The Sphinx's Lair

Is there a FAQ for this hat thing?

I hate hats.

:)

Hating hats is against the rules around here isn't it?

Display name

@Jim winterbash2016.stackexchange.com/faq

12:01 AM

There we go

Thx @Displayname

@Alconja more people have said 'I hate hats' in this chat than people who have said 'I love hats' :P

Well that settles it then.

I love hats. (I don't, but they're a fun thing to go after in between other stuff.)

I am ambivalent about hats.

Hatlicious?

Display name

12:04 AM

@Alconja Sadly there's no button for that point of view. Decide.

Hate crime (n): The bashing of people wearing capes

Well, I'm not sure exactly who to award it to, but yes, the word is LOVELY

@Rubio seemed to lay out the explanation

I(1) of Love, only unique lOVE, it ends fooL anywaY, def 'charming'

Oh I got part!

12:15 AM

lol

Out of curiosity, what are you indicating (exactly) with "only unique", because I'm not sure how that gives you OVE

^^^

And padded out lol count

only the unique letters

i.e. the ones not used before

...of what?

12:16 AM

only unique among what? O is in only, E is in unique, ...

Technically OVE were used in love already but still

only the ones not yet used before in the solution

...I suppose that was supposed to be the rule-bending part?

partially

mostly the fact that the def was in the middle

Oh. Hm. Yeah, I'll defer to @Deusovi but that doesn't seem like a thing you can validly indicate. (And I'm sure you already know you're not allowed to tuck the def. in the middle, and the extra padding words are much less than ideal)

12:18 AM

lol

Surface reading is slave to cryptic reading

I don't think any of us really decoded it, but I think Sconibulus was first and closest?

Agree

I'd have to scroll back at this point. and, well ... effort

Better, I think, to have a bad surface but a fair clue than a good surface but an unfair one

2

12:24 AM

^ that.

I just posted a fun little puzzle. I suspect there are more tags that should be on it but I couldn't figure out exactly which; if anyone has suggestions I'm all ears.

What this one does show (and this isn't a criticism, saiid, we're all learning) is that because cryptic clues are so terse, the rules are actually incredibly important to give you any real chance of solving.

Yeah, sorry about that :P

Q: In What Order Will These Fill?

All good. :)

Sphinx

0

So, my hamsters get wonderful places in which to live and play; things like this: But what about my poor fish? They just get a basic bowl. Well, NO MORE. I decided to do something about that, and make something epic for them, too! A bit of work later and I put together a wonderful design of...

visual

But, @Sconibulus, (pinging in case you're not in the room), sounds like you're up for the next CC

12:30 AM

@Rubio doesn't water just fill evenly?

Not in terms of volume, but height.

True story: I actually did ask two kids and got two different answers, and neither was the answer I would have given. So it seems the puzzle has something to it; feel free to answer. :)

I've put up an answer

Not sure if correct, but it's certainly what my intuition is telling me

Question is, did you actually construct the thing to test properly?

Also, are the fish going in first, or last? Might clog the inter-chamber pipes. :P

Is the question entirely theoretical or practical?

Lol. Assume the fish are small enough not to clog anything, or it'd be a pretty crap design wouldn't it :)

12:34 AM

Because there might be a bit of delay in my answer.

I'll add that in as an edit.

Oh, and I edited to add a bonus question which I think is quite interesting.

Answered the bonus question as well :)

I've posted what I've done for @TheGreatEscaper's puzzle; if someone wants to finish the sudoku, please go ahead ;-)

You're at the hurdle, @Volatility

It's the hardest step in the sudoku

But in my opinion it's quite nice

(Of course :P)

Ah @Volatility you got the message!!!

Well, I had the message ages ago

12:41 AM

So I suppose the puzzle is technically 'solved'... but the Sudoku IS solvable by hand and has a unique solution.

Ahhh right, I think I misunderstood you earlier. Anyhow, sincere congratulations :)

Thanks, it was a very nice puzzle!

