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00:00 - 17:0017:00 - 00:00

5:00 PM
It's not a problem, just a be-aware-of-humans thing :)
 
I'm gonna head off to sleep, I've stayed up too late already, a combination of puzzling and Netflix's new Series of Unfortunate Events....
 
If I'd made an error in a puzzle, I could see someone easily making such a comment, and I wouldn't take any offense or read any ill intent from it at all.
 
Woohoo 1AM bedtime. So much for going to sleep before midnight.
 
@TheGreatEscaper Haven't you been told, by the show, that you shouldn't watch it?
 
ninight @TheGreatEscaper
 
5:01 PM
Indeed, every single title sequence!
 
How is that show?
 
Good pick for Lemony, imo
 
I hear good things
 
Almost a replica of the books - love it
 
Its quite good so far. Very faithful in tone and content
 
5:02 PM
I think I read the first book only, a long while ago
I saw the movie, it was rather meh
 
@TheGreatEscaper Good night! (or morning, or afternoon, or whatever it is...?) I've got a day planned for Voltron this week myself, heh. :)
 
There's a few major changes that might not seem too big now but I'm wondering if the endgame is going to be quite different.
The movie isn't great.
 
I'm going to wait until @Mith gets back to decide which to check TGE. Your answer is valid, but I don't want to break up his series, when he references them, later.
 
But casting alone for the show, sounds terrific :)
 
I love the books, can watch the film under the right circumstances, and currently am enjoying the Netflix adaption very much
 
5:03 PM
'enjoying', in this case meaning 'liking very much and losing sleep because of it'
 
"Netflix and allnighter" :)
 
If you never lose sleep over something, do you really enjoy it?
 
Hey, I finished episode 2 at 11:45. The last hour and 15 minutes have been unrelated :P
 
Had to add that in, since that's how Lemony writes, hehe
 
...I know what 'enjoying' means. returns to reading NUPTIAL LAW
 
5:05 PM
Hehe
 
Anyhow, Gnight all!
 
Night
@Randal'Thor Now I have poe stuck in my head.
 
Beware the Star Board :)
 
Btw, your answer refers to a medicine, used as an antacid
 
Well, ok. I saw that too.
I guess that's medicinal
Calcium carbonate is widely used medicinally as an inexpensive dietary calcium supplement for gastric antacid. So, ok. medicine. :)
 
5:10 PM
Basically tums - which I was originally going to use as a defn, in some form, but couldn't
 
That'd be hard to get into a cryptic without it sticking out like a sore thumb
 
Yeah
 
a sore t'um?
 
34 mins ago, by Khale_Kitha
New goal: Use "O'er" in a cryptic clue, and design the entire puzzle in that style.
 
Oh. Dear.
 
5:11 PM
haha
 
That would be epic.
I'd love to see something like that ;)
 
I'm not sure I could pull it off, to be honest, but I may try one day
Btw, looking further at your answer..
abbreviated referred to calendar and a cop's criminal
though you figured out the meaning without that
 
Yeah - inferring the CI made it just a question of finding something suitable. I knew it was an abbreviation. I wasn't sure if you were using it as a common one I just didn't know, or if "abbreviated' covered it. Didn't make much diff tho
 
Now if I could infer, well, anything about Gareth's CCCC . . . .
 
5:28 PM
It's complex?
perhaps even sophisticated
sophisticated sound could be ahem
 
Sid
5:49 PM
Gareth's CCCC hasn't been solved yet?
 
6:21 PM
@Khale_Kitha Not at all! :-)
Jan 5 at 13:55, by Rand al'Thor
@Mithrandir Clue Twenty-Six is going to be a tough one to make ...
@Mithrandir Good thing you started subcontracting out your Clues :-P
 
7:21 PM
2
Q: Can political debates really work?

rand al'thorIn the far-off country of Politica, there are three main parties: the Left, the Right, and the Centre. In the last election, there were 19 million Left voters, 21 million Right voters, and 23 million Centre voters. Every time two people who support different parties get into a debate, they each ...

 
hang on Alexis is a sockpuppet of another high rep user right? And he's accusing you of plagiarism!?
@Randal'Thor is it 1v1 in debates?
 
