In my city, a foreign advertising form was allowed to put ads on buses (as well as billboards and street furniture) in exchange for operating an inexpensive share bike scheme. In 2021, they pulled the share bikes off the street because the far more expensive private un-docked escooter share schemes made more money for the Council. But they didn’t stop the advertising.

So now we get ads on our buses and blocking our footpaths, in exchange for nothing in return.

Connections
Puzzle #652
🟪🟪🟪🟪
🟨🟨🟨🟨
🟦🟩🟦🟦
🟦🟦🟦🟦
🟩🟩🟩🟩

Skill 90/99
Uniqueness 1 in a Million

I actually solved it correctly in Copilot, but then copied them across wrong 😢

It’s not like the Ottomans ever viewed vlad as a noble

The vampire Bram Stoker wrote about is not based on Vlad III. The title of the book was going to be “Count Wampyr” up until just a few weeks before publication, when he came across stories about Vlad Tepes, and he made a few very minor changes at this late stage to incorporate details about Vlad, so talking about the fictional character Dracula in terms of the real-life Ottoman-Wallachian politics is not necessarily the best approach.

That said, talking about the real historical Vlad Tepes, where does the idea that Ottomans didn’t view him as a noble come from? He was raised as a hostage in the Ottoman court, as the son of a recognised noble vassal. And after his father Vlad Dracul’s death, he took the throne after the presumed death of Vladislav II, with the backing of the Ottomans. (But then Vladislav turned up alive and threw out Vlad Dracula.) Wallachia was on such a knife’s edge between Hungary and the Ottomans that it flipped sides multiple times—and Vladislav and Dracula even each switched side themselves during this period. But he was definitely recognised as a noble, in at least the same way one nation would recognise their enemy’s nobles.

Count was just a way to integrate himself with Victorian peerage when he came to take Harkers woman

The version shown in some movies, where he wanted to get with Mina and that’s why he goes to England, doesn’t concord with the book. In the book, Dracula’s motivation for going after Mina and Lucy is much more ambiguous. Lucy first starts sleepwalking on 25 July (Mina writes about it 26 July), after the Demeter (carrying Dracula) entered the Bay of Biscay on 24 July, so it seems he has learnt about her by this time (possibly from Renfield, who is clearly working for Dracula by at least 5 June). But it’s also possible the sleepwalking is coincidence, and that as Mina says in her 1 October diary entry, it’s only because Lucy sleepwalks into the Whitby churchyard that Dracula gets a hold of her. It’s not especially clear which is true.

But there doesn’t seem to be much indication that he is going after Mina until much later. Possibly he only does it as revenge for the band of heroes taking out his containers of Transylvanian dirt, after Lucy has already died (he does mention “revenge” when the heroes encounter him on 3 October, but he’s not exactly a reliable narrator). I believe the first sign of Dracula going after Mina is in Jonathan Harker’s 5am 1 October diary entry.

Yeah I had exactly the same logic as you with purple. Took me a bit longer to get from there to the answer though.

Connections
Puzzle #651
🟦🟦🟦🟦
🟨🟨🟨🟨
🟪🟩🟪🟪
🟪🟩🟪🟪
🟪🟪🟪🟪
🟩🟩🟩🟩

Skill 82/99
Uniqueness 1 in 50,000

faaaaark. I literally just guessed purple

edit: I had no recollection of it before, but after looking up the answer afterwards, I do recall purple.

So, I’m only a tiny bit better than you. About 1100 in 1v1.