I'm not sure whether to green tick the answer yet or not. Should I wait for a self-contained answer to be written? Or just tick your answer

Maybe wait for someone to solve the sudoku first

I applaud anyone for finishing any soduku ever

Ideally you checkmark a complete solution

Sometimes that means someone borrows an answer from another solver who completes the missing piece, and credits them in the answer

(Hopefully, upvoters are then good about rewarding both contributors with upvotes)

12:48 AM

@Alconja Wait, me? How? I had no explanation at all

*shrug*, someone said you were the first to suggest LOVELY (no one had a good explanation)

@Sconibulus alternatively we could ask @Saiid for a follow-up effort to get a clear victor.

Oh

Sorry, it was GPR who gave the first semi-plausible explanation

Neither his nor mine were complete, but we both got the general gist

Well someone needs to go... you people don't expect me to do my actual work here do you?

Welp. @Saiid It's a toss-up really. You probably should decide which was closer to being (a) sufficient and (b) as intended.

1:00 AM

This is definitely not entirely kosher (indirect anagram) but I like it:
When you simulate a mountain, a confused burrowing incisored mammal becomes your feeling towards hats? (4)

Well, confused must be the anagram marker

VOLE --> LOVE?

Don't understand the "simulate a mountain" bit.

or HARE->HATE

^

Figured it was one of those double clues, but I still don't get the R-->T transformation

wait, I think I had mole because I'm dumb

1:02 AM

hehe

VR->MT

you did

Rabbit

Mountain out of molehill, I take it

Ahhhhhh

1:03 AM

I lome hats! :P

I was looking at that and thinking, LOME? hehe

oh, crap

well, it was cheating anyway, so it's ok that I failed miserably

lol

I lome you guys! <3

Caann you feeeel the looooome tonight.....

1:04 AM

when a man becomes the state of Vermont?

Lome is in the air doo doo doo, doo doo doo

@TheGreatEscaper btw, I'm not specifically ignoring your answer. I'm just ignoring my entire puzzle for a while. This is a little bit of an experiment, because apparently a lot of people get this kind of puzzle wrong; I'm curious if PSE's demographic is similar or not.

I will note, without commenting on your answer, that details for the bonus question's answer are somewhat deeply into It Depends territory.

Alright, let's see...

I think I'd have to award this one to @GentlePurpleRain. While @Rubio did have a decent explanation, GPR was closer, and answered before Rubio, from what I saw

I think I'd agree with that

so then @GentlePurpleRain is the next contestant on the Cryptic Clues Are Right

lol

@Rubio that should be a cryptic clue

1:17 AM

:)

I made an attempted answer, including what happens at each stage

link? lol

after I did that, I looked at The Great Escaper's answer, and I think it's the same basic idea

puzzling.stackexchange.com/posts/46995/revisions

oops, don't know why I picked that particular button

lol

I think you have a typo in your bonus answer Sconibulus, as it mentions B twice where it doesn't seem like it should.

1:24 AM

good catch, B and D are basically the same letter

1:39 AM

Are D->C pipe and C->B pipe at the same height? They look it to me

Out of curiosity, what is everyone's/anyone's favorite type or part of puzzle solving? Alternatively, what are you best at?

@Sconibulus They are, yes.

B outlet to C and C outlet to D are also the same position

C to D is much lower on the C end

My answer to that puzzle was C->D->B->E->A with A never filling without and E plug.

@Jim My favorite is cryptic clues, I'm best at sudoku

1:42 AM

Does someone have domain expertise or has actually run the experiment to confirm the answer?

A to B would have been the same positions as those also but the pretty water-splashy graphic was taller than I thought it was. I had to move the pipe up. :)

@Saiid I thank you for your soduku service! I've never been able to force myself into those.

:P

I like various types of number grids best, although I'm not too fond of Sudoku, and I like clever wordplay, but don't have much experience with Cryptics

I've never much been into sudoku, and yet my last two puzzles have both involved them. :)

1:47 AM

lol

(oh, and spoilers!)

?

Well, one of those two, you aren't supposed to know it involves sudoku... :P

but the calcudoku, the fillimino, nonograms, pipes, etc. I have fun with

@TheGreatEscaper pulled off a nice puzzle (though I didn't work on it). A had brainstormed a similar premise (full page of a newspaper puzzles with info) once upon a time but never put it into motion - so kudos

@Sconibulus I'm not familiar with most of those by name but know I know what some of them mean.