@BeastlyGerbil Yes. The irony is hilarious.
@BeastlyGerbil Yes; see the last sentence of the second paragraph.
 
Ah yes...
 
Sid
@Randal'Thor I don't quite understand how that is plagiarism.
 
@Sid It isn't.
 
7:29 PM
Pretty sure Gareth is correct. He ninja'd me. Jon's answer contains dodgy maths and tech's has people cut in half debating each other
 
Alexis is just trying to incriminate me.
He has a long history of harassing me.
I've flagged his comments and explained the situation to the mods.
 
I find it amusing how... someone gets their sockpuppet to say the bad comments instead of their main profile
 
@BeastlyGerbil It was always the Alexis account who used to harass me in comments.
 
Sid
@BeastlyGerbil Any progress on my puzzle?
 
Note the "last seen" time on the two user profiles, and how close they are.
 
7:32 PM
@Sid oh sorry I completely forgot!
 
Sid
@Randal'Thor That is hardly enough to accuse someone of sockpuppetry.(Mind you, I am not defending anyone, I just don't know.)
 
I will look at it later...
 
@Sid I'm not accusing anyone. I'm not even mentioning it any more.
 
@Sid there is alot more evidence
 
(Although sending you that email is still on my to-do list.)
Can we all just flag those Alexis comments?
 
Sid
7:33 PM
What e-mail?
 
You you haven't sent it to me either :P
 
Three flags should be enough to make them disappear.
 
I'll flag
what should I flag it as though?
@Rand ^
 
I provided 4 links, including from the Tournament site, demonstrating that your citation is more accurate than the one provided in the contesting comments.
 
yeah I saw. It's def not plagiarisn
 
7:36 PM
@BeastlyGerbil I raised a custom mod flag on the comments, explaining the history to the mods. "Rude or offensive" would also do, IMO.
Especially for the second one, which outright calls me a liar.
 
And I wonder who upvoted those comments... :P
 
And who downvoted my question.
 
Would you like me to remove my comment, Rand?
 
Oh yes. Two downvotes...
 
For the same reason that yours will self-destruct.
 
7:38 PM
@Khale_Kitha Could you flag Alexis's comments first? Once they're gone, the whole lot becomes obsolete.
 
Yeah, have done
 
Huh, that's odd. Maybe I'm misremembering what it takes to get a comment deleted.
 
poor mods :P
 
Unless @Beastly didn't flag them yet.
@Sid?
 
no I did
 
Sid
7:40 PM
I haven't flagged them yet because I don't know what to flag them for. Rude?
 
yeah I did
 
I did rude for 2nd and custom for first.
 
Sid
Yeah flagged rude for the 2nd.
 
If we do get rid of the comments, I'll also custom-flag the post, just to make sure the mods are aware.
The point of mass-flagging ourselves isn't to hide anything from the mods, just to get rid of the comments as fast as possible.
Anyway. On to more pleasant topics? :-)
 
Yes - like how everyone's ignoring my puzzle. :P
 
7:43 PM
Anyone made any progress with this?
 
well Gareth got it right
 
Sid
Yes, What e-mail were you talking about? Any new puzzle?
 
@Khale_Kitha Which one?
 
The one I bountied because no one's looked at it, hehe.
I know you already disregarded it, and I understand the reasoning.
 
@Sid You and Lukas asked me for an email a while back, which I haven't got round to sending yet.
 
7:44 PM
...but I know there's people here who can do it.
 
Oh yeah I looked at that. It's too hard :P
@Randal'Thor and me
 
and yeah - no progress on that one, so far, Rand
 
Sid
@Randal'Thor Of What?
Oh, Sorry, I remember now.
 
