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9:00 PM
whoosh
 
Just don't do SO
 
I sure am glad people think I am a sod @_@
 
@n_palum You're not British, right?
 
would you rather be a sod or a sock?
 
according to n_palum's profile, he's in upstate New York
 
9:04 PM
Well look at @ffao being a stalker and stuff :-P
 
that's only the beginning, didn't you see that I have connections with the organization spying on you? :P
 
Oh yeah!
 
2 hours ago, by Mithrandir
... *looks over shoulder*
 
Darn, you don't have an account on SFF, so I can't stalk you back ;-)
@Mithrandir Apparently they're spying on you too.
 
@Rubio I did try anagramming, but given my previous track record... :/ (best so far is TORN-UP FORUM)
 
9:07 PM
'xactly.
I'll confuse 'em all with my strange reading habits.
 
@Mithrandir If you know you're being spied on, do random weird stuff for no reason, just to waste their time.
There's an episode of The Prisoner all about that.
 
It's midnight. I'm now standing in the dining room sticking cherries on grape thingies. That @Rand om enough for you? ;)
 
it's funny that Paint gave me the values in decimal, so I had to convert them to hex to get the other answers, now I have to go back for that one
 
(I guess my 05/29 comment was irrelevant then, oops)
 
9:13 PM
if it were supposed to mean 05/29, then I think it would have been 0529 instead of 5029
 
the most random things are going on the starboard now
 
My train of thought was basically "why would ffao have a leg up?" -> "maybe it was a previous Rubio puzzle they solved" -> "what was the last Rubio puzzle solved by ffao?" :P (and the first step of that puzzle looked somewhat relevant... maybe)
 
that was similar to my train of thought
the fact that 5029 wasn't an indication to that doesn't rule it out
 
My train of thought:
 
Ooh, sort-of-progress on Rubio's puzzle is happening?
 
9:21 PM
the train of tohught has crashed
inside out
 
we solved a part of the hint on Rubio's puzzle
I guess that counts as progress, sort of?
 
Apparently you're the important one?
 
and ffao is important :P
 
@Deusovi Apparently @ffao has been spying on me all this time.
 
Wait, really? That's my job!
Um, I mean. Wow. That's horrible.
 
9:22 PM
squints at @Deusovi
 
Why a leg up and not an advantage
What's so special about @ffao 's legs
 
Maybe he has cameras and microphones on his legs which he's been using to spy on me.
Maybe he's actually typing with his toes.
 
Yes, that would be a completely logical way to spy on someone else.
 
@Randal'Thor *cries* What did you do to the book...?: '(
:P
 
@Mithrandir It sacrificed itself for the sake of art.
Also, can I ask what book that is as a [story-ID] question on Lit? :-P
 
9:26 PM
It's a book. How is it going to volunteer to sacrifice itself?
 
@Mithrandir Seriously, Mith. Anyone would think you were saying books can't impart meaningful messages.
 
wouldn't be a hard question given that the book name is written on the top of the page
 
Night Falls on the ... something?
I could crop that bit out before posting ;-)
 
OPRY.
No, wait. CITY.
It's clearer on the other page.
 
the last word is harder to read, but from the remainder it looks like Night Falls on the City
 
9:32 PM
0
Q: Shortest path from one $\to$ ten with a twist

ben-Nabiy DerushThere are the kinds of puzzles where you take a number and try through math to get it to another number, or start with letters, and try to get to another word through a series of valid words... but what about a combination of the two. The rules: (15 14 5) Starting wi...

 
@Randal'Thor no I'm not British but I know what the 'insult' means. And ffao is right that I'm currently in upstate NY but I'm not from here
 
@Randal'Thor prove to me that a book can think for itself and we'll talk again ;)
 
@n_palum Then you should know that it's not really an insult at all.
@Mithrandir What if the text of the book says "please destroy me and use my desecrated pages to make a model train"?
 
