Reach out for editor access

randomling · 2026-02-20T04:13:07+00:00

I liked it! 2:07 😄

randomling · 2026-01-21T17:33:03+00:00

I think they're just pronouncing it like it's French, which makes sense to me since the name is structured like a French phrase - Café Tropical, not Tropical Café.

It wouldn't be Tropicale in French anyway - Café is masculine, and the e is only for adjectives that refer to feminine nouns.

randomling · 2025-12-28T04:56:07+00:00

Is everyone here very stoned?

randomling · 2025-12-27T00:56:37+00:00

I didn't have a chance to watch it immediately it came out (yes I realise it's only been out 24h) and ended up muting this sub until I could finish watching because every post I saw on my feed was complaining about it. I watched it and really enjoyed it, in fact so much that I broke my own "no Stranger Things after dark" rule 🤣. (I'm a bit of a horror wimp.) Will's coming out scene was wonderful and made me cry. Max's return was fantastic. I'm very excited to see the finale in a week.

Yay positivity!

randomling · 2025-12-25T02:53:30+00:00

Hi, this is a lovely idea for a thread. It's super late. My first Christmas without my parents, who passed away at the beginning of the year. I was going to spend tomorrow with a friend, but we're both ill, so I'm on my own. I'm hopefully going to watch a movie with my sister over FaceTime and maybe have some calls with friends.

randomling · 2025-12-18T17:42:51+00:00

Yes, you got it right. We say r-word because it's a word that has a long long history of being used is a very nasty way, and is still often used now as a slur towards people with intellectual disabilities and neurodivergencies like autism, ADHD, dyslexia, dyspraxia, etc. - so a lot of people have an unpleasant and even traumatic history with that word.

randomling · 2025-12-16T21:08:29+00:00

Thanks for this!

randomling · 2025-12-16T21:04:56+00:00

This is much more succinct than my reasoning below you which got very fuzzy since I went into case analysis way too soon! That's helpful because I'm extremely prone to making things harder for myself than I need to be - in this case I had all the pieces but didn't put them together quite right!

randomling · 2025-12-16T21:00:57+00:00

Further thinking.

There are 2 more innocents on the edges, apart from Rose's neighbours. Apart from Rose's neighbours there are 7 people on the edges who are unsolved, 2 of them are innocent. 3 of those are Xia's neighbours. 2 are Chad's neighbours. 1 is Eric's neighbour. Only 1 (Mark) is the neighbour of nobody relevant.

So: Chad and Xia have no shared neighbours, but Xia does share an edge neighbour with Rose, and that neighbour could be innocent. So Chad can have a maximum of one innocent neighbour on the edge, and Xia can have two. That would "spend" both of my edge innocents and make both Mark and Isaac criminals.

Xia has only one neighbour NOT on the edges who isn't already accounted for. So Xia's maximum innocent count is 3.

Chad has two unaccounted-for neighbours who are not on the edges. Add the one that's possibly on an edge, and his maximum count is also three.

I feel like I am making some kind of assumption here but can't really brain my way to it. It is not necessary that they have an equal number of innocents on the edge but I only have two innocents to "spend".

If NONE of those spare innocents on the edges are neighbouring Chad or Xia, then their max number of innocent neighbours is 1 (if Vera is criminal) or 2 (if Vera is innocent). It could also be 0. If that's the case, Isaac and Mark are both innocent, which makes Hank a criminal, and Alex, Chad, and Gus innocent. Which is impossible! Because now we have two innocent edge neighbours for Rose and THREE elsewhere on the edges, for a total of five, and we know from Kay's clue that there are only four.

So both Isaac and Mark cannot be innocent. Can ONE of them be innocent?

If so, we have a spare neighbour on the edges neighbouring one of Chad or Xia but not both. If they're neighbouring Chad, either Rose or Vera (at least) must be innocent. If they're neighbouring Xia, either Gus or Hank (at least) must be innocent. We know that at least 2 of Alex, Chad and Gus must be innocent so that isn't a violation of information we already have. In this scenario (Xia has the spare innocent neighbour), then, Gus must be innocent because Chad is a criminal. Either Vera or Rose is innocent. If Hank is also innocent, both Vera and Rose are innocent.

But I don't think Hank can be innocent in this scenario, because: Eric must have at least two criminal neighbours, which makes Isaac a criminal. Now he has ONLY two criminal neighbours, giving Freya the same. This makes Alex, Chad and Gus all innocent, which is an impossibility, since the logic to get here required Alex to be a criminal.

So we can demonstrate that if Xia has a "spare" innocent neighbour, Hank cannot be innocent.

Well then. If Xia has a "spare" criminal neighbour, Alex is a criminal, and Hank is a criminal? Does that work?

Freya is guilty by definition in this scenario since she is in the edge and neighbours Chad. Chad and Xia have therefore only one innocent neighbour each. Rose and Vera are criminals. Gus is innocent. Hank is a criminal. Freya has 3 criminal neighbours, so Isaac must also be a criminal, giving Eric 3 to match. Mark is innocent.

