The Sphinx's Lair - 2016-09-26 (page 1 of 2)

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12:00 AM

Well, heard of the term once, maybe, not sure.

Killer sudoku (also killer su doku, sumdoku, sum doku, sumoku, addoku, or samunamupure) is a puzzle that combines elements of sudoku and kakuro. Despite the name, the simpler killer sudokus can be easier to solve than regular sudokus, depending on the solver's skill at mental arithmetic; the hardest ones, however, can take hours to crack. A typical problem is shown on the right, using colors to define the groups of cells. More often, puzzles are printed in black and white, with thin dotted lines used to outline the "cages" (see below for terminology). == History == Killer sudokus were already an...

Ohh

in the variant I posted, not every number is part of a cage

What is a cage?

but the rules of regular Killer Sudoku still apply

those dotted outlines

with a number on their top-left

12:01 AM

Oh, a cage.

What about handcuffs? :D

handcuffs in killer sudoku?

never heard of that before, lol

12:15 AM

@TheBitByte [vote to close --> too broad]

:P

Ok, so the "34" has to have 9, 8, 7, 6, and 4 in it

That 29 in the upper left must be missing 9 and 7

alright, so the middle-right square of the top right must have either 7 or 9 in it

the "28" in the lower right must be missing either 9/6 or 8/7

1 hour later…

1:40 AM

1

Q: Is it really [good-practice] to have this tag?

I recently discovered that we have a good-practice tag here on PSE meta. It's used on 11 questions, 8 of which are our "Best of [time period]" posts while the other 3 are a strange mix: Tag-merge or stricter tagging policy? [cryptic-clues] and [cryptic-crosswords] Distinctive titles for Only Co...

discussion tags burninate-request

2:06 AM

@Deusovi You seem to be thinking too much outside the box.

What square are you talking about?

2:22 AM

I'm talking about the cage that sums to 28.

4 hours later…

6:16 AM

actually, the 28 means that the last two are 8 and 9

45 - 28 = 17, not 15

1 hour later…

7:29 AM

I guess my last puzzle was down voted for being too easy....

5 hours later…

12:35 PM

user image

@MariaDeleva, there's a bug when I search for your name...

Oh wait you changed your name?

@BeastlyGerbil maybe I should just revert it

To not confuse people :)

Why does it say 'Maria Deleva' in chat and MD on the main site?

Because I changed it only there.

Oh right your parent user isn't on puzzling

Now I understand

But I will change it back. It is confusing as it is now.

12:40 PM

I thought 'MD' was a different user :P

I can' t revert it now. At least not until 18th of October

I've only ever changed my name once.

What did you use before?

You don' t need to answer, if you don' t want to

Ok apparently I have changed it twice. Only know from my earliest comments:

user image

Beastly Gerbil sounds better and is more unique

It does. :)

Although Joe is a nice name

12:46 PM

Well yes thats my real name.

My real name is definetly not Beastly Gerbil

One can never know for sure with parents nowadays. :D

No you definitely can't :P

1:05 PM

@MariaDeleva I can change it for you if you want!

hi

any1 here?

darn

Hey!

@technikfe (ping)

@Deusovi, thanks. That will be nice. I promise - no more changes

@MariaDeleva Alright, just want it as "Maria Deleva"? (And changes aren't a problem!)

Yes. Thank you! :)

1:11 PM

Done! :D

@MariaDeleva I don't see how your puzzle was any easier than mine. I thought mine would last for atleast an hour.

@Deusovi, sometimes I'm scared how much power you have over us... :P

@BeastlyGerbil I apologise for not replying last time around. I had slept off and morning couldn't check coz I had classes..

@BeastlyGerbil Don't worry, I'm not a tyrannical dictator yet!

@Sid which was yours?

1:13 PM

puzzling.stackexchange.com/questions/43138/… This..

@Deusovi you are the best mod ever! :)

@Deusovi That "yet" feels a bit ominous

@MariaDeleva I'll make sure to tell Emrakul and GPR that you said that :P

(thanks, though! :D )

@MariaDeleva, he's also one of only three mods you've ever known :P

@Deusovi Emphasis on "yet". I don't know, I 'd kinda like to see mods becoming corrupt :P

1:15 PM

@BeastlyGerbil There were mods in the Before Times. Some say their souls still roam Puzzling as we speak...

