The Sphinx's Lair

Mithrandir

11:00

@TheGreatEscaper did I give you a Clue?

TrojanByAccident

@TheGreatEscaper Well, I'm actually going to go to sleep in a few minutes, so probably an hour or two after I wake up (so ~7 hours, 1pm EST)

TheGreatEscaper

I'll be asleep, @TrojanByAccident

@Mithrandir no, not yet

Mithrandir

I'll ping you, too.

TrojanByAccident

@TheGreatEscaper What time zone are you in?

TheGreatEscaper

it's 7pm right now, for me.

In 7 hours, it'll be 2am, for me.

Mithrandir

11:01

o_o It's 1 PM here.

TheGreatEscaper

Hehehe Mith go get some sleep.

Mithrandir

Typo. :P

TrojanByAccident

@TheGreatEscaper ah. alright

TheGreatEscaper

@Humn I think I'm seeing good things happen.

TrojanByAccident

lol @Mithrandir don't be like me, though, it's 6:02 AM here

humn

11:03

(doing a paint fill at the moment, TGE)

Volatility

@TrojanByAccident Are you secretly a possum? :P

TrojanByAccident

@Volatility No :P I've been known to go days without sleeping

oml

I just realized

(while hearing on the radio)

Trump's in in 10 days

start preparing now

The Time Is Nigh

anyway, gugtn, I'm getting weird

Mithrandir

I get told 'go to sleep' often on the internet... I wonder why...

manshu

@Mithrandir Coz people care about you :p

TrojanByAccident

^^ lies

okay I'm gone

manshu

11:07

^^ That was me few months ago...

TheGreatEscaper

@humn WOAH

I think I know why 'self portrait', now, anyhow

Mithrandir

^Was sleeping while I made that

Hey, 15k? Woot!

Now going to eat lunch. AFK.

TheGreatEscaper

@humn there is no foreground...

That's CRAZY. I'm also a bit surprised I didn't notice that at first.

humn

no foreground???. here comes the paint... guess you have it by now anyway

Volatility

Oh wow

humn

11:12

shouda picked a less grisly color than red though...

Volatility

that's amazing

humn

it's practically coincidental to the secret though

TheGreatEscaper

@humn your painting might be cooler than you think

If you apply a Mortin Myes step, and make the walls as thick as the paths

There is no foreground :D the path has the same shape as the wall

humn

that's where i started, the effect above was a surprise

see why it's easy to describe in words, TGE?

TheGreatEscaper

Not only that

But reading this as a mortin maze

Gives you the same thing.

The same pattern, once again.

humn

11:15

too bad you're too busy finishing up your current puzzle to write up this solution

TheGreatEscaper

I still don't understand the inprogress images, surprisingly.

humn

those were supposed to make it easy

Volatility

I also noticed that if you look at the two tile types, they form the same pattern as well, only mirrored (like when painting a self-portrait, perhaps?)

humn

never can tell beforehand what effect things have

TheGreatEscaper

This is actually a really cool fractal.

The tge-mortin-humn fractal, I suppose.

humn

11:16

ah, Volatility, why didn't you follow though?

it's rotated, and pseudo-repeated, not really reflected

Volatility

I also was confused by the in-progress images :/

humn

those were an afterthought! because i thought it might be too tough without them

TheGreatEscaper

Basically, everything about this portrait is the same, over and over again, in different ways, at different depths. It's so cool. Kudos to you, humn, for making this portrait.

Beastly Gerbil

People doing well on puzzle

TheGreatEscaper

I still don't get the in progress ones :P

humn

11:18

they are straight from the gallery

funny how different the gallery must look to different guests

This is only an inkblot-test

TheGreatEscaper

My first thought when I saw the title and main question was that it was somehow a fractal.

I noticed the related nature of the tiling and the contents of the tiles, and hypothesised an answer from there.

Will

@BeastlyGerbil I've got `F?NBTIMEYOURCALLGOBUSTCH??TRICKPEPTALK` so far but nothing seems to work (the presence of actual words seems beyond coincidence)

Any advice?

humn

TheGreatEscaper

And given fractals, I assumed the creature must be none other than Dragon.