@Khale_Kitha 2012rcampion is probably the right person for that kind of puzzle.
 
Sid
My memory is failing. Probably old age. :P
 
7:45 PM
Every time someone does the full tag, I see "Randal" "Thor"
 
Or maybe squeamish ossifrage.
 
True, but there are definitely others that can -- he was definitely not the only one to try, back when they were more prevalent. =D
f" has also disappeared, from what I understand
 
yeah everyones disappeared
leoll too
 
It seems to be a trend on Puzzling.
 
So what happens to a bountied puzzle if no one attempts to answer during the bounty period?
I know what happens if there are no answers, total
 
7:46 PM
People join up, go crazy for a few months earning loads of rep and storming up the leagues, and then disappear.
 
the bounty disappears
 
But there's already one partial - do they automagically get it?
 
leoll, Bailey, CodeNewbie, f'', ...
 
Don't think so... not sure
 
Still waiting for Gareth and Rubio to disappear :-P
 
7:47 PM
@Randal'Thor I think I tried to do that on SFF...
 
Hopefully the fact that we now have a friendly chat community will encourage people to stick around more.
 
24 hours ago, by Rubio
Also, rand, I hate you :)
 
We're a bit one-trick-ponied lately, though.
Unless it's a rebus or CC, the puzzles are getting ignored.
 
@BeastlyGerbil The slightly scary thing with leoll is what he said a month or so before disappearing:
May 25 '15 at 11:20, by leoll2
By the way, if you'll ever see me disappear from Puzzling without reason, please call the police!
May 25 '15 at 16:42, by leoll2
Nono, I mean the real police! If you don't see me sticking here for too long, it's because something bad happened to me!
 
Ooooh....
Um...
Ok....
 
Sid
7:48 PM
That is dark.
 
Did anyone?
 
Calls the police and tells them that someone disappeared, from somewhere, somewhere in the world, at some point.
 
Well we know hes Italian right?
 
But he did show up on SO since then.
So I guess he's OK.
 
7:50 PM
> Last seen Jan 2 at 15:32
He looks remarkably like Worf...
 
Sid
@Khale_Kitha We are just missing an Alconja puzzle now. :P
 
I apparently do bounties too rarely.
Just got confused by losing -40 on my puzzle.
 
@Khale_Kitha What about all these puzzles? And there are still s floating through.
 
True, sid
True, though they generally sit with pretty few views
 
Though there is something of a tendency for a particular kind of puzzle to dominate for a while. It predates the topic challenges, too.
 
7:52 PM
The ones talked about in here, though, generally pertain to those two genres
Yeah
 
It has been pretty CCy in here, but the CCCC might have something to do with that.
I wouldn't say there's an unhealthy bias, just some natural ebb and flow.
 
Just a very unfriendly category of puzzles, the CC, it seems to me
 
Also, I'm stuck on puzzle ideas again. It might be time to ping @Volatility for them to do the Clue...
 
lol
 
@Khale_Kitha Why?
 
7:54 PM
@Randal'Thor Because they're hard
 
Sid
CCs are tough. Especially when you have got someone like Deusovi harping on each rule and convention and whatever.
 
Because the extremely explicit rulesets for both creating and solve them are not intuitive, and ou get jumped on for getting anything not perfect.
 
But once you've got it ...
 
Sid
You know it is correct.
 
Meh, I don't even care anymore, personally. Not worth trying to figure out anymore.
 
7:55 PM
@Sid No, I mean once you've got the ruleset and don't get jumped on any more (as KK puts it), they can be fun to create and solve.
 
Everytime you think you've got it, there's another hidden rule.
So basically - once you're very experienced with them, it becomes fun. That's not very friendly for a public forum.
I'm not saying that they aren't interesting.
 
@Khale_Kitha Doesn't the same apply to most categories of puzzle, to one extent or another?
 
@Khale_Kitha SE isn't a forum :P
 
This room is a forum, Mith.
 
