The Sphinx's Lair - 2016-12-10

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5:33 AM

0

Q: A riddle but there's a answer that is hard to answer

In one in one. I'm two is three. We are three. Who is four? What does this mean? Its backwards. So work backwards.

2 hours later…

Anonymous

7:38 AM

@Displayname I dunno if my laptop/brain is faulty or not, but I'm not getting anything - even a space - let alone whitespace character, in your profile text. (Also, you could've changed your chat name, and picture without changing your PSE/any other SE account name with a trivial trick, if that was the point of changing them)

8:25 AM

@ArbitraryKangaroo That was not the point.

3 hours later…

11:03 AM

@Randal'Thor congrats on 40k

I'm going to write a wrap up for SYW, should I include how I made FYW too? I don't really want to answer it so late on FYW...

I do kind of need to include it as SYW evolved from FYW in the first place

11:30 AM

@BeastlyGerbil Duh, being late is not a problem.

I'd say you put up wrap-ups of both

11:54 AM

Okay, I'll do FYW first as, well, it came first.

1 hour later…

Puzzling — BOUNTY!

1:04 PM

15

Q: Riddle-Yet-Another-Riddle!

Let us tell you a story about nothing but us. Unbleached sometimes, sometimes not, that's what they discuss! We were fabricated by some type, and that type had a needless lane. Magical we might be, the future probably, we shall never go in vain! One of us reside in each line her...

riddle wordplay rhyme

3 hours later…

3:37 PM

@BeastlyGerbil Thanks! :-D

Been working towards it for a long time.

1 hour later…

4:50 PM

0

Q: How do I solve this trivia?

I am trying to improve my logical thinking and I came across this puzzle problem. I need some help solving the puzzle below. Two weeks ago, four enthusiasts made sightings of objects in the sky in their neighborhood. Each of the four reported his or her sightings on a different day. The FBI came...

logical-deduction

2 hours later…

6:24 PM

0

Q: Four is the magic number

Can someone figure out the pattern? Each number always maps to another number, eventually getting to 4. $1 \Rightarrow 3 \Rightarrow 5 \Rightarrow 4$ $2 \Rightarrow 3 \Rightarrow 5 \Rightarrow 4$ $3 \Rightarrow 5 \Rightarrow 4$ $4$ $5 \Rightarrow 4$ $6 \Rightarrow 3 \Rightarrow 5 \Rightarro...

6:35 PM

0

Q: Number 1 Mission

When Inspector Kit was just a little kitty, she desperately wanted to be a spy jetting off to foreign countries, thwarting international diamond thieves. And now the big day has arrived: her very first mission. And it's rather disappointing. This was not she had in mind - a grubby room somewhere...

cipher enigmatic-puzzle steganography

1 hour later…

7:43 PM

@Randal'Thor - It is possible that removing "-" may affect puzzle if there is a morse code right? puzzling.stackexchange.com/posts/46585/revisions

@Techidiot The dashes weren't added by the OP.

@BeastlyGerbil has an obsession with editing :-)

Ohh :D

Hmmm?

I do?

@BeastlyGerbil You edit nearly every new post that comes in.

I didn't actually remove/add any dashes there. Just spaced out punctuation. I.Hate.It.When People.Write like.This

7:46 PM

I guess I can see some dashes in the original post though. Well I am not sure if they mean anything atm

@Randal'Thor to be fair most new posts need editing

And not all of your edits are very substantial. I'd be rejecting quite a few of them if they were suggested edits.

And may not be useful. But just in case

@BeastlyGerbil You're chasing a Copy Editor badge, aren't you? :-)

Whats that?

7:47 PM

@BeastlyGerbil Oh, my mistake! I thought you were replacing spaces by dashes!

No just spacing out punctuation

Fixed.

Oh sh**. I had no idea I edited way more than everyone else O_o. I'll try and hold back a bit...

@BeastlyGerbil ... yeah. I was sure you must be badge-hunting.

Well I don't often check badge progress, but just checked and I am 435/500. So I suppose thats an upside...

1 hour later…

8:55 PM

1

Q: Mortin Myes' First Cryptic Gallery

My acquaintanceship with Mortin Myes' began in college, where I admired his minimalist artwork - we parted ways amicably within a few years of meeting, and as I went on with my life, I wondered what had become of his. An eccentric fellow, he never quite became a household name. Indeed, he was bar...

enigmatic-puzzle visual

9:41 PM

0

Q: A Single Sentence Puzzle

One of my peculiar acquaintances introduced me to the world of puzzles, so I've started to dabble in making some of my own. Here's a single sentence puzzle, where I want you to find a four letter word that is the answer to the puzzle, and a four letter word that is NOT the answer to the puzzle. ...

enigmatic-puzzle

TheGreatEscaper

10:04 PM

Morning!

New to stackexchange in general

@TheGreatEscaper: Good morning, and welcome! :D

TheGreatEscaper

10:19 PM

Thanks!

10:34 PM

I've liked both of your puzzles so far (still thinking about the latter - it seems interesting, but I haven't quite figured out what to do with four numbers).

