Sconibulus ezgif.com/video-to-gif

Um... I think Lukas Rotter does...

At least that's what I use

hmm, my video is too long because I'm terrible

oh well

@boboquack Does "French and co." in your clue refer to a specific company with that name? If so, you might need to narrow it down, since in just a couple of minutes I've found realtors, art dealers, solicitors, and antique dealers.

I assumed it meant romance languages

@Sconibulus O_o How long is it? And (if you want to tell) what is the video about that takes so long? :D

I recorded myself solving the Stranger chess puzzle

it was slightly over three minutes, I could probably rerecord and get it down to 2, but that's still too long

and I don't want to type that much, so someone else can solve it :)

@Sconibulus What program/website were you using?

I recorded it with Snagit which was helpfully installed on my pc, it made a .mp4

I meant the chessboard, sorry.

I solved it on the lichess board attached to the post

most of the ones I've seen that record moves expect both sides to move

Hm... I can't promise anything, but if you mail me the video I could make it work (although that could take some time). Not sure how I can convince you I'm not going to post that as an answer on my own... But this message will stay here forever, so I guess I would be shamed for the rest of my Puzzling life :P

If you want to post it, that'd probably be fine anyway, I can't imagine it's worth very much rep, and I already got the fun of coming up with a solution :)

@LukasRotter Holiday Bird work?

[email protected] (as I said, can't promise anything)

@BeastlyGerbil Why did you delete your answer on my question?

It got downvoted so I thought it wasn't helpful.

Is that information required? If it is I'll undelete

@BeastlyGerbil I shouldn't say anything more. (By which I am probably saying something...)

So I should undelete?

I notice a lot of them are capitals of their corresponding countries.

But not all of them.

Yeah there's a few that aren't

Maybe some binary cipher on capitals versus non-capitals?

Or maybe a capital city = capital letter

I'm going to undelete but if it gets serially downvoted then I'll delete.

I suppose @Deusovi you could see it anyway.. :P

"St. John's"

If there are less than twenty of those, I'll eat my shoelace

@BeastlyGerbil If it gets to -3, you can get the "peer pressure" badge. :P

Think I've got that.... Can't remember now.

@Sconibulus If you figure out the puzzle, it will be clear which one it is.

Oh wait I don't. This is my oppurtunity! :P

@BeastlyGerbil This is an opportunity. Can you take it?

:P

@Mithrandir is there an error in your web? Group 3 has 3 groups and group 4 has 5

@Matt Fixed it now, thanks.

I see the comments now ;P

@Sconibulus Well, it's too late already, but:

@BeastlyGerbil @boboquack Obsolete comments now.

@Mithrandir - I think I solved group 1 but I'm not at all confident.

because tacos

@LukasRotter It's so beauteous, how did you do it?

@Sconibulus I was afraid this question would be asked :P I can't think what came over me, but I wanted to keep those "hop" transitions (i.e. when a piece gets lifted up), so I just recorded while a program moved & pressed the mouse accordingly.

Oh, you basically did the replaying and rerecording that I was too lazy to do?

I'm sorry

With a perfect delay of 250 milliseconds after lifting/dropping, though. Also the green highlight is gone, so I think it was worth it. (I don't think I could've been any faster if you want to keep the lifting effect, except you have your own code for it).

@Deusovi Damn :-( I don't suppose there's any chance that the now-deleted OP is Vi Hart?

@Randal'Thor I find that incredibly unlikely.

Fair enough.

What puzzles me is that I lost a bunch of rep out of that deletion (since I answered it), even though it was more than 60 days ago.

Weird!

Did you delete some other questions today too, by any chance?

I don't think I did.