All of the non-spies were so angry, up-in-arms shouting, over the friend's vote. They were all, "How could you discount evidences 1, 2, 3 - she's OBVIOUSLY the spy, why would you vote to save her????"

Was this Spyfall?

I don't remember the game's name, but maybe?

It's hard when somebody invokes a friendship pact in a game, because they could be doing it just to make you trust them :p

It was masterful gaslighting, though - movie-quality, really :D

i've definitely never done that coughs

Anyone down to play a game of Codenames later?

maybe? I have to check up on a few things beforehand

Which room?

The Codename room, obviously. It's frozen right now, but if we can get another mod who wants to play

I have to do math right now, though

I honestly had no idea there was a Codename room

They seem to have moved to Discord

Yeah. But I like the room way better, partly because cough phone time limit so I basically can't play on there

Plus, Discord is meh on my phone anyways

Oh, why can't I use my laptop? Glad you asked!

My school just happens to PUT YOUR ENTIRE LAPTOP ON LOCKDOWN when you try to access discord of all sites

It doesn't do that for twitter

put your laptop on lockdown?

I wish I was joking

i'm hoping this is a school laptop and not a personal laptop, because if they could shut down your personal laptop that's some 1984 dystopia sh*t

School. Personal laptop is currently broken and too lazy to try and get it repaired

Normally, when you try to access a website the school blocks it. Here's the block list:

(BASICALLY EVERYTHING)

That's ridiculous

Okay, not really but I'll explain

I was about to say you're free to add me on Discord if you want, i'm usually around to chat and stuff

The school blocks all the usual websites: Game websites (Steam, Blizzard, etc. and the like), Instant Messaging (Instagram, Snapchat, Facebook, Discord*), and everything NotSafeForWork

But the school's expanded its algorithm to block anything "non-affiliated". I'm not actually sure what falls underneath the "non-affiliated" but it blocks the weirdest things

Like the main page for Codidact is blocked, but one of the sub-pages isn't

School filters make no sense most of the time

I went through the whole process of creating a new Google account (first name: bobble, last name: Poofy), setting up forwarding to my main email, etc. so I could email Long Rant to 'borg, then chickened out :(

But I know it's not just a list of "approved" websites, because, well, it would be way too many for the kinds of websites I can access

@bobble aww you can totally email me! i don't even have to read if you want, it could help just to send it and i can swear on my honor just to archive it

I think the school runs an algorithm through the website and if it can't detect a specific usage for the website (for example, it lists all SE sites under "IT" "coding" or something) then it just gets blocked as "non-affiliated")

Now, here's where it gets annoying

I want someone to know all the ranting that goes on in my head, but ack it's scary to email Stranger I Met On The Internet

@PrinceNorthLæraðr all SE sites? Even, say, Parenting?

totally understandable, no worries :)

@bobble Well, I think so. It listed Puzzling Stack Exchange as "coding". I think it just sees SE and the algorithm thinks its coding

Blocking things to do with coding seems weird at a school, that might be relevant to computer curriculums.

It doesn't block SE, btw :P

Oh, my bad. I thought you were saying it did :p

Nah, SE is good

Usually, for websites, it just gets blocked. It just loads a page and be like "blocked" and then you can click back whatever right? But specifically for Discord, the entire screen (well, web browser) turns red and has a countdown and is like (reason for shutdown: Discord) and I can't do ANYTHING on the web for an X amount of time that INCREASES the more times you try to access discord

That's really dumb. Probably it counts Discord as "social media" and that gets extra-blocked so people pay attention in class or whatever

I think it might also do it for cough very popular NSFW sites, but I wouldn't know

I hope not :p

You hope that it's not blocked or you hope I don't know? :P

I hope you don't know :p

Anyhow, that's how I found out that school considers at least PSE to be "IT", because when I tried to access Puzzling, it just listed it under "SE" and type: "IT"

PSE is obviously an IT website, what do you guys use it for? Puzzles?

The weirdest thing was, the last time I got blocked, I wasn't even on Discord! My laptop was just being really slow (at school) and then BAM!