TheGreatEscaper

Thanks a lot :)

there aren't too many things numbers can represent...

True... My first thought was to use A1Z26, but that didn't work.

TheGreatEscaper

It seems like you got the answer, but that's not the full puzzle solved! :P

Yeah, the alphanumeric gives out something weird.

If you got the answer then the not answer isn't too far away

"Read this right"... I suppose the answer isn't SHIT (an anagram of THIS)? :P

Well, the not-answer, I mean.

TheGreatEscaper

That's not the answer, but it's not the not-answer either.

...If that makes sense

It's very obvious when you've arrived at the not-answer

10:42 PM

Yep, makes sense to me.

Hm... extracting even or odd letters doesn't seem to give anything either. (even reading "right", i.e. from right to left)

TheGreatEscaper

Hmm, I'm not really sure what to say without spoiling anything

Don't over-complicate it?

I think that's the best non-hinty advice I can give right now. :)

10:58 PM

Aw, I'm good at overcomplicating things. :P

@Deusovi flagged :-P

Hey @Randal'Thor!

Hi @Deusovi! Welcome @TheGreatEscaper!

TheGreatEscaper

Thanks!

I suppose I should say hi, but it's hardly a first time meeting given that you posted the partial answer on my first puzzle :P

Yep :-)

And I upvoted both already.

TheGreatEscaper

11:01 PM

A quick scan of this site: '@Randal'Thor 2048 days visited, consecutively? that's.... words fail. - 2d ago by Rubio'

Nice to know what kind of person I'm dealing with, I guess :)

Oh thanks a lot! Do the upvotes really mean much anyway?

That was in response to an image of a different user that Rand posted.

Puzzling hasn't even been around for that long!

TheGreatEscaper

Ahahahaha, that makes a bit more sense.

@TheGreatEscaper I haven't visited 2048 days consecutively. That was just in reference to a meta post I linked to.

Yes, more reputation gives you more privileges on the site. Talking in chat requires 10 rep, downvoting requires 125...

@Deusovi Isn't it 20 for chat?

TheGreatEscaper

11:02 PM

It was 20

Whoops, yeah.

Anyway, here's a full list of the privileges you can get for having reputation:

puzzling.stackexchange.com/help/privileges

TheGreatEscaper

Ah okay. So StackOverflow basically works on a reputation -> responsibility sort of thing?

Yep, pretty much!

TheGreatEscaper

It's quite a cool system actually. Are there still things like mods?

Yeah. I'm a mod here on Puzzling, and @Randal'Thor is a mod over on Sci-Fi.

11:05 PM

@TheGreatEscaper You're talking to a couple of them :-)

TheGreatEscaper

Ahahaha alright :)

But mods don't really do that much which ordinary users can't.

Much of the day-to-day moderation work - closing and deleting bad posts, for instance - can be done by high-rep users.

TheGreatEscaper

Yeah, when I read the list of reputation actions I started wondering if that meant mods could have a break.

Yep. Mods mostly just deal with major outliers (like users abusing the system specifically to help each other gain reputation by upvoting other posts rather than actually contributing).

Mods are often called "human exception handlers". One way of looking at it is that we deal with bad people more than bad posts.

TheGreatEscaper

11:07 PM

Ahhhhhh, makes sense.

Oh, and mods are elected too! I was elected just this July.

43

Q: 2016 Community Moderator Election Results

Puzzling's first moderator election has come to a close, the votes have been tallied, and the 3 new moderators are: They'll be installed as the moderator team shortly — please thank them for volunteering, and share your assistance and advice with them as they learn the ropes! I personally ...

discussion election

@Deusovi Except on beta sites.

in Mos Eisley, Aug 26 '15 at 21:46, by Richard

@WadCheber - ArtOfCode is a pro-tem moderator. I heard that he found his mod-diamond in a christmas cracker.

(Meta is the site where we talk about Puzzling - set up "topic challenges", ask about what types of questions are allowed, and point out bugs or other issues.)

Right, but I didn't want to overwhelm them :P

TheGreatEscaper

Yup, found Meta a few minutes ago, a few odd threads there, might do the fortnightly challenges from here on (that sounds like fun).

Yeah, it's a lot of fun! I've gotten too "into" a puzzle multiple times and missed the deadline though.

TheGreatEscaper

11:10 PM

The deadline for the last challenge is today so I doubt I'll do anything for it :P

Most of the other Stack Exchange sites are purely Q&A. The only exceptions are here and Code Golf (where people compete to solve programming tasks in the lowest number of bytes).

TheGreatEscaper

Ah alright

Yep, the fortnightly challenges are great! The current one is geography, which ends in a couple of days, and then it looks like the next one will be animals.

The topic challenges are here:

39

Q: What should the subjects of our fortnightly topic challenges be?