I’ve just recently gone back to playing Norse for the first time since the old EE days. Though I play Loki, not Freyr. I played a couple games against a friend, and after beating him, I had trouble figuring out exactly what he should have done to counter it. In his case, I think it came down to not following any particular build order in Archaic Age. Finding a good build order from one of the pros and practising it until you get good at executing it can be a major boon, if you’re not already. Beyond that, I think it’s helpful to keep in mind the basic broad strategy counter triangle. Rush beats boom. Boom beats turtle. Turtle beats rush. If they’re rushing at you, try and get walls up—either full walls or just strategic walls that force them to go around obstacles and walk close to your TC or towers if they want to raid your villagers. Ideally you want to be spending less on defence than they are on military, and invest the rest into economy; get 2 TC before they can, get your eco upgrades, etc. If you’ve got good mobile units, try going for counter raids to force them to retreat their military. This is especially good if, like my friend in the game I played last night, you have access to Hermes and can mass a few centaurs. Hippeus work well too. Or anubites or sphinx. If they’re like me, they’re probably relying on their aggressive push to be the protection for their eco, leaving everything behind completely unprotected if you can sneak past.

That said, unfortunately if you’re going up against 1400s as a 900 player, it kinda doesn’t matter what you do or what they do. They’re that much higher than you because they’re that much better than you, when playing their preferred strategy. A 500 point Elo difference means you have a 5.32% win chance.

Connections
Puzzle #650
🟪🟪🟪🟪
🟦🟦🟦🟦
🟨🟨🟨🟨
🟩🟩🟩🟩

Skill 98/99
Uniqueness 1 in 598

Fun one!

No, you’re thinking of the Wagner Group, a Russian paramilitary organisation.

This is Wagner, the antisemitic 19th century German composer.

ice scraper in the fuel cap, accessible from outside and can be stored when wet

As an Australian, I cannot express how little I care for this feature. 😅

The other ones you mentioned sound pretty neat though.

Simply clever

edit: Skoda is a brand I’ve literally only heard of (from here in Australia) because they advertise constantly on the Tour de France every year. Their tagline is burned into my brain.

This is neither a good nor a bad thing. It simply is.

Connections
Puzzle #649
🟪🟪🟨🟪
🟦🟦🟦🟦
🟪🟪🟪🟪
🟨🟨🟨🟨
🟩🟩🟩🟩

Skill 91/99
Uniqueness 1 in 14,451

aomstats.io is a really great resource for this kinda information. In my own games, I can’t say that I’ve actually noticed too many people playing Freyr, although for unrelated life reasons I haven’t played more than a handful of multiplayer games since the start of March.

The data on aomstats.io seems to say that yes, Freyr is still very strong up to about 1300 Elo. It looks like your best options for countering Freyr are Loki or Poseidon.

I had my filters there set to the current and previous patch, just because the current one is so new that its data is very limited. But the early indications, when I look at 1v1 games in only the latest patch, are that Freyr is nowhere near as strong as he once was.

Love this patch. Fixed an enormous bug I reported after seeing a high-level game casted with that bug. Added a few major UX improvements people have been asking for since the beginning (colour selection in ranked games! Ability to replay save files at higher speed than 2x!) Fixed a few bugs introduced by the previous patch.

Plus a bunch of good balance changes that were sorely needed.

Connections
Puzzle #648
🟦🟦🟦🟦
🟪🟪🟪🟪
🟩🟩🟩🟩
🟨🟨🟨🟨

Skill 98/99
Uniqueness 1 in 92

Isn’t the premise that the life you’re now living is the coma? So tbh I’d welcome the wake up.

Which is the obvious one?

Oh damn, grats on the reverse rainbow!

Connections
Puzzle #647
🟪🟪🟪🟪
🟨🟨🟨🟨
🟦🟦🟦🟦
🟩🟩🟩🟩

Skill 97/99
Uniqueness 1 in 107

Hmm, I wonder…does “my favourite pirate streaming service” count as avoiding big tech?

If you’re asking for money to fix bugs, that incentivises writing code with bugs, as if you write perfect code first time nobody will pay you to fix it

There’s certainly potential for that to be a problem. But it’s not necessarily insurmountable. For starters, I think the idea is you’re not paying to have your thing fixed, you’re paying to have your thing prioritised. The same amount of work is getting done either way, but bugs reported by people who paid will be prioritised over bugs reported by people who don’t pay. If there are no bugs reported by paid users, then unpaid bugs will still be worked on.