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2:00 PM
so @Mir
 
Mir?
 
Mir?
 
so @Mithrandir what exactly do you want me to do with this screenshot?
 
((echo))
 
Mir?
@GarethMcCaughan upload it and I'll steal it
 
2:00 PM
y'know, you could've talked about this in the TL
 
keyboard failure, sorry
we could. would it in fact have been more relevant there than here?
 
@Deusovi TL?
 
(I don't see that it would)
 
it would not have been
 
@dcfyj Teacher's Lounge, a mod-only chat room
 
2:01 PM
@dcfyj sorry, you are not cleared for that information
 
:P
 
Ah ok
 
@Deusovi shhh, now we have to kill him
 
but that's the fun part!
 
meh, just a name
 
2:01 PM
fortunately there's no way anyone else can have overheard
 
...and that's why you're getting kidnapped!
 
lol
 
There are names that must not be spoken.
 
dun dun dunnn
 
I overheard
 
2:02 PM
gasp How is that possible?
 
That-which-must-not-be-named ?
 
(and I don't like the name :/)
 
@Mithrandir so, wait, the obvious place to put this would be on i.stack.imgur.com but (presumably for obvious and excellent reasons) there is no obvious way to upload things there other than in an actual puzzle or answer. I could put it on main-imgur under my own name but somehow that feels like the Wrong Answer.
psst, no one tell Ankoganit the name of the Puzzling-specific mod chatroom
 
You can upload it in an actual puzzle/answer (or here, for that matter) and then not do anything with it.
 
ugh, I suppose so
 
2:04 PM
heh
 
Re C4 I have the exact same thoughts as Gareth atm but can't think of any good 6s for solution of 8s for cleansing atm (except, say, DETOXING which in no way fits)
 
note that MOehm was just arriving, hence the oddity at top right; let me know if that is a problem
 
(wow, you've got a huge screen)
Thanks
 
volkswagen emissions scandal, eh
 
@GarethMcCaughan What browser is that?
 
2:09 PM
Firefox
but note that I had to fudge the right sidebar a bit to remove secret bits
 
Huh, doesn't look like ff to me for some reason
 
and I fuzzed out the labels in other tabs
 
missed opportunity, Gareth - you could've opened a lot of weird tabs
 
hah
 
@Deusovi Possibly funny, but too much effort
 
2:10 PM
I wanted to play guess the fuzzed out tabs but I can only make out a Windows logo :P
 
Oh, you caught me while I tried to sneak in. My icon should at least have comic-strip-like speed lines.
 
none of them is actually terribly secret, but on general principles I think such things should always be obscured
(because if you usually don't then when you do everyone will know that this time you have something to hide)
 
Nah it's good to do that - otherwise you have jerks commenting on what you have open :)
 
@GarethMcCaughan uhun, sure :P
 
oh hi @MOehm. Got any good guesses for how the CCCC works? :-)
 
2:11 PM
@GarethMcCaughan :(, I wanted a picture of Puzzling Overlords too :P (kidding)
 
I posted a screenshot of my tabs a while back, and didn't obscure anything because you could only see a few letters of each :P
 
lol
 
@Deusovi Firefox doesn't let them get that narrow
 
I've had that many tabs open before :P
 
I have... 7.
 
2:12 PM
@GarethMcCaughan It does if you get enough of them :P
 
@GarethMcCaughan I was about to offer a hint, because I've got a feeling that I've made it too obscure inadvertently.
 
@Mithrandir I have at least 60.
 
actual number of tabs open in this browser window is 82
 
Well, at least it used to, I don't remember if it still does
 
And this is on my laptop - my desktop has around 120-ish.
 
2:13 PM
(this is an unusually low number for me)
 
Yeah, I've never run that many. The most I've run is 40-ish
 
 
I usually run at a cool 8-10
 
Sid
Don't you guys get suffocated or something with so many tabs. The max that I ever had was 20.
 
2:14 PM
and actually the way I counted was by control-pagedowning through them which means Firefox has now actually loaded all those pages and therefore takes up more memory than I would like it to, so I'm about to disappear for a minute while I kill and restart it :-).
 
Really? I only have many tabs open when I gather links for posts here. And many for me means more than ten. I usually have only 3 to 7 tabs open.
 
that's the screenshot from earlier
 
I don't remember if chrome can do it, but Firefox can have multiple windows inside itself, pretty handy for quick switching.
 