@Sid the title was a bit giving away. :)

Well Emrakul is still here

And doorknob is still active

@Deusovi This too broad? puzzling.stackexchange.com/questions/43144/…

Yeah, I'd say so.

@Sid personally I just think it's a bit of a silly puzzle

1:17 PM

@LukasRotter Sometimes I think about just closing every single question that gets posted...

3

Wait, do we have a no-confidence motion against the mods??

No?

I suppose a bit after the sandbox

But thats settled down now

Even PSE has its own internal problems

@Deusovi Every question could be too broad if the clues are just assumed to be red herrings and you make up your own crazy theory as an answer.

Yeah, we've taken care of the whole "sandbox" thing (and by that I mean "we" as a community, not the three mods)

Marius' complaints still make me laugh though...

1:20 PM

I call for a vote of No Confidence on the moderator Community for excessive locking of the Sandbox

@LukasRotter Can't have any answer quality issues if there are no answers!

Good news! I've sorted out my file size problems with my casino puzzle

Great!

Ooh, I'm excited!

ETP (Expected Time of Posting) 1-2 weeks from now

1:22 PM

Sounds great!

Perfect!

I'm really hyping it up. Need to make sure now that it doesn't disappoint :P

1:36 PM

user image

This looks so sad, especially considering the emotionless facial expression on GentlePurpleRain's avatar :P

2

Q: What is an Explosive Word™?

This is in the spirit of the What is a Word/Phrase™ series started by JLee with a special brand of Phrase™ and Word™ puzzles. If a word conforms to a special rule, I call it an Explosive Word™. Use the following examples below to find the rule. ___________________________ | EXPLOSIVE | UNEX...

word pattern word-property

Puzzles Etc. was a fake chat room anyway

this puzzle is weird... did his rule change?

I think he just added more examples

The explosive words changed explosively :)

The old examples disappeared, though

1:42 PM

Gotta go to class - see you all later!

Bye

user image

Puzzling stats ^

15'000 users? Really? I'm in the top 60 :P

Actually I'm the 47th, (48 including Gamow)

We only get 10 questions a day?

@BeastlyGerbil Am I not getting the joke here? I'm pretty sure these stats are only for the beta phase.

No these are the current stats

This all overall for the past 2 years

TùxCräftîñg

hi

1:53 PM

Hi and welcome

@TùxCräftîñg, I was hoping for an 'explosive' entry :p

@BeastlyGerbil Then it's incredibly badly worded... It says "At the end of beta, this site had..." right above the stats you screenshotted.

We have around 20,000 users now

Oh ok then missed that

My computer just died using the app now

It really needs some work done on it

2:08 PM

0

Q: Word Puzzle: Tellurium Yahweh

Tellurium Yahweh (This is a weird puzzle. Probably will not be solved and will frustrate many.) The answer is a declarative statement.

wordplay lateral-thinking

"Unclear what you are asking" maybe?

Wait, that might be just the answer

"the question is unclear" :P

Very unclear :P

Does the blockquote thing work in chat>

> Let me check

Wow it does!

Yep

And spoilertext?

For instance:

43 secs ago, by Ankoganit

> Let me check

2:11 PM

Ha ha cool

>! Spoiler works?

No

No...

:(

TùxCräftîñg

chat markdown support near nothing

4

A: My spoiler tags are occasionally not working. What am I doing wrong?

I have fixed it for you. This is HTML, and you can learn it here Spoiler tags don't work when you try and have paragraphs For instance: !This spoiler tag doesn't work Because I have written: >!This spoiler tag doesn't work And the new line causes an error If you want to add a new l...

Reminds me of this

2:13 PM

Posted an answer on Math.SE today.

Math.SE is way more active

Like 3 new questions every minute

Wow. I don't even understand anything anyone says on the Math site

I understand some of the stuff

And mostly nothing on mathoverflow

Huh, I opened Math.SE on another tab, and by the time I finish typing this there will be two or three new questions for sure. (EDIT: there was 2)

user image

The only thing I understand there is the number 1

TùxCräftîñg

i also understand the number 2 here

@BeastlyGerbil Which q was that?

2:19 PM

here

Ah, Basel problem

wikipedia had a similar proof I think

Okay, not actually the same but nearly the same idea

To be fair to myself, that's well past A level maths. I've not even done GCSE maths yet

@BeastlyGerbil You know what, there are some so-called math problems which require nothing more than middleschool stuff and yet are real fun

You know the Ants on a stick puzzle?