My previous meta post suggesting topic challenges on Puzzling was well-received, but nobody ever actually suggested a topic to start off such a challenge. This post is intended to remedy that lack. Let's have fortnightly topic challenges. A fortnight seems like a reasonable time period: there...

discussion topic-challenge

TheGreatEscaper

A friend of mine got me into puzzling.stackexchange (they posted the computer science department question)

(and an IKEA question I think)

11:12 PM

Which means I'll have to hurry up with the animals puzzle idea I've been sitting on for weeks.

@TheGreatEscaper Oh yeah, that one was cool!

@TheGreatEscaper That was probably this one:

63

Q: REJBÄS - an unfinished flat-pack puzzle

I'm going to come right out and say it: I'm kinda bored of making puzzles, but I still want those sweet, sweet imaginary internet points, so I'm phoning it in this time with a flat-pack rebus I bought at a puzzle warehouse. The only thing is, I can't really be bothered putting it together... Ra...

TheGreatEscaper

Yup!

Wait, are you sure?

I thought it was the one based off of it, by Boboquack.

@Alconja makes awesome puzzles.

11:13 PM

19

Q: RIDDÅL - another unfinished flat-pack puzzle

This is an entry to the 19th Fortnightly topic challenge Yesterday I got a package in the mail. Attached to its top was a letter: Dear Alconja, That's strange, I thought... Must have gone to the wrong user. As a result of your excellent choice in purchasing a REJBÄS puzzle, you have be...

riddle cipher rebus no-computers mechanical-puzzles

As does @BmyGuest.

And here's the Computer Science Department one:

17

Q: The Computer Science Department

On a tour of a nearby university, we went into the computer science department. I was fascinated by the courses they offered, of course, but there were weird grids displayed on screens along the hallways. Halfway along the tour, a student challenged me to find out what they represent. Can you w...

mathematics computer-science

TheGreatEscaper

Ahhhhhh my friend did RIDDAL.

I remembered the mildly Swedish name, and that's about it.

Didn't realise mechanical-puzzles was a tag

Mechanical puzzles are really awesome, although it's kind of hard for any to get posted here.

Yep! We also allow questions about puzzles (like solving strategies for the Rubik's Cube).

Emrakul, one of the other mods here, is the resident expert on Rubik's cubes.

TheGreatEscaper

11:18 PM

Not the biggest fan of twisty type puzzles actually! I totally get the appeal but I find it really hard to get invested in them.

I'm more of a mrpuzzle.com.au/big-ben-puzzle.html kind of guy.

Yeah, I'm the same way. My favorite types of puzzles involve wordplay.

TheGreatEscaper

I design my own mechanical puzzles, actually

@Deusovi Speaking of which, I've been wondering if we need a better tag wiki/excerpt for the wordplay tag. I don't feel the current one quite captures it, but I've really struggled to come up with something that does (the concept of wordplay seems to be one of those "I know it when I see it" things).

TheGreatEscaper

I used to do it quite a bit but I've kind of dropped off recently

@TheGreatEscaper Awesome! Have you got the equipment to make them yourself too?

TheGreatEscaper

11:22 PM

Unfortunately not... I'm interested in getting a 3d printer at some stage though

That'd help quite a bit!

Blimey, this looks awesome:

18

Q: A cubic colored pyramid

While preparing the next puzzle for publishing, I decided to encrypt the file to protect it, but something went wrong or maybe I entered the wrong command because the puzzle was encrypted, yes, but not the way I was expecting it to be! Instead of becoming an unaccessible file, it became another p...

pattern enigmatic-puzzle no-computers

And 500 rep if you can solve it!

TheGreatEscaper

Wowee

Looks quite difficult...

Puzzling — BOUNTY!

19

Q: A cubic colored pyramid

While preparing the next puzzle for publishing, I decided to encrypt the file to protect it, but something went wrong or maybe I entered the wrong command because the puzzle was encrypted, yes, but not the way I was expecting it to be! Instead of becoming an unaccessible file, it became another p...

pattern enigmatic-puzzle no-computers

Typical - the bot posts it right after I do :-P

TheGreatEscaper

Looks like the letters only go up to L

Also seems like earlier letters are far more common

30 blacks, leaves 168 faces with letters? I'll double check the maths/counting later.

11:40 PM

How should I tag a puzzle that contains more than five (max tag count) different types of puzzles? Should I tag it with the "primary tags" or just enigmatic-puzzle?

TheGreatEscaper

Are they all related??

If there's a big meta puzzle linking them all, then enigmatic puzzle is a good bet.

Otherwise, if they're not intrinsically related, you can post them separately

I'll tag it metapuzzles & enigmatic-puzzle then, thanks.

@Displayname As many as you can, and then put something in the body of the question to say there are more that should apply.

It's not an enigmatic-puzzle if it is clear what kind of puzzle it is.

Ok, so metapuzzles and as many other tags as possible.

TheGreatEscaper

Didn't know metapuzzles was a tag, sorry!

11:53 PM

I'm pretty sure I've seen Alconja do that, but can't remember which puzzle (I thought it was this one, but apparently not).

@Displayname Are you the user formerly known as Lukas Rotter?

@Randal'Thor Yes.

Good to know, before I start welcoming you to chat as if you're new here :-P

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Dec '1610

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