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...may enjoy the challenge! These folks take @MoseySusan's Wordle SERIOUSLY. From today's paper: Wordle, a once-a-day online word game, has taken the world by storm. Now its devotees are arguing about how best to play it. Some rush to the website to play before others. Others have spent hours debating strategies with friends, family and strangers online. Some have gone to extreme lengths by building spreadsheets to analyze the best way to play. Sam Sheridan plays Wordle the moment a new game drops, at midnight while he’s in bed, “which probably sounds kind of mad,” said the psychologist from London. The game is simple. You have six chances to guess the day’s secret word, which has five letters. Type in a word as a guess, and the game tells you which letters are or aren’t in the word. The game is free and has no ads. The aim is to figure out the secret word with the fewest guesses. Fans typically have a favorite first word they think gets them to the answer fastest. Two groups have emerged: those who type in vowel-heavy words first and those who go after common consonants. Mr. Sheridan types in “arise” first, to eliminate three vowels at once. “I have not failed yet,” said the 30-year-old, who started playing a week ago. He likes to tease his girlfriend, Anna Taylor, who has no strategy at all. “I only find it fun if I can move instinctively and quickly,” said Ms. Taylor, 31, who works in clinical research. “His plotting frustrates me!” Rebekka Power, 46, prefers more consonants in her first try and usually types in “stear.” She dismissed those who think a first guess should have more A’s, E’s, I’s, O’s or U’s. “Words aren’t made of just vowels,” said the communications director from Melbourne, Australia. Bertrand Fan, a software engineer in San Francisco, took a peek behind Wordle’s website to get a leg up. He looked at the code used to build the site and found a list of words used in the game. But he didn’t use it to cheat. “It would ruin the game if I actually looked up the answer for each day,” he said. Instead, Mr. Fan used the list to find the most recurring letters in the words. His analysis found that E, A, R, O, T, L, I and S were the most-used letters in the answers. He swapped out his previous favorite starting word “adieu” for “soare,” which means young hawk. “I’ve never seen that word before,” said Mr. Fan, 41. He thinks it helps him win one try faster than “adieu.” The game encourages people to share their results online, which helped it go viral. Jimmy Fallon, the host of “The Tonight Show,” tweeted his results to his 51.4 million followers last Tuesday. “Who else is playing #Wordle? Addicted,” he wrote. Three days later he posted an update. “Still hooked,” he said. Players paste the Wordle game on social media, which has filled Facebook and Twitter timelines with a sea of green and yellow squares. In the game, when a guess is made, the color of tiles change to show you how close you are to the secret word. If you guess “weary,” as the instructions say, and the “W” turns green, the secret word starts with a W. If the E turns yellow, the letter is in the word, but is in the wrong spot. Letters that turn gray aren’t in the word. Stefan Geens, 52, started playing last week after seeing the green and yellow tweets. He discussed with friends the best first word and settled on a few: “ratio,” “toner,” “tears” and “irate,” because they contained the most commonly used letters in the English language. Then he realized he could do better. He spent a Friday night and a Saturday morning creating a Google spreadsheet to figure out the best first word. Using an online list of 2,499 five-letter words, it showed the most common occurring letters were E, S, A, R and O. He has now changed his first word to “arose.” “That’s clearly the best guess,” said Mr. Geens, a product designer in Stockholm. London-based Starling Bank Ltd. turned the game into an ad. “Britain’s Best Bank?” it tweeted. The names of rivals were wrong answers, while the word “Starling” was in green. Workers are fans of the game, said Oliver Mott, the bank’s head of social media. “We couldn’t resist doing a mock-up,” he said. JJ Edmondson started a Facebook group last week as a place where people can post their results. About 170 people share their Wordle scores, as well as hints, clues and tricks. There is one important rule: “DO NOT REVEAL THE ANSWER!,” wrote Ms. Edmondson, 53, a teacher from the Australian town of Korumburra. One trick she shares is how to get around Wordle’s once-a-day game limit. She suggests using the Wayback Machine, an online internet archive where people can see Wordle’s website from past days and play old games. Ira Lilien, a retiree from New York, wishes there was a timer with the game to see if someone spent hours figuring out the word. When he plays, he types in words that contain S, T, E or R, letters he uses often in another word game, Scrabble. Josh Wardle, the man who invented Wordle, is a software engineer from New York. He created a prototype in 2013 and during the pandemic he dusted it off for his partner, who liked playing word games. It started to take off in mid-November, Mr. Wardle said, when technologist Andy Baio put a link to the game in his blog. Then Mr. Wardle noticed fans in New Zealand were posting results with color boxes they drew themselves. So Mr. Wardle made it easy to share results, and things went viral. He said 1.8 million people played last Friday, compared with 90 people on Nov. 1, 2021. His email inbox has been filling up with people explaining their own strategies. He doesn’t know which one is best. “You’re asking the wrong person,” he said. “I’m very bad at it.”

...but folks love these little phrases! #5 is a HUGE hit! Wait, what? No worries At the end of the day That being said Asking for a friend Circle back Deep dive New normal You’re on mute Supply chain

Ignore us? I'd blame @jsharrwick for repeatedly dropping the "fresh avatar" ball, but honestly, it had to be @Dottles fault.

...in length, let alone 2hrs 15min. The perfect length for a comedy (and most movies) is 90 mins. Anything more than that is poor editing.