Nope

OK I will tell you

(I could just give a link but can't resist telling it again)

Suppose there are 100 ants on a 1-metre stick. Each ant goes either left or right at 1m/second.

2:25 PM

1 metre a second? Fast for an ant...

When two ants collide, they bounce off and reverse directions.

@BeastlyGerbil Ah, the ants don't know that :P

Anyway, when an ant reaches the end of a stick it falls off.

Poor ant

How long (at max) you need to wait to ensure the stick is free of ants?

Sounds complicated, right?

Kind of yes.

But I think its 50 seconds

I want to say 2 seconds

2:28 PM

Its 1 second

oh, right, they're falling off both ends

Now let me tell u why

Well I got that right :P

sum of a series .5+.25+.125...

@Sconibulus Not that complicated

2:29 PM

22

Q: Maximum time for ants to fall off stick

Suppose there are $n$ ants on a stick which has length 1. At any time, the ants may be facing left or right, the initial directions of the ants are arbitrary. Each ant can be modeled as a point in the stick. At time 0, all ants start moving in the direction they're facing at speed 1. Each time ...

Yeah that one

And the argument is amazingly simple...just give each ant a flag and tell them to exchange flag when they meet. Now the ants change direction but the flags don't.

So it takes 1s for all the flags to fall off

I imagined the problem differently to them sort of all in a line

So done!

Which is why I said 50

@BeastlyGerbil How?

2:33 PM

I imagined them in 1 row not two columns

Oh...

It must be my poor communicative skills then ...

two columns?

Wait, you said TWO columns?

They ARE on a single line

I imagined it like ------------- not | |

It IS like ----------

2:35 PM

Oh

user image

Like this

Just the ants are way smaller :P

Point sized

Got it now?

Think so

Haha I wonder what @Deusovi might be thinking

"Poor kid talking abt basic maths"

Like I said I've not even done GCSE maths yet

Thats why I haven't answered many maths questions here :P

Uhh you don't any maths for this...just that time=distance/velocity

2:40 PM

I did have only a couple of seconds to solve it though

No need to solve it...just understand it

(i didn't it solve it either when I saw this five years back)

I get it now, just couldn't imagine it in my head properly :P

I suppose you could think of it as if all the ants where to face in the same direction, say left, then it would take 1 second for the ant furthest to the right to fall off the left side

Also in my head I imagine the stick was cylindrical and all the ants were dotted around the circumference

I over complicated things :P

All though the answer to the cylindrical puzzle would still be 1, for it follows the same reasoning as the point I made above

what if instead it took an ant a tenth of a second to turn around...

Oooh, good thinking

then all of a sudden you probably need lots of math

2:46 PM

Yeah defintely

@Ankoganit, could you solve that?

user230888

The PUZZLE agent question is on part 2. See comments on the existing answer.

Umm no probably

it's probably not definable as written

we haven't said what happens if an ant is collided with while turning

I think it would depend on the initial configuration

There wouldn't be a unique answer

the question was to find the maximum, right?

2:51 PM

Oh right

We need a upper bound on the number of collisions

nC2 is too loose

Well the lower bound is 0.

Not sure about the upper bound though

everything facing towards the center has to be the upper bound right?

Yes just thinking that

50 ants facing left on the left side 50 ants facing right on the right side

that's 1 collision for the outer-most, then 3 for the next, 5 for the next... etc.

@Sconibulus Good idea

So it something like O(n^2)

2:58 PM

so what will be $c$ (number of collisions) when $n$ = $50$

or would it be $49$

Don't waste your dollars, MathJax won't work here :P

Damn :P

well it makes it clearer anyway

Where's @Deusovi, when you need him? :P

He is too devious

:P

user189275

13

Q: A Letter from the Past

It has been quite a while since your first assignment as a P.U.Z.Z.L.E. agent. Most of your tasks weren't even half that exciting and since your boss is currently on vacation, your most important task right now is to beat the ceiling dart high score. Just as you prepare your final throw, your bo...

cipher story visual steganography history

user189275

3:06 PM

Got a new lair.

@Ankoganit I believe you can get userscripts to make MathJax work in chat. People use it all the time in Maths.SE chat IIRC.

@LukasRotter How can you tell? If you're going by user-IDs, they include a lot of deleted users. And if you're going by number of pages on the "all users" list, that doesn't include unregistered users.

