Don’t panic. Or should you?

[Yacine]

I was wondering why the Visio forum feels so empty these days. Here's what I came up with:

• Covid19 has mutated. It now targets only Visionistas. I just happen to not have been infected yet. Last survivor in a world without Visio pals!
• Cyber attack. Terrorists realized that managers are helpless without Visio charts. A virus was released that silently kills all Visio installations.
• Microsoft is shutting Visio down. They've started disabling all installations remotely. Users are now forced to choose between PowerPoint, Excel, or Paint for diagramming. Some have gone underground.
• AI is doing our job now. There's probably a specialised model drawing better stencils than we ever could – without complaining about control points.
• It's springtime. Visionistas have become reasonable. They're outside, enjoying the weather, forgetting their love for connector geometry.
• The forum was hacked. Everyone is still here, posting – but no messages are getting through. It's like shouting into a perfectly aligned void.

Let me know if I missed something. Or if you're out there.
Still alive. Still drawing.

[Paul Herber]

7. What do you get if you ask Visio to multiply 7 by 9? 42

[Nikolay]

I have consulted the gpt, it came up with some ideas that it can be related to Russia actually:

8. A secret Russian troll farm misread "Visio" as an extremist political movement. Fearing its influence, they flooded the internet with diagram disinfo — looped connectors, misaligned shapes, mislabeled swimlanes. Confused and demoralized, the Visio community collapsed under the weight of nonsensical process flows.

9. A bizarre Russian tiktok video accidentally made Visio wildly popular again overnight — but only in Siberia. So all the world's true Visionistas have teleported there to compete in diagramming challenges for potatoes. The forum is quiet because they're all too busy optimizing supply chains with nothing but ShapeSheet and sheer willpower

[Yacine]

7. What do you get if you ask Visio to multiply 7 by 9? 42

Depends on the units – 7in by 9mm equals 13 bananas. But only if snap to grid is enabled. Otherwise you get rounding errors and one sad pineapple.

The question's hidden in a stencil, but I can't remember which one.
We'd probably need to iterate over all of them.
Recursively. With a towel.

Pretty sure it was last seen in Basic_UML.vssx, right between "Actor" and "Interface".

[Yacine]

10. There was a strong correlation between forum silence and the recent papal conclave. Many Visionistas were emotionally invested. Now that white smoke has risen and Leo has been elected – reportedly a long-time Visio user – we expect activity to resume. Rumor has it he's already working on reorganising the Vatican's stencil library.

Insiders say Leo insisted on aligning the Cardinals clockwise before the final vote.

[Paul Herber]

Where there are Papal States (as were in the past) there should be a Papal State Machine, a modification of the Finite State Machine.
I find it interesting that physics seems to work differently in the Catholic Church compared with the Protestant Monarchy we have in the UK. In the UK if the King (or Queen) dies then the next in line becomes King (or Queen) immediately. No delays for the speed of light for information to pass from one to the other. It is instant, the proposed particle, the Kingon, travels at infinite velocity to the heir.
The Popon particle seems to travel much slower and requires many other particles to come together in support. This particle illustrates the particle-wave duality in that once the Popon particle has materialised on the balcony a wave to the assembled peon particles is seen.

[Yacine]

I must admit I rather like the idea of thinking beforehand about who gets the job.
Feels refreshingly... un-British.
You might stand a chance for the throne, Paul – provided the Kingon particle doesn't outrun your application.

[wapperdude]

11) discount (10) and (10's) replies:  the majority of Visio users, as Visio users, are apolitical
New 10):  Paul Herber:  his enthusiastic quest to keep the forum pure has eliminated 99.9% of new members.
10a). wapperdude.  He cleans up the remaining 0.1%
12) Gen-Z:  their anti productive attitude excludes using Visio
13) Visio Forum itself:  all question have been answered in a variety of ways, and the search engine quickly focuses on the most appropriate answer, thus eliminating need for new members, as there are no new questions.
14) Apathy.  Post covid-19 attitude:  who cares.

[Yacine]

Now I have to wave a Pope around just to lure you out of your cave?

[wapperdude]

Recent Forum activity has been been well and successfully handled.  I just hide behind PH watching, butt wiggling, waiting to pounce and devour the unwitting, the unsuccessful, the downtrodden.  Acutely atuned to Pope-waving.

[Paul Herber]

butt wiggling,

How to get any American kid giggling ...

https://www.google.com/maps/@51.1430336,-0.9828404,19z/data=!5m1!1e1?entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI1MDUwNi4wIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D

[Yacine]

The German kid giggled too. A simple mind.

[wapperdude]

@PH, reply #7:  Huh???   That's incorrect?!?  I thought it was autocorrect issue flipping the 9.

[Paul Herber]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hitchhiker%27s_Guide_to_the_Galaxy

Read, learn, you will be tested later.

[Yacine]

the majority of Visio users, as Visio users, are apolitical

Apolitical? Visionistas are anything but.
They simply honour the sacred ground of the Visio Forum and refuse to defile it with unblessed material.
This is the Hall of God Visio – politics and religion have no place here.
Only the calm of shapesheets, macros and the inevitable Microsoft bugs.
We worship in silence. We edit in peace.
The visionary peace.

Amen to the holy smart-shape