FortyTwo42

59! Just kidding, 0! No new record for you! Come on, everyone, you were only about 4.69% of the way to your previous record! Sorry, no time for responses yet; unexpected stuff happened this weekend and I was unexpectedly busy. I'll be more talkative next weekend! Maybe even during the week if I have time.

I have been summoned! Rainbow pony all the way! 17!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

FOUR DIGIT NUMBERS?! I've finally made my way back! That last trap you laid for me was absolutely brutal! I'm guessing it was one of Cinnamon's, considering all the horror it contained. Do you know how hard it is to get back when you're sent to an alternate dimension within an alternate dimension? As you can tell, it was an incredibly effective trap. Still, you've got some work ahead of you if you want to devise a trap devastating enough to take me down long enough for the legendary duoquadraguple dethrone! (Fun fact: When I googled 'duoquadraguple' to see if I remembered the word correctly, one of the search results I found was the post history of my account on this forum, referring to a post I made in this topic. I must be famous now! ) So, I haven't been here in a while, so you may need to help me get up to speed. I notice Totally Not Not Lyra has become staff now, so here's my probably-very-late congratulations for that! Have there been any other noteworthy things that have happened in the past month while I was off exploring various planes of existence? Actual update on how I've been in this strange dimension called 'real life': I've recently finished my latest university semester, so you can expect to see more of me now for about the next month of two! After that, it depends on how busy my next uni semester becomes. My last one was especially busy, so I think it's unlikely I'll completely disappear again for a few months, but who knows? You can at least be certain that if I do disappear again, that I'll be back near the end of the year! I don't have enough time today to go through those 1237 posts, so I'll have to end this here for now. Congratulations on setting a new record for the largest number! I can assure you that you won't be setting any more records anytime soon!

Again, time is sparse so I'm making my weekly rounds to briefly to bring you back to 0! I may perhaps be around a bit more often next week, though. However, I will respond to the one thing that caught my eye as I loaded this thread: That binary is ASCII code for 'a tree'. However, the last binary byte actually denotes line feed (pretty much the same thing as pressing Enter on a keyboard), so perhaps the quote would be more accurate like this: 'a tree ' There will surely be points for this! But they will be awarded when I have more time to go through things thoroughly.

Just popping in to give you guys your weekly reset and reminder that I exist, I'm just really busy. What did you all do to this site while I was away? Is this a tactic to distract me? Also, I am highly skeptical of your claims that you have reached numbers as high as 4040404040404040404040 and the like.

Turns out I was much busier this weekend than I anticipated. Well, not that much busier than usual, but my usual 'busy-ness' is still really high at the moment; that's why I disappeared for a few months, after all. Anyway, because of that, I haven't actually had the time to go back and reply to old posts like I promised. Sorry... But I at least have time to come on here and quickly stop your count. Not sorry!

_o: I'll be good... Oh no, you don't understand. Cinnamon is absolutely terrifying and has most definitely earned the position of main villain! You and your chaos. I wonder how well you'd get along with Discord? I'm fine with chaos myself, just as long as you're not violating any mathematical principles. I tried to look into 41 and you're right, their actions are a bit suspicious. But that's all I could find out; I couldn't exactly investigate too much without arousing suspicion from them. Hope this doesn't get too serious. By the way, I don't think I ever asked what number base you're a part of? Nope! Not 'soon'! This is a reset! I think those two images represent Cinnamon perfectly. The second one is what she seems to be at first glance, and the first one reveals what is really beneath the surface! YES! SKY HIGH POKEMON/PONY! THIS IS EPIC! 42 HEARTILY APPROVES! +5 POINTS! Oh, no need for that face (also +1 point for epic Celestia). The only reason I didn't reply before was because your count was too low and not worth destroying at the time. I thought you knew by now that I brohoof without replying to toy with you! I do like you! I'm sure this isn't the first time I've brohoofed without replying. And besides, I've responded to that post now! No! Don't be like that! I will always be here to appreciate your art! I'm not normally a fan of ponies with guns, but this image somehow makes it work! So epic! So have +2 points for it! Now normally, I would go add 8 points for Trottermare to the running total. But that would mean searching for my last post where I awarded points, and that was ages ago... I swear to go look for it during the weekend when I have more time and add the points to it, and then finally resume replying to what are probably 5-month-old posts now! So, it turns out you all made a lot of posts while I was preparing my previous post, and now I have even more things to reply to. Thanks for the extra work, everyone! Oh, and there's one post which I have no idea why I missed the first time. So, here's the second lot of replies: Yes! Awesome use of factorials! You shall get +3 points for that! I shall! You can count on me! But please be sure to get back as soon as you can, I think I'm going to need the help! Uhh, can we turn normal mode back on again now? At least until Dovashy gets back? Hey, I explained my reasoning for the first brohoof without a reply! And the second brohoof without a reply was actually because I was in the middle of making my reply at that time! Yeah, Trottermare has been warning me about this attack for ages. But don't forget, I've been making some preparations myself, bringing Dovashy back here to help defend my throne! Let the battle begin!