1:51 AM

@Jim My favorite are (obviously) cryptic clues. I also like metapuzzles and grid-logic puzzles. (The sudoku/kakuro-esque ones, not "Mr. Green lives to the left of the person who owns a fish...".)

some combination of rules, numbers, and grids... Sudoku just feels more like grunt work than most of them

@Sconibulus Have you heard of GMPuzzles?

nope

gmpuzzles.com/blog

oooh, neat

wait, I think I've seen this before...

maybe when I was stalking Palmer to see if he was the right person

1:54 AM

Oh right, you knew Palmer Mebane.

@Deusovi do you have an iDevice?

Yeah, why?

If so, download Andrea Sabbatini's '101 Logic Games'

Absolute heaven for a fan of Japanese style logic puzzles

Yeah, about that...

most of them are plagiarized. D:

I think the ones in that app are computer generated...

2:00 AM

wait, does that first pentomino puzzle work?

Not all of them. There's a "credits screen" giving the sources, which include several online puzzle blogs. I highly doubt any of them gave Andrea their permission to include the puzzles.

@Sconibulus: Which one?

I might be misunderstanding the rules, but it looks like the L in the top right and the X a few squares below it are incompatible

Also since I asked the question I have limited exposure to logic puzzles (not my forte but I like them), and I wanted to expand out abd ended up here.

the front page of gmpuzzles

oh, wait, never mind, I'm just really dumb

I don't see any pentomino puzzles...

2:01 AM

gmpuzzles.com/blog/2016/03/pentominous-by-grant-fikes-2

My favorite things are implied clues or implied spaces that you can't see

I see what I was doing dumb

Oh, didn't realize the rules?

@Deusovi that's a bit sad to hear

Yeah. :/ (The app's interface isn't that great either...)

Conceptis has published a few nice logic puzzle apps, but the puzzle types are a bit bland. There's Hashi, Nurikabe, and Slitherlink, and I think one or two of their own.

2:05 AM

Conceptis is quite boring, IMHO. I don't think they have any original puzzle types?

They do. They're just not good.

I think Cross-a-Pix is their own.

They have a few branded with names like 'Pic-a-Pix' but I thought they were all minesweeper/picross variants

Cross-a-Pix? Haven't checked that one out, give me a sec

Basically picross, but you just get the number of shaded squares in each row/column, and the grid is divided into regions which must be fully shaded or unshaded.

Yeah, just looked up the rules on their site. I've definitely seen versions of this floating about, but I don't know the origin of this type of puzle.

Huh, really? I hadn't seen it before.

2:08 AM

I've seen it in an app by Stanley Lam

I just got a really weird answer to my puzzle:

0
down vote
accept
Sure. First I noticed that for the 1's place, arithmetic modulo 10 was at play. Then I noticed that none of the answers were negative. Process of elimination from there.

shareeditflag
answered 27 mins ago

phdmba7of12
1

Charlie = phdmba7of12 – phdmba7of12 26 mins ago

I'm not entirely sure how it's relevant to the puzzle. Do I flag it?

Yeah, you normally would. I just took care of it though.

Yup, just noticed that :P

Thanks

I flagged that like fifteen minutes ago :)

I haven't been on the main site in the past 15 minutes, just chatting :P

these are pretty tough, I've got about a third of it, but I think I need to resort to guess and check

2:12 AM

The GM

*The GMPuzzles site is really cool

Arg, converting beautiful, formatted js to min.js is so time-consuming

...why do it manually?

Because

the ones I found online don't go to the lengths I want

Personally wouldn't think A) the extra effort, or B) the risk of introducing bugs/inconsistencies would be worth the possible minor benefits...

2:32 AM

I test it after every few lines I minify

3:02 AM

So this symmetry inversion puzzle has driven me nuts. Will there be a point where the answer is given? How long do things like this go?

Since anything's reflection in a mirror is, by definition, optically inverted so that it's subjective Left/Right appear to the the reflection's Right/Left and thus back-to-front, there's no way for something to look in a single planar mirror without seeing that effect... so saying it's not possible for the solution-object to see that orientation seems like there's some handwavium at play

Agrees

This is a situation where I'm suspending disbelief until I can agree with my disbelief

?

