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When I am in the sea, I'm always falsy

When you add it, you can finally see me!

When you take a drink with me, people say I'm a fool - but I always drop the l.

hint:

BTW, someone told me I'm french!

hint 2:

The title of the puzzle is the 3rd hint

last hint:

The solution is in front of you !

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  • $\begingroup$ Is that an L or an i or a 1? $\endgroup$
    – Radvylf Programs
    Apr 23, 2018 at 14:29
  • $\begingroup$ It was to make it a bit harder, but it is a L :D $\endgroup$
    – toto
    Apr 23, 2018 at 14:33
  • $\begingroup$ Could you add another hint? $\endgroup$
    – Radvylf Programs
    Apr 23, 2018 at 14:48
  • 1
    $\begingroup$ In hint 2: 2nd hint instead of 3rd? $\endgroup$
    – Ahmed Ashour
    Apr 23, 2018 at 15:39
  • 1
    $\begingroup$ Well, depends how you count $\endgroup$
    – toto
    Apr 23, 2018 at 15:42

13 Answers 13

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partial answer:

I guess the "sea" refers in fact to C language
"when you add it", probably ++
"people say i'm a fool but I drop the l" => foo is a "dummy word" (together with bar which fits the "When you take a drink with me") for naming variable, people say you are "french", your name in puzzling is toto, the french equivalent to foo and bar... guess i'm close to find
It should be somthing that exists in C++ but not in C, related to foobar

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  • $\begingroup$ You found it ! I'll write the detailed answer :) Maybe you can update your answer too $\endgroup$
    – toto
    Apr 24, 2018 at 9:54
  • $\begingroup$ I was quite far though ^^, didn't thought about la tête à toto, just found some parts of the riddle $\endgroup$
    – Flying_whale
    Apr 24, 2018 at 10:40
  • $\begingroup$ Since you found it using at least 2 hints, I think you deserve the answer $\endgroup$
    – toto
    Apr 24, 2018 at 11:30
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I don't know enough to take a stab at the final answer yet, I'm pretty sure this riddle's talking about

Computer science

When I am in the sea, I'm always falsy

falsy is a computer science term for somethings evaluates to false (like 0). I'm pretty sure this means in C the answer resolves to false.

When you add it, you can finally see me!

But in C++ (when you add it), it resolves to some value instead.

When you take a drink with me, people say I'm a fool - but I always drop the l.

foo (people say I'm a fool - but I always drop the l) is a universal placeholder for variable/method names in computer science.

The trouble is....

I don't know C++!

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  • $\begingroup$ Yes ! You are on the good route, well done. #1 has part of the solution in it, #3 is correct ! $\endgroup$
    – toto
    Apr 23, 2018 at 16:07
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Some things no one else seems to have found so far:

"take a drink" seems to be a reference to Java,

and

French uses guillemets for quotation marks, which look like the << and >> operators.

Overall, it sounds like

<< and >> probably have something to do with the answer. << is used for printing in C++, matching the second hint. The Java reference sounds like it may have something to do with generics, where >> frequently shows up (but not <<); generics involve type parameters, which could match the metasyntactic variable part implied by "foo".

Still,

some of these connections are pretty tenuous, and I feel like while the hints all share a theme, they don't seem to fit together to all refer to the same thing within that theme.

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4
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You are

Salt

When I am in the sea, I am always falsy

You cannot see the salt in the sea

When you add it, you can finally see me

You can see salt in it's culinary form

When you take a drink with me, people say I'm foolish, but I always drop the L

Could refer to how you put salt around the edges of an alcholic drink

Hint

Fools Salt (Or Sel Fou) is common in France: Fou is like fool without the L

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8
  • $\begingroup$ Okay good, you used L not I $\endgroup$
    – Radvylf Programs
    Apr 23, 2018 at 14:37
  • $\begingroup$ Nice try ! What about the hint tho? $\endgroup$
    – toto
    Apr 23, 2018 at 14:39
  • $\begingroup$ this is the most logical answer i can think of $\endgroup$
    – TinyTRex72
    Apr 23, 2018 at 14:39
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    $\begingroup$ "When you add it, you can finally see me" => I see it as if you add enough salt, you reach saturation point and can see the salt $\endgroup$
    – Kepotx
    Apr 23, 2018 at 14:40
  • $\begingroup$ Matches pretty well, but that's not the answer :D $\endgroup$
    – toto
    Apr 23, 2018 at 14:45
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Building on @LordFarquaad's answer. I'll add some more details and links later. I think the answer is

Cout

When I am in the sea, I'm always falsy

In C programming language, this has no meaning and would cause an error or return false.

When you add it, you can finally see me!

But in C++, it prints to the console, so you can "see" it.

When you take a drink with me, people say I'm a fool - but I always drop the l.

Foo is a generic placeholder for methods, signalling that we want a method in C++

Hint 1.