Aww, you 93% missed me? I'm so honoured! I'm only about 13% crazy so far, so I still have a long way to go! Of course Dovashy was gonna come ruin your day. He has a knack for appearing when he's most needed! Now, yes, that comment is a bit problematic... But good allies are just so hard to come by these days, so I'd rather not try to go into it. After all, it would only benefit you, not us; you're just trying to cause some dissension in the ranks, aren't you?! Dovashy has proven his loyalty to me countless times, so I'm just going to interpret his questionable derision of maths as humorous sarcasm. Dovashy isn't getting locked up anywhere. I'm not sure if you realized this yet, but you just turned on hard mode now that both of us are here! Yeah, that's right! My henchponies are free to act independently and think whatever they want! Just as long as what they do or say is whatever I wanted them to do or say. Oh Celestia, those base 11 guys... I thought I'd pop in just once to see what they're like. Nothing could possibly describe what I saw! They're unquantifiable! :-o You know, the base 14 crew are really cool. A bit unorthodox, but they know how to get things done. You should check out the base 42 group! It the best because, well, I'm the creator and leader of that one. Yes, exactly! Uhh, I mean, I need advisors who aren't afraid to speak their mind and tell me when I'm wrong... I have no need for validation...

BOO! Well, it wasn't really a delayed train that stopped me coming on. I don't really have much of an excuse. My personal life just got extremely busy over the last few months, and I've been feeling rather worn out and lethargic lately. And it doesn't seem like things will slow down for me for at least a few months longer. I was originally thinking I'd hold off until then when I'm more free, but eventually decided against it. After all, I disappeared without a word, so I should at least come back now and then to assure you I'm still around. It doesn't take that much time out of my busy schedule to come on and ruin all your hard work! But hey, at least you know I'm not dead! That means it's time to reset your... Oh, you're already at zero? Good job, Dovashy! Thanks for covering me in my absence! I swear, I'll catch up on all those posts someday!

OVER 300?! THAT'S... actually somewhat expected since I was gone for so long. But I've never been beaten so badly in a long time! So, uh, I suppose I can admit you've all done a good job. I've been plagued by lots of work hours and bad internet connectivity lately. And I remain dedicated to my promise to always include responses in my posts now, so one line posts are a thing of the past! So, I may have been lingering around without posting for a bit trying to get things to work in my limited spare time. All of these things worked together nicely, didn't they? And Trottermare, all those agents of destruction or whatever you've been recruiting against me lately certainly didn't help. As I said, poor internet and spare time at the moment so I can't afford to respond to much. Let's get into it! How did you know this would be appropriate several months later?! I did indeed linger a few days ago. That is such a scary coincidence! Did you get some sort of ability to look into the future? No, it couldn't be. We're talking about ninja Pinkie Pie here after all, it must be some variant of the Pinkie sense or something. They couldn't possibly see into the future! Ponies + Ninja's = 2 points for this picture! What is this? This is so contradictory! It's Fluttershy, the element of kindness, in a peaceful meadow, wearing a shirt with the word 'peace' on it... and then there's a big gun in front of her. Is it just me, or is that really unfitting? I am both very confused and very terrified of this. Still a really good picture, though. Have another +2 points for it! Points: Totally Lyra: 190 Trottermare Galamane: 139 (+4) Wolf General Alpha: 11 The Crimson Cross: 10 SpeedForceDashie: 8 CinnamonPop: 6 Crescent Light: 5 Lightwing: 2 Coupons: (As of the last post I responded to, but also including these chess match results) Totally Not Lyra: 5 Trottermare Galamane: 3

