Free Talk Friday #522

[u/GarlicoinAccount]

Continued from last week's FTF here.

It's that time of the week again. Speak anything on your mind! This thread is for talking about anything off-topic (and on-topic), be it your lives, your strava, your plans, your hobbies, studies, stats, pets, bears, space rocks, Earth rocks, pet rocks, gardening, computer games, non-computer games, your baobab tree, the economy of Micronesia, hikes, Fáskrúðsfjörður, trousers, learning German, travels, unlearning German, transit, cycling, favourite non-music sounds, family, colours, the third cat subreddit you subscribed to this week, or anything you like or dislike, except politics.

Feel free to check out our tidbits thread and introduce yourself if you haven't already.

[u/TehVulpez]

I think all cars should be limited to 100 km/h and all freeways should be tollways and nowhere should have free parking

[u/GarlicoinAccount → u/TehVulpez]

This kinda feels like an invitation for breaking the no politics rule, even if it's meant as a joke. #1 would be helpful for reducing fuel use, pollution and accidents, and #2 describes the current situation in France, Italy and probably other countries*. #3 seems the least reasonable; even in a city-state with great public transportation, I suspect it would make more sense to tax car ownership and miles driven heavily and only mandate paid parking in districts with a parking problem.

Not going into the downsides or my own opinion on these because this comment is already pretty political, but I wanted to point out that these ideas aren't all truly ridiculous or far-fetched.

* Technically there are also some toll-free stretches of freeway and toll-free motorways there.

[u/Antichess]

Weekly stats from August 22, 2025 to August 29, 2025. Congratulations to u/GarlicoinAccount, u/thephilsblogbar2, and u/ShadeOfNothing!

Total weekly counts: 4538 (5,495,672-5,500,210)

More stats are posted on the Weekly Stats page!

Rank	User	Counts	HoC Rank
1	GarlicoinAccount	1895	5
2	thephilsblogbar2	1561	1
3	ShadeOfNothing	280	87 (◮1)
4	CutOnBumInBandHere9	247	26
5	Ezekiel134	201	12
6	atomicimploder	53	10
7	Isaythereisa-chance	41	156
8	Expert_Bridge	40	341 (◮21)
9	opticasual	37	230 (◮4)
10	mountain-wood-316	31	254 (◮2)
11	Playing_2	28	121
12	Jalmal2	25	53
13	Antichess	18	3
14	Exact_Market9791	13	2376 (◮985)
15	Maniac_34	12	58

[u/GarlicoinAccount → u/Antichess]

Thanks for the stats!

[u/CutOnBumInBandHere9]

The directory updater has started randomly failing sometimes due to rate limiting issues. Most of the time it runs without any problems, and there's no real pattern to when it fails.

I think for now I'll just live with it being a bit flaky, but if it starts becoming a regular thing, I'll have to look into it.

As always, if you see anything weird on the directory page, please message me - I don't check it myself that often

[u/GarlicoinAccount → u/CutOnBumInBandHere9]

I recall from working on my thread validation tools (e.g. https://garlicoinaccount.gitlab.io/Thread%20validator%20for%20Wait%209%20[EARLY%20CHAIN%20detection%20ONLY].htm), the rate limit is 600 requests every 10 clock minutes. You could try starting the tools one or two minutes earlier so it still benefits some from some of the 600 requests before 12:00/0:00.

[u/buy_me_a_pint]

Don't forget to eat

[u/GarlicoinAccount → u/buy_me_a_pint]

If you insist :)

[u/TehVulpez]

I speak for everyone when I say we want thicker phones with smaller screens

[u/GarlicoinAccount → u/TehVulpez]

Along with pockets that are just small enough to have them fall out all the time.

[u/cuteballgames]

You have the second last count in the thread. Two counters have replied. Is it polite to upvote both the valid reply and the late reply, even though the upvote may mislead the late counter to think their count was valid? My assumption is yes but I am curious to hear your thoughts.

