The Sphinx's Lair - 2016-09-12

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12:29 AM

0

Q: What's the policy on puzzles *paraphrased* from other sites?

I've looked at Is it acceptable to copy and paste questions from other sites? and A policy on plagiarism, and I'm aware that puzzles which are directly copy-pasted from other sites or sources without attribution are liable to be deleted for plagiarism. Likewise, it's clear that puzzles which are ...

discussion questions plagiarism

Putting together an interesting puzzle to post, then finding it's a duplicate ... :-(

12:56 AM

@BeastlyGerbil And now that question is HNQ. Just goes to show, don't judge too fast!

6 hours later…

Puzzling — BOUNTY!

6:35 AM

13

Q: A weird text conversation

I just had a very strange SMS conversation with one of my musician friend. Since I need your help, I'll share it with you, hoping that he won't come here... Here is a text version of the conversation, where T is my friend and I is (am?) me : T: Our most recent call lasted 26 seconds. W...

steganography anagram

3 hours later…

9:26 AM

@IAmInPLS I am not saying all or even most of your puzzles are bad, but don't like two or three. I loved the security guard or calculator puzzle. But I don't like this because there's ought to be something deep per than simply finding out the anagrammed rock band words.

Also, how does it fits with the context - only two/three anagrams were sufficient to give the idea that it is something about rock bands. An well thought multiple layered puzzle, like the security guard, is much better than this in my humble opinion . – Arka Karmakar 47 mins ago

What am I supposed to do? Such comments are not very encouraging...

9:38 AM

@IAmInPLS Sorry that some of the response you've got is negative. One thing that could be done in anagram puzzles is for (say) the first letters or last letters of the answers to spell another answer that fits the theme. This would be particularly useful with a puzzle like yours, where the solver must find the anagram-material in running text: it is not obvious whether the solver has found the material for all the anagrams or there's more to find...

...If the solver can see something pertinent emerging in the sequence of first letters, then it's clearer whether or not anything is missing.

Well I didn't think of that. I agree that the answer may not be satisfying, because you only have a bunh of music bands which all are American, and that's it

But comments like this coming from a user whose only question has been closed, it's a bit harsh ^^

@IAmInPLS Just btw, you can link comments directly in chat.

@IAmInPLS don't worry too much about it :)

You are obviously a tall psychic person with short arms. — greenturtle3141 yesterday

Like that.

But just ignore it, continue puzzling :)

(Come on, 542 more views!)

9:55 AM

Wait, how are you doing that @Mithrandir?

@JonathanAllan You're right, I shouldn't worry :-)

Should it rather be "Below a snake stands guard for you."? — Matsmath 2 days ago

Nevermind

@IAmInPLS Hover over the bottom-right corner of a chat post. Then click on the grey rightwards arrow.

user189275

10:20 AM

@IAmInPLS: So what should I do ? Delete my comment ? I just wanted to say that such kind of puzzles are not very well thought, and nothing more or less and I never intended to discourage you to make them, but to encourage to make good puzzles.

I don't understand how they are not very well thought

user189275

Don't take whatever I take as offensive. Let me type.

user189275

I can make such puzzles instantly just by thinking some good names of some genre (e.g animals), then scramble them (e.g dogs -> gods, horse -> shore ) and mix them up with any chat or whatsever.

user189275

E.g. Gods went to the shore and blam - ed some persons for spoiling the view.

Well, go on then!

user189275

10:24 AM

What do you mean ?

Since you can "make such puzzles instantly", I encourage you to do so

user189275

Choose any topic, and I am churning a chat within 5 minute

user189275

(chat which contains the jumbled words)

user189275

And some of my words will spell something too.

user189275

And you will know when you have arrived at the end of the puzzle.

10:27 AM

Why don't you post one then? I don't understand how you're not offensive

You're basically saying

"Meh, I can do better than you in 5 minutes. Your puzzle is trash."

user189275

Yes. I told that before, the insta-think puzzles aren't good. But that doesn't means majority of your puzzles are like that.

Ok, so you're fully aware that you are offensive. Good to know :-)

user189275

Being offensive probably doesn't means not pointing out the (relative) mistakes which could be improved, IMHO.

user189275

10:59 AM

You have completely missed my point. I never wanted to pointlessly mock the amount of thought which went to making the puzzle, but I wanted to convey the idea that next time it would be better if you would make next puzzles with bit more thought and work .

Puzzling — BOUNTY!

12:28 PM

6

Q: How many fingers do the aliens have?

A message has come from another galaxy. The radio receiver detects 7 different wave forms and translates those into letters; now your task is pretty easy. Decipher the message, and determine how many fingers the aliens have on one hand. CCCVVFFBBGGHHTTCVCFCBCHCVVCCC Do you think the alien'...

mathematics cipher symbols

@IAmInPLS Please don't be offended by criticism of your puzzles. If saying anything negative about someone else's puzzle was considered offensive, this site would go downhill fast. Arka wasn't just saying "your puzzle is crap", they were giving you detailed feedback on exactly why they were disappointed by it after seeing the solution. You don't have to take such feedback on board and use it to make your next puzzle even better, but at least please don't take it as offensive or insulting!