I've fallen into a terrible habit of promising responses then getting too busy, haven't I? Just last week I promised I would give responses tomorrow. Then Christmas happened and things got busy again. Replying to those now extremely old posts had been postponed again! WELL NO MORE! To break out of this cycle, I now vow to always include at least one response in all of my count resets from now on! At least until I finally catch up. Now, this will probably mean I'll reply to fewer posts than I used to do in my response posts. But since my last response post was over two month ago, I think I need a new system. It does seem like I'm going to be rather busy for the foreseeable future unfortunately, so making large response posts may be difficult, which is why I vowed to always make short response posts now! Never again will you see only a pony video with no responses attached! So, here are three brand new responses to get things going again! Gah! That's creepy! Thanks for the lack of sleep! -1 points for you! And then I'll give you +2 points since I feel taking away a point is mean and I like Flutterbat. Just make her more awesome and less creepy next time! I hear adding armor usually does the trick. Although is history is anything to go by, it'll be another 3 months before I respond to any such picture you find in response to this... What kind of average? There are many kinds! The median of the digits is 3, their mode is 2 and 4, their arithmetic mean is 3, their geometric mean is 2.8284 (or exactly 2*sqrt(2) ), their harmonic mean is 2.6667 (or exactly 8/3), their quadratic mean is 3.1623 (or exactly sqrt(10) ) and their cubic mean is 3.3019 (or exactly 36^(1/3) ). Clearly, you were talking about the median, right? THAT IS THE MOST BEAUTIFUL PICTURE IN THE HISTORY OF PICTURES! I am awarding you +10 points for that! And that's it for responses in this post. Now I'm only 3 months and 21 days behind! Points: Totally Not (Is?) Lyra: 190 Trottermare Galamane: 135 (+1) Wolf General Alpha: 11 The Crimson Cross: 10 (+10) SpeedForceDashie: 8 CinnamonPop: 6 Crescent Light: 5 Lightwing: 2 Coupons: (As of the last post I responded to, but also including these chess match results) Totally Not Lyra: 5 Trottermare Galamane: 3

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ljz6AGunHWc Responses will be tomorrow hopefully. But I can still stop you anytime!

I'm back! Feel free to start going all out again! I welcome the challenge! I should actually be able to get started again on replying to everyone again soon!

I SHIP IT. 42 is back to reset your count! Then he'll probably disappear for a week again. But after that, good luck getting another dethrone, because 42 will finally be FREE from uni. For a little while, at least.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x_R7dushO9U

Uni is over! I'm free! However, I'm actually not going to be as free as I originally thought. I actually just managed to get some work experience during my uni break, so that's going to take up a lot of my time. I should still be much more free than before, though, so expect me to finally get started on that huge backlog of posts again!

I am very interested! But unfortunately, I've never used Discord before so I'll probably need to spend some time downloading it and getting used to it. And with my current busy uni schedule, I don't really have time to do that. Remind me in a week's time when my uni semester is over!

Congratulations on your victory, Pony Who Claims Not To Be Lyra! In recognition of your victory, I award you 42 42-points and 3 42-coupons! Trottermare, you put up a good fight and helped give us a great battle to watch, so I award you 14 42-points and 1 42-coupon. And here is the finished game in algebraic notion: Do I need to find a new game for you two to play now? What do you mean? The Questioner is still around! He just goes by '' now. In fact, I just had a chess match with him just a little while before you made that post: And yes, I saw all of your awesome pony-in-armor pictures, Trottermare, but I am still really busy with uni now so I will probably leave those posts for when I finally catch up in replying to everything. I actually finish my current uni semester next week, so I'll most probably be able to get through a lot of posts then! Since I actually awarded 42-points and 42-coupons this post, it's time for another summary: Points: Totally Not Lyra: 190 (+42) Trottermare Galamane: 134 (+14) Wolf General Alpha: 11 SpeedForceDashie: 8 CinnamonPop: 6 Crescent Light: 5 Lightwing: 2 Coupons: (As of the last post I responded to, but also including the chess match results) Totally Not Lyra: 5 (+3) Trottermare Galamane: 3 (+1)

Uni's once again entering a really busy period. I only really have time now to reassure you I exist and to reset the count. But I have seen some of the other posts and I know I have a lot to address once I have more time! It'll probably be around Wednesday when my schedule clears up again.