Volatility

@TheGreatEscaper when you mentioned "dragon" the first time, admittedly the first thing that popped into my head was the dragon curve, although I couldn't see how it related to the actual portrait

TheGreatEscaper

11:21

I just didn't put it all together.

humn

the way that Morton creates a 45-degree rotation with sqrt2 maginification = dragon all the way

if you start with one pixel, it winds up copied 90 degrees rotated the right distance away

Volatility

What a magnificent piece of serendipity!

humn

(actually 2 dragons 180-degrees apart)

TheGreatEscaper

I didn't realize that Mortin's humble maze making methods could make such a thing happen :D

Volatility

That's actually so cool

humn

11:26

it really is serendipitous, TGE, a dragon from a pixel

but you still haven't figured out what goes under the ? or have you?

Volatility

Why surely?

humn

yeah?

TheGreatEscaper

@humn I'm finding it a bit difficult to place myself

As in, where in the fractal I am right now

Volatility

Y surely?

TheGreatEscaper

And multitasking isn't doing me favours :P

Beastly Gerbil

11:30

@Will that is very good and pretty close!

If the idiom starts with the or a then remove that

Also remember that Sheerluck is english

Will

That just turns TRICK into GRICK! (and changes none of the other letters I have)

Beastly Gerbil

You may be able to guess some from what you've got too

Volatility

@BeastlyGerbil Is it by sheer luck that his nationality happens to correspond to that of another detective with a similar name? :P

Techidiot

@Will May be you need to find the missing 5 letters in them to make more sense

Beastly Gerbil

@Will some need the bit most dont

humn

11:32

@Volatility (can't say yes or no, Volatility, just like the picture itself, and there's a reason for that)

Beastly Gerbil

The start is iffy @Will but you still might be able to gues sit

Ok gtg now for a couple of hours I'll check back later

TheGreatEscaper

@humn

Volatility

@humn huh. Well I'm lost then. I suppose it has something to do with different layers leading to different answers?

TheGreatEscaper

I have the sneaking suspicion

That we can't actually determine where in the fractal we are

I'm fairly sure that the pattern, with x or y, appears in the fractal at some point.

humn

Volatility, you keep getting so close considering you weren't even the one who came up with the system!

TheGreatEscaper

11:35

In any case, I have to grab dinner right now

But will be back within the hour

humn

TGE, nope, the pattern with X or Y should not appear anywhere else, which is why it's special

TheGreatEscaper

@humn any confirmations or denials about my suspicion?

Hmm.

I really do have to head off right now.

humn

eat well

TheGreatEscaper

But there's surely a lot to think about here.

Volatility

Well, haven't bothered to do the Myers step, but looking at the paint-fill it looks like it should be X.

Rand al'Thor

11:40

@Mithrandir How do you know what time I get up ... oh, you mean the Clue.

Working on the writeup now. Anything you want me to stick in there?

Mithrandir

Not atm.

humn

... come to think of it, @Volatility (and @TheGreatEscaper in absentia), it could be X or Y and appear elsewhere if you extend the pattern in contrived ways...

Mithrandir

@Randal'Thor If I need to, I'll add something in myself.

Rand al'Thor

k

humn

... in any case Volatility and TheGreatEscaper, thank you for indulging the portrait here! ... back to the ranch for now ...

Rand al'Thor

11:50

@Mithrandir You want me to post it nowish, or would you rather have only one Clue in a day?

Volatility

@humn cya!

Mithrandir

@Randal'Thor Now.

Rand al'Thor

> Just a plain, simple, undisguised riddle. Hope you're happy. The next one's impossible.

@Mithrandir No pressure :-P

Mithrandir

:P

Rand al'Thor

0

Q: Portraits and quotes - Clue Twenty Four

<<---First clue <--Previous clue [redacted], you say, and instantly a panel slides aside in the wall in front of you to reveal a new puzzle. Feeling buzzed after your quick solution of the last clue, but also worried that the next one will be devilishly hard, you approach the wall and stare a...