190
A: Is Stack Overflow a forum?

Adam LearStack Overflow is not a forum. Forums are largely discussion-based and tend to follow less strict rules about what posts can be like. On Stack Overflow (and Stack Exchange in general), we require every new thread to be started with a question and every response to that question to be an attempt ...

Well that's different :P
 
7:58 PM
I don't think so, Rand - especially not 'most'
 
a wild michael myers has appeared
 
@Mithrandir Pedantry :-P
 
@Randal'Thor To make them complex and interesting, perhaps. Not to simply create/solve them, though.
 
@Khale_Kitha The way I see it, a CC is basically a micro-riddle.
A riddle usually describes a single word, with clues which could be either cryptic definitions or wordplay.
A CC does the same, but crunches it all down into a single line of text.
And has more stringent restrictions on how those clues can work, but that's a necessity when you're compressing so much information into so little space.
 
It's basically a board game with a 20 page rulebook.
 
Sid
8:02 PM
@Randal'Thor Yep, that is the best explanation for a CC.
 
Sure it's interesting if you're intimately familiar
 
I never really liked or understood CCs until recently.
 
Except you're generally expanding the information from a small bit to larger bits.
 
The CCCC game in here has enabled me to appreciate them.
 
So there's not usually much compressing going on
 
8:03 PM
So you're not arguing with a diehard CC addict here :-)
 
Understood
I think my issue is the inability to learn them and try and get better, here.
 
Sid
@Rubio Whenever you finish the puzzle, ping me. @BeastlyGerbil You too. I need to see if it has a unique solution or not.
 
Combined with a seemingly single-mindedness towards them, lately.
 
You're not going to like one of the puzzles I'm currently working on then, @Khale :-P
Or maybe you will, given its other elements.
 
I don't particularly care about there being cryptic clues, by itself - that's my point. :)
And I'm aware that no one particularly cares what I think, in the slightest.
 
Sid
8:06 PM
Today has been uncharacteristically quiet for a weekday. (By today, I mean Monday and not Tuesday)
 
@Sid Apparently it's a holiday in the US.
 
Yeah
For a small percentage, yeah
 
Sid
Because?
 
Anyway I must be off.
Later, all.
 
See you later, Rand :)
 
Sid
8:07 PM
Why is the 16th a holiday in USA?
 
Oh, Martin Luther King day, iirc.
 
Sid
Ah, Yes.
Anyway, I finally finished watching Sherlock. Now I can sleep soundly. Goodbye all...
 
lol
 
Whee
 
8:37 PM
2½ hours remaining to get somewhere on The Puzzling Times before the next hint makes the cipher pretty obvious, I think. Act now and beat the rush ... or else, be first to read the next clue and leap ahead!
 
Yeah I'll just wait... :P
Oh wait I'll be asleep when it comes out. Damn it..
 
9:09 PM
woah all the comments were deleted on @Randal'Thor's question?
 
heh. well, they were a bit of a cesspool.
Still there were some valid ones in there if I remember right - i'm a little surprised the whole bundle got deleted.
 
9:23 PM
@Mithrandir I'm happy to do a clue now; is there some way we can communicate offsite?
 
@Volatility Yes. Email tombquestwiki (at) gmail.
 
10:07 PM
1
Q: An Untimely Rebus For Your Puzzlement

Hugh Meyers$$ \begin{matrix} Light-speed & & & & Here \\ & & ? & & \\ \end{matrix} $$

0
Q: Riddle: Whats shaped like a telephone, has three corners and spits far?

Matthew ParkerI do not know the answer and it has been killing me for ages as they won't tell me the answer but i was given two clues: Two blondes, Confectioners sugar.

 
10:48 PM
^ dubious.
 
11:00 PM
click
clickety-clink
CREAK
...Hint 5 unlocked.
 
@Sphinx I can't stop thinking about the Tardis for this one.
@BeastlyGerbil The only really relevant ones were the first two from Sid and me, and even they weren't particularly useful.
 
heyla @rand
 
Hi! :-)
Your hints 3 and 5 are still confusing me.
"An awesome and fantastic tools site" made me think of Rumkin.
 