I confirm that, as Absolutely Not Totally Not Lyra said, you made two moves at the same time here, (g3+ and Nxc7). I think you should rewind to this move as Trottermare decides which move he wants to do. I really like chess too! But in a bit of a weird way. I really enjoyed the strategic nature of chess, in how there are so many different ways to create threats and respond to your opponent's threats. But I started to lose interest in it when I got to the point where, in order to keep getting better, I had to start memorizing lots and lots of openings. It took away from the tactical part of the game, and made each individual chess game feel too similar to me. But then I found out about Chess960, which I now love more than regular chess. By randomizing opening positions, memorizing openings is now completely impractical (you still could theoretically, but you have 960 times the number of moves to memorize!). So, the game puts much more emphasis on the tactics and creativity of each player, and it helps give each game a lot of variety. Basically everything I liked about chess originally when I was less skilled. And it does all this while retaining many of the original aspects of chess, such as castling and having opposite-coloured bishops. If anyone wants to challenge me, I'd be happy to play a game of chess against you, whether it's normal chess, chess960, or some other crazy variant! Let this thread be nothing but chess battles as we count! (Although I am busy these days so I probably won't be responding as quickly as Trottermare and Not Lyra are) In case you didn't see the start of their game, Not Lyra and Trottermare are playing a Chess960 game I generated for points. And for some reason, I'm having way too much fun translating their game into algebraic notation, so here's their game so far:

Oh, hey. I'm busy. Great chess match. You're close to 42. Let's fix that. Here's a pony video.

What's this? I was gone for two days and the count only reached 7?

I KNEW IT! Totally Not Lyra is a ruse! You must be Absolutely Not Totally Not Lyra! I would like to ask a clarification question: are the combinations of numbers 3 digits long or can they be any length, and do you include 0 as one of your digits or do you only work with digits 1 - 9? I just did some quick mathing with the assumption that the combinations are 3 digits long and the number 0 excluded and found that 116 was the only combination that worked under those conditions; no other possibility exists. I don't have the time to properly solve this question yet. It took me about 20 minutes of working trying to find another 3-digit combination to show that no such combination exists (unless I made a mistake, which is quite possible). As a busy uni student, I don't have that much time to dedicate to things like this, especially if I want to actually catch up on all the comments here. But rest assured, I will return to this problem once I have the time! This problem you posed is very interesting! Oh, and +10 points for both some nice mathing as well as giving your maths overload a great maths problem! So... Did I just get dethroned twice? I'm not too sure whether that should count. You basically just disarmed the trap guarding my throne, rearmed it, and disarmed it again. But then again, you had to spend one of your hard-earned 42 Coupons to do it, so it would be cruel to take that from you. See, this is why we're doing the testing. Now we found an issue we need to fix. I'm a (somewhat) benevolent overlord, so how about we put these issues to a vote? For both of the issues below, whichever option is the most popular will be what the rule shall be from now on! Or if you think there's a third, better way of approaching them, feel free to suggest that too. 1. Should a dethrone count if the same milestone is counted for a second time due to a coupon moving the count back? 2. When using the coupon, should the user get their usual contribution to the count added to the changed total (effectively resulting in a net choice between -1 or +3) or should they not get to do so (resulting in a choice between -2 or +2)? You are correct! (42 + 20 = 62) OR (42 - 20 = 62) is a true expression! Whoa, what just happened to Celestia? That comic looks pretty epic! +3 points for that! And now, we jump into our time machine and return to the present day: No, no! I just meant I wasn't going to quote every post you made with a chessboard in it! I'm still going back and responding to all those old comments! No need to unleash a Luna on me! Also, the game so far: Wow, square h3 has had so many pieces captured on it. It's like some sort of death square! That trade with the queen was incredible! I feel I should probably reward both of you with many 42 points once the game's over for providing a great show! And of course, the winner gets more points! Points: Totally Not Lyra: 148 (+10) Trottermare Galamane: 120 (+3) Wolf General Alpha: 11 SpeedForceDashie: 8 CinnamonPop: 6 Crescent Light: 5 Lightwing: 2 Coupons: (As of the last post I responded to) Trottermare Galamane: 2 Totally Not Lyra: 2