It also does a fancy thing where it blocks you from running applications that are not approved, including Zip files, which means no emulator :(((

I mean I see ppl playing Minecraft and stuff and I'm like "how", but whatever

Yeah. Blocking non-approved EXE files is common for school filters unfortunately, it's to prevent malware. But Minecraft gets through sometimes

my first copy of Minecraft was off my friend's thumb drive in middle school

Determined kids vs school firewall will always end up with the determined kids winning, provided they are determined enough

It's actually the first time this year, but I wouldn't know that much, because I'm not opening malware software on my laptop. All I know is that my 3ds emulator wouldn't open one day

I do miss playing Fire Emblem though :/

Hopefully you can get your personal laptop fixed soon :(

Hehe, I was complaining about the school laptop, and one of the users in Literature SE (Tsundoku), was like, "well, you can just use Ubuntu or one of those Linux software", and proceeded to explain how to do it using a flash drive

It was kind of funny

I swear half of my tech buddies have solutions to problems that are just "have you tried Linux"

And then I told him that it'll probably be blocked and he was like "well, there are ways to circumnavigate that" and I had to explain it was school's laptop and probably would get in very big trouble if they found out I was tampering with it

Let me see if I can find that conversation

Yeeeah, having unauthorized OS would probably be an issue. Don't risk it :p

Oh yeah, the conversation started because it blocked Gareth Reese's (user in Literature SE, extremely prolific answerer) website was blocked as a "game site"

Starts here

"So, after you've mapped out your target, you should watch them carefully and become accustomed to their daily life and pattern. Find a predictable pattern of there's and memorize it. Maybe it's the time they leave or what they do before sleeping. Check all windows and doors before the day of your kill. You should also get used to the routine of the street...."

"... as to minimize any potential witnesses"

Digression: my mom recently went off about how much she loved my name, how she had it picked out before I was even conceived, and in general how important my name is to her. So now I feel more guilty for contemplating other, more gender-neutral names.

@PrinceNorthLæraðr flashbacks to a bumble date i went on in college with a guy who wanted to be a crime author, and i made the mistake of joking that he could probably commit a murder if he wanted after all the research he's done. cue a stunningly accurate 30-minute detailed breakdown of how he would murder somebody and get away with it

was it a specific someone?

@Sciborg I hope you didn't give him a second data :P

not gonna lie it was pretty hot :p

kidding, kidding

@bobble was the name conversation prompted or did she just start talking about it out of the blue?

Someone made a pun with my name

("someone" was me, if that matters)

Sounds like she's not super thrilled about you contemplating other names :/

Again, I haven't come out to them at all. They don't know.

It's an oddly specific thing to say if they don't suspect something.

I don't want to assume anything, though, obviously

Did it feel odd to you in the moment?

The last time I tried to bring something up that mattered to me, they were "oh, that's not true, you're making things up in your head". I am therefore unwilling to bring anything up.

yeahhh completely understandable

i know that feeling so well

understandable and relatable

@Sciborg I don't have a great "is this odd" meter, usually I get that by asking people "is this odd?"

@bobble Eeek

@Deusovi Are you trans/queer too?

@bobble It just feels odd to me the way you describe it, but again I don't have whole picture and don't want to assume

That's also a pretty personal question to ask, North :p

my thoughts on (my own) gender are roughly "i really don't understand gender, but people call me male so i'll go with that i guess"

@Sciborg Well, Deus has always gone by he/him they/them, and idk.

My name was her special, perfect name (there was another picked out for a male child). My sister is named after a relative on my dad's side. Both of our middle names are picked out by grandparents, so in the end my name is the only one she got a say on.

Not that that's an unusual thing for cis, but idk. (shrug)

(we support you Deus regardless of how you identify :D)

(That was a response to Deus, not Bobble)

yeah, it's a bit personal but i'm not bothered by it

Oop, sorry. I didn't know what was too personal or not

but i imagine if i did have gender-related dysphoria issues it might not have gone over so well, so... keep that in mind

@Sciborg (thanks! very much appreciated)

Usually i ask "what are your pronouns" if it feels like it's okay to ask, that's usually something people don't mind clarifying :) and if they want to share more about their identity that's okay but if they don't that's also okay. A lot of people are super uncertain or uncomfortable or in a transition period in their life, so that's usually the safest way to ask.

Ah, ok

My dad brings up how someone at work is trans every so often, and he's supportive of that and says "look, shows how progressive my workplace is!"... and then he misgenders & deadnames them in passing sometimes. So I'm not sure how a "um, you don't have two daughters" would go over

Eesh :(

Says things like "he became a she" when no, she was always a she, you just didn't know

eek

Sometimes it's tough because when people don't fully understand what being trans means, they can be really open and interested and want to learn more about it, and it's a really positive conversation to explain it to them. but... not everyone is like that

at least it sounds like he's trying and just doesn't understand, rather than being actively hateful. still bad comments, but it sounds like it's out of ignorance rather than malice

Yes, hopefully it's not active malice

And I would love to explain to them, it's just that Serious Conversations have literally never gone well for me.

understandable

it's awful that it basically falls to you to do that when it really shouldn't

The burden should not fall on you, you would almost hope HR would explain it honestly. (not that every HR would even do that...)

haha nope hr is meant for the company, not for the workers

...yuppppp

so yeah, if you feel the conversation won't go positively, don't feel obligated. it sucks but it's not on you :(

My dad is currently fighting HR to hire a women to a specialized position. They are refusing on the basis of "she hasn't taken Calc 3" when she literally has 10x the work experience of the other applicants in this specific area. I suspect the fact she's a women has something to do with this.

