The Sphinx's Lair

12:40 AM

I was just about to ping @Lukas and ask if he was around, when his avatar dropped out of the room :-/

1:02 AM

Well RIP. About bounties, do they get automagically assigned if the bounty-giver doesn't pick an answer to give the bounty to?

Rand al'Thor

@Areeb If the bounty-setter doesn't choose an answer, then half of the bounty gets automatically assigned to the highest-voted answer posted during the bounty period and reaching a score of at least 2 - unless there isn't any such answer, in which case the bounty just disappears.

Alconja

(after expiry + 24hrs grace period)

Rand al'Thor

Yep. I'm not sure what happens if there are two equal-score answers meeting the criteria though.

Areeb

Oh that's an interesting mechanic

Rand al'Thor

1:25 AM

How is this a maths puzzle rather than a maths problem?

Areeb

1:37 AM

That's a maths problem

2

Alconja

1:56 AM

Yeah, I already voted to keep it closed, but then Gamow, Paul Evans, hexomino, Mike Earnest and Alexis voted to reopen.

Deusovi

3:34 AM

I voted to close that one too. :/

Rosie F

6:58 AM

@Randal'Thor Because it seems on the face of it as if there is not enough info -- how much of the distance is up & down hill, and how much is on the flat. But aha! it turns out that Harry takes the same time to walk distance d uphill and downhill as d there and back on the flat. Hence the solution posted by hexomino & others. (Apparently, although going uphill slows Harry down, he is impervious to Naismith's rule.)

Lukas Rotter

9:36 AM

5

Q: The princess arrived safely at the castle

The princess took the correct and safest path on the crossroad, seeing lots of beautiful butterflies along the way and is now standing in front of prince Laniff's castle. However, it turns out she needs a password to enter. The princess tried hard to remember whether the prince has given her any...

The first question for the Fortnightly topic challenge #15!

Maria Deleva

10:06 AM

And it was solved incredibly fast - I guess I made it too easy :)

And I have worked 3 days on it. :)

IAmInPLS

11:07 AM

@MOehm Hello!

Eʀɪᴋ ᴛʜᴇ Gᴏʟғᴇʀ

12:24 PM

Hello? Anyone inside?

Maria Deleva

I am here, but not for long :)

Eʀɪᴋ ᴛʜᴇ Gᴏʟғᴇʀ

So, you left and came back in? I was hoping to create a Code:Trilogy chatroom about the trilogy of PPCG, Puzzling (brothers) and PPCG, CR (cousins that hate each other).

Maria Deleva

never left :) just kept the window open, but since I was not active, I did not appear as active :)

Ah, I am not sure I can be of much help :)

Eʀɪᴋ ᴛʜᴇ Gᴏʟғᴇʀ

Since I just entered the chatroom, I was not able to determine if someone just came in or not.

IAmInPLS

Hello @EʀɪᴋᴛʜᴇGᴏʟғᴇʀ

Eʀɪᴋ ᴛʜᴇ Gᴏʟғᴇʀ

12:31 PM

Wait a sec, does f'' know of this room or something?

Hey, IAmInPLS came in!

It's actually Έρικ Κωνσταντόπουλος, but this is my chat parent profile on PPCG.

I'm not willing to change it.

IAmInPLS

Oh, alright!

Why do you want to create such a room?

Eʀɪᴋ ᴛʜᴇ Gᴏʟғᴇʀ

Yeah, I thought some confusion would otherwise arise. I would like chat to be different between different communities, not a network-wide thing, though.

@IAmInPLS I think that there is a trilogy between PPCG + Puzzling and PPCG | CR.

(separators appropriately chosen)

Hello?

Maria Deleva

Well, I am not active on neither of the other sites and won't be anytime soon. But perhaps there are people that are active on all of them?

Eʀɪᴋ ᴛʜᴇ Gᴏʟғᴇʀ

Like me? Who knows?

IAmInPLS

You can always try

Eʀɪᴋ ᴛʜᴇ Gᴏʟғᴇʀ

12:42 PM

@IAmInPLS And, it won't be site-specific, it will be a SE room, since more than 1 sites are involved.

IAmInPLS

I don't really udnerstand the purpose, but I don't think that we can prevent you from creating chat rooms :)

Maria Deleva

As IAmInPLS suggests - you can always try making such a room and see if there would be any activity in it.

IAmInPLS

@Mithrandir Hello !

Mithrandir

@IAmInPLS 'allo!

This is hard >.<

What's CR?

Maria Deleva

Code Review perhaps? not sure

A J

12:48 PM

It seems that what I asked hasn't been solved yet.

24 hours ago, by A J

@Emrakul @GentlePurpleRain @Deusovi Please remove the duplicate post link from this post because it leads to a deleted question.

24 hours ago, by A J

-8

Q: RAT Addition and Multiplication?

I am not able to multiply the alphabets. Whether they are to be multiplies vertically or horizontally?? Solve it for me?? If RAT = (R+A+T) × R×A×T,then RAT=? Are there other possibilities than 000, 135, 144?

mathematics logical-deduction calculation-puzzle logic-grid series

Mithrandir

@AJ I would VTRO, but I need another 578 rep.

The repcap swallowed 47 yesterday.

IAmInPLS

Is anybody working on this?

