The Shortest Reign (February 2023 Scapegoat Blame Thread)

@Kyeh aawww

@Kyeh @tinamarie1974 I mean @kidsandliz goats kind of make a heart shape goats head lol

Those are just since confused kids who don’t know better not the ones who toughed it out lol

@Felton10 well that sucks.

@Felton10 sorry it didn’t work put. But i understand that birds can persnickity.

@Felton10 sorry, has to be tough

@Felton10
Sorry it didn’t work out for you and Snowflake. You’ll know without question when you find your new feathered friend, he/she is out there somewhere just waiting to be a part of your family! I’m still thinking a newly hatched baby bird, but what do I know.

@Lynnerizer We thought about a baby bird like Walter was (he was 10 weeks old), but felt it wasn’t fair to the bird given our age. Went back to the bird rescue this AM (said hi to snowflake-seemed to recognize us) and was trying to decide between two female eclectus parrots both with awful bird sounding names-sweety and princess. Will make a decision this week end which one we want & hopefully get it next week.

@Felton10 @Lynnerizer Ooo, those are gorgeous; what colors are the ones you’re considering?

@Kyeh @Lynnerizer Well this is the only parrot that you can tell the sex by the color-boys are green and females are red/blue. They have two females 10 and 20 years old and a male. The males has picked his feathers so he is out and came with the 20 year old one-sweety but they were not in the same cage so not bonded. We are leaning toward the 10 year old one princess who just sat like a clump in her cage. picture of sweety.

@Felton10 @Lynnerizer Oh, she’s beautiful!
How interesting about the colors. Are they quiet?

@Felton10 @Kyeh @Lynnerizer oh she is beautiful

@Kyeh @Lynnerizer @tinamarie1974 Quieter than snowflake (we hope). After all white Snowflake and various shades of grey Walter (except for the red tail) the colors on these birds are quite striking.

@kostia
Yeah, weird. That’s a bit out of the ‘job description’ I would think!

@Lynnerizer But what’s the problem with that?
Edit: Oh, I get it now - I checked and they say this:

The logo is where a pocket would be. But there is no pocket. Is there anything more ‘meh’ than a shirt with a pocket logo and no pocket?

So you’re not dumb, they’re just tricky!

@Lynnerizer Printing a logo on a pocket of a t-shirt is a right royal pain in the ass. You will almost never see it done unless the people who want it have stupid amounts of money to spend.

@Lynnerizer @werehatrack why is it so difficult

why is it so difficult

@Lynnerizer @tinamarie1974 @werehatrack
Regular screen printing setups have large platens designed to fit the entire shirt – so to perfectly line up a pre-sewn 4" pocket takes a lot of time to make it exact.

As an example of how volume prints are handled:

Pad printers are more suitable, but that’s separate equipment that costs $$$.

@Lynnerizer @tinamarie1974 The pockets have a thicker edge than center, so the screen does not make equal contact across it. Some of the DTG systems can do it, but Mediocritee does not do DTG.

@Lynnerizer @werehatrack @narfcake thanks for that! I use to work for a company who, among other things, did in house screen printing. Our machines were all completely manual. Being Supply Chain I only walked past them to get to HR or the lunch room, do no idea why itnwould have been a challenge as the process in general seemed fairly simple.

@Lynnerizer @narfcake @tinamarie1974 @werehatrack Using a machine is cheating. A true artist would do them all by hand and then give them away. Just like grandma and her quilt.

@narfcake @phendrick @tinamarie1974 @werehatrack
YEAH, what you said @phendrick!

@narfcake @tinamarie1974 @werehatrack
Very interesting! All I had thought about was the fact that I WANTED a pocket!

@Kyeh
Thanks for giving me that one, I do see how it could be taken either way. I hate to admit it but I don’t remember reading that prior ordering! Lol I might as well blame the goat for THAT TOO, after all, that is what he/she’s here for!

@capnjb I’ve been to Chester! What a cool-looking place, with all the half-timbered buildings. I think @Onionsoup is from there; I remember he said something about it when he was goat, and I remembered because I really like that city.

@Kyeh @OnionSoup We walked the walls and visited the cathedral. Stunning. We had many hours before we had to catch a flight out of Manchester so we enjoyed our visit.

@capnjb @Kyeh I am indeed from Chester! (Or rather a small village near there).

Fun random fact since you mentioned going through Wales (Chester is on English side of the border)… There is a law that makes it legal to shoot a Welshman with an arrow in Chester on (I think, Saturdays). Never been revoked, although I’m sure national laws against murder would trump it.

Also, Chester’s football (soccer) stadium is the only one in the world that straddles two countries. The field itself is almost entirely in Wales, although it’s possible to do a throw in from England into the pitch in Wales in one corner.

@Kyeh @OnionSoup Is that Wrexham? (I feel like I’m using too many vowels). Just a name I remember seeing as we tried to get our bearings. And also I was fresh out arrows so I was good to go there.

@capnjb @Kyeh @OnionSoup So if a Welshman has no arrow, he’s safe, right?

@capnjb My niece LOVED the D&D stuff! I thought I had whispered you a big thanks? Jaunty Goat sounds a lot better than some of the things I’ve been called before, so I’ll take it.

@capnjb @Kyeh @OldCatLady @OnioSoup I think you need to bring your own arrows, verify you are both on the correct side of the border, and give them an arrow to the knee so it’s not murder.

There are probably felony assault laws so you’re also probably going to trigger some sort of court battle.

@Kyeh @OldCatLady @unksol Fair assessment. Although in Wales I think they call them mrdxr rrws.

@capnjb @OldCatLady @unksol
Not even close! It’s:
Saethau llofruddiaeth !