Mithrandir

12:02

I see

The fourth looks... interesting. o_o

Rand al'Thor

@Mithrandir Check the spoilertag.

Mithrandir

I did.

Sphinx

3

Q: Portraits and quotes - Clue Twenty Four

<<---First clue <--Previous clue [redacted], you say, and instantly a panel slides aside in the wall in front of you to reveal a new puzzle. Feeling buzzed after your quick solution of the last clue, but also worried that the next one will be devilishly hard, you approach the wall and stare a...

cipher cryptic-clues quote

0

Q: Palindrome Hours

A palindrome is a word, phrase, number, or other sequence of characters which reads the same backward or forward, such as madam or kayak. We have a digital watch showing the time HH:MM:SS as shown in the figure below: How many times in a 24-hour period of time on a digital clock does the numb...

mathematics logical-deduction no-computers

Rand al'Thor

12:18

@Mithrandir Hello Tomas.

@Sphinx That was fun.

Mithrandir

@Randal'Thor there are 5 types: Ekaterina, Tomas, Janus, Lucian, and Mardigal.

(And I'm an Ekat according to the site, but I might be a Janus.)

Rand al'Thor

@Mithrandir *Madrigal?

Mithrandir

Yes.

Rand al'Thor

Interesting.

Mithrandir

@Randal'Thor the39clues.scholastic.com

Wow the site looks so different now...

Rand al'Thor

12:28

You and your 39 clues ;-)

@Emrakul You can star it without it being Mod Abuse™.

But as with Mos, I've probably already recruited everyone from tSL who's likely to commit to Lit.

Mithrandir

39C site a few weeks after I joined and 39C site now

Rand al'Thor

@Mithrandir I don't see much difference ...

TheGreatEscaper

What a drastic change

Mithrandir

They added so many new sites.

They added a new 39C site, too.

That looks different.

Ahh. You can't see the bottom of the page in the now sceenshot.

cough

heh I can still see me wearing my hat outside my avatar :D

Rand al'Thor

@Mithrandir ?

You can't do that by just screenshotting a hatted avatar.

Mithrandir

12:39

@Randal'Thor winterbash2016.stackexchange.com

Rand al'Thor

Oh.

Mithrandir

They didn't redirect to stackpromos yet.

@Randal'Thor I did get one.

Rand al'Thor

@Mithrandir Yes, good job.

A newer tSLer?

Mithrandir

Probably

Will

@Randal'Thor Ahhh bitten in the behind by different cipher implementations once again!

Rand al'Thor

12:48

@Will ?

Will

Some [CIPHER] implementations have incompatible keys, i.e., using the key DEAD with one of them requires using the key EFBE with the other

oops

Mithrandir

[tag:cipher]

Will

wasn't going for tag

Mithrandir

?

Rand al'Thor

@Mithrandir He means a particular kind of cipher, whose name is redacted.

Not cipher.

Mithrandir

12:51

Ah.

Rand al'Thor

Though I still don't follow.

Mithrandir

[redacted]

Rand al'Thor

(removed)

Mithrandir

(removed)

Will

rumkin.com/tools/cipher - Use the appropriate tool there. See how the letters are shifted?

Rand al'Thor

12:54

@Will I don't use Rumkin for that particular kind of cipher; I use a different online tool which works better.

Mithrandir

Ach, too large.

Rand al'Thor

:34675665 Lotta whitespace you got there, Mith.

Nice one though ;-)

Mithrandir

Huh that didn't ping me

The actual image isn't that large. SE just added it. (I can see the blue.)

Will

dcode works the same as Rumkin and those are as far I've seen the two most popular

Rand al'Thor

@Mithrandir I didn't actually type @Mithrandir. It was a reply to your now-deleted message. In the transcript it shows up as :34675665.

Mithrandir

12:56

Ah.

Rand al'Thor

@Will What, they're both wrong? :-O

Oh look, I'm once again the most prolific editor.