Mithrandir

Nope

Working on creating algebra problems

IAmInPLS

@Mithrandir Condolences :p

Mithrandir

@IAmInPLS It's for a puzzle :P

IAmInPLS

12:55 PM

@Mithrandir Oh you'll be fine then! I want to do something on the new fortnightly topic

Sid

@IAmInPLS Story wouldn't be much of a stretch... Almost all puzzles are story tagged....

Mithrandir

@Sid Not quite.

Sid

@Mithrandir Why not?? It is actually one of the more popular tags..

IAmInPLS

@Sid Not quite, indeed. Plus, there are many ways to couple story with other tags

Maria Deleva

There were a couple of questions posted yesterday with the story tag - wouldn't they count for the challenge as well - I don't see them in the meta post.

IAmInPLS

12:59 PM

@MariaDeleva If you look closely, there are only two : yours, and another one put on hold.

Maria Deleva

Ah, guess I am confused. :)

now I see some puzzles actually look like a story but don't have the story tag. :)

Sid

Wait, So Story tag coupled with other tags don't qualify for fortnightly challenge??

IAmInPLS

@Sid Of course they do qualify.

Sid

Okk, So, maybe I will also work on creating something before my exams...

Rosie F

1:18 PM

@Mithrandir Hope you don't get too much flak from the maths-haters -- the ones who say "This isn't a maths puzzle, it's a maths problem".

Mithrandir

@RosieF Don't worry.

The math is only a part of the puzzle.

Maria Deleva

I will be leaving now. Bye. :)

Mithrandir

Bye, Maria!

The main part of the puzzle took 3 hours to create. Sitting at the laptop. :P

Gareth McCaughan

1:37 PM

@IAmInPLS, I'm thinking intermittently about the Nigel puzzle but not really getting anywhere. I assume you got the thing about scrabbling through the sour pods. I wondered whether e.g. "A13" means "13th of the 2-letter words beginning with A" or "13th of the 2-letter words containing A" or something, but there's a V3 and there are none containing V, and even setting that aside I can't make any version of this work well.

Another obvious idea is to replace letters by letter values but that provokes no clever ideas, at least not for me.

Rand al'Thor

Free flags:

-1

A: I want pie - what am I?

It's shit! It's shit! It's shit! It's shit! It's shit! It's shit! It's shit!

IAmInPLS

@GarethMcCaughan Ah, great to see you! I saw your comments earlier, and I was not sure if you were talking about the same subset as I thought. Anyway, I think we're missing something with the first line of the missive: the powers of two. The problem is that I have no idea about their use.

For convenience, I'll post this :
I, Y, O, A, R, U, V, M, D, A, S, U, E, J, E, A, M, I, A, F, I, O, W, S, Y, A, U, S, P, A, E

1 : I, Y, R, J, W, S, P
2 : D, M, A
3 : V, U, E, A, I, F, Y
4 : M, A, S
5 : A, O
6 : U, I, E
7 : -
8 : O, A
9 : -
10 : -
11 : E
12 : -
13 : A
14 : A

1 point: E ×12, A ×9, I ×9, O ×8, N ×6, R ×6, T ×6, L ×4, S ×4, U ×4
2 points: D ×4, G ×3
3 points: B ×2, C ×2, M ×2, P ×2
4 points: F ×2, H ×2, V ×2, W ×2, Y ×2
5 points: K ×1
8 points: J ×1, X ×1
10 points: Q ×1, Z ×1

Rand al'Thor

@EʀɪᴋᴛʜᴇGᴏʟғᴇʀ Why Code? Many of us on Puzzling know nothing about coding and can't understand a single one of the posts on PPCG or CR.

Mithrandir

Making equations is a lot of work >.<

IAmInPLS

I don't know if there is a connection with the points attributed though.

Mithrandir

1:48 PM

I know basic HTML, sort of. That's it :P

Rand al'Thor

@RosieF Saying "this isn't a maths puzzle, it's a maths problem" =/= being a maths-hater. I'm actually a mathematician IRL, and I often VTC 'puzzles' here for being maths problems.

Gareth McCaughan

Yeah, the powers of 2 must be relevant but I don't know how. (I suppose it might just be a hint to look at two-letter words: "use the Power Of Two". I'd find that rather icky, but I know I find a lot of things icky in puzzles that not everyone does.)

Eʀɪᴋ ᴛʜᴇ Gᴏʟғᴇʀ

@Randal'Thor I thought it's catchy: Code is derived from PPCG, while Trilogy is derived by the fact that the sites are three. You don't need to know anything about code; it's just a meeting of the three sites.

Rand al'Thor

@GarethMcCaughan Don't worry too much about the V3, seriously.

Gareth McCaughan

BTW I agree with Rand al'Thor about maths. I am also a mathematician IRL and have voted to close things for being maths problems.

Mithrandir

1:50 PM

I also flag things for closure when they're not puzzles.

Rand al'Thor

@EʀɪᴋᴛʜᴇGᴏʟғᴇʀ Personally I don't care about either of those other two sites, but some of the other top users here do (xnor and Joe Z. at least).

Eʀɪᴋ ᴛʜᴇ Gᴏʟғᴇʀ

@Randal'Thor You can always leave the chatroom or never get in. I have just given you a write privilege there.

Mithrandir

@GarethMcCaughan Give me an equation with the variable being 132 :P

Rand al'Thor

@EʀɪᴋᴛʜᴇGᴏʟғᴇʀ Mods don't need write privileges :-)

Eʀɪᴋ ᴛʜᴇ Gᴏʟғᴇʀ

@Randal'Thor So, you are trying to abuse the fact you're a chat mod, right? I think you are also a mod on SciFi.SE.