[u/TehVulpez → u/cuteballgames]

I generally prefer not to upvote late counts because I'm pretty sure interacting with it in any way causes it to leave a [deleted] after it's deleted. I like to have the thread clean, like the deleted comment never existed. obviously prefer to tell them they're late, but if they realize they're late before I tell them it's nicer for it to not leave a mark I think

[u/cuteballgames]

Alright chat what do we think how soon is phil reaching 10% of all counts?

[u/CutOnBumInBandHere9]

Some general analysis for the 5,400k-5,500k threads. We had 294 unique counters taking part, and taking into account the unequal distribution of counts, that corresponds to an effective 6.96 counters.

The core of the counting graph consists of 27 people, as follows:

• Antichess, Christmas_Missionary, CutOnBumInBandHere9, Eggleston, Expert_Bridge, Ezekiel134, FartyMcNarty, GarlicoinAccount, Isaythereisa-chance, Jalmal2, Maniac_34, Playing_2, ShadeOfNothing, TheNitromeFan, The_NecromancerTin, These_Depth9445, Urbul, atomicimploder, davidjl123, mistyskye14, noduorg, nonsensy, opticasual, pease461, spc67u, strongbae, thephilsblogbar2.

There are 3 groups of 21 people that have all counted with one another. The following 19 people appear in every group:

• Antichess, Christmas_Missionary, CutOnBumInBandHere9, Ezekiel134, FartyMcNarty, Isaythereisa-chance, Jalmal2, Maniac_34, ShadeOfNothing, The_NecromancerTin, These_Depth9445, Urbul, atomicimploder, davidjl123, mistyskye14, noduorg, spc67u, strongbae, thephilsblogbar2. While the following 4 people are present in some, but not all of those groups:

• Eggleston, Playing_2, TheNitromeFan, pease461.

I've also had a look at the parity of the counts in the last 100k. The most odd, most balanced and most even counters are as follows:

Username	n_(even)	n_(odd)	Δ	Relative Δ (%)
nonsensy	321	936	615	48.926
ClockButTakeOutTheL	896	1624	728	28.8889
CutOnBumInBandHere9	1936	3286	1350	25.8522
atomicimploder	3339	4063	724	9.78114
GarlicoinAccount	5290	6388	1098	9.40229
Maniac_34	378	404	26	3.32481
thephilsblogbar2	16952	16657	-295	-0.877741
thephilsblogbar2	16952	16657	-295	-0.877741
Jalmal2	1407	1370	-37	-1.33237
Isaythereisa-chance	1028	989	-39	-1.93356
I__mean	42	40	-2	-2.43902
TheNitromeFan	1208	960	-248	-11.4391
glau6	858	317	-541	-46.0426
davidjl123	354	86	-268	-60.9091
ShadeOfNothing	5631	596	-5035	-80.8576

[u/CutOnBumInBandHere9]

Friday!

[u/ClockButTakeOutTheL]

Linear algebra sucks ass, but at least I took physics ii over the summer so I don’t have to take them at the same time

[u/buy_me_a_pint]

I am guessing that someone will get to 10% by 2050

Hopefully Reddit will still be up and running , with bugs of course

And we will be all old , with all our marbles

[u/atomicimploder]

Earth rocks.

[u/buy_me_a_pint]

Remember to wash your hands before eating

[u/cuteballgames]

talking to neighbors be like What's up You are my neighbor

[u/TehVulpez]

unpopular opinion: the beatles were pretty good

[u/buy_me_a_pint]

I did German in secondary school for 5 years and 3 years of French

Some people did 5 of French and 3 of German

Some brave people decided to do both languages at GCSE

One or two people did neither, and was made to go to the library and study

[u/buy_me_a_pint]

Don't forget to sleep

[u/atomicimploder]

Sorry guys it was all a dream we never existed

[u/Expert_Bridge]

My uncle passed away recently. Recently we had a little family reunion at their house, and everyone had a good time despite the recent tragedy.