Cout also means cost in French

Hint 2 maybe

Not as sure on this one, but maybe because cout is used to print, and thus also common in debugging and locating errors

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3
  • $\begingroup$ You wrote "I'm always daisy" instead of "falsy". Is there a particular reason? Also, you say "Cout also means cut in French". Don't you mean "cost" instead of "cut"? $\endgroup$
    – actaram
    Apr 23, 2018 at 18:22
  • $\begingroup$ @TheWanderingMind I would assume both errors are a result of autocorrect. $\endgroup$
    – ale10ander
    Apr 23, 2018 at 20:59
  • $\begingroup$ @TheWanderingMind Yep, my bad, wrote the original on my phone. $\endgroup$
    – Cain
    Apr 24, 2018 at 2:36
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I cannot find a strong connection with some of the hints, but I think it's something along the lines of:

Null

When I am in the sea, I'm always falsy

In C, NULL is the same as 0, which is the same as false

When you add it, you can finally see me!

NULL doesn't correspond to an ASCII character, but some larger numbers do

When you take a drink with me, people say I'm a fool - but I always drop the l.

'Fool minus the l is 'foo' a common placeholder variable usually initialized to 0 or NULL. Thanks to Lord Farquaad for this insight

Hint 1

Nul is French for zero/null, which might have something to do with 'dropping the l'

But I can't figure out

How this connects to the title

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  • $\begingroup$ Welcome to Puzzling SE! Nice first answer! $\endgroup$
    – NL628
    Apr 23, 2018 at 21:36
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Maybe the answer is

nil, which is falsy in C languages. I thiiink (although I am rusty on this) if you add a number to it, at least in objective-c, it will be cast to an integer, hence "when you add it you can finally see it".

I also believe it comes from french

nul, which means zero.

The hint about finding myself refers to what I described above. But,

There might also be something around various nil variations in other languages: nil, nul, null, null pointer (perhaps the pointer refers to "help me find myself"). Also the drink seems to be the reference to Java, another programming language where null is used. Maybe "people say I'm fool, because I always drop the 'l' and use 'nul' version instead?

So I think this might be pretty close but can't quite make sense of the details.

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1
  • $\begingroup$ Worth noting that my answer is also heavily influenced by @Lord Farquaad $\endgroup$
    – ivanibash
    Apr 23, 2018 at 19:12
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I think the answer is:

mirage

When I am in the sea, I'm always falsy

It is just a refraction of light

When you add it, you can finally see me !

Not sure about this

When you take a drink with me, people say I'm a fool - but I always drop the l.

Mirage drink

hint 1:

Its origin is French.

hint 2:

It is not something which really exists, and can not be found

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1
  • $\begingroup$ Nice try, not the correct answer tho ! :D $\endgroup$
    – toto
    Apr 23, 2018 at 15:37
1
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Going off of @Lord Farquaad's answer, I think the answer is:

0

"When I am in the sea, I'm always falsy":

0 is a 'falsy' value in C++, as in it evaluates to false

"When you add it, you can finally see me!":

When you add '0' to a number in C++, you get that numbers character value. This allows you to print the number and "finally see" it.

"When you take a drink with me, people say I'm a fool - but I always drop the l."

foo is a placeholder variable, and if that variable is an int more often than not it will initially be set to 0.

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1
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Answer is

Tête à Toto

When I am in the sea, I'm always falsy

In the programming language C, 0 is used as False (or falsy if you speak the lingo)

When you add it, you can finally see me!

When you actually write out "0 + 0", the face of Toto begins to appear.

When you take a drink with me, people say I'm a fool - but I always drop the l.

"Fool" - "L" = "Foo", and you'd probably be drinking at a bar, and in the french programming community "toto" is often used as their equivalent to "foobar"

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0
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I think the answer is

foobar.

.

When you take a drink with me, people say I'm a fool - but I always drop the l.

.

You have drinks at a bar. Take fool-l = foo, and add bar.

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1
  • $\begingroup$ That's the correct answer for #3 ! You need to take in account all hints to find the global answer :D $\endgroup$
    – toto
    Apr 24, 2018 at 7:26
0
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Answer is

IT

When you add it, you can finally see me!

In the context of this riddle it is me, hence IT (The solution is in front of you!)

All other hints previously covered in good detail

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1
  • $\begingroup$ Welcome to Puzzling.SE! You should try and explain how your answer fits the entire riddle and not just one line - as it stands, and compared to the other answers, I really don't think this is correct. $\endgroup$
    – F1Krazy
    Apr 24, 2018 at 8:54
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My guess is

Love (a score of zero in tennis)

because

in C, 0 evaluates to false.
in C++, when you add 0 to something you can see it.
in Java (when you take a drink), 0 is commonly an initial value for a placeholder variable foo.
Hint #1 : Love comes from the French l'oeuf, which means egg; as zero has the shape and appearance of an egg.
Hint #2 seems to suggest the title, 'Please help me find myself' is important. Help me find love maybe?
Hint #3, The solution is right in front of you: nothing is right in front of you, it's a red herring?

Admittedly the last couple of clues are a bit sketchy but this follows on from the answers already given which are on the right track.

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1
  • 1
    $\begingroup$ I think the title and the hints mostly refer to the fact that toto is usually used in french as a generic name (similarly to the foo/bar mentioned in some answers) $\endgroup$
    – Nank
    Apr 24, 2018 at 9:31

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