Constructive and detailed criticism is good, far better than a downvote without comment. But people reacting like that to it is exactly what causes downvoters not to leave a comment, so that they don't get into arguments.

5

1:07 PM

@Alconja In case you don't see this anyway: puzzling.stackexchange.com/questions/42420/…

@Randal'Thor Well, I think his words were not very well chosen... I accept criticism, but when it is constructive. He basically came and say "I could do better in no time"

The problem is that to do is hard, to judge is easy :-/

@IAmInPLS He even did so, by taking some animal names and scrambling them up. Not "better", but puzzles with the same basic idea.

Well, there is only one answer at the moment and Rosie spotted the pattern. (I'm surprised that the puzzle is already solved; I somehow expected that finding the bands was only a first step to the solution.) — M Oehm 5 hours ago

Several of us were hoping for something more to the puzzle than just anagramming a few phrases - maybe putting them together somehow to get a final solution for the birthday gift?

@Randal'Thor I totally agree that the "answer" could be disappointing on this one

@IAmInPLS I mean, someone might say it's rude to post a comment suggesting someone's cipher puzzle might be bad only a few minutes after it's been posted ;-)

Also, take a look at this link : Codes: what not to do. — IAmInPLS 2 mins ago

Well, there's a difference :-)

Gareth McCaughan

1:24 PM

I'm not sure there really is much difference -- other than that for obvious reasons you agree more with one criticism than with the other.
Arka told you: I like lots of your puzzles; I don't like this one because of X.
That seems to me to be useful information. Of course you don't have to agree with him.

(FWIW I don't think there's anything very wrong with this type of puzzle, but I personally don't enjoy them all that much. I suspect Arka is right that they are quite easy to create. I don't think how easy they are to make has very much to do with quality, though. Something can be really hard to create but terrible, or really easy to create but very nice.)

Am I the only one who thinks this is a bit vague?

@dcfyj You're not ... but Marius's solution probably is the only really workable one.

Worthy of downvotes but (probably) not closure, IMO.

nah, the answer is clearly The Blur marvel.wikia.com/wiki/Stanley_Stewart_(Earth-31916)

So really flash#2?

1:52 PM

@GarethMcCaughan I use this one frequently, Anagram Solver.

Gareth McCaughan

More than a bit vague, I'd say...

Gareth McCaughan

2:09 PM

@Randal'Thor, rsp explicitly denies that Marius's solution to that puzzle is correct...

@GarethMcCaughan Oh ... well, in that case, who knows.

2 hours later…

3:55 PM

Hello @BeastlyGerbil Weren't you making a new puzzle on casinos or something like that??

4:10 PM

@Sid yes, spent 2 weeks on it and still unfinished

@Randal'Thor, so we have Bing and I lose. Bing the website?

Err, someone reject this edit please.

@BeastlyGerbil Are you sure it's BING, or could some of those dots and dashes be not part of the message?

I didn't use the full stops at the end, only when there isn't a capital letter after the dot this time so i'm pretty sure

I can check again though

@Randal'Thor, I find the tr& suspicious

@BeastlyGerbil Aha, I've worked it out now, with a little help from Hugh.

Good! @Randal'Thor, and I found the last clue but haevn't worked it out yet - see answer

And now I think I've found the third message...

4:27 PM

The rhyme doesn't seem to give anything

@Randal'Thor undistputed ruler?

@BeastlyGerbil Check my answer :-)

aaaah, well done. +1! So it was hugh, what does you win I lose mean though

Apparently means, the puzzle is solved?

You might want to add the top of my answer in about the clues @Randal'Thor

4:35 PM

@BeastlyGerbil Will do. I'm just wondering if I should credit you or not, since I thought of it independently but there's no doubt you said it first.

I don't mind, you have already credited the answer

Can't put the 3 answers together...

I'm still not convinced by BING, to be honest.

Out of interest, why do you think that it is Hugh?

Because the whole riddle's about him?

That last full stop in the final verse seems to be correct, and not one of the punctuation errors.

But BINM doesn't make sense.

4:38 PM

And the tr& is still unsolved

Oh wait no you got that

Rand used it in his answer

The top does mention 'punctuation' but it refers to errors. BING seems correct for me

@BeastlyGerbil Maybe SING (and the dash in the first line isn't part of it)?

Maybe but still doesn't seem to fit with the hugh meyers winning losing riddle thing.

Oh btw, if anyone would like to get some of their puzzles published in a literary magazine ...

user image

4:53 PM

Sing might have been a hint to help find the Rhyme mistakes maybe?