My current session has 225 tabs open in 13 windows.
 
2:14 PM
(back)
 
@dcfyj ooh, didn't know that
 
(memory usage down from ~2GB to ~500MB)
 
@Deusovi Yeah, I forget where the option is, but it's like the windows 10 multiple desktop thing.
 
And you can even name the tab groups and order them however you like in the tab group window.
 
2:16 PM
oooooh
 
damn, should have made small steganographic modifications to the comments in the right sidebar. Except that maybe Mithrandir is going to be doing something of the sort in his puzzle anyway :-).
 
that would be really helpful for me
 
@GarethMcCaughan ;)
 
I have chrome at work, so I can't really look into it, but I can check it out at home.
 
also, @Gareth, you never star anything, do you
 
2:17 PM
@Mithrandir Not very often.
 
I use "Session Manager" addon to preserve sessions, because with as many tabs as I routinely have open (... I've got a saved session of 22 windows with 2469 tabs!) I was finding the Firefox-provided session preservation kept losing stuff.
 
Other than in games of Contact where I star a great deal, of course.
 
I do, but I haven't starred anything currently on the starboard.
 
@Rubio huh, never had that problem (also never had that many tabs open, though)
 
I also use "UnloadTab" to background unload idle tabs, to keep the memory usage down
 
2:18 PM
2469 tabs?
That's impressive.
 
Sid
That is scary
 
It's a little over 100 tabs per window
 
o_O er... sure you don't want to be using bookmarks by that point? :P
 
That's like all the tabs I've opened ever. :)
 
@dcfyj On average. And I doubt Rubio keeps all of his windows equally balanced.
 
2:19 PM
hehe, probably not
 
Rubio's not very balanced. Why would his tabs-per-window be?
 
Sid
@MOehm Maybe a hint for the C4? Or at least tell us if we are on the right track?
 
@Rubio Because it counterbalances your imbalance?
 
Okay, here's a hint: One of the components of the wordplay is a single letter, but it's not "cool first".
 
("first in solution" I guess?)
 
2:22 PM
I hope it's not lobotomy, because that's not cleansing lol
 
No, that's messing up. :)
 
@Sp3000 could be "lost cool first" as well
 
I'm not sure how that'd give a single letter without it being -C with "cool first"
 
2:36 PM
first in solution (S), JERK minus the letters for COOL
 
@Sp3000 That's a good guess, but it's not that either. The single letter is an abbreviation.
 
Oh... hm. Physics jerk I guess? (did that use a letter?)
(no need to answer MOehm :P)
 
lol these hints just making it harder :) I'll wait for the next one
 
Well "lost" is looking more like an anagrind now, although the words either side of it don't look very shufflable :P
 
RKEJ!
 
2:46 PM
guess who's back
 
RKEJ! And that's more of a hint than it looks at first sight. (And that's it for hints at the moment. Sorry!)
 
are people playing anything at the moment
?
 
Sid
Okay, then, cool could be the one getting anagrammed.
 
wait.... what? i literally mixed up the letters in a random order and it means something?
 
Sid
And JERK might well be the def..
LOCO sounds half-promising.
 
2:50 PM
loco...motive!
lost cool could be going loco, and anagramming cool gives you loco also. huh.
 
Sid
Solution for Cleansing- Hmm, could be many things..
 
maybe for cleansing is def
 
COLO???? is also pretty promising
... kind of
 
Don't remind me of colonoscopies
 
i can't think of any 8 letter words beginning with loco besides locoweed and locomote
probably not loco
 
2:53 PM
@n_palum I wouldn't be surprised if that was the right track :P COLONICS maybe? (if that's a thing)
 
Sid
Cologne is only 7, though.
 
@n_palum That can be cleansing :S
 
Usually the laxatives before are what cleanse
 
lol
 
Or sometimes it's just a matter of fasting for a long long time
 
Sid
2:55 PM
fasting does cleanse the body from toxins though..
 
Kind of a quiet day today
 
I'm hiding from Deus and Anko :P
 
You can't hide from me
 
coming for you!
 
O my
 
3:06 PM
(This is not me by the way)
 
O_O
 
@dcfyj :p
 
That must be Deus.
 
Sid
I got scared for a moment there.
 
