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5:00 PM
@humn Ooh, the rose is made out of polygons. Nice!
 
I'm still trying to make a <pre>...</pre> puzzle for here out of that rose but have pretty much given up because it requires just a little too much resolution.
 
5:12 PM
... thanks for the informative+action-packed post and MathJax question, @Rand al'Thor ... back to making a surprisingly easy puzzle tougher ...
 
what deviltry is this
why are the no-nos no-nos, I wonder
 
I smell binary ...
 
Man. I'm apparently going to have to actually unlock helpfulness level 5 and, possibly, 6 for the Times riddle to get solved.
 
> t&hairsp;rominoes
@humn Does this ^ mean something?
 
Sid
@Rubio Right, So, how do I send you the puzzle? E-mail?
 
5:20 PM
put these in an answer block somewhere and see. (two spaces after each line.)
]&hairsp;[
]&thinsp;[
] [
]&nbsp;[
]&ensp;[
]&emsp;[
@Sid yeah. i'm at yahoo mail
 
@Rubio Sure, but why would humn put a hairspace in the middle of what looks like a perfectly ordinary word?
 
put underscores around my name for my username
 
@Randal'Thor , just means that the font was crowding t and r in trominoes (<-- here too) (now trying Rubio's, uh, fix?)
 
see my last message
I was sort of purposely not spelling it out :)
 
Don't worry, I can not only remove but redact chat messages if required.
 
5:23 PM
around. both sides.
 
@Rubio , what a great surprise, way better than a fix. shoulda seen it coming.
 
sigh. yes, @Sid - please delete all that now
@humn huh?
 
It came out looking a blossom unfurling, Rubio, in effect (calibrations can be pretty good looking)
 
@Rubio You want any more email-related messages deleted?
 
nope, that's fine. thanks.
 
5:30 PM
(by the way, Rubio, that image up there is meant to make an upcoming puzzle look scary from a distance to Rand al'Thor)
 
Sid
@Rubio Sent!
 
got it. Your lines need some help :)
this is all the info provided? Just the image?
 
@humn It looks ... interesting. I see at least three separate colours of shaded square, unless there's some optical illusion coming into play.
 
Sid
@Rubio Oh Shit! I forgot to give the rules.
 
Hehe. Ok - otherwise this was going to be pretty interesting :)
 
5:34 PM
@Randal'Thor , really just empty and filled squares. the almost-too-faint squares show where others might be filled
it tries to look scary by showing one simple rule (no touching numbers) in a permutation-exploded way that should answer some other questions that might arise as well
 
Sid
@Rubio Sent the rules. I am now going to be afk for the next 20 hours. So, Don't expect me to clarify any doubts..
@BeastlyGerbil ^^
 
Oh you emailed me. Ok I'll take a look
 
for future reference
send the mail to yourself, add all recipients as BCCs
 
looks good anyway
 
otherwise, as happens here, I now have BG's email address. Not that I would do anything with it but still
 
5:39 PM
its in my profile
So I don't really care about that
 
BG's email address is on his profile anyway.
ninja'd
 
ninja'd :p
 
At least I ninja'd your "ninja'd".
 
Still. :)
 
I think I only know deusovis apart from that.. Apart from profile ones of course
 
5:41 PM
Damn all these people with dark avatars. I'm always getting Rubio, Beastly, Sid, and Mithrandir mixed up in here.
 
Yeah I've edited Sid's answers before thinking their mine :P
 
:-O
You naughty gerbil.
 
Dec 25 '16 at 12:53, by Beastly Gerbil
@Sid oh sorry did I edit your post a few minutes ago? I thought it was mine! Our icons are too similar! :P
 
'Twas the season of goodwill and editing-your-own-ideas-into-other-people's-posts-to-make-them-look-good :-P
 
Yeah that was on Christmas. Merry Christmas! :P
 
5:51 PM
that's the spirit!
And, @Rand al'et, the Math SE link is a solid start on the "Will they succeed?" part of What the L, but a complete answer might even be publishable
 
hi @incesterror21. no progress n your puzzle
 
@humn Speaking of spirit ... in case anyone missed this rather interesting English.SE post:
50
Q: Is alcohol called spirits due to linking of imagery?

MirteI was wondering if there is any correlation between the way alcohol burns and a common view of a spirit? Alcohol burns with a wavering blue flame that looks almost ethereal. Spirits are often pictured as blue and wavering (think of the will-o'-the-wisps in brave). Coincidence? To be clear:...