@capnjb did the insurance not disallow 85 to 95% of the amounts billed? They usually do.

@werehatrack I have no idea. I had a two month nap at Chateau ICU, I booked the “Brought back to life twice package”, and also got the “Really cool scars everywhere on the front of me” add-on. Out the door for twelve grand… gotta say… it was a little cheaper than my wedding Five stars!

@capnjb Yikes! How was the food there? I sure hope you are doing better now.

@heartny At my wedding? Actually, pretty good And I’m doing really well now… thanks

@capnjb Glad to hear you are doing really well. I guess the food at Chateau ICU wasn’t bad either, since it apparently didn’t kill you.

@heartny To be honest, most of the food I had there I got through a tube in my nose. Great diet plan. I lost about 60 pounds in 8 SHORT WEEKS heh

I slowly started to learn how to swallow again and started with a thick liquid diet. Thick orange juice and Cream of Wheat. Mmmm. I plan to never have either of those again… ever.

I eventually graduated to a thin liquid diet and I could have ginger ale and broth based soups. I felt like a real boy again. Those were pretty good. Oh… and popsicles. I ordered those with every meal. And/or an Italian ice. I have some really weird memories from living inside my sedated brain for what seemed like a year, but one of the good ones was that I owned an ice cream truck and I made the best pineapple ice in town. So getting a half melted ice with lunch was a nice treat… even though they didn’t have pineapple.

I worked a lot with my speech/swallow therapist and eventually I made it all the way to being able to order off the ‘normal’ menu. Word of advice… stay away from hospital eggs. They did have a cottage cheese platter with fresh cut fruit… that was pretty much my go to every meal. Usually with a popsicle

Sorry… I’ve rambled. I tend to do that these days You ask, I answer… I don’t have much of a filter any more

@Felton10 My mom took out extended care insurance for 6 years worth as a young 20 something. My dad was covered by that too (good thing it went through her and they weren’t picky about medical underwriting as he got polio 3 months after they got married). He used it for 4 months in a very specialized care unit, mom is on year 5 I think with it. Fortunately where she is you don’t get kicked out if you run out of money and are trapped on medicaid. I’ve tried for decades to buy it but fail medical underwriting (major issue at 17) so can’t. Ironically I guess that is the plus of having a cancer with no cure - likely won’t need it. Moral of this story is buy it when you are healthy before age related things hit and hope for good luck for the crap shoot things that can hit at any time.

@Kidsandliz All insurance is a crap shoot-you are betting you will need it-the insurance companies are betting you won’t. Mine cost a couple hundred dollars a year more than my wife due to my diabetes but still got it because that isn’t the type of medical issue that will result in long assisted living stays.

You can’t even buy a lifetime policy these days- a couple of years is the longest you can get.

Had a client who I kept talking to about getting it and he said he would just pay the cost out of his savings if needed. When he went to a financial planner, the first question he was asked was do you have LTC insurance and now at 70+ the cost to buy a policy is prohibitive. Now he is nervous as most stays in a good LTC facility exceed 100k a year.

@Felton10 @Kidsandliz My advisor started to give me a pitch for a long-term care policy last month, but I cut him short by asking him just exactly how much it would cost me per month at my age. I’m almost 70. When he looked it up, it would have exhausted my entire retirement fund in less than 15 years just to pay the premiums. I pointed out that there wasn’t a hell of a lot to be gained by taking out that insurance since I didn’t have enough in my retirement account as it was. And my family history predicts that I’ve got another 25 to 30 years to go.

@Felton10 @werehatrack Well what you folks are saying certainly explains why they never post the premiums online when you go look. They realize you’d never ever contact them unless you had millions. I don’t feel like getting hounded to call to find out (out of curiosity only since I already have trouble just paying for health insurance).

@Felton10 @Kidsandliz Insurance is legalized gambling. When people tell me that they don’t gamble, I point out that it’s not true if they have insurance policies

@Felton10 @ironcheftoni @Kidsandliz It’s true that the only way to “win” with insurance is to have an accident, become incapacitated, die, etc. But not buying insurance is also a gamble. Decisions, decisions…

@Kyeh Oh, I definitely love that!

@Felton10 well hello princess, you are a beautiful girl!!!

@Felton10 @tinamarie1974
Oh, yes - really gorgeous! I hope she thrives and we get to see lots of pictures!

@Felton10 Oooh, so pretty! Best of luck! I hope she’s a keeper.

@Kyeh @tinamarie1974 Yes she is a cutey. Said this type of parrot doesn’t usually hang around longer than a month as they are quickly adopted.
Said this one was owned by an older gentlemen who just died. He seemed to easily adapt to his new cage as when I put some mixed treat in his food bowl he quickly came over and ate some of it and when dinner time came, I went over to his bowl to give him some pasta and he patiently waited by the bowl for me to put in back in the cage and then ate every last bite of the pasta.

Some birds are so tramatized by their new surroundings that they may not eat right away-not this one-he was probably glad to be away from all the squawking of the cockatoos.

The women who owns and runs the shelter brought Princess to our home as she did with Snowflake. I gave her all the food I had bought for Snowflake as well as 2 of his favorite wood toys for him to shred to his heart content. Wasn’t sure whether I had to pay any more money for Princess-her original adoption fee would have been $ 800-paid $ 1,000 for snowflake-she said there would be no charge but I gave her $ 200 as a contribution to the shelter for all her help, aid and guidance.

@Felton10 Wonderful story. Again, best of luck. So, is Princess a male?

@Felton10 @heartny He said female.

@Felton10 @heartny @Kidsandliz
But he kept saying “he” and “him.”
Force of habit left from having Walter, maybe?