There is another. :)
Those specific words were quite intentional
 
Yeah, I guessed there's something steganographic hidden in those words.
AAFTS
 
11:13 PM
I was referring to a site other than Rumkin. One which, if you know it, you know it. If you don't, Google definitely does.
 
Ahhh, found it!
 
There ya go. hehe
(And I didn't lie. I did give you the domain name in that hint. hehe)
 
That's a lot of substitution ciphers listed.
No idea which one to pick.
 
Strange. FTC#24 has disappeared from my 'Featured on Meta' sidebar.
 
The other hints narrow the possibilities. The scratch-off hint cuts the list down quite well. The numbered ones indirectly suggest which one. The final hint, after a bit of thought (especially after scanning through the list) should be a dead giveaway
 
11:17 PM
Hint 4 makes me think there's something useful hidden in some bold text somewhere.
 
If that's the case, there's not much bolded on that page, which is convenient.
 
Seems like 624 people read the paper without paying for it. How dastardly.
 
Oh, btw, someone who's into ciphers might want to post an answer to this:
5
Q: What do the dancing men say in "The Final Problem" of Sherlock?

Popey GilbertI've tried decrypting them myself to little avail, I think it starts with "I'm here" but after that I get lost. Are these the original codes used in "The Adventure of the Dancing Men"?

 
@boboquack Why, I oughtta . . .
(*shakes fist*) THIS ISN'T A LIBRARY YOU KNOW
 
Don't worry, I paid.
 
11:21 PM
That's what happens when people leave a paper lying around on the tube for other people to read.
 
One of Mithrandir's tubes?
 
Also, it's not quite 624, because someone might have paid for it and then read it multiple times.
@Rubio It's probably 'subway' to you Americans :-)
 
It counts multiple times?
 
(it is; I was making a funny, though)
 
Then why don't users self-promote in the FTCs? (I would never do a thing like that)
 
11:23 PM
@boboquack I think so, if the multiple times are widely-spaced enough.
 
Oh, I see
 
So in theory, someone might be able to get themselves a Famous Question badge just by refreshing a lot and being really patient.
 
I imagine it either counts unique visits separated by enough time, or by a content change, or (most probably) both
 
Hey @Rubio, at least no-one read the newspaper upside-down and paid what they thought was the fee.
 
True. And I'm very (pleasantly!) surprised at that :)
 
11:28 PM
:-D
I was thinking Hint 5 means there's been another recent puzzle on the site using the same cipher ... but given what @Rubio said in here, maybe it's actually a sort of mini-riddle.
> Many of you have seen this encoding within the last week or two, but weren't paying it any attention.
People who were paying attention, probably didn't see it.
 
By hint 5, most of the subterfuge is eliminated. The hint is, well, Exactly What It Says On The Tin. [warning: TVTropes URL!]
 
I dunno, mirror? music?
(Btw, does my answer here seem convincing? It does seem to fit, but I have a feeling there should be something more than that to a Hugh Meyers puzzle.)
 
There's gotta be more to it than that. The location of the ? in the middle and below is intentional, given the mathjax that put it there.
And the title is suggestive.
Suggestive of what, I have no idea. ;)
I love when people add completely redundant answers to a question, and leave it unspoilered to boot.
It's even better when it's someone with over 4k rep at PSE. smh.
@Randal'Thor Anyway. Yeah, mini-riddle. Hopefully pretty straightforward actually, especially taken in tandem with the other stuff you're already looking at.
 
@Rubio I never remember what "smh" stands for ...
 
shaking my head
 
11:55 PM
I was under the impression there were some pretty good steganography crackers on PSE
 
@TheGreatEscaper Are those like Christmas crackers, but with steganographic messages hidden inside the jokes?
 
Yup! The jokes read like this:
Why did the chicken cross the road?
 
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