Gareth McCaughan

1:54 PM

For comparison with the list of what numbers are associated with what letters, here are the counts of two-letter words beginning with a given letter (at least according to Some Guy On The Internet, that famously reliable source).
A 16
B 5
C 0
D 2
E 10 (hmm, there's an E11)
F 2
G 1
H 5
I 5
J 1
K 2
L 3
M 7
N 4
O 13
P 2
Q 1
R 1
S 3
T 3
U 6
V 0 (so V3 is a problem, though Ra'T insists it isn't really)
W 2
X 2
Y 3
Z 1

Mithrandir

@EʀɪᴋᴛʜᴇGᴏʟғᴇʀ What's a chat mod?

Gareth McCaughan

@Mithrandir, wtf?

Rand al'Thor

@EʀɪᴋᴛʜᴇGᴏʟғᴇʀ I'm not abusing anything. Just saying that you don't need to give me explicit write privileges.

Mithrandir

@GarethMcCaughan Nothing.

Gareth McCaughan

132 != 0.

Eʀɪᴋ ᴛʜᴇ Gᴏʟғᴇʀ

1:56 PM

@Randal'Thor I think it's a little bit evil to interrupt the chat room without being invited there, anyways.

Rand al'Thor

@GarethMcCaughan Hmm. Methinks your Some Guy On The Internet is using TWL instead of SOWPODS.

@EʀɪᴋᴛʜᴇGᴏʟғᴇʀ Wait, who's interrupting what?

Gareth McCaughan

Oh, that's possible.

Do you know whether this list is up to date and accurate? scrabutility.com/2_SOWPODS.php

Eʀɪᴋ ᴛʜᴇ Gᴏʟғᴇʀ

@Randal'Thor If you weren't invited, it's a bit rude (according to my non-public chatroom rules, if I'm an owner) to interrupt. Just get in the chatroom and you should receive a message of approval (and explicit write privilege) if you're approved in. That's what the rules say.

Mithrandir

Math problem?

0

Q: Play against all other team members

Situation There are 5 teams, assume they have 10 members per team. Objective Together, the members of each team should be matched pairwise with all opponents in the minimum number of rounds. So, the members of team 1 should have talked to the 40 people that are not in their team. Benchmark ...

optimization

IAmInPLS

@GarethMcCaughan I am using this one : artesea.co.uk/sowpods/2-3-letter-words.html

Gareth McCaughan

1:59 PM

I'm always unsure about questions like that. They used to be very common in puzzle books; things like e.g. the Kirkman schoolgirl problem began that way; but these days they feel more like exercises in combinatorics etc.

Rand al'Thor

@EʀɪᴋᴛʜᴇGᴏʟғᴇʀ Well, I'm not interested in the chatroom anyway. I was just pointing out that you don't need to go to the trouble of giving anyone explicit write access if they're already blue.

Eʀɪᴋ ᴛʜᴇ Gᴏʟғᴇʀ

@Randal'Thor There is an edge-case: someone stopping being blue.

Rand al'Thor

@Mithrandir Can't say I completely understand it, but I don't think it's a maths problem.

Mithrandir

@Randal'Thor Because once they're frozen, they're dead, and they can't access the room anyway.

Gareth McCaughan

OK, with a SOWPODS 2LW list it seems to begin with DANGER which is pretty damn promising.

Rand al'Thor

2:03 PM

:-)

IAmInPLS

Way to go then :)

Gareth McCaughan

yeah, got it

IAmInPLS

Nice one @Randal'Thor I got it too :)

Rand al'Thor

Yay! Good job, both of you :-D

Now you see why I had to include the "sour pods" clue, to make clear which list/dictionary was being used.

Gareth McCaughan

Yes.

IAmInPLS, my apologies if you actually got it faster but got scooped to posting an answer.

IAmInPLS

2:11 PM

@GarethMcCaughan No problem at all, all I wanted was to stop struggling with this puzzle!

Gareth McCaughan

I actually thought I'd checked I was using a SOWPODS 2LW list before, but obviously not, so thanks Ra'T for kicking me to check :-).

Rand al'Thor

I used this link for my list.

Gareth McCaughan

Anyone made any progress on the meatsacks?

Rand al'Thor

@Gareth Maybe edit in an actual list of the 2-letter words, or at least a link to one, so that people can check it if they want?

Gareth McCaughan

Yeah, I'll do that.

Mithrandir

2:14 PM

Sorry, wrong tab. :P

Rand al'Thor

I'm also trying to think of a nicer way of phrasing "replace an item of the form (letter)(number) with the second letter of the (number)th word beginning with (letter)". The operation is much more natural than that makes it sound (I hope you agree?)

IAmInPLS

@Randal'Thor I can do that if you allow me

Rand al'Thor

@IAmInPLS Ask Gareth, not me :-)

IAmInPLS

@GarethMcCaughan Gareeeeeeth

:p

Rand al'Thor

So, what's a good British English synonym of cake?

IAmInPLS

2:22 PM

There's no good british cake, I swear

Mithrandir

You're the British one, not me...

Sconibulus

all the good cakes are called puddings

Rand al'Thor

But not all puddings are for pudding.

Yorkshire pudding and black pudding aren't even sweet.

Sconibulus

yeah

Rand al'Thor

Is "sponge cake" a particularly British term, or does everyone use it?