 
@BeastlyGerbil No need to hurry!
 
@humn Yeah, that's actually what I was worried about: is it always possible to reduce to 2 x (3z-1) rectangles, as opposed to getting 1 x (3z+1) which wouldn't be doable?
 
I feel like I'm missing something obvious
 
6:03 PM
@Emrakul Out of curiosity, why was this question marked as spam or abusive?
 
@Randal'Thor , the diagram fooled me into thinking it was possible to always avoid 1 x z, and the puzzle had a whole different direction at that point. good thing i looked on the net to see what "tromino proof" catches.
i could only find a relatively recent proof for squares (not just 2^n x 2^n) and guess that the rectangular question is still open
 
@humn I should note that my answer as it stands doesn't say anything incorrect; it's just a little incomplete :-)
Rather like arithmetic, according to Godel.
 
no complaints here
i'd be floored if someone comes by within a day, or ever, to prove the general case
easily worth a bounty to even come up with an incremental generalization beyond squares (their general proof turns out to be way less pretty than 2^n x 2^n)
 
Edited my answer.
 
yeah! (will still wait a day to checkmark on principle though)
(back to checking out that English SE post on spirits... more about English in a minute)
@Rand al'Thor, I still like how Word connection squares! brings words and diagrams together and am hoping to see a diagrammatic proof-without-words about, what else, words.
Etymology is almost too tempting a place to start since it naturally forms a tree. (an idea from your "spirits" link just now)
 
6:24 PM
@humn The bit that worries me about "a proof-without-words about words" isn't the "without words" part but the proof part. How does one prove something about words? Language isn't really a rigorous and definitive discipline like maths.
 
perhaps more like a demonstration-without-words
A friend who's been through "comparative literature" has shown me a very scientific side to language, and writing, in surprising ways
... fading though ... the radio show i was hoping to wake up to is on now ... better wake up and go to sleep ...
 
@humn If you're interested in that sort of thing, Edgar Allan Poe's Philosophy of Composition is definitely worth a read. It goes into some of the thoughts behind the construction of The Raven, an absolutely brilliant poem which needs to be read several times to appreciate all its layers of rhythm, rhyme, meaning, and metaphor.
@humn Fair enough :-) Goodnight!
 
(glad I checked back to see why it says i'm still here)
Thanks for the lead(s), @Rand al'Thor, what you just said about The Raven reminds me so much of the kinds of things learned from that Comp Lit friend.
 
6:56 PM
Is everyone asleep?
 
Nope
 
The wizard never sleeps!
 
@Randal'Thor I forgot to check that your Clue was actually solved before posting 25. I deleted it :P
Make sure that someone solves it...
Soon...
 
@Mithrandir Well, it is solved.
@Will found the correct final answer.
 
But no accepted answer.
 
6:58 PM
He just didn't crack one of the cryptics yet.
 
Well then push him :P
 
@Mithrandir I'm slow to accept answers. Don't let that bother you.
And I'm already looking at Clue Twenty-Five now :-P
 
I don't like posting the next ones till the last one's been accepted...
10k tools...
You get an unfair edge.
Cheater :P
 
@Mithrandir Didn't use them.
 
7:00 PM
Although of course I do need 10k to be able to see the post at all.
 
Exactly
That's what I meant
Whatever, maybe I'll undelete...
 
Oh, I thought you meant the 10k tools.
 
Accept one soon please
@Randal'Thor Give me 3k on SFF :P
 
@Mithrandir I already started one 500-rep bounty there the other day; that's enough for one week.
 
Heh. I wasn't being really serious :P
 
7:02 PM
I know :-)
 
@MOehm Well done!
 
@Mithrandir I don't think that includes proper nouns ...
 
Unfortunate
 
Indeed: it means you'll have to use skill to solve the puzzle, rather than just knowing how to use the internet ;-)
 
7:10 PM
If I press show all starred and zoom out twice I can still see Emrakul's declaration of idiocy :P
 
Poor Emrak :-(
 
@Emrakul Take comfort in the fact that nobody pinned it. :P
 
0
Q: An enigmatic rebus - Clue Twenty Five

Mithrandir<<---First clue <---Previous clue You head through the door. Immediately, you are blinded by a sudden burst of light. You stand in the doorway, blinking, as the door closes and pushes you into the room. As your eyes adjust, you see that there are four bright lights in front of you, shaped like...