There's far too many posts to quote, so I'm just going to mention both of you, @ and @@Trottermare Galamane. (Replace 'rodeo show' with 'chess match' ) Also, because I was bored, I translated your game so far into algebraic notation: Starting position: N/Q/B/N/R/B/K/R 1. c4 e5 2. g4 Re6 3. Nb3 Rf6 4. d4 exd4 5. Nxd4 Bb4 6. Nc3 Bc5 7. g5 Rb6 8. Ncb5 c6 9. Nb3 Bb4 10. Bd2 Bxd2 11. Nxd2 cxb5 I have no idea how, but I never heard of Shogi before. But I looked it up, and it seems really interesting! If you don't mind playing a complete beginner who barely knows the rules of the game and probably won't be able to reply as frequently as Trottermare and Not Lyra are, then I'm game! At least once I teach myself the rules.

Now then. Let's get started on the enormous backlog I have, shall we? For reference, the last post I made responding to your posts was this one. The last post I responded to was this one. You may notice that post was on page 1133. We are now on page 1171. I have 38 pages of posts to go though! There's no way I'll be able to respond to them all in one go, but I have to start sometime! If you wish to trade 42 Coupons or 42 Points amongst yourselves, I am fully in support of this. I just require both parties to fill in this document, which requires you to state the reason for the Coupons/Points transfer, fill in your name, date of birth, gender and the transfer amount, and sign it in the presence of a notary who can provide a witness's signature. And don't worry about all the fine print at the end of the document. You shall verse each other in a game of chess, but with a twist! Have you heard of the variant called Chess960? It's a variant of chess where the starting position of each piece is randomised (with two restrictions: bishops are always on different coloured squared, and the king is always between the two rooks). I've already set up a randomized board just for you: The game then plays out according to the rules of normal chess, with the exception of castling which has some slightly modified rules to account for the different starting positions. I'll briefly describe them in this spoiler in case you need it. I have also randomly determined that Totally Not Lyra plays white and Trottermare Galamane plays black. So there shall be no arguments over who goes first! Now, begin! An admirable goal. People don't talk enough, and it leaves me with little to respond to! Although, considering I'm replying to comments over a month old at this point, maybe it would be in my favour if people spoke less... Even so, it's is much more interesting to read through everything when you count, so don't stop talking for my sake! Continue talking for my sake! But 28 isn't 42. I can't bring myself to like this new target as much. Still, I guess I like a bit of spontaneity, so I shall award you +2 points for that! Uhh, no, I would most certainly never abuse your generosity like that! (I really was busy all this time. I'm still rather busy now, so I can't reply to too many posts at once.) That's a pretty sweet throne. +2 points for awesome throne! That's my kind of speedposting! That poem was utterly beautiful You shall receive +6 points for that! It sure is! But unfortunately, I think linking the current count to the number 42 has gotten a little too common and stale now, so you shall receive +2 points. That's all I have time for today! Except for one quick point: it has occured to me that I'll need to start keeping track of my 42 coupons as well as my 42 points. So I shall have two sections down below now! Points: Totally Not Lyra: 138 (+4) Trottermare Galamane: 117 (+2) Wolf General Alpha: 11 (+6) SpeedForceDashie: 8 CinnamonPop: 6 Crescent Light: 5 Lightwing: 2 Coupons: (I'm pretty sure this is likely to be outdated, but I haven't read over all the posts yet so I can't be sure. The numbers below are as of the last post I responded to, not as of the last post in this thread.) Trottermare Galamane: 3 Totally Not Lyra: 2