@Felton10 @Kidsandliz @Kyeh Yeah, that was the confusing part for me. A 16 year old female eclectus parrot being referred to as “he” and “him”.

@heartny @Kidsandliz @Kyeh Definitely force of habit having Walter all these years. My wife keeps correcting me.

@Felton10 @heartny @Kyeh The “royal we he”?

@Felton10 @heartny @Kidsandliz @Kyeh you will get there! Will Princess have a presence on the forum?

@heartny @Kidsandliz @Kyeh @tinamarie1974 Hopefully once she get comfortable

@Kyeh @tinamarie1974 She’ll never forgive me for sending out a picture of her with a dirty beak.

@Felton10 @Kyeh her feathers are stunning

@Felton10 @tinamarie1974
They ARE!
So is this like the pictures people like to take of their toddlers with cake or spaghetti all over their faces?

@Kyeh @tinamarie1974 In this case, she just ate an almond.

@Felton10 @tinamarie1974
So does this kind of parrot talk?

@Kyeh @tinamarie1974 They all talk but so far we haven’t heard him say anything. The only thing we have heard come out of him is something like a loud honk like the noise a goose makes. Have no idea what triggers it and it is just as loud as the squawking snowflake made, but just a single honk.

And since you don’t know it is coming can be quite startling. Hopefully some of the phrases I keep repeating to him with take hold like “pretty girl” and “give me a kiss”-something both Walter and snowflake said

@Felton10 @tinamarie1974
So funny that you keep calling Princess him. Like, the most girly-girl name ever!

@Kyeh @tinamarie1974 Old habits are hard to break. Plus in recommending which sex of this bird to get everyone says the male is more even tempered and not hormonal (sort of the like in real life). Plus there the real possibility that in laying unfertilized eggs, one of the eggs will get stuck and require medical intervention to get it unstuck. Lady at the shelter said she paid 3k to deal with that issue with one of her birds.

@Felton10 @Kyeh @tinamarie1974 Many years ago, I lost a lovebird to an unexpelled egg issue. It happened on a weekend, in a time when vet emergency places weren’t a thing that you could find. Plus, I really didn’t know any vets that even dealt with birds.

@Felton10 Honestly, testosterone-enabled critters of all species can have their own hormonally-driven behavioral and personality issues. People who have first-hand experience with the effects of various such shifts know about it, oh, yes, and not just the parents of teenagers.

@Kyeh @tinamarie1974 @werehatrack I will have to check with the vet I am going to use so see whether they deal with egg issues. Was given several things to do and not to do to limit the birds egg producing incentives. Would hate the think that I am going to have to drive 50 miles again to the avian ER to get qualified and immediate attention but it is nice to know such places are available.

Other thing Walter’s situation taught me is that the vets who claim to specialize in birds have significant limitations both in what they know and equipment they have at the their immediate disposal to properly diagnose the issue.

@werehatrack Anyone with children of any age knows that. In addition to ongoing bird issues which are now hopefully resolved, our daughter just got a maltipoo puppy. Cute as a button. The problem is that she is 50 unmarried and had really never had much responsibility in her life. She had always been afraid of dogs, but has recently got comfortable with them as many of her friends have them so she decided to get one from a breeder.

Beside footing the bill for the dog and related costs, given her numerous frantic phone call to us about what the dog is doing or isn’t doing, the odds that we may end up with both a new parrot and a new dog increases by the hour.

@Felton10 @werehatrack
Oh good grief! I hope it doesn’t upset the bird!

@Kyeh @werehatrack Well we are still a long way from that happening but given our daughter’s history and the problems she has encountered so far, we have to be prepared for everything. The bird is very unreactive (not sure that is a word) to everything so far. Totally different that snowflake who reacted to everything, this bird has reacted to very little-nothing seems to faze him.

@Felton10 Oh, what a good girl! She is definitely a gorgeous creature.

@Kyeh Yes-SHE is striking.

@Felton10 @Kyeh With a little rhinoplasty, she could be a real looker.

@Felton10 @macromeh Ick!

@Felton10 @Kyeh @macromeh OH NO! THEY STOLE MATT RUTLEDGE’S NOSE AND PUT IT ON A POOR DEFENSELESS BIRD!

@Felton10 she is so beautiful! I hope you have many years with her. Princess, you have hit the dad and mom jackpot!

@Felton10 Congrats on your new girl Princess, she’s absolutely gorgeous! I haven’t been around much lately and I was wondering how you were doing with the hunt for another bird. I’m thrilled to see it’s been going great, she sounds like a perfect fit for you guys. Again, she’s so pretty! Good luck with everything, especially with her learning to speak! I’m so happy for your little family.

@Lynnerizer Yes-she is a looker to be sure, but as every article on this species points out, the female of the species can be more hormonal and therefore more difficult to deal with (sort of like in real life as I keep pointing out to my wife).

Having trouble figuring out what fruits and veggie she likes as that is supposed to be 80% of her diet but we have tried probably 15 different fruits and veggies with little or no success-a bite here and a bite there.

She is subsisting on five diff types of bird food, almonds, scrambled eggs, brown rice, pasta and potatoes.

@Felton10
I did read that her first dad has passed away, is there any way of getting ahold of his family so you can ask them about her diet or anything else that would help make the transition easier?

@Lynnerizer Not sure whether they rescued her after her first dad died or the daughter gave her to them, but usually they gather all the info on the bird they can like they did with Snowflake (not much of which helped us) so they can pass that info on to the next owner.

But the more I saw of Snowflake and Princess, the more I am convinced that theses birds previous living situation plays a major part of what the bird is used to, scared of, words they know and will eat now as opposed to what species they are.