 
@Mithrandir Do people always care about the title so much?
 
What title are you talking about?
 
7:13 PM
About the title of my puzzle. The one with the colours.
 
I think the title's fine
 
I think you posted a link with possible anagrams?
 
@incesterror21 +1 for making a puzzle that only works in European English ;-)
 
Because of the "colour"?
 
I might make more sense after it's solved, but I don't know, since...
 
7:14 PM
@incesterror21 Yep.
 
The final solution is not really a name...
It was meant as a hint to confirm the hex translation.
 
@Mithrandir ... yet :)
 
:P
I think that they would redact your RO powers if you pinned it...
 
I'm gonna trick rand into doing it. Using reverse psychology.
 
Good move, Emrak can't demote Rand :P
 
7:19 PM
Does anyone know how to add two images to a post horizontally?
 
Maybe
 
Thanks @Mithrandir
 
What images where?
 
Any image next to any other image.
 
@Mithrandir He could do things to me on Puzzling though :-P
 
7:20 PM
If they're small enough and you put them in there with no separating break, they'll be next to each other
 
@incesterror21 Yes.
 
![meh](url1) ![meh](url2)
 
So it's a matter of size. Like always.
 
And if they're not small enough, shrink them :P
 
would do it
 
7:20 PM
I will have to try on then, thanks again.
 
Hey @Mithrandir, did you see my tutorial?
 
Nope
 
3
Q: Strategy for solving 0hh1 and Unruly?

rand al'thorQ42's game 0hh1 and Simon Tatham's game Unruly are two almost identical logical deduction games. In each one, we're given a square grid which is to be filled by tiles of two colours, and a certain initial setup of given tiles. We need to fill in the rest of the tiles, subject to the following res...

 
I never even bothered to learn what they were...
 
Assuming they're on i.stack.imgur.com you can add a "t" or "s" or "m" to the end of the 5 character hash to give thumbnail / small / medium sized images automatically, too
 
7:22 PM
@Mithrandir You don't even need to know the game to appreciate that answer :-P
(though it's a fun game, and quite addictive)
 
Are you farming for an upvote? *wigges eyebrows*
 
@Randal'Thor I saw lots of pretty animated images.
I upvoted on principle.
I have no idea if the solution guide is correct, let alone relevant ;)
 
@Mithrandir More for attention really.
I put a lot of work into that answer.
@Rubio I'm sure @Deusovi would have said something if it was nonsense :-P
 
I did that on SFF once, I wrote a long answer that got what, 6, upvotes...
 
@Rubio Thank you! Percentages like width="50%" not possible?
 
7:26 PM
sort of
<a href="http://stackexchange.com/users/5129611"> <img src="http://stackexchange.com/users/flair/5129611.png?theme=dark" width="208" height="58" alt="profile for Mithrandir♦ on Stack Exchange, a network of free, community-driven Q&amp;A sites" title="profile for Mithrandir♦ on Stack Exchange, a network of free, community-driven Q&amp;A sites"> </a>
That gives the specific size
 
@incesterror21 You need to use html tags if you want to get a specific size.
in Mos Eisley, 4 hours ago, by Loong
@Randal'Thor <img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/woX7b.png" width="205" alt="2-(hydroxymethyl)propane-1,3-diol">
 
Or you can stick e.g. "m", "s", or "t" before the ".png" (or whatever) suffix, to reduce it to one of a fixed selection of sizes.
 
The code above gives that
With a link to my network profile.
 
@Mithrandir You must have a sad life if main meta is one of your top few sites :-P
 
7:29 PM
-_-
I've got 9 sites with 200+ rep
 
I was wondering what'll happen if someone looks at it on mobile? The absolute image size is the problem for me. I want the images next to each other but phones will put them on top of each other again I think...
 
If I get 3 more Lifehacks answer upvotes it'll be 10.
Mobile is weird
Like, if everyone gave me an upvote on this bad, sad, answer, I'll have 10 sites with 200/+ rep.
@Will finish Rand's puzzle.
 
@Mithrandir I've tried.
 
Try harder :P
 
I've already been trying for days. :\
 
7:35 PM
@Mithrandir I got 1000 rep on Lifehacks with one answer.
84
A: How do I get the last lines of dust into the dustpan?

rand al'thorJust keep sweeping the remaining line into the dustpan. It'll shrink more and more each time you sweep it, until in the end there's nothing left of it. It also helps to change the angle of sweeping each time; that way, what was a long line becomes a shorter line relative to the new angle of dire...