Will

I'm assuming you used that one ocean animal person's because that's the only one I've ever used that shifts it with the key that way

Mithrandir

@Randal'Thor I beat Mooz, going after Praxis now.

Rand al'Thor

@Will Yes.

Isn't that ... the right way to shift it?

Will

It's not.

Rand al'Thor

12:59

I even made sure to check some of it by hand.

Just in case there was anything wrong with the online tool.

Will

With a tabula recta or a numerical shift?

The latter is the wrong approach

Rand al'Thor

A numerical shift.

Simple addition.

Will

That works if you 0-index the alphabet, I think?

Rand al'Thor

That's how I've always done it.

@Mithrandir It's not a competition :-P

Mithrandir

@Randal'Thor Of course not. I have the interests of the site at heart.

Notice that I haven't been flooding the front page; I was doing wikis.

Rand al'Thor

13:03

@Mithrandir Oh good. Too few people bother with tag wikis - they need more love.

I haven't noticed the Suggested Edits review queue getting flooded either though.

Mithrandir

I've only done a few, busy with other stuff

We talked about return of the jedi, remember?

Will

@Randal'Thor Ha! Got the second one without understanding whatever reference it is.

Rand al'Thor

@Mithrandir Yep.

@Will Hmm ...

Will

I got the first three letters by accident & knew enough from the first and third to get the rest of it :P

Rand al'Thor

stops self from giving hint

Will

13:16

oh no

Mithrandir

@Mithrandir 97% now. Hmm...

Rand al'Thor

@Mithrandir Yes, because you referred TBA and that bumped the percentage up.

Mithrandir

Found a tag without a wiki that I actually know quite a bit about. pounces

Rand al'Thor

imagines Mithrandir as a kitten, pouncing on a tag wiki

can't get mental image out of head

Mithrandir

Starbait ^^

That's enough for now, maybe I'll add more later.

@Randal'Thor Didn't even realize I suggested an edit to the excerpt until I submitted. Adding the period was just instinctive :P

Rand al'Thor

13:31

It's a shame really that edits to wikis and excerpts come up separately. If that had been all one edit to review (and you did do it all at the same time), I definitely would've approved it.

0

A: Andy Crush Saga

Andy's crush is... After Rubio managed to deduce that we need to start thinking laterally. We can see that there are As a result, that's the only other possible person on the sheet that could be Andy's crush.

Hmm ...

Mithrandir

o_o

IAmInPLS

Incest is wincest?

Beastly Gerbil

No one got any further with sheer luck?

Rand al'Thor

@BeastlyGerbil Without reading the entire question, is it enough just to look at the text in quote formatting?

And without reading the entire answer, which sentences are still unsolved?

Y U K R G ... doesn't spell anything good :-(

Will

Ugh. I know vaguely what this last one is supposed to be but I am STUMPED.

Matt

13:43

KRUGY

Rand al'Thor

@Matt Those five letters were just the first part of a much longer sequence. That was as far as I got in deciphering it before deciding I was barking up the wrong tree.

@Will You could post a partial answer ...

Might even inspire someone else to finish it off.

Matt

14:00

I was just looking for something awkward that looked like a word :P

Techidiot

@Randal'Thor I found the key for the first hours back, but I am still trying to figure out the cipher :p

Will

I knew the first one as soon as I saw it :)

Khale_Kitha

Morning

Rand al'Thor

Afternoon ;-)

Mithrandir

Afternoon.

Khale_Kitha

14:04

GOOD DAY SIR! :P

Mithrandir

I wanted to keep this one.

Khale_Kitha

lol

Rand al'Thor

Matt

morning KK :)

Rand al'Thor

Looks quite mad. What's that even supposed to be?

Mithrandir

14:07

A HAT

OBVIOUSLY :P

Khale_Kitha

A hatter's hat, of course.

ty, Matt

Why can I never get my hand off the shift key, quick enough, for the 2nd letter of a word..

Rand al'Thor

Oh, right, it is the Mad Hatter!

Mithrandir

Yes.

@Khale_Kitha I do the same thing.