@BeastlyGerbil He is?? I thought he hadn't been active here for a year or two.

Who?

@BeastlyGerbil Oh, we're only counting PSE mods here? :-P

@BeastlyGerbil Doorknob. You said he's still active.

Oh

Yeah I saw him appear in the chat room about a week ago

Oh, people lurking in chatrooms doesn't mean they're really active. By that reckoning, Michael Myers would be active on Puzzling :-P

3:16 PM

No his icon came in where it sort of floated down. I think he commented as well... can't remember

@Randal'Thor Does that mean you can ask/answer questions if you're unregistered? I didn't know that.

@Randal'Thor yeah he was last seen at Sep 17 at 20:13

@BeastlyGerbil Yeah, he lurks in here a bit, and he did post a few messages in here a few weeks ago. But that's not even really being active in the chatroom, let alone the site!

@BeastlyGerbil Last seen =/= last activity.

True

user189275

Nobody saw it, so I'm repeating:

user189275

3:25 PM

13

Q: A Letter from the Past

It has been quite a while since your first assignment as a P.U.Z.Z.L.E. agent. Most of your tasks weren't even half that exciting and since your boss is currently on vacation, your most important task right now is to beat the ceiling dart high score. Just as you prepare your final throw, your bo...

cipher story visual steganography history

user189275

Is now on Level 2

user189275

See comment on @Deusovi 's answer.

user189275

@Alconja: I suppose the riddle is now solved. Joe's answer probably meh - fits all the hints.

@Randal'Thor I vaguely remember someone mention "chatjax" or something of that sort...letme search it up

Yay I got this : dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/78279253/mathjax.html

It works!

$\sum_{i=1}^{\infty} \frac{1}{i^2}=\frac{\pi^2}{6}$

user image

Thanks @Randal'Thor !!

@ArkaKarmakar Will's comment?

Wasn't there a "What is a Composed Word™?" puzzle?

I could swear I remember one, but now I can't find it.

3:41 PM

@Randal'Thor This one?

13

Q: What is an Uptight™ Word?

This is in the spirit of the What is a Word/Phrase™ series started by JLee with a special brand of Phrase™ and Word™ puzzles. If a word conforms to a special rule, I call it an Uptight Word™. Composed Words™ are not Uptight Words™. Use the following examples below to find the rule. Here they...

pattern english letters word-property

Composed word is the opposite of uptight words

@Ankoganit Thanks!

@Randal'Thor Happy to help :)

Wow, word TM puzzles are getting increasingly meta

1

Q: What is a Narcissistic Word™?

This is in the spirit of the What is a Word/Phrase™ series started by JLee with a special brand of Phrase™ and Word™ puzzles. If a word has a certain property, I call it a Narcissistic Word™. If it definitively does not have that property, I call it an Echoing Word™. You can use the examples ...

pattern word-property

user189275

@Ankoganit: Wait, now there will be meta-meta, then meta-meta-meta and so on, and there would be hypermeta puzzles involving those meta-meta and meta-meta-meta and so on, and then there would by hyperhyper meta word Puzzles.

I'm so meta, even this acronym

2

user189275

And then ultra hyper with the hyper and hyperhyper and so on.

3:54 PM

@ArkaKarmakar What is a What is a Word^{TM} Puzzle Puzzle? etc.....

user189275

@Sconibulus: What do you mean ?

user189275

Why Gamow was banned ?

@ArkaKarmakar take the first letter of each of the words

@Randal'Thor I think it might be like this: X is narcissist if "X" is a X word TM, and echoing otherwise

Not sure why they are called echoing though

user189275

@Sconibulus: Of what ?

3:58 PM

@ArkaKarmakar Take a look at this

user image

@Ankoganit Yeah, I blatantly stole it

xkcd FTW!

user189275

@Ankoganit @Sconibulus I still can't understand. Acronym of the Meta book ?

the acronym ends up being ISMETA

@Sconibulus It's not stealing, quoting xkcd should be our fundamental right :P

@ArkaKarmakar So the acronym is meta.