I can make a much creepier face than that haha
 
3:07 PM
Someone please write a long message so that the eyes stop staring at me...
 
I was like... no way that is actually dc
 
@MikeQ lol
 
VTC - Creepy
 
@n_palum nah, it's some guy on twitter
 
Sid
Sigh those eyes are out of range now..
 
3:08 PM
A Matthew Santoro apparently
 
Wonder what made him make that face :O
 
'lo the gnome
 
hello :)
 
Talking to spirits?
 
@Techidiot no idea, his profile picture looks pretty normal (if you want to know what we're talking about gnome, scroll up :P)
 
3:09 PM
Hey!
 
Matthew Santoro :P I used to watch him
 
This is the text that accompanied his twitter post. "This is my not-creepy-at-all "How is your Friday going?" face."
 
is Shiro down @codenames?
 
yup, she poofed out of the room
Even when mith brought her back in she didn't work, and somehow she left the room again since then.
 
@Mithrandir No, that is not me. I don't look remotely like that.
 
3:14 PM
haha
 
In my mind, Deus looks like his avatar
 
Yeah Deus actually looks more like a desk lamp IRL
 
Actually, I think, she didn't leave the room at all. May be something went wrong with the program and it's stuck.
 
She's not in the chatters' list at all, she's not in the room
 
I can see her :-/
Oh
Cache
 
3:20 PM
@Deusovi okay. But I hacked your computer:
;)
(I just need to to fix the favorite tags.)
 
Sloppy work...did you use a hacksaw?
 
Yeah. Nearly got electrocuted.
 
@Mithrandir Those aren't my favorite tags! And those links should all be purple!
 
I was going to say, why isn't the page in grayscale
 
yeah lol
 
3:25 PM
@Ankoganit Oh. And, Brazil was a tough place for vegan. I hope you are not. If you are, do some research before taking off :)
 
@Deusovi So I need a list of your favorite tags :P
 
@Mithrandir Electro-cute-d is what happens to Pikachu
 
(Actually, those are pretty much my least favorite tags.)
 
@Techidiot I'm not, fortunately; thanks for the advice!
 
@Deusovi Nothing wrong with a list of random tags...
 
3:26 PM
@Techidiot BTW are there lots of mosquitos?
 
Come on, you should've at least tried to guess my favorite tags.
Three of them shouldn't be hard to figure out. :P
 
Heard nothing like that. But, not so economical place for INR people.
 
(and probably too)
 
Grid deduction
 
I don't actually have . I should add it.
 
@Techidiot Hm ok thanks.
 
But the others are all right.
 
, clearly :P
 
3:30 PM
pff
 
nah, it's just the four that I confirmed
I don't like my front page to be too yellow
 
I'm going to add a and then make a synonym for it
 
@Rubio you monster
 
3:31 PM
@Sp3000 Back from that one craze a while ago. They got annoying.
 
@Techidiot you eat no meat at all? I would've just thought you didn't eat bovine products. (Sorry if I'm being rude, it's not my intent)
 
I should probably actually add some favourite tags, eh
 
There are lots of complete vegans in India
 
Never been there :P
 
Favorite tags just highlight questions for you - nothing else.
They're pretty much useless for me, since I look at all questions anyway. :P
 
3:32 PM
There are lots of complete $(word) in India.
 
The closest I've been to those continents is the Bahamas, which isn't close at all.
 
@dcfyj No. Nothing rude in that :) Yes, complete vegan. No eggs either.
 
not many vegans by choice, however :P
 
@Techidiot Of course, vegan :P
 
for word in vegans geniuses children PSEers
 
3:33 PM
At least three in our team are vegans
 
You will find a lot of them here. Some of them don't eat things like - onions/potatoes as well
 
me no vegan
i probably cam
i probably can't live with out bacon and steak
 
And one "conditional vegan" who eats veg iff parents are around
 
I'm not specifically vegetarian/vegan, but I'm not overfond of meats.
 
yes you can
 
3:34 PM
So... could "first in solution" refer to the first few letters, rather than just "s"
 
There are people who for personal reasons don't eat onions and/or potatoes? I've never heard of such a thing; what would make someone intentionally not eat those?
 
@MikeQ Nah, don't think so.
 
nightshades? Those bother people sometimes
 
Potatoes are non-veg?
 