@Felton10
How’s it going with Princess, is she settling into a routine and how’s Mrs Felton liking her these days?

@Lynnerizer She still is very quiet and reserve-rarely coming out of her cage. Will get on either of our hands and squawks once and a while. Vet gave her a clean bill of heath, but she doesn’t seem to be interested in eating fruits and veggie which make up 80% of their diet in the wild. We are sprinkling multivitamin powder on her food to make up for her lack of interest in the stuff she should be eating.

At our age think this bird is just our speed although would prefer a little interaction with her such as being able to pet her although this breed is known for not needing or wanting to be petted.

@Felton10
Well we all knew that you would never get another Walterbird, no bird could ever fill his shoes/claws. It’s still pretty early in Princess’s time with you and at least she’s not loud and annoying. I’m thinking she’s going to settle in over time and maybe she’ll even develop a taste for the fruits she’s been missing out on all these years. She sure is pretty to look at, maybe she needs a mirror. Lol

@Lynnerizer She is a cutie all right, but keep comparing her to my wife who has a lot of the same attributes as Princess does. But now I am out numbered 2 to 1 re females against males in our house.

@Kyeh Sorry. Weekends and all that. It’s up now.

@ExtraMedium Thanks!

@Kidsandliz I think part of what’s going on is that the US agencies using weather balloons have long done it on the cheap, lofting tiny payloads under cheapass latex envelopes that typically pop long before they go far enough to get past our own territorial boundaries. (Yes, we have others that will go higher and farther, but most of ours have a TBF under 12 hours.) The idea that somebody else might have the audacity to show us up by launching one capable of remaining aloft and active while gathering data over a longer range just cheeses off the jingoists no end, so they’re gonna shoot it down whether they know what it’s been up to or not. Besides, everybody knows that Shooting Things Is What We Do.

@werehatrack Why I posted this is that the UFO/joke style comments are entertaining, not the actual article itself per say. Lots of humor used though out (along with some serious comments). I thought it made a nice break from “serious” stuff.

@Kidsandliz WaPo thinks I read too much to be left loose unsupervised, so they want money before they’ll show me much of anything.

@Kidsandliz @werehatrack WaPo?

@tinamarie1974 Washington Post

@speediedelivery oh THAT, thanks. I thought the way she wrote it, that it was a abbreviation for a person like SWMBO

@Kidsandliz Can I get an over/under on when Biden has a press conference and says oofoe (UFO) while reading the teleprompter?

@capnjb @Kidsandliz I think it would be more like “oofoe condescending smirk”.

@zhicks1987 They are nominated by their fellow Mehtizens to be the “scapegoat” for all misfortune during their month-long tenure. So yes, it’s really just all their fault for being.

@zhicks1987 Not when I’m in charge! Well… maybe a little. I didn’t understand it either, and then I woke up in an alternate universe. So… SCIENCE!!!

@capnjb Oh. Well, I guess that makes sense.
What if a person doesn’t even realize that they are the goat?

@zhicks1987 Goats are born goats. It’s just a matter of understanding time and relative dimension in space. Or something.

@capnjb @zhicks1987 Don’t worry, you’ll know, if you have your Meh notifications turned on.

@capnjb @phendrick @zhicks1987 but for us sane people who don’t have them turned on… You might not. Normally you have to be talkative in the forums to get enough attention to be nominated. And normally you’ll get @ ed enough to notice if you check you profile now and then. Poll starts toward the end of the month.

I’ve been threatened with it a few times but pointed out I might be a disappointing goat compared to some of our others who have run daily posts/games etc and have avoided it. There have been ghost goats before who were just awol the whole month. Not that it’s anything to avoid, people have fun with it.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯

@Kyeh How about today’s? (puzzle #606)
I’ll be quit impressed if you got that one in two.
Took me five.

@phendrick Got it in three.

@Kyeh Think you can beat “Roxy” in either “normal” or “hard” mode, or both?
https://hryanjones.com/guess-my-word/

@phendrick I don’t like that one as much; tried it a few times but I prefer Wordle. Did you beat Roxy?

@Kyeh The only way to beat “Roxy” is to cheat like s/he does. (I can’t prove the cheat, only someone looking over their shoulder could do that, but … STATISTICS can infer a lot.)
If you don’t get enough of Wordle, there is a knock-off at https://247wordley.com/. Two big differences:

1. You can play repeatedly (with different target words) in the same session – great for practice or getting in the mood for the real Wordle. And it also accumulates statistics for your success rate.
2. It lets you know if a letter you’ve guessed is repeated in the target word, so a tad easier than the real Wordle.
   I used to play that one, even before I knew of the real Wordle. Very seldom play it now, too busy. Rather put that kind of extra time into decent crosswords, such at WSJ. Do play Wordle nightly though. Also do crosswords at theatlantic.com and puzzles.usatoday.com before bed if I can stay awake enough. Used to do NYT crosswords a lot, but no longer subscribe to the paper that had the print version and don’t care for their online app (and that they want money for, just to play the puzzle). Used to keep up with “Rex Parker” and his ego.

@phendrick I don’t get it - how would one cheat, but more to the point, why?? Tops on a fairly obscure game site, under a username … the internet’s full of show-offs but that seems like a rather ungratifying kind of glory. I did see a familiar name on the all-time stats list; @stolicat is pretty high up there!
Thanks for wordly site - I like being able to do more of these, but I think I prefer the Word Guess - https://metzger.media/games/word-guess/ It’s pretty barebones, no stats or hints, but a very clean uncluttered appearance.
I found the most difficult word game I’ve ever tried - it’s this one: https://semantle.com/
Currently driving me crazy.