Sconibulus

2:24 PM

pudding is a weird word with minimal meaning in Brenglish

I think everyone uses is?

IAmInPLS

@Randal'Thor It is even translated in French word for word : gâteau-éponge so I don't think it is particularly British

Rand al'Thor

@Sconibulus For me, pudding == dessert. But it can also be used more specifically - you can eat sweet things for pudding, but not everything sweet is a pudding. And occasionally there's a "so-and-so pudding" which isn't actually sweet at all, like Yorkshire or black.

Gareth McCaughan

oops, sorry, was doing other things for a few minutes. IAmInPLS or Rand al'Thor, feel free to improve my answer. Rand al'Thor, in the UK cake is called cake. Pudding means (1) dessert (but note that like bloody everything in BrE, there's some class signalling going on here; talking about pudding and talking about dessert have essentially the same meaning but say different things about the speaker) and /continues

Rand al'Thor

@IAmInPLS Maybe it's a European word?

IAmInPLS

@Randal'Thor Seems like that, yeah

Gareth McCaughan

2:30 PM

... (2) a particular kind of dish whose boundaries I think aren't perfectly clear but includes steamed puddings (for dessert), blood puddings (definitely not for dessert) and Yorkshire puddings (which are actually quite unlike most other things called puddings). Puddings can generally be assumed to be quite stodgy; an ice cream or an apple tart is definitely not a pudding in this sense.

Sconibulus

But I wouldn't argue with something like a Summer Pudding being called a Cake, but maybe that's because I don't know cookery

Rosie F

@GarethMcCaughan gosh. I'd never have thought of that. Well done.

Gareth McCaughan

@RosieF, are you talking about Scrabble or puddings? :-)

Rosie F

Uh-oh, class shibboleths in British English.

Puzzling Meta

0

Q: Best way to get a walkthrough review?

After creating several puzzles in the past, one of them grew to be enormous, detailed, and convoluted. As a result, it became obvious that it needed a walkthrough as a guide to those that might stumble upon it in the future. The puzzle was solved, and a first draft of that walkthrough has been co...

discussion

Rand al'Thor

2:36 PM

So we're looking for a BE, possibly dialectical, synonym of cake.

Gareth McCaughan

I confess I'm actually not entirely sure exactly what class information you get when someone uses "pudding". I'm pretty sure "sweet" and "afters" are lower-class, but I have the feeling "pudding" is found both at the lower end and at the very top. (And far from unheard of in the middle, too.)

IAmInPLS

I'm done editing. Hope it's good enough for you @GarethMcCaughan

Rand al'Thor

I'm pretty sure dessert is more 'posh' than pudding, but that probably means middle-class, since the upper class don't seem to mince their words as much in general.

IAmInPLS

I was focusing on the 'performance' part

Maybe it has something to do with the word 'act'?

Rosie F

@GarethMcCaughan One difficulty with "pudding" is that it is sometimes used to mean a dish (e.g. christmas pudding) and sometimes a course (e.g. if "pudding" means "afters", that must mean a course). Hence scope for misunderstanding.

Rand al'Thor

2:44 PM

Maybe the Golgafrinchans had the right idea :-P

Gareth McCaughan

@IAmInPLS, it's good enough but quite unlike anything I'd have written so I've adjusted it. I hope it's still clearer than what I originall wrote :-).

*originally

IAmInPLS

@GarethMcCaughan That's better, indeed :-)

Rosie F

@GarethMcCaughan It's not just whether someone uses it at all, but also what their idea of the scope of the word "pudding" is. For me, desserts aren't "puddings" (and desserts might be cheap and not posh at all), but sponge puddings and suet puddings certainly are.

Gareth McCaughan

@Randal'Thor, for sure "dessert" feels posher than "pudding", but (1) compare e.g. "serviette" which is distinctively LMC (and I think arises from an attempt to use posher-sounding words) and (2) can't you imagine a spoiled member of the landed gentry enthusing about Mummy's delicious puddings?

@RosieF, many desserts are not puddings, but what you have for pudding is not necessarily a pudding.

Incidentally, @Randal'Thor, is there any acceptable way to refer to you informally without quoting the whole name? (It's absolutely fine if there isn't, of course.) Rand? Thor? Randal?? I have occasionally resorted to things like "Ra'T" which feels not very satisfactory.

Rand al'Thor

@GarethMcCaughan Rand. The two words are run together in @-pings, but there's a space between Rand and al'Thor.

Someone clearly doesn't know Wheel of Time ;-)

Gareth McCaughan

2:53 PM

Yes, I'm aware of the space and (I hope) have been punctilious about it when the @-sign doesn't constrain me.

I postulated Randal just because I can imagine someone whose real name is Randal being amused by Rand al'Thor as a handle.

But indeed, I am not familiar with WoT. (I mean, I know in general terms what it is, but I have never felt the urge to wade through reading it :-).)

anyway, thanks.

IAmInPLS

@Randal'Thor Soon, the TV series :D

Rand al'Thor

@IAmInPLS Oh dear God no :'(

dcfyj

@IAmInPLS If they make one, hopefully it'll be better than the attempted one for Sword of Truth

IAmInPLS

@Randal'Thor Books are always better. ALWAYS.

5

Gareth McCaughan

@IAmInPLS, maybe not when the TV/movie actually comes first and someone makes a novelization.

dcfyj

3:01 PM

@IAmInPLS Indeed. I've seen some awful adaptations.