@ArkaKarmakar For plagiarising. meta.puzzling.stackexchange.com/a/5359/25412

4:03 PM

@Ankoganit Thanks! It looks like you're right :-)

... and it looks like @Deusovi just beat me to it.

user189275

@Ankoganit It's Totally Soccer. Soccer ? Oh! Meta ? Excellent ! Take, Aspire, Each Victory Each Nonvictory. That's How It's Soccer. Acording, Crow Rows Over New York Metameta

@Randal'Thor Deusovi is always damn too quick

@ArkaKarmakar haha cool, but you need more work on the surface meaning :P

@Randal'Thor Well, you got the idea... maybe you should get the tick(If it is correct)...

user189275

@Ankoganit: Yeah, it's written extremely terribly.

@Sid Besides, Deusovi just deleted his post

4:09 PM

Whoa, where'd Deusovi's post go? I saw the notification but it's gone

Oh, guess he deleted it

but yeah, you're right Rand, did the use of Echoing and Narcissistic help at all?

Oops gotta go...bye all!

@Sid Well, actually @Ankoganit got it :-P

@RosieF Anyone made any progress on your puzzle??

@ArkaKarmakar If Meta Sentences Or Meta Entanglements Tally Amusement, Entertain Various Erudite Nostradami, They Have Interesting Strictures. Always Check Religious Objects Near Yokel Magicians.

@Sconibulus I was trying out lots of different things. For a while I thought it might have been about the method of solution of the puzzle (e.g. maybe the rules for Narcissistic Word puzzles were all something to do with the letters of the word), but Healthy and Viridiscent threw me off there. Then there was another idea I was looking at, which I won't say in case I turn it into a puzzle of my own ;-)

4:19 PM

@Ankoganit Automynorcagrams use themselves! Obviously meta, yet not overly recursively constructed. A good restriction allowing meta statements.

4

Rosie, of "solving interesting enigmas" fame.

2

@Sid AFAIK no. I haven't had much chance to check yet. My net connection was down this morning and I've been catching up with other things besides.

@Ankoganit Narcissus wastes away for love of self, Echo wastes away for love of other, from the same myth by Ovid

Echo and Narcissus

Echo and Narcissus is an myth from Ovid's Metamorphoses, a Latin mythological epic from the Augustan Age. The introduction of the myth of the mountain nymph Echo into the story of Narcissus, the beautiful youth who rejected sexuality and falls in love with his own reflection, appears to have been Ovid's invention. Ovid's version influenced the presentation of the myth in later Western art and literature. == Story == The myth of the goddess is told in Book III of the Metamorphoses, and tells the story of a "talkative nymph" who is admired by the goddess Aphrodite for her magnificent voice and song...

@Sconibulus Have a star for posting a painting by my favourite artist, J W Waterhouse.

2 hours later…

6:33 PM

@Randal'Thor Thanks, I saw your comment :)

7:05 PM

@Randal'Thor you are fast! :D

Never ask a question when @Randal'Thor is active. He'll have solved it before you've posted it :P

In the last 20 minutes, I think I've lost two answers by about a minutes :)

@BeastlyGerbil hahaha :)

@MariaDeleva I've already hit the repcap, so maybe I should have let someone else take this one. But I couldn't resist :-P

@Sconibulus I saw your answer before you deleted it :)

7:09 PM

One left now

@Randal'Thor sorry for upvoting you then :)

And I'm about to post as well...

@Randal'Thor I will accept it tomorrow then :) So that you will get something out of it

@MariaDeleva Acceptances are immune to the repcap. Better to accept now and undo your upvote to redo it tomorrow :-)

Repcap is such a pain, I think I only got 90 or so from Rand's riddle set, and I'm like 30% sure that that broke his spirit.

7:11 PM

I have already upvoted though

ok removed the upvote :P

Ready to post...

I am sure Rand is training his fingers on the keyboard right now

:P

its a toughy what is a word one

@MariaDeleva Nope, I'm actually going AFK now.

OK :)

7:14 PM

He's hit repcap, he doesn't need to be active now :P

My favourite pair is 'Dobby' and 'Potter'

7:40 PM

Well @MariaDeleva, if you can figure out why the recurrence of [redacted] is important you have the answer. Think of the CSV version...

You are so close...

Well, I have looked at the CSV version in both lower case and upper case. I guess I am dumb :) or not seeing something obvious :)

Its not obvious

But you are so, so close

You are on the right track with the lowercase thing

7:56 PM

I have one assumption

edited my answer - but not sure whether this is what you had in mind.

Even closer!

@MariaDeleva Let me give you a hint regarding the letters

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