I just want to point out that my sandbox riddle that's not entirely dissimilar but way worse went up a full half hour before that one, so I'm not stealing :)

@Randal'Thor "featuring minimalist writing and art, with poetry, fiction, non-fiction, art, and a lot in between." Maybe @MariaDeleva wants to submit this puzzle of hers? :) Seems pretty artistic to me.

@LukasRotter BmyGuest and Alconja are the champs of arty puzzles, I think.

I'm planning to send in a small selection of my puzzles, but haven't worked out which yet. (cc @BeechwoodReview )

@Randal'Thor But the puzzles I've seen from them actually look good... I don't know if Maria has made any serious art puzzles, I only know of the one to which I linked.

Me too, I have a couple I'll submit

5:09 PM

Since only riddles seem to be allowed, none of my puzzles would fit. And how's "clever puzzle" defined?

Very vaguely

5:22 PM

@Randal'Thor For Read. Learn. Live. Escape, have you tried substituting 1's for the a's 2's for the b's and 4's for the d's? It looks like it might be a message but i'm no seeing how to go beyond it.

@dcfyj Where?

Making letter-to-number substitutions in the whole square?

yeah

R,U,Y,E,R,O,▲,L,N,R,1,E,Y,
1,R,4,Y,E,E,R,U,O,F,M,O,T,
C,U,L,1,1,T,Y,L, ,S,1,I, ,
2,T,W,O,T,H,E,N,4,I,I,W,N,
E,E,4,E,O,R,M,F,4,1,4,N,E,
N,L,N,I,R,S,R,1,E,N,M,I, ,
O,1,E,R,O,M,T,2,U,1,R,O,T,
K,1,E,T, ,E,C,N,O,4,1,E,R,
1, ,E,1,P,T,H,1,N, ,T,O,P,
T,1,F,S,Y,E, ,O,S,1,G,I,O,
O,H,E,P,R,F,R,O,M,T,H,E,T,
U,Y,O,N,O,W,E,S,E,1,M,T,I,
4,N,1,▲,C,S,P,E,1,E,S,O,G,

If you take just the numbers it looks a little too code-y

Why not substitute for all the letters?

lol, didn't even think of that

Maybe we're supposed to, I don't know, step on the prime numbers or something.

We still need to use anagrams somehow.

5:30 PM

That might come into play when you're actually jumping from tile to tile

Since you have to jump over letters to get to the ones you need

5:45 PM

hmm, I found "An easy path, a bread from hate" that takes us all the way across

easy up and left, path through the holes in the centre, the rest almost vertical, but trending slightly left

@Randal'Thor Looking at the prime suggestion (I know you were just randomly saying that but I figured I'd look at it anyhow) The only way across with them is if you count the non-prime "1".

I found one more dead end: One hero can stride to the end. I am still unsure whether any of these are intended or not

user230888

Stepping on the prime is a very dopey idea, confirmed by intuition and Alconja's hints.

It might be part of a larger sentece?

maybe

5:55 PM

One Fast Ride To The (exit)?

The trouble with these other paths is that many of them could just be coincidence. Like the "DEAD END" that @Maria found - it's not unlikely for that to crop up just by chance, with a D, an E, an A, and an N close to each other.

Especially the ones where you need to make double or diagonal jumps, which makes the path less connected.

True - and the letters can form so many words, we could probably come up with a lot more sentences that could not be intended at all

6:50 PM

"A cow's moo and a bear's roar"

7:00 PM

Can someone please tell me where they're stuck at my lastest puzzle so I know which kind of hint to post next? Have you already figured out the cipher and struggle to find the key or haven't you figured out the cipher yet?

With cipher I mean the encryption method (e.g. Caesar, Atbash, etc.)

7:15 PM

@LukasRotter Personally, I think I may know the key but not the encryption method lol.

can you really figure out one without the other?

I have no idea if I'm right or not since I can't check, but I don't see why not.

@dcfyj With my cipher problem, before anyone had suggested anything for the encryption method, Rand said he reckoned he knew who was the author of the plaintext. And he was right.

Impressive

The strongest hint for the encryption method lies in Friedrich's username. I/MFree. If you're familiar with the cipher, once you "get" the username it will be easy. Without knowing the cipher it might take some (minor) research.

7:21 PM

@GentlePurpleRain You're famous!

Yeah, I suck at figuring out what cipher is being used.

7:33 PM

my first thought was to use a vigenere type cipher against a book where 18:20 makes sense but 20:30 or whatever doesn't. Most famous book that fits is Bible, Psalms, but trying it didn't get me anywhere

Typically the book cipher refers to page, line and/or word, letter

Not only the time, but also the day of the week and the date are important. All of these are needed for en-/decryption.

2 hours later…

9:36 PM

@LukasRotter I have no idea what the cipher might be. Don't know the key either, but I imagine that'd be easier to find once we know what kind of encryption method is being used.

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Sep '1612

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