9:48 PM
@Randal'Thor in that case it would be fine
 
the real question is whether the book does say that
 
It does ... as a steganographic message hidden within the text.
Damn, us puzzlers should all get together to write an ergodic book. It would be amazing.
3
Let's see if we can beat this guy.
 
^everyone go up vote Emrak's awesome monstrosity there.
@Randal'Thor the ultimate metapuzzle.
*nominates @Emrakul to head the project*
 
10:05 PM
I'd nominate humn.
 
Ditto. I would consider shoveling actual money toward a book of humn poetry.
 
Oulipo, meet Puztackex!
 
yes
 
The Hymns of humn
 
beautiful
 
10:07 PM
I await the meta post about this book :P
 
@Mithrandir Nah, I'd get suspended for spamming or something :-P
 
Let's all make an extreme metapuzzle - an ergodic puzzle book! 'After a random idea thrown out in chat, I have decided to actually post something. Let's all, collaboratively, write a book to rival House of Leaves.' ...nah, I'm not a good enough puzzler to put it out there.
Baku
Sarajevo
Prague
Astana
Bishkek
 
Baku, Sarajevo, Prague, Astana, Bishkek, Tashkent, Ashgabat, Tehran, Beijing, Hanoi, Baghdad... if that's what you're looking for
 
...yeah, thanks
 
Why these capitol cities in particular?
 
10:17 PM
@Rubio's puzzle
 
I feel like they're irrelevant due to the sub-note, but it doesn't hurt to check anyway
 
with the caveat that he might have been talking about capital letters
 
@Randal'Thor Re: this comment - I'd rather say "please don't do this at all", but I accept the fact that that's not going to stop anyone :/
All caps is DJUNDRANDALTHORSELECTRONICSURVEILLANCEREPORTUHIGHSRTIPABHCRKKUGSREPORTTICVGSREPO‌​RTIGSREPORTPSEREPORTSOTTLMTVWPPCGWTRTAWTCMGLRFNGWOPPCGTNBPWPCFIPISEMREPORTOASREPO‌​RTPSUBMITTEDBAANKEEDOODLEDANDAFOURNOTRUMP if that helps
Starts of each sentence begins with SPOT... but then the rest is gibberish so it's probably irrelevant
 
looks like gibberish to me, but I just wanted to point out alternate interpretations
 
@Sp3000 Just taking the capitalized first letters of words, you get DJDRATSESRUHSRTIPABHCRKKUGSRTICVGSRIGSRPSEROTTLMTWPPCGWTRTAWTCMGLRFNGWOPPCGTNBPW‌​PCFIPISEMROASRPSBAYDDAFNT
 
10:24 PM
@Sp3000 I see Rand's name in there.
 
(the words you see in there are fully capitalised words in the original text)
 
oh. Steganography is hard (to solve)
 
very
 
@Randal'Thor that's why I wrote 'insult' - I'm joking as well 😄
 
10:33 PM
:-)
 
(the emoticons show up so weirdly on this phone)
 
10:52 PM
(Rrrr, I just reloaded the computer and got plopped here with nothing to say, for now. Beg pardon.)
 
0
Q: Something dotty in the state of Rome

NarusanI'm a time traveller. In order to keep balance to the universe, it is my duty to preserve past, present and future. However, the Bad Guys want to mess with our past to destroy humanity as we know it once and for all. They are usually trying to execute great leaders in the past, although our age...

 
Hey @humn!
 
@ping! More wise words to the wizening?
 
I just found something awesome, not only for you but for everyone:
 
You should see that thing walking along the beach! We're in a renaissance of mechanical wonders.
 
11:06 PM
Plus I still have those songs to show you that I pinged you about earlier.
 
Spill! The neighbrhood is listning.
 
Pretty much all this guy's stuff is worth watching/listening to, multiple times even.
I got hooked by "Shibboleth", but "A Belated Introduction" and the "Marvellous Organ" are perhaps even better.
 
(minutes to listen)
 
One part I even liked well enough to put on my profile, which I think will resonate (perhaps in more than one way) with you as well:
> I do what I can to be a class act,
Though I fear that detractors shall ever detract.
I pay them no heed; they're not worth my time
(except to disparage them briefly in rhyme).
 