@Kyeh @phendrick I’m not sure what game site is being referred to here, but pretty sure it is not this stolicat. There are a couple others that use that name floating around in the interwebs …

@phendrick @stolicat Really? It’s this:
https://hryanjones.com/guess-my-word/
I know some people on here play it. I don’t like the time pressure. One cool thing about Semantle is that he doesn’t keep a list of stats; that’s all up to individuals. I finally did solve today’s word there, but it was hard. First try; maybe I’ll get better at it. Or not.

@Kyeh @phendrick Oh, yeah, that is me. I’ve kept a tab open on it since it was introduced here in the forums. I play it somewhat regularly, mostly out of interest in developing strategies to navigate to the word, or if I feel the need to be humbled.

@Kyeh @phendrick btw, the way the cheats get in is you can solve it first, then open the game in a different browser program - it doesn’t know the diff as it doesn’t really track user IDs beyond the current session other than what you enter - and “solve” it in whatever number of steps you think is adequate to make it look real. Or just be obnoxious and do it in one step. Cheaters gonna cheat.

@phendrick @stolicat Ohhh - that’s stupid of the admins! They could fix that, couldn’t they? I guess if I play it I’ll just play against myself. Try the Semantle one though - it’s really interesting!

@phendrick @stolicat Here’s someone who seems to be making fun of that game!

@Kyeh @phendrick I saw one of those also, with the user name “I can cheat too!”

@phendrick @stolicat
That’s great.

@Kyeh @stolicat A week or three ago, I signed in with a user name of “Roxy = cheating fraud” or something therelike, after solving in about 4 guesses and a few seconds. It showed up just above “Roxy” 's name. I hoped it would be a deterrent, but didn’t make much difference to that person. It seems like other people have now taken up that campaign.

I spent a few hours today doing calculations I hadn’t done in a few years (I was last in front of a math class about 6 years ago when I retired from teaching). I was a little rusty.
According to the “GuessMyWord” site, it only accepts guesses that are acceptable words for Scrabble. I couldn’t find any reference that gave the count of how many words are valid for Scrabble, but the sales blurb for their official dictionary says it has over 100,000 entries. And I have no way of knowing how many of those are candidates for the target word each night on the word-guessing game.

But if you were to do a similar guessing game going for a number between 1 and ~130,000 (close to the 17th power of 2) and did a binary strategy each time of guessing a word exactly in the middle of the range that contained the answer, by my calculations the “expected value” of the number of guesses to get the target word would be approximately 16. That’s if you did perfect bisecting (meaning you’d have to know exactly where the word in the middle would be each time). Imperfectly done would increase the number somewhat. I’m usually a few either side of that. (Tonight’s words took me 16 and 17 attempts, respectively.) I think best I’ve ever done was 5 or 6. But to repeatedly get it in 7 or under means you are either psychic and should get lottery tickets or you are a flagrant cheat so Roxy is one of those.

It probably bothers me more than it should, but I don’t like people who cheat in any form, whether they are politicians or game players. Those insult all the people who play by the rules.

@Kyeh @stolicat @phendrick
Too late to edit.
For those that like technical details:
The number I based my calculations on was actually 2^17-1 = 131,071, used so that there would be an exact “middle” of each halved range and still have a number larger than 100,000.
Further details on request, but only if you are serious enough to make my extra work worthwhile. And you need some background in “conditional probability” since the guessing proceeds in steps, but there are probably (pun intended) better explanations on the web than Wikipedia’s. BTW, that’s a topic that gives most college students studying probability some trouble to master and many lay people totally get it all wrong when they rely on their intuition.

@Kyeh @phendrick Well said. My best was 4 guesses in 7 sec on a normal (total luck), and even with that my little prize cups vanished shortly by someone probably cheating.

I also do the Merriam-Webster word quizzes, and at the end when the top 3 “leaders” are shown, they always all have perfect scores. MW is also pretty slack-ish on checking ID’s, in fact they just ignore them - you can take the same quiz over and over until you have it pretty much memorized, then blow through it for a perfect score.

And some further considerations on the mathematical approach to GuessMyWord, unlike a sequential number series, some combinations are just not going to be there - anything starting with “qp” or “mz”, for example, are just not in the language, so there are large areas of the 1-100000 sequence that can be ignored. Also, there is a distinct clumping of volume - seems to be a large number of words are in the c-d and m-t ranges, very few in the h-l and w-z. I always start with “ma”.

Other subtleties: the “normal” words are always very common words, usually no more than two syllables and no modifiers, something to remember so you don’t waste your time entering polysyllabic engineering terms.

@Kyeh @phendrick Oh fudge, my error - the 100000 are words that are in the set possible, so qp or mz would not be in there to begin with. Please ignore most of that last post. Thank you.

@Kyeh @stolicat
Heh. Saved me a comment saying just that. To rigorously apply the halving strategy, you’d have to have a complete list of every possible target word with them indexed by position in the list, then essentially bisect the index, so in that sense, spellings are irrelevant in the actual words as long as they are on the list. And I suppose there just might be such a list somewhere, but I have no idea where and am not interested in creating such. I suppose “hryanjones” has such a list and uses it to randomly select the day’s target words. (Actually two lists, “normal” and “hard”, however those terms are applied.)
Without knowing the index list(s), it’s a crapshoot doing the bisection just by memory/intuition. So that means my analysis would actually underestimate the “expected value” of the number of guesses to come up with the target word if they are (uniformly?) randomly selected from a single overall list. But not by much, I would hazard. If the eligible list is cut into two halves (normal/hard) that would only lower the expected value by about 1, since it’s a logarithmic thing. With all my hedging, I still think an expected value of 16-18 would be reasonable. And my experience both personally and looking at the completion board would bear this out.