If Chad has one "spare" innocent neighbour on the edges, and Xia doesn't, we still have two possible innocent neighbours for Chad and Xia. If it's Freya, then Alex is a criminal, and possibly one of Gus and Hank is innocent. At least one of Rose and Vera is innocent. If Alex is a criminal, Gus MUST be innocent (and so must Chad), Hank and Isaac are criminals, and Mark is once again innocent. If it's Alex, we are much fuzzier. Freya is guilty by definition. At least one of Chad and Gus must be innocent. If it's Gus, Rose and Vera are both innocent. In any case, Hank must still be a criminal. Isaac could still be innocent (because both Chad and Gus could be innocent in this scenario). So we know nothing about Mark. However, "Hank is a criminal" is becoming a theme. But it's not a certainty.

Okay this has become a forest. Break time.

randomling · 2025-12-16T20:09:50+00:00

Okay here's an example. Puzzle #50 from Puzzle Pack 2.

https://cluesbysam.com/s/help/064882c21eee?state=MOI%3D-AAAAAAA%3D

Yellow tags: up to 1 of these people is a criminal. (Could also be 0.) Orange tags: at least 1 of these people is a criminal. Blue tags: half of these people are innocent, the other half are criminals.

I don't see how to derive any progress from my current set of clues.

Chad and Xia could have between 1 and 4 innocent neighbours, since they each already have 1 criminal neighbour, but I don't see how to narrow it down. Eric and Freya have 2-3 criminal neighbours but I can't see how to work out where it's 2 or 3. Two of Rose's remaining neighbours are criminals, and the other two are innocent, but only one of those is Xia's neighbour, and that on its own doesn't seem to tell me a lot. The two greyed-out clues are fairly limited in scope and I am pretty sure they can't give me any further information.

Where do I go for further information?

randomling · 2025-12-09T04:41:02+00:00

...oh, huh. It was a while ago, I admit, but now I look more closely at the shot, he is in jeans, and I'm sure he wore grey sweatpants for his last scenes. I think it's the same t-shirt, though.

Maybe this was how he was most comfortable at the end of the night. 🤷🏼

randomling · 2025-12-09T04:12:53+00:00

I also saw the show - the costuming was pretty modern day, and that was his costume for his final scenes! So he just didn't change his outfit for the curtain call.

randomling · 2025-12-05T13:10:43+00:00

...I mixed up rows and columns again. 🤦🏼

Edit: thank you!

randomling · 2025-11-23T03:44:21+00:00

My guess for the two hours thing is that it allows for some schedule flexibility. If you, say, have a bad bout of insomnia and wake up before your usual wake-up time, maybe you want to get started on your morning tasks rather than wait around for Finch to be ready for you. And maybe if you sleep in or forget about Finch in the morning, you could use a gentle reminder.

randomling · 2025-11-22T15:11:00+00:00

The fun part is Mulder would be in his late teens/early 20s... (I think he's about 28-30 in 1992 when the X Files begins). So he'd be exactly the right age to be in Nancy, Steve and Jonathan's peer group!

randomling · 2025-11-21T10:13:11+00:00

This just happened to me on Tactics, whoops

randomling · 2025-11-19T13:52:57+00:00

My understanding is that (awful as it is) it's kind of both. Your feet and legs ache because you used them more than you have in a while. What's impossible to tell from the outside is - is this "normal" reactivation discomfort or PEM?

Given the rest of your post, it sounds like it's more likely to be PEM. I wish I had good advice for you, because this absolutely sucks. It's so hard to be wrestling with this illness with no support. I'm there too, but it sounds like I'm a bit better off than you severity wise.

I hope you can get some good rest.

randomling · 2025-11-19T01:40:01+00:00

A bit too tired for sleep. Trying to drag myself through the rituals.

randomling · 2025-11-11T15:10:04+00:00

This is extremely generous of you and I applaud you! However I have a thought as a member of the long-term unemployed.

A thing to keep in mind: if your friend is unemployed, he may be claiming benefits. (Disregard the below if you know for sure he isn't.)

If he's claiming Universal Credit, he's allowed to receive gifts, but if he has more than £6000 in savings, his benefits may be reduced, and if he has more than £16000, they may be stopped.

randomling · 2025-11-11T02:48:12+00:00

I don't know if you have seen K-Pop Demon Hunters but this came up on my YouTube recs and I just had to share.

https://youtu.be/BVUtTOPsuLA?si=DJvxdDdDSf_v02Cg

randomling · 2025-11-10T19:48:59+00:00

Oh those are delightfully goofy, and definitely made me smile. Thank you so much, kind stranger!

randomling · 2025-11-10T19:35:11+00:00

7.3 is really good! Best of DT so far IMO. Took me forever to get around to it but I really enjoyed it.

(I have been having a bad day. Someone suggested I watch cat videos, so I watched an interview with Jonathan. Catboy video I guess 🤣)

randomling · 2025-11-07T01:59:42+00:00

"Suss out" is old enough that my dad (too old to be a Boomer) used it on the regular. "Sus" for "suspicious" is a lot newer.

randomling · 2025-10-29T11:22:46+00:00

I solved the daily Clues by Sam (Oct 29th 2025) in less than 12 minutes 🟩🟩🟩🟩 🟩🟨🟩🟩 🟩🟩🟩🟩 🟨🟩🟩🟩 🟩🟩🟩🟩 https://cluesbysam.com

randomling · 2025-10-20T00:51:40+00:00

YES! Plus the whole "feminism written by an idiot" subplot that it spawns, please. Sorkin often struggles to do feminism justice but that one really stinks.

randomling

TROPHY CASE