^ (to sciborg)

This doesn't sound like a very nice workplace

Is the HR not hiring or your dad?

sounds like HR is refusing

My dad (+some other people) is supposed to choose who to hire, and then HR does the paperwork. HR is refusing to do the paperwork

Ah

Lovely

So, um, HR probably won't be stepping in for the trans awareness stuff

It's a difficult thing because you wish you could explain to help them to understand and be respectful to people in future, since he's probably deadnaming this person at work and it probably makes them uncomfortable. But you don't want it to turn into an argument or make them get up in arms and defensive

also, I really hope that my parents don't read my chat logs, since they know about my Puzzling account

they do?

I shared some puzzles with them

they're usually good about this kind of stuff

do you ever worry they might check your profile/chat logs?

I don't think they do, since they pride themselves on how great their parenting is and how much space they give their kids. But sometimes I worry a bit.

(They literally say things like "other parents push their kids to do X, we let you choose between X and Y")

I don't want to make you paranoid about it obviously, if you trust them then it's no big deal. I guess just make sure not to put anything potentially worrying in your profile :p

"My name is Bobble and I do drugs"

"Weed is awesome, 420 blaze it"

"God I love all this meth I've been doing"

"I made a bunch of C4s and threw them out on the chatroom"

"Totally gay xoxoxo"

they do know that I'm non-straight

I'm worried my parents might. That's why I've never really told them about PSE

True

They get worried if I don't make enough small talk, and since Puzzling sometimes is my only thing of note I made small talk about it.

My parents would absolutely snoop if I told them about my account, they can't help themselves :p

but I don't post anything here that they wouldn't know about, so it would be fine

Well Bobble's parents, if you ever read this, Bobble is a great user and she's amazing :D

aww

Yes, she's pretty rad :D

She helps me with my math and physics!

And she gets good grades and tutors really well!

Wait how do you know my grades?

(did I mention them at some point?)

I don't, I just assume you have good grades because that feels like a thing you would have :p

I do, mostly because of what I call "anti-procrastination" - I get stressed if I can't get things done immediately, so I do homework & studying as early as possible

can I borrow that superpower

you can try

the main thing is you do all your work before doing fun things

but... fun things are so fun

but logically, you have the same amount of time for fun things whether you do them before or after the work

and doing them after means you have the satisfaction of knowing the work is done

bold of you to assume i have a logical brain

oh yeah i am also very bad at not procrastinating

Work first, then fun things. It's really that simple :P

@bobble HOLY CRAP MY FRIEND DOES THAT

In 8th grade physics, my physics teacher got mad at her for doing nothing in class, and she's like "well, I'm already done with my work"

Other times she just does normal procrastination

@Sciborg Would you like to hear me sing? I did promise you I'll record myself singing "with Santa himself by myside" :PPP

how do you have 3 tounges?

Blech I can't sing right no

Now*

I'm glad that y'all were here to talk <3

YEAAAHHH I HIT AN EB ABOVE THE STAFF ON MY TRUMPETTT

Off you guys have no idea what that means but

Just know I am very happy

the "b" should be lowercase, since that's how flats are written

and I assume that's a difficultly high note to play on a trumpet

@bobble rolls eyes yes, I know

And yes, it is a ridiculously high note, at least at my level in high school

Most classical solo repertoire doesn't go higher than Eb above the staff, though the range of a trumpet is technically unlimited

Hence this "infinite range" is exploited most commonly by jazz trumpets, known as "screamers"

Well to be honest, most classical pieces for trumpet doesn't go above a D or C. For example, the most famous trumpet opening ever from Thus Spoke Zarathustra by Strauss (it's the opening of the 2001 Space Oddyssey). Well it's "C" but it's played on a C trumpet, so on a Bb trumpet it'd be a D

Thus endeth my geeking :P

does the geeking ever end?

@PrinceNorthLæraðr Eb6?

well wikipedia doesn't state a highest note, but it does say that trumpet fingering charts usually go up to "high C two octaves above middle C", which are C6 and C4 respectively. So I'm assuming the Eb you hit was Eb6

How to play high notes on a flute: get a piccolo

@oAlt Yup!

yeahhh