See? Overperformance works wonders :-P
 
I'm not a polymath, even though I got the hat 5 times
 
@Will Someone almost got it the other night.
 
So I can't just head to some random SE and get 1000s of rep :P
@Randal'Thor This is your fault :P
 
oh my g-d
 
@Will ?
 
7:40 PM
I got it
@Randal'Thor that's awful
 
Good
So post it and fix the previous-one-not-solved-and-next-one's-already-out thing
 
@Mithrandir you should put them into boxes and use them as containers for USB cables etc
 
Put what in boxes? My tubes? Nooooooooo
 
@incesterror21 Yessss
 
7:44 PM
I use the tubes for pyramids. That's it. Nothing else will happen to my tubes.
 
@Will Heh :-P Which bit?
 
I am overprotective of my tubes :P
3
 
All of it.
 
Let man do what man wants to do with their tubes!
 
@Mithrandir Thanks for catching that
 
7:49 PM
@Mithrandir you could put a lot of glue on top of your pyramid and let it run down to the bottom. Like the do with those glass pyramids at weddings
Not with glue but with liquor of course.
 
Nooo.
The rows have to not be attached to each other.
 
Good job, @Will.
I'm glad I used that strange DEE OH TEA thing, otherwise you'd have brute-forced the answer long ago!
 
It's the tubes in the rows that have to stay together
 
Why's that?
Artistic reasons?
 
Mobility
And the way I make it
And the obvious thing
I have no place to put it if it stays together that large.
I keep it disassembled. In pieces scattered around my room.
 
7:53 PM
Whatever makes you sleep at night!
 
Tiredness
Sometimes
Sometimes I stay up reading
And then I sleep all day
 
I think you read too much into your tubes!
 
nah
 
Is there a tube #1?
 
Yep
 
7:54 PM
I mean, there has to be. The tip
 
It has the number 1 on it
 
Does it have a special place in your room?
 
No, the first 16 are glued together
That's the largest
It can be to fit
Each tube in each row has the row number on it.
Like, each tube in row 35 has the number 35 on it.
 
Yes, they better have. No one wants to imagine what could possibly happen if there was a wrong tube in one of the rows!
 
7:57 PM
@Randal'Thor I'd have bruteforced it long ago had I not had a bug with the way I handled casing!
 
If you had a kickstarter project I'd donate 1$
I can see the relevance for humankind there.
 
@Will Well, you can't blame me for that :-)
 
You can give me a +1 on my question instead :P
(I detect sarcasm running rampant here)
 
@Mithrandir There now, what a wasted opportunity. You could have asked for a +1 on an answer instead.
You've just lost 50% of your potential donations.
 
I'm still not entirely sure if it is really your own pyramid and not one of your neighbours'
 
7:58 PM
I don't have any arts and crafts answers
It's mine.... Don't worry... :P
 
I would upvote if it really was a pyramid. For me it's a mere triangle.
 
Eh.
Whatevs. I'm not that desperate for rep :P
 
A very beautiful triangle of course!
 
oh @Randal'Thor
no wonder I didn't get this
 
Anyway I'm off to work. Bye everyone!
 
8:03 PM
adios
 
aioli/ENTAQUNP gives DEEPHTEA
 
Wait, what?
Did I f*** up?
 
I was already doing brute force and would have found it if it worked right.
I walked the whole dictionary looking for things that decomposed to two or three other words, because nothing else I'd tried gave a solution. even that failed.
 
@Rand - delete :P
 
No, O+L = 15+12 = 27 = A.
 
8:06 PM
Thank you :P
 
Oh - derp. I see what I did, nevermind.
So now I'm puzzled why I didn't find that in my brute force list.
 
Maybe because "dee" doesn't count as a word?
 
oh. what the hell.
no, it's cuz it lists aiolis, but not aioli.
fail
 
@Rubio I did that; only reason it didn't work was "Dee" was capitalized in my dictionary & I messed that up. :)
 
mutter
Good job finding it :)
Also, rand, I hate you :)
3
 
8:11 PM
@Rubio flagged :-P
 
I'm considering starring that and seeing if he clears the stars...
Nope. I'm surprised o_o
 
0
Q: Maximum Sudoku Puzzle

OrayAs most of you know, there is no Sudoku problem that has less than 17 number of starting clues with one unique solution. Imagine there is a sudoku problem that has $n$ number of starting clues with one unique solution, where removing any clue in the sudoku will make the puzzle non-unique (more t...