As to the board, it represents only those who actually successfully complete the guessing and are still willing to share their “accomplishment”, even if it goes into the 20’s or 30’s. I’m willing to bet there are many contestants who don’t appear because of each of those issues. I’ve thought about grabbing a dictionary when I’ve gotten stuck with guessing something between my two closest words, but never have, thinking it’s not really worth the effort, since the correct answer will be shown anyway. I’m often taken aback when I see the correct word, because either it should have been obvious to me as a candidate but I had a momentary brain infarction or because I had been thinking OK, but had not-quite-the-exact word, such as “willing” and “willingness” instead of “willingly” - I have not at all figured out if there are any restrictions on additional forms of words. Sometimes I just reach a point where I am not interested in investing further time just to complete an ultimately meaningless puzzle.
I consider good results more a matter of luck than intelligence and play it mainly as a mental exercise – one which seems to me is getting slowly harder in terms of recalling in-between words!

[Another issue with my grabbing a dictionary would be the same type of rabbit hole I have trouble with when using Wikipedia. I would read about all the surrounding words and probably hunt up more definitions. As a kid, I used to spend literally hours reading through our new World Book Encyclopedia in 20 (or however many) volumes from roughly 1960 – still had them until a house fire at my parents’ house about 10 years ago.
But I do wonder if others are resorting to some kind of dictionary, for sometimes somebody might show 9 or 10 guesses over a 4 minute period – I don’t even think that slow when waking up and before coffee ]

@Kyeh @stolicat
Not really a good way to stop the “cheating”. The game creator is obviously aware that it happens, for if you are too fast or too correct, many times your accomplishment gets moved to the BOTTOM of the completion board, with a humorous trophy. But this doesn’t always happen, since the 1 guess in 0 seconds often makes the top (I’ve done that, to literally top Roxy).
That’s probably one of the reasons “Roxy” takes 5-7 “guesses”, so to make sure still showing close to the top, and maybe trying to lend an air of authenticity (but if you actually look at the guesses used, that will make you think that they are rigged after knowing the answer).
As to stopping it, no good way. If each player had to register an account under a unique credit card, that would probably discourage the cheating some, but also a lot of legitimate players.
If the player’s device were logged, that would take more resources on the server end and more programming (and this game seems to be just a momentary diversion for Mr Jones). But then a different device for the same player would still be a work-around.
As it is, the player is remembered by the use of “cookies”, which many, many sites use (including for pay-walls on ezines), but that is VERY easy to defeat (shhh…, don’t remind the journals that their secret is not such a secret!)

@CharlieDoggo Did you do something to make your mom want to be mean to you?

@CharlieDoggo Well I’d imagine if you kept sitting on the new couch in the same place it will finally break in and be comfy too. As far as hiding - have you tried hiding under mom’s bed or behind the clothes in her large closet?

@phendrick no, I am always a good boi! I try so hard, and I get my treat every night so I know I am not in trouble

@Kidsandliz well, mom saved a pillow from the old couch for me. It smells good and is so comfy. Instill miss the couch though

I cant fit under her bed since I was a pupper and she likes to keep her doors closed.

@CharlieDoggo if you keep a sharp eye she might forget some day. And then if you are very very good she might not get mad and change her mind.

@CharlieDoggo @Kidsandliz yeah, I iust like the doors shut. He is outta luck there

@unksol Oh, no! And there’s nothing you can really do about a cracked rib except maybe some Lidocaine patches. Hope you heal up fast.

@Kyeh I’ll live. Grin and bear it while I bend over to deal with the boxes lol.

Next thing will be
/youtube Simon cat stairs

@unksol Sorry about that. Maybe we need to vote for bad kitty of the month instead of goat?

@heartny they are not “bad” kitties. Just holy living terrors/into everything. Also my fault they exist.

They do break things. And steal things. And things that were on one floor reappear on another. But cats be cats.

There are some good goat stories on here from goats who are goat owners . They get up to shit

There should be a goat index… Was one

@heartny @unksol You have at least three times the terror that we do, and yours have had more practice. Our litter dates from mid-October, and their mom is just barely over a year old at this point - still a bit kitteny herself. And, dammit, they are all much nicer than the existing permanent-resident crowd, which we find very frustrating since it’s much harder to justify adopting out the ones that have fully sunk their claws into us.

@heartny @werehatrack lol personalities vary. Nobody is a huge fan of being picked up/carried. Which is a huge departure from kitKat riding around on my shoulders/getting scooped up/carried around like a baby etc. They are all over everything every morning and evening but there’s usually 8-10 sleeping in a dog bed on my desk all day and occasionally walking on the keyboard. Everyone more or less knows their name and wants some pets but a couple girls don’t want touched.

It’s not at all unusual for 8-10 to just follow into the bathroom
¯\_(ツ)_/¯

@heartny @unksol @werehatrack “No such thing as bad children, just bad parents”.
But I’m pretty sure that doesn’t apply to my indoor dog (singular) and my outdoor cats (many). For one thing, my dog doesn’t even listen to me. She loves chicken, but just ignores me when I call her for some. And part of our night time ritual is her coming over to the bed for her teeth-cleaning treats. I call her, and maybe five minutes later she comes over and wakes me for them. Her hearing is fine, it’s her listening and execution that’s the problem.

As to your sore rib, I’ve got several of these around the house and one for outside for picking up litter.
I hate getting down on my hands and knees to retrieve something from under a table. At walmart or your local pharmacy. Amazon has a big line of them also. I don’t recommend the < $9 ones.