@Rubio and other veggies that grow underground
I remember a question asked on SE about that. You could look it up
Or wait, let me find it for you
 
3:35 PM
By the way I was largely convinced the C4 was going to be COLONIC until I learned how to count. Also I couldn't get anything else word-play to work beyond the COOL*. Still, might inspire someone else ...
 
19
Q: Why do some Hindus, especially brahmins, not eat onion or garlic?

Afzaal Ahmad ZeeshanI have been with some Brahmins, and I was told that along with meat, they are also prohibited from eating onions and garlic. I can understand the meat prohibition because of cows, but what is the reason for the prohibition on onions and/or garlic?

 
lol
 
Anyone up for Spyfall? I'm in if we can get 5 other people
 
@Avantgarde Interesting
 
Wh
 
3:36 PM
@Deusovi sure
 
@Rubio I was thinking COLONICS earlier but yeah, the rest doesn't quite seem to fit does it...
 
@Sp3000 and has the singular/plural mismatch to boot
 
Sid
@dcfyj not really, no. You could find some people who consume bovine products but they are quite rare.
 
How's my impersonation now @Deus? :P
 
duh
 
3:38 PM
Hmm I was thinking exercise<->aerobics, but I guess it doesn't hold for colonics then?
 
not really, no
 
(I don't actually know the word)
 
In a cryptic clue, could any word mean the first letter of that word? Or does it need to say "first" or "head" etc?
 
The badges are misaligned and the links still aren't all purple.
@MikeQ You need some sort of indicator. All wordplay must be indicated.
 
I don't know what's up with those badges - all I did was change the number.
 
3:40 PM
... unless it's a common abbreviation. Or semi-common, if you're a UK newspaper.
 
@Avantgarde Thanks - that was enlightening, I never thought about that being a source of dietary restriction.
 
If def is cleansing, are there synonyms for "cleansing" that don't end in "ing"?
 
Sid
@Ankoganit "iff parents are around" - Pretty sure I have had many of my friends being that. :P
 
xD
 
Not 8 letters, but e.g. shower, purification
 
3:43 PM
What if def is "solution for cleansing"?
 
I suspect def is solution for cleansing
 
Then e.g. chlorine or something
 
That's possible.
 
yeah, I floated that earlier like ammonia or detergent
 
I'm starting to doubt that "first in solution" -> S. It could be (cool first) in solution.
 
3:45 PM
MOehm deconfirmed "first in solution" actually
(in transcript somewhere in the past few hours)
 
That it is S?
 
*deconfirmed, I blame autocorrect
 
@MikeQ Just to not chase you down the garden path: I've said earlier that it isn't "first in solution" either and that the single letter is an abbreviation.
 
Unlike the first one the second message isn't currently starred though :P
 
Oh, I thought Sp3k said "reconfirmed"
 
3:48 PM
Yeah I did, typo :P (damn keyboard)
 
ablution fits as synonym for cleansing
and has a healthy component of "solution"
 
But the rest of the clue doesn't really fit, does it?
 
Could just be "cool" --> C
 
Sid
How?
 
yeah I dunno how to get the AB in and the SO out
 
3:54 PM
(jerk lost, 7)(cool first, C) = solution for cleansing?
 
Sid
Oehm said that Cool first isn't for C.
 
Not "cool, first". Just "cool".
 
"first in solution" could mean "put it at the front of solution"
 
@Deusovi I've seen cold and hot used to clue C and H, because that's what apparently is written on some faucets, but I don't think just C for cool works.
 
Hm, alright.
Well then, I don't have a clue what in there could be an abbreviation.
 
3:56 PM
you should check out that wiki :)
 
(And I'm not that misdirecting in my hints. Usually not. :>)
 
Could first = o as in one/first
 
@Rubio Yes. That's a common practice followed by some Brahmins/Jain's who consider eating root vegetables as impure. Some of them don't wear any footwear nor they wear any clothes or western clothes. There are huge varieties of people/culture/traditions followed here. Impossible to list down their do's and don'ts
 
Sid
India is basically a United Europe. Just poorer.
 
@n_palum Maybe, like acetONE...?
 
3:58 PM
@Rubio Sure. Though, I've never read the answers there myself :P I just knew I had come across the question on SE
 
well then it'd = one not o as I was suggesting for an abbreviation
 
What's the indicator for first->one->o?
 

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