The Sphinx's Lair

boboquack

1:27 AM

What's policy on VTC-ing old questions (like this mathematics puzzle)?

Rubio

2:07 AM

Not sure there's much point for an old puzzle, tbh

Rubio

2:49 AM

Slow day here today.

ffao

3:10 AM

yeah, kind of odd

ASCII-only

idk if this is the best place to ask, but ~~i want free rep~~ i'm stuck

Rubio

lol

ASCII-only

not sure if anyone could give me tips on how to find hints for puzzles like this

Rubio

if I had any good ideas about that one I wouldn't have offered the bounty on it.

ASCII-only

looks at bounty

oh yeah

Rubio

3:19 AM

Something tells me @boboquack knows a thing or two about solving that puzzle - but I'm also guessing they won't be telling those secrets ;)

ASCII-only

anyone here good with encrypting/decrypting? for the challenge it appears to be CCGDEBDGBDG -> HORSERADISH but I have no idea what kind of encoding could do that

Of course my hunch could be completely wrong

Rubio

CCGDEBDGBDG decrypted with a key of "VOPLAKDDTLZ" will give HORSERADISH, but I am guessing that's not very helpful

ASCII-only

@Rubio yeah, tried that already

The corresponding hint is "More...* between the accents", where "between" isn't necessary and the "accents" part is done already so I'm not sure if "More...*" helps

ASCII-only

3:58 AM

The ... and * seem to be significant

Alconja

4:35 AM

@ASCII-only where did you get horseradish from?

Techidiot

4:46 AM

@Alconja Hey

Alconja

Hi

Techidiot

May I know how you created Wordberg machine? Did you use powerpoint?

Alconja

For the images?

Techidiot

Yes. And the animation..

Alconja

All photoshop.

Techidiot

4:48 AM

Oh.. Even the animations?

Alconja

Drew the main image at half resolution, scaled up 2x (with no interpolation), then used photoshop's animation capabilities to do the animations, mostly tweening moving layers, but some frame by frame

Techidiot

Nice. Thanks. Was thinking of something similar. Unfortunately, don't have much animation experience with photoshop. Did you use any online resource to know how its done? Or just trial and error? Or, have you done any photoshop course?

ffao

@Alconja just look at the posted answer and you'll see, basically the answer has to be an ingredient for coleslaw that begins with H

so horseradish is a likely candidate

Alconja

Never done anything formal, but have been using photoshop (for fun). Hadn't used the animation stuff before (actually, not quite true, the slot in the door of "You approach the door" was also done this way, and was the first time I'd used it), and it was mostly fumble my way through it... though I've done a little bit of animation stuff before in flash, so was vaguely familiar with the concepts

@ffao Ok, so just based on the assumption of being an ingredient.. (not that i've ever had horseradish in coleslaw before). But I'm not quite convinced that's what the OCH refers to... why is it only three letters when there's more ingredients?

ASCII-only

@Alconja A recipe >_>

Techidiot

4:54 AM

@Alconja Hmm.. That makes sense. Thanks. Will look into it.

Alconja

@Techidiot Ping me if you want to ask any specific questions

Techidiot

Sure. I will. Thanks again for the inputs.

Alconja

@ASCII-only Just seems like a stretch (IMHO) to go from Carrot, Red Cabbage, Onion ==> OCH ==> H = Horseradish

ASCII-only

@Alconja Those are the only ones that are chopped up (one of the "what" hints is the section hint itself), and Mayo can't be chopped up

@Alconja Yeah, I think so too but I have no clue on how to interpret the hint

Alconja

Shouldn't their be a R then? Else why make it specifically red cabbage, and not just cabbage?

ASCII-only

4:57 AM

@Alconja That's true, the OP states that there is information linked to the sections, but the only one I can see are the locations (bar numbers - 11, 12 and 22), which isn't helping

Alconja

Yeah. Not saying it's wrong... was mostly just trying to catch up to see if I could add anything.

First thing that jumps out at me, re: the "More...* between the accents" is that it could be referring to the stocatto dots on notes between the accented notes? Gives you 4 2 2 1 3 2 3

ASCII-only

@Alconja Good observation, I noticed them before but didn't see a hint relating to them so I thought they weren't important

Not that I look at the positioning it seems a lot more relevant than I though it was

Alconja

Was just thinking "More..." => "More [literal dots]"

though not sure about the "*" (could be * as in a regular expression meaning "many" dots)

Sphinx

5:55 AM

2

Q: What did they kill Bob to hide?

I recently received an email from my friend Bob Fish, he'd stumbled upon something scary, and people were watching him, I was to visit him at the beach. I've attached his email: I have to be quick, I'm being watched. Pool cleaning in Santa Ana, saw some strange high power tech. Have some ...

enigmatic-puzzle

Rubio

7:25 AM

                 LAST ELECTION  THIS ELECTION
first  1 hours:         91      70
first  4 hours:         165     128
first 12 hours:         225     207
first 24 hours:         260     295
first 48 hours:         303     323
first 72 hours:         395     330
TOTAL VOTES CAST:       416     330 (at 58 hours)

Techidiot

7:50 AM

@incesterror21 I can see you haven't done any modifications to your puzzle content. So, why those edits? For bumping the post up? Or something meaningful? (You can chose not to answer)

Jamal Senjaya

8:08 AM

@Rubio Is this worrying? Does this means the puzzling SE lost many of its member? Should we do something?

Mithrandir

@JamalSenjaya people probably just haven't gotten around to it probably. There's still time. Also, last time it was PSE's first ever election - everyone wanted to be a part of the historic moment ;)

Rubio

@JamalSenjaya Not worrying (at least not yet) - at 24 and 48 hours the current election shows more votes cast than the first one.

Jamal Senjaya

Just my opinion, Puzzling SE get tougher, the question get harder, New members have fewer chance to answer, easy puzzles get less upvotes, even downvotes.

Rubio

what I find interesting is that the first 12 hours, current was lower than prior; for the second 12 hours, current well outpaced prior, to the extent of making up the deficit, and then some.

Techidiot

@JamalSenjaya That sounds like right thought. I can see it happening.. Soon people will start worrying about the response they are going to get for their puzzle and may not post it..

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