Ogden Nash meets Tom Lehrer!
 
11:10 PM
Tom Lehrer? Is that the guy who sings periodically? (in a wordplayish sense)
 
Tabular! (Oooo, I was just composing a list of others who should be acknowledged, all the way to Weird Al. What fun.)
 
And Pikedevant is one whose lilt hadn't crossed my hairs until you delighted us with that lead.
 
Enjoy!
 
(I suspect the full name is "Pikedeviant")
 
11:16 PM
On the topic of deviant works of art, but in a different medium, do you happen to know the book House of Leaves?
 
Not yet . . .
 
Once more - enjoy!
(That's not a link to the book itself, but to a description of it by our own Emrak which makes it sound pretty damn spectacular.)
 
Oh wow wow! Bow wow wow! Poetry Concre'te !
 
It's like a cross between an Alconja visual puzzle and a piece of Humn writing, in book form.
 
Another idea that might show up in the Puzzling gallery is a play on left and right brainispheres.
Where the left side of the puzzle is visual (aimed for the right brain).
And the right side is detailed (aimed for the "wrong" brain).
 
11:25 PM
I once read a book titled "Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain".
Too many different layers of meaning.
 
I enjoy, but don't buy, the stereotypes.
Every distinction is worth attention.
But none are definitive nor limiting.
 
Every distention is worth attinction ... no, doesn't work.
Every tincture is worth tenure.
 
Always worth a try!!!!!!!!
 
Every tonsured tincture is worth tenure.
 
Well cut my hair and call it a scalp.
 
11:29 PM
If I keep going like this, I'll end up with:
Jan 5 at 19:47, by Rand al'Thor
Sep 11 '16 at 16:29, by Rand al'Thor
For the price of my advice to entice lice to the nice rice device and dice mice twice in a trice, thrice a slice of ice with spice in a vice will suffice.
 
Just can't contain ourselves. (Even the roaming opossum got scared off by my belly laugh.)
 
The only thing that can contain ourselves is yourselves.
Or possibly our shelves.
You have an opossum?
 
On the fly, off the shelf, from the hip, in the backyard.
(While I have a backyard. Getting ready for a move back to the city.)
Someone should write a book based on lessons learned from opossums.
 
(Urgh, cities.)
 
Did you see my reference to crossing a street (not exactly like Frogger) that only city-zens know how?
You can go halfway, when traffic allows.
Then you're stuck there.
Until traffic allows.
 
11:37 PM
If there's a little island in the middle of the road, it's OK.
Otherwise you're left standing on a thin white line.
 
You know
Conversations along a thin white line.
 
Like a line of Tippex on a page of writing.
("correction fluid", since most other words for it are very regional)
 
(late follow-up) I would've never developed the habit had I realized how many of the passing cars were in shaky hands.
 
That depends very much on the country you're in.
 
Here it is called "white-out."
Ah the colrful language.
 
11:40 PM
In the lands of the far north, where they use blackout curtains in summer to keep out the midnight sun, do they use white-out curtains in winter?
 
Light-in curtains?
 
Just set the curtains on fire.
"It's curtains for you!"
 
Better throw me in the water.
 
You can never be certain of a curtain.
 
You asked for it.....
 
11:43 PM
It might have dirt in - then you'd be hurtin'.
 
Showrrr..... Surrrrrr!
 
Blurtin'
 
Skirtin' (board)
 
such impertin
ence
 
11:44 PM
Or is that another Britishism?
 
isitism?
 
0
Q: 3 countries name into 1 country name

Jamal SenjayaBellow I operate three countries name into a country name. The 4 countries must have different names Determine how the operation works, then replace ?? with a country name. Example 1. Iceland # Haiti & Trinidad And Tobago = Chile 2. Austria # Benin & Uzbekistan = Iran 3. Austria # Somalia & U...

 
all the first-page Google hits for "skirting board", at least for me, are from UK sites. But that may be Google tailoring things to my known location.
 