So, can I ask a dumb question - when you click on "Stack Exchange" in the site header and it lists communities and a count for each — like, for PSE, the count (for me at least) currently reads 7784 — what is that number?

Your rep?

3:13 AM

@Rubio Your rep on that site

ah, ninja'd

um.

hi.

i feel really silly now.

thanks :)

np :)

:P

My rep isn't that number, but that's clearly what it is related to

hmm

lol

3:14 AM

oh wait, that is my rep. huh.

I see 7784 on your profile page

yeah it updated and the header was stale

lol

so the rep shown in chat under the name is composite. i didn't realize that. i saw a HNQ on Worldbuilding and tossed off a quick answer to it, and picked up +17 and counting for a pretty trivial answer. I guess PSE is a pretty tough site to rep up in isn't it

PSE?

3:18 AM

Puzzling.StackExchange

puzzling stackexchange → PSE

Ah

derp

I've actually got more rep on PSE than anywhere else

/\\\\\lllll\\

whoops

that's supposed to say 'lol'

I'm going to interpret anything cryptic from you as lol until I can verify otherwise

Statistically, everything he says is "lol",¹ so I'm just going to assume all his messages say that and any apparent variance is a problem with my reception.

3:33 AM

lolololololololololol with different voltages applied to get you some cleartext

¹I'm sure it's close enough to be considered "everything" within a standard deviation or two.

I'm too lazy to calculate the offsets for lol

Luckily we've got one letter in the correct olace

@Saiid Are you saying I solved your cryptic clue? I was only making some observations. I'm not sure how what I said is a solution.

Can you explain?

@GentlePurpleRain You got the word right, and your observations were the closest to the actual explanation

Saiid, please stop posting nonsense strings in chat.

3:44 AM

@Saiid OK. Can you explain the actual clues, because I'm pretty sure I missed some.

@Deusovi *sigh* okaayyy

4 hours ago, by Saiid

I(1) of Love, only unique lOVE, it ends fooL anywaY, def 'charming'

4:13 AM

@Saiid out of curiosity, what did you do on SFF before you got Blue in the Face?

Spammed comments, got upvotes on them

You remember how many comments and how many upvotes, roughly?

@Volatility If I remember correctly, it was 6-8 comments, with 1-3 upvotes on each

Ok, thanks

Np

5:52 AM

OK then

CCCC: Top of pillar, in powerful quakes, mutilated minuscule person (9)

Muahaha

first look

Let's see... 'top of pillar' is probably the def...

the word is in 'powerful quakes'

mutilated signifies anagram

minuscule person is either a baby or a child...

or dwarf...

or midget...

hmm

@GentlePurpleRain You sure that's everything?

You mean my clue? Yes, it's complete. And follows the rules... :P

@GentlePurpleRain Eheh, I get it, I get it

alrighty then

6:12 AM

My thoughts, I guess:
"Top of pillar" could conceivably be P
"in" may indicate a container, or literally IN
either "quakes" or "mutilated" could be anagram indicators, although nothing seems particularly likely to be fodder
the definition is likely "miniscule person" or just "person", although "top of pillar" or just "top" are conceivable as well

It is just conceivable that "in powerful quakes" is to be interpreted "in power"+"ful quakes", although I find that extremely unlikely, especially without the appropriate punctuation

6:44 AM

Ah, nice, I've got over 2k rep now!

grats!

@GentlePurpleRain You still awake?

oh. nvm just got it

7:00 AM

I think its IMPULSIVE..

PIPSQUEAK. (top of Pillar in powerful)->PIP; (quakes mutilated)->SQUEAK ; minuscule person DEF

Ahh

^ better

Ah, nice

i wasted like 20 minutes before, duh, realizing I was looking for indirect anagrams which I know GPR would never, ever use. hehe

The direct anagram for quakes took me directly to the answer.

that definitely has to be right so I'm going to go ahead and post

A good one..

7:02 AM

CCCC: Some haphazard beginnings by a short lady, turned around by Ultimate Puzzlers finalists' presenter? (6)

lol

that's a contest I want to enter, btw :)

but I think I will skip the short lady's beginning remarks. sounds like they were a bit of a mess.

hey. sorry there's a typo in there

CCCC: Some haphazard beginnings by a short lady, turned around by Ultimate Puzzler finalists' presenter? (6)

because There Can Be Only One.