 
8:29 PM
It's annoying having a score of 9 or 24.
Take this answer. I waited for such a long time for a silver badge, but it refused. So now I'm annoyed at Antioch Peverell :P
@Khale_Kitha just as soon as Clue 25 is solved, you can post your very long Cryptic Clue.
 
8:54 PM
@TheGreatEscaper I think you can see everything you need to in my puzzle from the main picture, but you can always click on it to get a copy of the whole file.
 
9:23 PM
How's the MIT hunt going?
Oh no, not the tumbleweed again!
 
user61230
@Randal'Thor For SpamRam reasons.
 
@Mithrandir I could always trade @Emrakul for a star-clear on the "idiot" messages :-P
@Emrakul I still don't get it. If the user was a spammer, why do they still have an account? And why does that justify deleting their good posts?
 
user61230
9:40 PM
@Randal'Thor I'm not going to go into it. Recommendation of SE staff for handling a certain problem.
 
user61230
Are you like, on a deep, extensive hunt for mod abuse or something? :P
 
Fair enough, I get it. I won't enquire any further :-)
@Emrakul I noticed that one of my recent answers was #48000, and went on a bit of a numerological hunt. That question was #30000.
I'm just strange, not hunting for mod abuse ;-)
 
user61230
Best of luck, then! I hope you find something interesting!
 
11:01 PM
To people who actually create these puzzles (@TheGreatEscaper @Deusovi etc): how do you make them so as to know they're uniquely solvable? I imagine you don't sit there with a pencil and paper trial-and-erroring different starting positions until you find one that works; do you need computer aid, or is there some technique for making them by hand?
^ that could potentially become a question on the main site, but I'm not sure if it would stay open
 
When I do it, I just find something that can be uniquely forced, then work backwards from there.
Something that also works for Sudokus, Takuzus, etc. is continue removing squares that can be logically deduced, until taking away any square would result in an ambiguous position.
Hi @Alconja!
 
morning :)
 
Evening :-)
@boboquack That works? And is actually feasible to do by hand?
Perhaps I should try it some time.
 
I *almost* always create puzzles by hand, because erasing is much easier manually. So yes.
 
I think my rejbus one was the first thing I ever made physically
(obviously not a grid puzzle)
 
11:12 PM
For a moment I read that as "obviously not a good puzzle". Did a quick double-take.
 
Has anyone made any progress on Gareth's CC?
 
I was thinking "complex" could be "i". (Gareth is a maths guy too.)
 
i isn't complex, it's imaginary
you need a + bi to make it complex
 
Imaginary numbers are complex.
So are real ones, for that matter.
 
i suppose.
a of 0, b of 1
still feels hokey
like claiming 45 is a fraction because it's really 45/1
 
11:26 PM
"fraction" isn't such a well-defined word.
Unless you use it to mean rational number, in which case yes, 45 is rational.
Squares are rectangles, too.
 
@Randal'Thor Neither is "number"...
 
Indeed.
 
Is x in the natural numbers, the natural numbers union 0, the integers, the rationals, the algebraic numbers, the reals, the complex numbers, the quaternions, the octonions, the sedenions, or...?
 
lol.
 
Aw... no MathJax in chat?
 
11:32 PM
nope
 
@Randal'Thor @Rubio I find that "squares are rectangles, humans are animals, real numbers are complex numbers, etc." is a rather effective way of distinguishing, well, People Like Me from everyone else. I'm not sure exactly what class of people it marks the boundary of, though. I would expect mathematicians, physicists and analytic philosophers to be on (what I of course consider) the right side of it, for instance.
@boboquack Somewhere around the octonions is (for me) where I start to want to say "you know, I don't think we should really be calling these things numbers any more".
@Alconja I don't think I've seen any discussion or attempts at solving. I'm wondering whether I should be giving hints yet, but it may just be Weekend Syndrome.
[afk for 10-15 minutes]
 
@GarethMcCaughan What is the right side? Is right only left by a negative number?
 
@GarethMcCaughan Allow me an amusing but well-motivated counterpoint.
there are, indeed, at least ten. So, while entirely correct, it's also right-but-wrong. :)
The punchline of the article there, for me, is the one sentence: "In general, we assume that people are truthful, that they are giving as much detail as is pertinent and no more, and that they're being as clear as possible."
 
