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Friday Fun Thread for October 30, 2026

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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I always get ready to give up every Halloween and dress as a doctor. For some reason this takes minimal costume changes. I can take out my stethoscope, rarely used in anger, and I've already told med students that buying a Litmann second hand off psychiatrists is a good idea.

Well, might as well be a zombie doctor this time, which also isn't much of a change, depending on how much caffeine I've had.

Anyone have anything more exciting planned?

I’m still banned from my aunt’s this year due to my younger cousin dressing as a murderer bringing a real shotgun to the group and my refusal to be the adult and take it away from him. She’ll get over it eventually. This isn’t the only time something like that’s happened. Was invited to a few Halloween parties this year but don’t really feeling like going all the way out.

If you ever go to a pumpkin patch and walk the maze there’s quite an easy trick I thought of a long time ago to find your way out. It works 100% of the time. No, it’s not climbing the stacks of hay and walking over everything or setting them on fire. Simply pick one direction and stick to it. Go left on every path and corner or right on every path and corner. You’ll hit every route in the maze until you find your way out; turning a 30 minute puzzle into a 2 minute one.

Simply pick one direction and stick to it. Go left on every path

Only if the entrance and exit are both on the outside edge of a flat maze. If you have to gather keys (or just want to see all the areas) or if there are overpasses/underpasses, then you can get stuck in a loop.

Of course, nobody is going to make a complex corn maze, so it'll work on 100% of them that are actually built.

Making complex surface corn mazes (feels like we're missing an opportunity with Maize Maze), would be a great way to use all the mathematician's time that LLMs just freed up!

Well. Yes. In our case it was a simple one in its architecture, but physically large. Halloween and the 4th of July (and also Christmas, Jesus always gets His) are my favorite holidays for obvious reasons, so I’m almost always game for some pretty extreme activities if someone has the connect. Sadly Halloween’s strongly diminished from when I was a kid. If there’s ever a program of cultural revival, I’m making that shit a national holiday.

Seems like a pretty sad corn maze if it only takes 2 minutes to travel the entire set of paths?

It was pretty big. I think I just happened to start at the right point close to the exit. The rest of my family was stuck in there over an hour as I was waiting for them at the end.

Well played then!