Sconibulus

Princess Bride was probably equally good both ways, which is really uncommon

dcfyj

@Sconibulus As you wish

Rand al'Thor

@GarethMcCaughan Even then, there's likely to be a lot of info in the novelisation which doesn't appear on-screen (internal dialogue, for instance).

dcfyj

@Randal'Thor I've seen that being done more in the last few years than it used to.

Rand al'Thor

@dcfyj You keep using that phrase. I do not think it means what you think it means.

IAmInPLS

3:03 PM

@GarethMcCaughan What @Randal'Thor said, and I think you can agree it's more often an adapation in the other way around

dcfyj

@Randal'Thor "Anybody want a peanut?"

Such a quotable movie ^^

Rand al'Thor

I only watched it for the first time a few weeks ago.

And then again for a film night event we had in the SFF chatroom.

dcfyj

@Randal'Thor Clearly you were deprived in the beginning of your life.

Rand al'Thor

I think I still prefer Stardust though.

Gareth McCaughan

@Sconibulus, I have seen the movie but not read the novel, and on reading the Wikipedia page for the novel it seems like the divergence between the two is extraordinarily small.

dcfyj

3:07 PM

@Randal'Thor Also an excellent movie

Rosie F

@Randal'Thor Seeing how many times this gets quoted, it is really annoying that it is phrased that way, which seems off. (Why say what you don't think? Why not just say "It does not mean what you think it means"? But too late now. Ah well.)

Rand al'Thor

@RosieF Hello. My name is Inigo Montoya. You criticised my quote. Prepare to die.

4

:-P

dcfyj

@RosieF Because Inigo doesn't know, he just thinks that the meaning is different from the usage that Vicini uses it for.

Sconibulus

@GarethMcCaughan The book has more going on backstory-wise, and a lot more depth in the framing story, but the main plot beats are there, paced well, and executed well in the movie

the book's execution is good, but less polished

dcfyj

Each medium has its perks

Rosie F

3:15 PM

@dcfyj The man who makes death threats to the person he's talking to doesn't need to pussyfoot around with "I don't think...".

@dcfyj I think that's not spelt the way you think it's spelt.

dcfyj

@RosieF Inigo never threatens Vicini, he threatens the 6-fingered man

Sconibulus

@RosieF He's not making death threats? He's questioning whether things are as 'inconcievable' as Vizini is saying, re: Dread Pirate Westley

Rosie F

@dcfyj I stand corrected. Never seen the film. I keep hearing the quotes.

dcfyj

ah, Vizzini*

@RosieF You should drop what you're doing and go watch The Princess Bride right now :P

Sconibulus

yeah, it's a great film

Rand al'Thor

3:20 PM

@GarethMcCaughan Which reminds me:

0

Q: The Princess Bride - book vs film differences?

The Princess Bride can refer to: a novel by William Goldman; the 1987 film adaptation of this novel. I've seen the film but not read the novel (shame on me), so I'm curious as to what differences there are in the plot, the characters, etc. between the two versions of the story. What are the ...

book-vs-movie the-princess-bride

Sconibulus

Hmm... now I need to make a multi-layer puzzle for the Battle of Wits, assuming that Dread Pirate Westley doesn't have an immunity to Iocaine powder

dcfyj

@Randal'Thor Clearly you need to go read it so your shame can be at once removed.

Although I'm in the same situation >.<

Rand al'Thor

@dcfyj I'm in the same boat with Stardust too: seen the film, haven't read the book.

dcfyj

@Randal'Thor Didn't know there was a book for that one.

Rand al'Thor

Although I do know that certain things about the book are (shock, horror) not as good as in the film. The ending, for instance. And the Captain Shakespeare character.

@dcfyj You haven't heard of Neil Gaiman?

dcfyj

3:28 PM

nope

I've heard of Robert Jordan :P (and read almost the entire series he's known for)

Rand al'Thor

I came across him because he's the only fantasy author other than Robert Jordan and George RR Martin to have won some literary prize (can't remember which) more than once.

He's not of the same calibre as Tolkien or Jordan (or Martin, I suppose, though I hate to say anything positive about Martin), but his Neverwhere and American Gods are both good, and Stardust probably is too.

Sconibulus

Good Omens is pretty great

although I read that one for Pratchett, not Gaiman

dcfyj

The title Neverwhere makes me think of Everlost

Although the latter is written by Neal Shusterman

Amusingly enough, it just occurred to me that our conversation isn't very puzzly anymore.

Rand al'Thor

Yeah, sorry - I bring SFF with me wherever I go :-P

Looks like the cake performance puzzle got solved.

dcfyj

@Randal'Thor Ts'all good, I like SFF, although I almost never read SF

@Randal'Thor I blame your icon for that :P

Gareth McCaughan

3:43 PM

My impression is indeed that Gaiman and Jordan are not of the same calibre, but I think we may have a disagreement about which way around they are. (But in Jordan's case I'm going entirely on what I've read about him, which is of course dangerous.)

Rand al'Thor

3:54 PM

@GarethMcCaughan Sanderson isn't of the same calibre as Jordan either, at least when it comes to writing style (he may be when it comes to overarching plot). I was disappointed when I started reading the Mistborn series in preparation for the Sanderson volumes of WoT.