@heartny @phendrick @werehatrack lol. I’m only on my 30s just hit HARD. Those don’t work for scooping litter boxes. How much it hurts depends on the particular motion

I tried to crawl under the truck to look at the exhaust to order parts and for whatever reason that was a hard nope. Can’t do this. Getting around the house is painful but fine

@tinamarie1974 So cute! And I hope you didn’t buy that tablecloth…

@Kyeh it was stunning, but no. That was just stupid expensive. I can only imagine what the non outlet price was.

@Kyeh I just checked their full priced web site, apparently it was full price at the outlet. WTH

https://www.potterybarn.com/products/arella-tablethrow/?pkey=s~tablecloth~1988

@tinamarie1974 Oh, that IS beautiful. At least I can kind of understand the price for something with a lot of embroidery. But it doesn’t make sense to have it at the outlet store!

@Kyeh @tinamarie1974 My experience with pottery barn leads me to believe that they stopped being an all-discount store years ago.

@Kyeh @werehatrack the outlet, clearly true. Prices were crazy

@tinamarie1974 Awww, how sweet! It’s so nice to know there are kind people like this in this often crazy world.

@Kidsandliz honestly I think I would stop drinking tap water regardless of if there is a boil order or not

@Kidsandliz But, are you licensed and permitted to grow algae?
If not, the authorities (sovereign state of Missmanagementissippi, EPA, FDA, FTC, and probably even PETA) will be all over you like flies on algae fertilizer.

@tinamarie1974 I mostly am drinking bottled water. Fortunately I have about 20 cases left over from last fall’s 45 days without and then a zillion days of boil when it was given out by the national guard.

@phendrick I kept it in a secret place, hidden in my apartment where even I couldn’t find it. I’m safe. Especially now that it is down the drain.

@Kidsandliz @phendrick glad you are safe!!

@phendrick @tinamarie1974 The office of Mismanagementissippi I am sure will find other ways to get us besides the water system, trash lack of pickup, road potholes and failure of 911 to answer calls and/or come when they do pick up, etc. I mean, now that spy balloons have been invented I am sure they will claim they are using those to keep the city running.

In all seriousness I am tired of this BS and hopefully am moving to the next county over (2 suburb cities away; the general area is where 3 counties come together) that has a different water system, police that actually do something more often than not (although I think they may spend more time on giving out revenue speeding tickets than doing other things), trash that gets (mostly) picked up… although I am not so sure the roads are all that much better. And of course we still have the same crappy health care, goon governor…

@capnjb UGH!

@Kyeh And for the record, me trying to climb over the center console to exit out the passenger door was highly comedic and it’s a shame the internet will never get to see that The thing that pisses me off is that I have a stressful client audit this week and I have to deal with this mess at the same time. I’m just going to grumple for a few moments while trying to figure out how to get a rental car by 7am tomorrow. Bleh.

@capnjb Of course it would happen when you’re already stressed and busy! Did Ms. Thing even realize what she caused?

@Kyeh To be fair… she was very graceful and apologetic. Her driving skills are suspect, but she was kind. Her husband was in the passenger seat and after all the exchanges of information, they actually waited until my tow truck showed up and my wife arrived to rescue me. This is why I buy my Jenny flowers all the time It could have easily been a much worse experience… my grumpling probably didn’t help explain that

@capnjb Oh, that’s good! I was afraid maybe she just sailed on by, oblivious.

@Kyeh Heh… it was like NASCAR, we were trading paint… (that’s my paint!)

@capnjb Oh dear. Brand new, ouch!

@tinamarie1974 What a smart boi! Please give him a shake from me - and a treat!

@Kyeh @tinamarie1974 Now teach him to shake his butt and he will be ready for a doggie dance party (grin).

@capnjb Yay! I’m also glad that nobody got hurt.

@capnjb What size is your noggin? There are sometimes in these parts

@compunaut Heh… I believe I’m a 7 1/2. I was actually looking into getting a Stetson even before this rental. They can get stupid expensive very quickly. Although it would probably be more appropriate in this truck than my soccer-mom Murano, but I still kind of want one. I should probably look into a starter hat to make sure it suits me before dropping huge coin on one of the big boys.

@capnjb @compunaut I bought a black knock off years ago. I have it around here somewhere. Also good to have one of you are going to the Rodeo when it is in town. YeeHaw!!!

@Felton10 I am not from Florida. So I can’t exactly commiserate. However I understand your frustration.

I’m probably on your side/sick of the culture wars/corruption

We know how the name calling game went last time and the political quarantine and it’s only the start of 2023. Maybe that can wait?

Or have a more helpful discussion after all the fox news lies from the dominion case are ruled on. I doubt it but… It’s early to kick that bomb

@Felton10 @unksol
+1

@unksol Before 2015, I would have agreed with you 100% that name calling was for 3rd graders and muddles every conversation. But then came Trump who had a name for everyone, lies galore and facts didn’t matter. One could present the facts as clear as day and it made no difference. The only way to get their attention is to unfortunately go down to their level. Hence my post.

@Felton10 kinda the point is we don’t want their attention here messing up our good time lol. Alhough the fact FOX has acknowledged they were straight up lying to people might help

@unksol
You’re sounding a little hormonal there, @Felton10.

@Kyeh You’re lucky. We back to woods and we’ve got some foxes nearby. Sounds like someone is getting murdered every night. It’s not great. I actually had a neighbor ask me if I heard the woman screaming in the woods. I was like, no… but I did hear the foxes…heh.

@Kyeh oh nice!! Ive been waling up to a woodpecker the last few days. Just thankful it is pecking on wood and not my chimney pipe!!!