At the place where I swim, they have Peloton bikes, which I have been meaning to try. So I did. First, I am generally not a big fan of spin classes, which tend to sound good until you find out a few things: The instructors are generally not cyclists They have extremely poor taste in music They won't shut the hell up, ever, and feel compelled to spout nonsense throughout They do the dumbest things, like repeated 2 second "jumps" out of the saddle, then back down, then out again, ad nauseum. Also stupid stretches that real cyclists see immediately for what they are, which are giant injury risks. I was hoping that Peloton found a way around these issues, but upon trying it, it turns out they mostly doubled-down on them. I tried a few different classes, and the instructors did strike me as folks not likely to own a bicycle, or to have a clue about stupid stuff to not do on a bike, like lift weights or 'stretch' (but you can look for classes without the weights at least). They still have poor taste in music, but you can find a class or so based on era or category, so the sucking is more finite. The instructors still will not stfu, ever, or at least didn't in the three different classes I jumped in on. Anyway, all the same limitations and 'one note' approach to cycling, which is the normal spin class that you see out in the world, including the aspects I don't enjoy. Add to that the downsides of not being able to discreetly perv on the hot students in your class. I would definitely prefer an actual ride simulation/non-spin platform personally. Anyway, I am definitely being harsh on Peloton, and I imagine non gym-goers and non-cyclists would glom onto it more than people like me, and it would also be good for other folks that just want to go along with things without thinking much about it, so there is that. Question for the Peloton folks - Can you stream Netflix to the monitor? I can see that being better than just a video of a spin class.

My company has a year end award thing. Mostly fluff and plaques and all that comes with it. Two years ago, I won a departmental award as "Rookie of the Year". This year, I was nominated by 4 different department heads to be awarded the Circle of Excellence. There are differing designations but the top one is literally called the 1%. Of 18k+ employees US-side I am one of the 98 selected for the award. I am now a top-tiered elitist. How much snobbery am I now allowed to give my lessers?

To this I would also add a term from the rocket industry: Rapid Unscheduled Disassembly also known as RUD It blew up.

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2018/jan/04/largest-prime-number-discovered-with-more-than-23m-digits

...of a tennis racket? A spatula? Maybe a really neat fleece blanket? Anything else? What sort of things do folks get all proud about owning?

Watching the Shrink Next Door (so-so), and the main guy mentioned he might have died alone and the cat would eat his face (or something like that). My wife and I discussed and decided that a DOG would never do that to its owner, but a CAT probably would. What do you think? If a pet owner died - unknown to the outside world - would a cat or a dog be more inclined to feast upon the dead owner?

It is the cold and dark season (thanks Kirby! ), a time when normal people aren't riding but really wish they were. I have these USB lights that I like a lot, so what do I do with them? Let them run dry and wait until next summer to charge them? Charge them once a month for the hell of it? I don't know these things, and don't want to do a proper search online when I can get so many whorific and/or wonderful answers here regarding maintenance of rechargeable lights. What should I do?

...or, at least her and her hubby. The rest of the t-shirt design falls on those other folks, but MS and HoMS will be good to go in these shirts:

...is more painful and worse in general than a broken finger, a strained finger, or a sprained finger. Folks who break, strain, or sprain things have no idea what a jammed finger feels like and should thank their lucky stars!

...and, if so, which varieties? I miss his MS reviews!

...to all of @Randomguy surely asinine questions? What was the final deal worked out?

...why some folks adopt an all black wardrobe. Black (and, if a little wild, shades of black) really is pretty much the perfect color choice for clothing and offers the broadest (and best) variety of fashionable options. From shoes, sock, pants, underwear, (bras for the ladies), shirts, belts, and even hats, black is pretty much the best or tied-for-best option. I'm starting to understand the genius of those all-black clothing types - even the goths!

...makes me wonder if there is anything @Randomguy isn't doing wrong!

...I might be mistaken. At the Sheep, Wool, & Dog Herding festival, I spotted a 65+ (likely 70+) woman walking around happily drinking a Mountain Dew. I can't say I ever noticed "old" folks drinking The Dew! However, after a brief amount of time thinking about it, I realized I was now an "old folk" and I still drink Mountain Dew!

?

Talking to my wife over the years, we're both firmly in the cremation column, but I'm in the "then spread my ashes in the ocean, across a mountain, from a hot air balloon, etc.." category, while she's in a "store me on the shelf and have us spread together when we're both gone." I said, "I don't think that will go over well with any of my future girlfriends." How about you? Got plans?

...if a truly "life ending" meteor strike is imminent? Say we get a week's notice? Would that result in a week of violence and insanity followed by immediate immolation? Or, do you think it would be nice to have a few days to do whatever you wanted before the immolation? How about a year's notice? Or a decade in advance? Total destruction of the Earth guaranteed, so no special tricks other than maybe a short term bonus period on the ISS? What could be the upside of knowing in advance, especially more than a few hours or days?

My dog likes to play a game where I toss treats to her and she runs at a breakneck speed to get them. The first couple she chases down, pounces on, and the eats normally. However, as the fun amps up, she becomes progressively more fast at the consumption portion of the game. She is often back in motion looking for the next treat before she has finished swallowing the prior treat. Of course, this results in a choking fit that is familiar, I am sure, to members of the @Randomguy family every Thanksgiving. She has to stop her running, dislodge the treat, and start over. Luckily, as the game goes on, she also loses a bit of her pep, so the peak choking is mid-game, and tapers as she stops running around like a maniac. How about your pups? Are they nutters too?

...'s "NSFY" with the "NSFW" tag???? I think we need separate tags for each!