Sconibulus

I really like the 'alternate' mistborne book

I think it's called Alloy of Law or something?

it felt much better written, and like a more plausible society

Rand al'Thor

Meh. I've heard good reviews about it, but I don't think it'd be my cup of tea. I prefer my otherworldly fantasy to be medieval-style rather than in a more modern setting. (Although I do like some fantasy set in this world in the modern day.)

Sconibulus

It felt... kinda mid 1800s?

I usually prefer full high-fantasy too, or very futuristic sci-fi

Lukas Rotter

@Randal'Thor Updated my puzzle with a hint.

Rand al'Thor

@LukasRotter Hmm. Something to do with diamonds, perhaps.

Aha! A diamond in the middle of that 7x7 square contains exactly 25 cells!

E O A T N C P N L S D M T J M N Y B O E

Lukas Rotter

4:09 PM

@Randal'Thor I think you left the wrong letter out of the alphabet to fit the size of 25. Consider the standard in the playfair cipher.

Rand al'Thor

Oh, oops!

I just started from the beginning and went to the end. Should've gone back to fix that once I'd realised it was 25 and not 26.

Yessss! :-D

Beastly Gerbil

0

Q: Changing 'joke' to 'humor'

There have been some posts where I think there have been a few misunderstandings: Namely: What do you call a cookie without a fortune? Which letter of the alphabet is the coolest? Why? What English Word is Always Spelled Incorrectly? These are some examples of puzzles posted tagged as joke. ...

discussion tags

2

Is this a good idea?

Lukas Rotter

@Randal'Thor I'm ready to click that checkmark :P

Rand al'Thor

@LukasRotter Done!

Lukas Rotter

@Randal'Thor *Well done :P

Rand al'Thor

4:26 PM

@BeastlyGerbil +1, good idea.

2

Rosie F

Not sure "humor" is any better -- might encourage witty remarks even if they aren't in the format of jokes. And jokes.
Do p.SE tags have to be nouns?

Gareth McCaughan

There is a tag "open-ended" but most are nouns

Sconibulus

jocularity

Rosie F

... No; there's [tag: open-ended].

Gareth McCaughan

good heavens, so there is

(sorry)

Rand al'Thor

4:31 PM

@Lukas Nice puzzle! You dropped a couple of hints which made it easier, but it might well have been doable even without them.

The trouble with these multi-layer puzzles in general is that solvers usually don't want to try digging through many layers unless they're quite sure they're right, otherwise they're wasting a lot of time. So it's nice, if possible, to include some kind of confirmation at each level. (I realise that it's often not possible.)

Gareth McCaughan

there's also "no-computers" which is kinda nouny but not actually a noun or noun phrase, and that's it for the first page of tags. The next non-noun one I saw was "real" on the third page.

Rand al'Thor

@GentlePurpleRain You made a mistake in this revision - it is Catching Fire, not Mockingjay. (The very last chapter, when she meets Haymitch again after the Quarter Quell.)

@GarethMcCaughan I created the no-computers tag :-) What on earth is real a tag for?

Rosie F

@Randal'Thor Good point. Some puzzles here involve 2 or more decrypt stages, and it's obvious if you gogt stage 1 right, because the result is something like the words "dot" and "dash" many times, or number-names. ...

Rand al'Thor

@RosieF A good tag wiki and tag wiki excerpt might be a huge help, but we'll need meta consensus (unless there already is one somewhere) on what to say there and what kind of 'joke' questions are on-topic.

Rosie F

... The trouble with that, IMO is that you need a long ciphertext and you get a small plaintext. How you do like your multilayer cipher puzzles?

Lukas Rotter

4:36 PM

@Randal'Thor Yeah, the final hint gave it away... I should've probably posted that one later / never. But thanks for the feedback, I realize now that multi-layer puzzles may not be the best. So perhaps just the diamond square, but with a key directly on the diamond instead of the polybius method, would've been better... But the good ideas alway come too late, right? :P

dcfyj

@RosieF Here's an example of a multi-layered puzzle I made.

I think As long as the encryptions aren't too obscurely clued it's ok.

Rand al'Thor

@LukasRotter No, multi-layer puzzles are great! That was just food for thought - if you can include confirmation at each level, it helps; if you can't, it just makes the puzzle harder (which doesn't mean worse, of course).

dcfyj

Generally, I think if you place the clues well enough in the puzzle to avoid the "Guess-what-I'm-thinking" version it makes the layers easy enough to understand. (Also depends on how many layers are placed and how difficult they each are individually)

Rand al'Thor

I chose the one with the full stop because it's a proper sentence :-P

Rosie F

What do you think of this crypto puzzle? Before my time here, but it seemed to me that the solvers had a great time working on it. If the OP hadn't revealed that the method was related to substitution ciphers, would that make it worse?

Beastly Gerbil

4:45 PM

I believe that was mine :P

Puzzling Meta

6

Q: Changing 'joke' to 'humour'

There have been some posts where I think there have been a few misunderstandings: Namely: What do you call a cookie without a fortune? Which letter of the alphabet is the coolest? Why? What do you call exactly one kilogram of crows? These are some examples of puzzles posted tagged as joke. T...

discussion tags tag-synonyms retagging

Rosie F

@Randal'Thor I like that you didn't end that sentence with a full stop

Beastly Gerbil

Oh hello, which fantastic person posted that meta post then?

@RosieF :P can always replace any punctuation mark

dcfyj

@RosieF If the OP hadn't revealed how to get the ciphered text it would be a "Guess what I'm thinking" puzzle, and those are hardly any fun, or good for that matter.