@GarethMcCaughan Whence come you hence - was it from thence, was there a fence? They've raised the rents, due to the dents - I need recompense.
 
I took it as wainscoting.
 
11:46 PM
like a narrower wainscot
 
btw you mean hither, not hence
 
Apparently so.
 
you can go hence or come hither, but not really the other way around
 
@GarethMcCaughan I never remember which way round those are.
 
11:47 PM
Don't make me sentence two others: whither and whence.
 
At least I can get my thou/thee/thy/thine right.
It bugs me when people use "thee" in the nominative.
 
I often have difficulty with arbitrary pairs of things, but that pair has never caused me any trouble. I wonder why (and, more specifically, I wonder whether there's some parallel with something more obvious).
yeah, people trying and failing to write Elizabethan English really get on my nerves.
actually, that sentence is ill-constructed; it's not the people but the bad English that grates.
 
Another one I have trouble with is misinformation and disinformation. I think one of them is just false and the other is actual lies, but I can never remember which is which.
 
@humn there's also thither/thence
 
(tittering) ... and respelling
 
11:49 PM
@Randal'Thor To me "disinformation" strongly suggests dishonest political propaganda etc.
 
@GarethMcCaughan Where the first "th" in thither is pronounced ... how?
 
hard
I mean voiced
like "these" not like "thin"
 
I wondered if it might be like T.
 
oh, no, definitely not
 
Thin woodsman, I've heard was the original idea
 
11:50 PM
It's one odd word.
One for you, @Gareth: "2 is a very odd prime".
 
One is and odd word alright
 
@Randal'Thor I'm pretty sure I have uttered that exact sentence myself more than once
(so, of course, have many others)
 
the sun
nothing original
 
nicely done
 
Yawn! (enthusiastically)
 
11:52 PM
though "new" would be nearer the original source
 
(not that I even invented it independently - I heard it from one of my lecturers)
 
how does one yawn enthusiastically
?
 
With the rising sun!
 
  n
 u
s
 
by the time the sun is rising I am more often yawning very unenthusiastically
(at the end, not the start, of the day)
 
11:53 PM
Animation! Fraternite, egalite . . .
 
@Randal'Thor I always liked the logo of Sun Microsystems. Not particularly "rising" but your letter-arranging reminded me of it.
 
searches Google
Ohhh, that's clever.
 
isn't it?
 
For the benefit of others:
 
(the pure maths department at my university used to be full of 'em)
 
11:55 PM
My favourite ambigram has got to be the light one.
 
the light one?
 
ah
is that one Hofstadter's? it looks like his style
 
I almost paid for a licence plate "7734 NI"
it would only make sense upside down after an accident
 
11:56 PM
> Description: Wave-particle ambigram by Douglas Hofstadter
Apparently so.
 
(it's OK, I got it without the second comment -- I too had a pocket calculator with a 7-segment display once)
 
Best of all, it's easy to write by hand.
 
I wonder whether the vertical of the exclamation mark is deliberately intended to suggest photons in Feynman diagrams. I bet it is.
 
(rest of story... QJQ XKXK)
 
It would be a nice thing to leave on blackboards in physics departments.
 
11:57 PM
(though it might just be intended to suggest waves, since -- at least for me -- the "particle" reading jumps out at the eye more than the "wave" one)
 
(A license plate nobody could write correctly)
 
@GarethMcCaughan Really? I've always found "wave" much easier to see than "particle".
 
interesting. Perhaps it depends on the distance one's looking from.
If I squint, then of course the "wave" becomes more apparent
 
Is light black and blue, or white and gold?
 
it's a bit like the Einstein/Monroe picture.
 
11:59 PM
(Personally I can only see blue and gold. I guess that means I'm weird. Which I already knew.)
 
An open question for those who can? How many slits can a single photon pass through?
 
I bet one could ambigrammatize the dress thing
@humn all of them
 
On a good day!
 

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