EXample

:P

Khale_Kitha

14:26

hehe

Rand al'Thor

Yay, I'm once again more than 10k rep ahead of Gamow :-]

Khale_Kitha

Hey, did you post that puzzle, yet, @Mith?

lol, Rand

Tries to see how Vera relates to LTAOPQAOA

Rand al'Thor

puzzling.stackexchange.com/…

Will

I can't even seem to bruteforce this last one lol :)

Rand al'Thor

Some people need more imagination :-P

Khale_Kitha

14:34

Agreed

Will

*tries to think of other words to use in output filter*

Rubio

good UGTmorning all

Techidiot

Morning!

Rubio

@Randal'Thor You hit 40k (here) recently, yes? like in the last month-ish?

Rand al'Thor

UGT sounds too much like UTC.

@Rubio 10 Dec, apparently.

Rubio

14:46

good, good. :)

I wouldn't want to have misreported something.

Rand al'Thor

Who are you reporting to?

Rubio

Check the —Li'l Tidbits— of my latest puzzle. You're in there.

Khale_Kitha

I swear that said Ti'l Lidbits

Techidiot

yand sfwh tou the" forand gharar qgh yand thp forand qgh ando owo thp sfwh tou thp qgh yand oow qg qgh yand qwith thp forand qgh This part has 3 "rand"'s

:P

Rubio

@Techidiot Lol. So it does :)

Rand al'Thor

14:50

@Rubio Oh wow, that looks like an awesome puzzle.

How long did it take you to make?

Rubio

Let's just say that the quote I'm quoted as saying is accurate. It took a while.

I learned a lot about MathJax. And I already knew a pretty decent amount. :)

Rand al'Thor

@Techidiot Lots of "yands" and "forands".

Chris Cudmore

It looks tedious. -- I looked at the source, is there really no way of doing proper columns?

Mithrandir

@Khale_Kitha Which?

Khale_Kitha

The one that involved the clue you asked for

Rand al'Thor

14:53

Also, the newspaper is dated January 9th, but the puzzle was posted on the 10th.

Rubio

@ChrisCudmore There may well be, but I haven't learned it

@Randal'Thor It, um, went to press late. :)

(It was the 9th in my timezone. Nyah)

Mithrandir

Oh, no. That's for you to post on your own, unless you want me to post it as part of a larger puzzle.

Khale_Kitha

Ah, I thought that the latter was the intent.

Rand al'Thor

It's hard to work out how much of that newspaper is just flavour text.

Also, I've solved the cryptics - is that worth posting as a partial answer, or is it largely irrelevant to the main puzzle?

Techidiot

@Randal'Thor Yeah. And I have no clue whatsoever about which cipher is is. Most probably Vig but after looking at your's I am not sure where to go ;)

@Randal'Thor M Oehm already solved it and posted a partial but they are just red herrings :D

Rand al'Thor

14:56

@Techidiot The cipher in Rubio's puzzle isn't Vigenere.

Mithrandir

But don't post until after I do 25 :-)

Rand al'Thor

More likely to be a substitution cipher.

Rubio

@Randal'Thor A few people solved them already (said so in here within an hourish of it being posted) - and MOehm had posted a partial solution with them, but deleted it for some reason

Rand al'Thor

But probably something more complicated.

Will

@Techidiot they deleted that for some reason

Mithrandir

14:56

(noses come with the phone)

Techidiot

Not sure why he deleted it. Probably because it didn't add anything to the solution :-/

Rubio

Perhaps. There was also an error in one of them. Inconsequential, but wrong nonetheless.

Sid

@Rubio So, the andy puzzle was another "meh" moment..

And Congrats on 10k. You must be the fastest user to get to 10k

Will

well I posted a partial answer :\

Rubio

@Sid Yeah - I can't see it being anything other than what we think it is, and that's just a stupid answer with no in-world justification for it

And thanks for the congrats :)

Techidiot

14:59

@Will How did you figured out the Cipher? :O

Rubio

I wanted 10k before posting my puzzle

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