Rand al'Thor

@RosieF Yes, I think so. In rare cases such as this one, revealing the basic idea of how the puzzle was made makes it doable without making it trivial.

Cipher puzzles pretty much always need something more than just "[dump load of enciphered text] decipher this, go". My preferred something more is a surrounding story with subtle hints as to what sort of method you need to use to decipher it (as in my Scrabble cipher, for instance), but explicitly revealing part of the method works too if it's complex enough to still provide a challenge.

dcfyj

4:53 PM

I like giving subtle hints to the decryption. In the example I posted they were in a riddle but I've placed them elsewhere before.

Rosie F

@Randal'Thor Oh, I think solvers could get some sort of clue even if given no explicit hint as to the method. We'll see.

dcfyj

5:12 PM

@RosieF If you look at this question, you'll see clues aren't always needed. Although the encryption here was in itself a clue.

I think this example is a pretty good one too and also this one, although personally I think this last example isn't as good as the second one, or the first really.

Rosie F

@dcfyj puzzling.stackexchange.com/questions/38579/… is a perfect example of the trouble with multilayer ciphers. Immense ciphertext, 7 characters of plaintext, and after all that an obscure reference. (Of course you could Google it but it's not nice that you'd have to.)

@dcfyj Ah, now that last one's a bit more interesting than a substitution cipher (only a bit, though). And it has (for me) a reasonable plaintext to ciphertext ratio.

Rand al'Thor

@dcfyj That phone-number one is a great example of a multi-layer puzzle. It's sort of meaningful at every stage, and keeps giving you confirmation that what you've got so far isn't just a coincidence, but it still takes a while to tease out all the steps. In fact, it's almost exactly like what @Rosie mentioned earlier:

45 mins ago, by Rosie F

@Randal'Thor Good point. Some puzzles here involve 2 or more decrypt stages, and it's obvious if you gogt stage 1 right, because the result is something like the words "dot" and "dash" many times, or number-names. ...

Sconibulus

@RosieF Is it really that obscure of a reference?

dcfyj

@RosieF The answer to the first is a reference, yes, but the cipher itself I think is sound (I may be a little biased here)

Rosie F

@Sconibulus Yes! (And even if it merits a Wikipedia entry it is, for me, just an obscure thing that I now know about only because it was linked in someone's answer.)

Rand al'Thor

5:23 PM

@RosieF Agreed on the obscure reference, but it still has a nice confirmation at each step - it's not hard to know you're on the right lines when solving it.

dcfyj

@RosieF I perhaps should have added a knowledge tag when I made it, definitely something to avoid in the future.

Sconibulus

Hmm... do you live in the U.S.?

Rosie F

@dcfyj I'd prefer trivia

@Sconibulus UK.

dcfyj

I would link more questions that aren't mine, but it would take a while to find appropriate ones (plus I knew where to find mine that are relevant) and yes I do @Sconibulus

@RosieF True, I forget that one exists.

I'll go put it on now.

Rand al'Thor

What's the difference between knowledge and trivia anyway?

Sconibulus

5:27 PM

oeis.org/A182369

dcfyj

About knowledge

A puzzle whose solution relies on external sources (like tables, dictionaries, wikipedia). About trivia

Puzzles and questions around nonessential, specifically detailed knowledge on topics of popular culture.

Rand al'Thor

@RosieF Woo, there are lots of Brits in here these days! You, me, Gareth, Beastly, ...

dcfyj

sounds like trivia is a subset to me

@Sconibulus nice

Rosie F

@Sconibulus That fills a much needed gap! Complicated expression -- I bet lots more expressions that are simpler aren't similarly honoured.

Sconibulus

I don't know why that exists

dcfyj

5:34 PM

@Sconibulus Because this is the internet?

Rosie F

sqrt(31/41.19) to 7 d.p. A bit simpler than OEIS's!

If only it were 41.59...

Rand al'Thor

Woooo, repcap.

Nobody upvote me for another 6 hours :-P

dcfyj

Upvote!!! :P

I hit the cap once, came close a second time, but it's never happened since.

Rand al'Thor

5:54 PM

@dcfyj You need to post more answers :-) Go get yourself an Epic badge!

Rosie F

I hit the cap in my first month here. I was ready to post this. Then I noticed this which I solved as soon as I saw it. That day I got 202 rep of which 27 came from my Q and 165 from answering that rebus.

Shows that effort isn't proportional to rep

dcfyj

@Randal'Thor Typically I have no idea how to solve most of the questions on here, and my questions don't always get much attention.

Sconibulus

Yeah, it seems answers are worth way more than questions

especially when you consider creation time

Rand al'Thor

@RosieF Yeah, rep is a lottery much of the time. Answers get more than questions (which isn't really fair on Puzzling specifically), and HNQ posts get more than anything else.

Rosie F

@Sconibulus Yeah, FGitW. :(

Sconibulus

5:58 PM

ooh, my first question ever (On StackOverflow) just got a silver badge for views :)

Rosie F

@Sconibulus Well done!

Rand al'Thor

@RosieF And you still didn't get accepted for that rebus answer - apparently your green check was cancelled.

ba dum tish

dcfyj

26% of my questions have over 2k views and 6% have over 8k views. Which sounds like a lot when you only have 15 questions posted :P

Rosie F

@Randal'Thor :-) And thanks, if that was you again.