@GarethMcCaughan Pedants?
 
@GarethMcCaughan definitely weekend syndrome for me... But now I'm back, assigning 5% of my energy to it, whilst I do my actual monday morning work stuff. :)
 
11:40 PM
I'm definitely a pedant - and proud of it!
:-P
 
So while completely accurate to refer to a quadrangle with four 90° angles and four equilateral sides as a "rectangle", it also fails to provide the most relevant description you could.
 
@Rubio Define "most relevant you could".
 
"crudely enhanced" sounds like hack
 
When all (a + bi) are complex numbers, while a more confined subset of those numbers, those with a=0, are imaginary numbers and similarly those with b=0 are real numbers, why not call them those?
 
I could say it's not accurate enough to refer to it as "a square" either: you should refer to e.g. "the square I drew with an HB pencil on the topmost piece of paper on my desk at 7:23 pm on the 15th of January 2017".
 
11:42 PM
bah. again: giving as much detail as is pertinent and no more, and that they're being as clear as possible.
 
@Randal'Thor from a while back
 
Is it always necessary to know that a square is a square? Sometimes it's enough to know that it's a rectangle.
Sometimes it's better just to think of it as a rectangle, because then you may be able to make a more general statement, applying to all rectangles rather than only squares.
 
I usually try to design a grid puzzle that can't be solved easily by computer at all
An exception would be ripple islands, because I think ripple is a fairly standard puzzle type
 
@Randal'Thor then "as is pertinent and no more" would actually cut the other way, and suggest that "square" in that context is too specific. :)
 
@TheGreatEscaper
 
11:45 PM
@TheGreatEscaper Does being solvable easily by computer correlete well with being creatable easily by computer?
 
Every single puzzle in WITLESS was designed by hand, verified by hand
 
3 hours ago, by boboquack
@TheGreatEscaper I think you can see everything you need to in my puzzle from the main picture, but you can always click on it to get a copy of the whole file.
 
@boboquack no need to ping me three times with the same message, mate :P
 
If it's worth doing, it's worth doing well?
:-P
 
@Rand it also depends on the type of puzzle
 
11:46 PM
oh btw @Randal'Thor is this considered solved yet? It seems like it probably should be.
 
@TheGreatEscaper Do you make your puzzles with pen(cil) and paper, or purely virtually?
 
pen and paper.
 
@Rubio Yes. I'm just slow to formally accept answers.
 
Oops well you get the general idea
 
11:48 PM
The new puzzle which I'm gonna post within the hour
 
@Randal'Thor I didn't even see an informal accept, which you usually do, to stop people from adding on more. :)
thought i'd mention it
 
is a route finding puzzle, which is theoretically easier to computer crack
 
@TheGreatEscaper Awww. I'm building one of those now. I hope we're sufficiently different.
 
@Rubio I guess I don't feel so much of a need to confirm a solution's correctness when I didn't invent the puzzle myself.
 
But in regards to the design, I usually design the puzzle around solve path
 
11:49 PM
oh. hm. that wasn't yours?
 
> Disclaimer: I didn't invent this idea, but nor can I credit anyone specific for it; it's a very old, anonymous, puzzle
 
oh nvm i get your meaning
 
Consider that the Summit in Witless would've just been incredibly unfair even if the solution was unique, without a logical solve path. It was designed so that there WAS a nice way to solve it
 
I'm nowhere near good enough at chess to trust myself to create good chess puzzles, so I just post old classics :-P
 
Anyway I'll get to work on finishing Haisu...
 
11:55 PM
@Rubio yes, there are situations where saying something is a rectangle carries an implicature that it's not square, because if it had been you'd have said so. But squares are still rectangles.
@Randal'Thor no, I think pedantry is a separate thing. Someone could be a pedant and pedantically insist that squares are not rectangles. I think there's an association between the two -- mathematician-types are often pedants and vice versa -- but they aren't the same thing.
 
Sure. and there are still at least 10 ducks. :)
 
Of course computer people also know that, while a square is a rectangle, a mutable-square is not a mutable-rectangle. (That is, a square whose size you can change is not a special case of a rectangle both of whose sides you can change.)
 
From what I'm reading, there's too much ambiguity and confusion in the realm of mathematics. I propose some new nomenclature that should be sufficient for all usages: If it has straight sides it's a "box", if it doesn't it's a "blob".
 
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