Someone mind starring that btw?

Well, SHSMER doesn't seem to be a thing...

Feel asleep and missed another good CCCC

8:45 AM

Oh, I think it's SHOWER (def: "presenter?", question mark indicating nonstandard definition; S_ H_ "beginnings" by WOman ("short lady"), "turned around" -> OW, by _E _R "finalists")

Nice work (and good clue).

Alright, since @Rubio isn't here, I will just post this one I came up with earlier today:

CCCC: Inflating could be deadly! (7,2)

just to formally confirm, yes - mine was SHOWER, nice job

Halo everyone

Oh, might have missed you cause I was looking for a blue gravatar :-P

8:50 AM

hehee. Yeah I finally switched a day or two ago

Yeah, I'm still not used to it ;-)

hmm, maybe that ! should be a ?

CCCC: Inflating could be deadly? (7,2)

Take your pick!

BLOWING UP i believe

Correct!

and I can't decide ! or ? either :)

:)

8:56 AM

Don't have one ready, gimme a sec hehe

Btw, what's the general consensus on "of" as a connector?

9:12 AM

CCCC: Some of Russia's sentries agree. (6)

I shall refrain from answering :P

hehe

I felt rushed, what can i say

i'm not sure "of" makes a good connector.

Some of Russia's sentries agree - > ASSENT?

@Rubio-Is that it?

@Techidiot Yup.

CCCC : Dispose 'em in boxes(8)

9:37 AM

(CR)EM(ATES)?

damn it

i just got that

good job @IAmInPLS

Damn, my first CCCC :-D

:)

ATB!

Shouldn't that be "Disposes"?

started to type it and saw your answer. appear grrr :)

talk about ninjaed

9:39 AM

@Volatility-Consider it a typo

:)

:)

Arguably could have a ! since you could interpret it literally too.

Actually

BOXES is a plural

So, CRATES

EM within crates

So that's it

So, no typos @Volatility :D

well yeah but Dispose and Cremates don't agree

^^^

9:41 AM

it should have been Disposes, to agree with the answer

May be burn was a better choice :p

Same issue

(and a bit of a giveaway)

Yeah

Mithrandir

So what's the CCCC @IAmInPLS?

...I took a while trying to figure out what the 'S' was supposed to be, lol

9:49 AM

Wait, working on it

I hope I won't fail you, I'm not good at these

Sid

Apologies to whoever solved my cryptic clue puzzle last night.. I messed up in one of the clues..

No LEAVES? Was there an additional S?

Sid

No, the final answer was intended. There was another clue that I could have done better but it didn't really matter...

CCCC: Sweet that's doubly good in France (6)

BONBON

9:59 AM

Sweet that's doubly good in France

i think that's hyphenated? i'd have to look

BONBON(French)

Damn, forgot what "good" was in French -.-

Origin is french

guess not. it's all good :)

10:00 AM

Got it :-)

Rubio's turn then?

yah

10:26 AM

apparently it's gotten too late for me to think straight anymore

CCCC: A western state; half a Rolls Royce; a friendly beast; free gas; a magical tote for a magical nanny. (9)

that's all ya get from me at this point :)

10:39 AM

i'm going to bed. the correct answer has a word number value of 73.

@Rubio Night

Will

11:24 AM

@Rubio It's CARPETBAG (Western state = CA; half a RR = R; friendly beast = PET; but idk why free gas = BAG), which is, of course, Mary Poppins' magical bigger-on-the-inside tote of choice :)

Bah, just got it too. Well done.

Was assuming free gas was a Rubio-is-half-asleep-ism, where free is an anagram indicator for GAS => (s/b)AG

Beastly Gerbil

Hello

11:43 AM

Actually I was on my way to bed, looked at someone else's new, partially incorrect partial answer to a puzzle I was working on earlier, and ... damnit ... solved the thing. had to type it up.

So yes, I can confirm you have it right.

"free" is, according to at least one resource I found, an anagram indicator.

(i didn't really care for it, but meh)

Will

Yeah I can see it, but what of the S?