Beastly Gerbil

@Randal'Thor Ba dum tish Is that a cipher :P

Hi Emrakul

M Oehm

6:18 PM

@BeastlyGerbil: Well, let's hope it's not an anagram.

Rand al'Thor

No, I don't write that sort of ad.

@Beastly I'm writing up an answer to your meta post atm.

manshu

6:44 PM

@Randal'Thor nice answer

probably covers every necessary point

Lukas Rotter

Just got +50 reputation for an answer that on the time of upvoting was wrong, lol :D Now it's correct, I hit the rep cap for the first time and will get no more rep for the correct answer today :P

Rand al'Thor

@LukasRotter Congrats!

I won't upvote that answer until tomorrow then ;-)

Sconibulus

I'm working on a puzzle, and I need to link to a fairly large image, what's the best way to ensure it can be zoomed in upon and read?

Lukas Rotter

@Randal'Thor I appreciate it! You can probably especially empathize with getting no rep for answers :P

Rand al'Thor

@Sconibulus You can upload it to Stack Imgur in full size and then put a small version in your question which links to the big version.

Beastly Gerbil

6:58 PM

@Sconibulus, the max file size that can be posted on puzzling is 2MB, if your file size is larger you can use an image compressor to reduce the file size so you can post it

M Oehm

@LukasRotter: It may have been wrong at first, but the principal idea was there. I didn't see the missing bit in the uppercase letters either. Congratulations for the rep cap.

Sconibulus

the image in question may be something like this: algorasim.com

an image compressor might render it illegible

Rosie F

@BeastlyGerbil If thte image you upload to imgur < 2 MB, does it get compressed anyway?

s/tht/th/

Rand al'Thor

thththththte

blows raspberries

Rosie F

Blame my keyboard's firmware! Doesn't handle key rollover correctly.

Lukas Rotter

7:06 PM

@MOehm Thanks! Yeah, you've got a good point there. TBH I mainly mentioned the plain 'wrong' just to make the comment seem more dramatic :P

Beastly Gerbil

@RosieF, no it doesn't let you upload it

Beastly Gerbil

7:22 PM

8

Q: Changing 'joke' to 'humour'

There have been some posts where I think there have been a few misunderstandings: Namely: What do you call a cookie without a fortune? Which letter of the alphabet is the coolest? Why? What do you call exactly one kilogram of crows? These are some examples of puzzles posted tagged as joke. T...

discussion tags tag-synonyms retagging

Debating whether to change joke to humour or just burninate joke. Thoughts?

Personally I'm for changing it to humour

M Oehm

I think outright jokes where the answer is really just a punchline ought not to be on PSE. Humour is a better tag, but is it really necessary? It is a "decoration tag": The main tag will be the kind of puzzle - riddle, cipher, logic deduction, whatever - and humour is just tagged on to describe the "voice" of the puzzle.

Beastly Gerbil

@MOehm, true it won't be a puzzle 'type' just an adjective, but you could argue the same for rhyme, poetry, no-computers and we need all those tags

Rand al'Thor

@BeastlyGerbil Exactly!

M Oehm

7:45 PM

@BeastlyGerbil: I'm not so sure whether those are really needed, but it's good to have them to be able to narrow down searches. "Humour" even describes the current description of the joke tag better than "joke" does.

dcfyj

@MOehm The "no-computer" tag is nice to put on there when you don't want people just brute-forcing a problem.

Beastly Gerbil

What we can all agree on is 'joke' is indeed a joke, and needs to be scrapped. What we need to decide is whether to replace it with humour or just completely remove it

dcfyj

Either choice sounds fine to me, I doubt I'll be using them

Random question: @Randal'Thor Why is your name blue? All the others I see are black.

Rand al'Thor

@dcfyj Because I'm a mod.

If you click on it, there's a diamond by my name too.

dcfyj

Ah ok, you're a mod on SFF

Rand al'Thor

7:51 PM

Yep. And mods from any site are mods in all of chat.

dcfyj

Makes sense.

Plus you have an insane amount of rep on pse

M Oehm

@dcfyj: Okay, I agree that those tags have more uses. Ultimately it depends on how one uses them. (Story, foe example, could really mean that the puzzle is the story. Usually it just means that a puzzle is presented as a story.)

dcfyj

@MOehm True, most of those tags will end up having multiple uses, not exactly something that can be stopped

Rand al'Thor

@dcfyj Yep, I created that tag for puzzles which could conceivably be solved using a computer but where the OP doesn't want them to be. See also:

4

A: What is the Key to Good No-Computers Puzzles?

I'm going to come back to this and extend it later, but I'll start off now anyway. Every puzzle falls into one of 3 categories: someone posts a computer-assisted answer it can't be solved using a computer it has a no-computers tag (i.e. it could be solved using a computer but the OP specifical...

@dcfyj :-D

dcfyj

Yay for old questions :P

M Oehm

7:57 PM

So @dcfyj has a point here: Both scrapping and renaming it are fine. Maybe its good to rename it to humour to discourage non-puzzle jokes and see how the usage pans out.

Beastly Gerbil

@MOehm, completely agree, the good thing about ideas are they can be scrapped

dcfyj

@MOehm If the community is unsure which way to go, I think we should change first, and if it's still a problem, then burninate it.

M Oehm

@Randal'Thor: That recent "Count the sevenses" puzzle is a case in point. Most answers were short scripts, but it could be worked out without computer.

dcfyj

Anyhow, I'm off, catch you folks later.

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