@capnjb @Kyeh @tinamarie1974 Living among wildlife can be a mixed bag. It’s fun to watch the deer grazing in the lawn (especially when they bring their younguns), until they decide to finish the meal with a trip to the garden. Elk are majestic, until they decide to go through your fence if it’s inconvenient to go around. Many chickens (and a couple of cats) have been lost to hungry coyotes. And recently there have been reports of a cougar in the area. While I haven’t seen it myself, I have seen a neighbor’s security video of it. So now I’m armed when I go into the woods (an encounter is unlikely - an attack even less so, but what if…? ).

@capnjb @Kyeh @macromeh Elk, that sounds lovely. Well except for that fence part!?!?? What part of the world are your feet planted?

Here I have the pleasure of living amongst deer, turkey, cyote, opossum, armadillo, skunk, fox, groundhog/woodchuck, bunny, etc, etc. We get the very occasional bear or bobcat that wander through and I am happy I have not seen one of those up close!!!

Birdy-wise it is your normal mix of hawks, turkey buzzards and I am pleased as punch that we have some nesting bald eagles close by so every great once in a while Ill catch a glimpse of them flying through. They dont really stick around, they zoom here and there.

Ive given up on trying to plant anything they will eat outside my 6’ fence. Ive used any number of home remedies to distract them like cayanne pepper, garlic, tobasco…pretty sure I was just seasoning it for an interesting grazing experience. Metallic tape didnt work nor did the cedarcide. Now I just try to plant what they dont like if I want it around for any amount of time. I am also happy my fig tree is inside the fence now that it is bearing fruit!

Charlie does not like being outside alone, especially at night. One v early morning we had a couple of does walk up to the fence and stare at us. Scared the heck out of him! But, so does the sound of the horses from a neighbor farm he is a little soft lol

@capnjb @Kyeh @tinamarie1974 My place is in the foothills of the Coast Range in NW Oregon. We have 30 acres that are adjacent to multiple hundreds of acres of commercial timberland. So lots of room for wildlife to roam.
I put in some raised beds (for growing veggies) in our garden last spring. They did well, but the deer got into the produce, so my project this spring is to build a (tall) fence around them. No salad bar buffet for you, Bambi!

@capnjb @macromeh @tinamarie1974
Twice I’ve seen a bear half a block from my house. The second time I was walking towards it and initially thought it was a large black dog! Then I veered to one side and it veered the other and ran off. I think it was the one that stripped all the plums off my tree that year.
A fox once crossed my patio while I was sitting still; it didn’t notice me at first!
I also get raccoons, rabbits, deer, and occasionally hawks. People post pictures of bobcats and mountain lions on Nextdoor a LOT but I haven’t seen one yet. This is why Toby is an indoor cat.

@Kyeh @macromeh @tinamarie1974 We have racoons and Coopers hawks and a LOT of deer. My dog loses her mind from time to time

@Kyeh Any cats, rabbits, squirrels, etc. running around may not be safe from the owl.

@Kidsandliz I’m really hoping it’s eating mice; I’ve had problems with them although not as much now that I have a younger cat. But something was scrabbling around behind a dresser the other day.

@Kyeh I had a mouse run between the cat bowl and wall (bowl was about 2" from the wall). Cat was eating. He lifted his head, watched the mouse run by, saw where he went (under the fridge) and when he was done eating went to sit in front of the fridge and stare at it. So much for mouse control… On the other hand heaven help lizards and crickets. Many untimely deaths of those in the house.Roaches they just played with.

@Kyeh @macromeh @tinamarie1974 We also have a bunch of small birds that hang out near the feeder on our deck. Until this guy shows up. Then they disappear I’ve actually seen him grab a wren off my deck. He is lightning fast.

Oh… and does anyone have change for a buck?

@capnjb @Kyeh @macromeh @tinamarie1974 I’ll buck the trend and give you a buffalo nickel… (smirk).

@capnjb @Kyeh @macromeh

@capnjb @macromeh @tinamarie1974

@capnjb @Kyeh @tinamarie1974 I was hiking through the nearby timberland a while back and spotted a dragon resting in a clearing.

I quietly left the area. She may have been migrating - I haven’t seen her since.

@capnjb @macromeh @tinamarie1974
The coolest thing was once when a mama deer brought her twin fauns in to graze.

@capnjb @macromeh @tinamarie1974
Hah - I love the dragon!

@capnjb @macromeh @tinamarie1974
I found the fauns:
This is looking out the window at the same spot of yard that buck was in, but back in 2016.

@capnjb @Kyeh @macromeh aawww so sweet

@capnjb @Kyeh @tinamarie1974

Hah - I love the dragon!

Honestly, I was just glad to get away unscathed, unlike this poor nearby flame-broiled goose!

@capnjb @macromeh @tinamarie1974 Awwwww!
It really does have an anguished expression!

@Kyeh @macromeh @tinamarie1974 And I’m just replying to myself, but I randomly stumbled upon this fox that was hanging out down the hill a few years ago.

@capnjb @Kyeh @macromeh thats lovely

@capnjb @macromeh @tinamarie1974
I love foxes! It looks like it’s smiling.

@Kidsandliz Did you have ice storms this week? The news showed some ominous street views.

@Kyeh Nope missed us completely. If we had had ice we’d have had no water again. Luckily that wasn’t an issue.

@Kidsandliz That’s good - in the photo it looked like power lines were down.

Here is a hole less than a mile from me. And no that “A” shaped warning thing has not fallen down and is on it’s side… it is upright in the hole. Not that this will do much good, especially at night or if the hole is filled with rain.

@Kidsandliz Keep an eye out; you might find a nice car down in one of those.

@phendrick Or maybe a camper.

@Kyeh Sorry about that. Maybe next time, when someone else is the goat. Then you can blame them if you miss it again.