The Sphinx's Lair - 2017-12-11 (page 1 of 2)

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Destructible Lemon

12:13 AM

@Deusovi yeah probably

a protagonist damage a moon (5) (possibly slightly easier)

@DestructibleLemon I have a guess. Mind if I say it?

Destructible Lemon

guess

MARIO; a protagonist (definition) = mar (damage) + io (a moon)

Destructible Lemon

correct

Ah. Yeah, "a protagonist" is incredibly vague.

And the surface reading isn't great.

Destructible Lemon

12:18 AM

the word forms, if changed make it into marsio though

Well that's where you can get creative with the separation indicator

Destructible Lemon

uh...

a super protagonist to damage a moon (5)?

Plumber saw an endless planet and moon (5) (If saw is allowed to be a connector)

Destructible Lemon

nice

Plumber is hurt with a moon (5)

12:49 AM

@thecoder16 I think “a” is not needed here

Destructible Lemon

it's not needed but i think it improves the surface?

Gareth McCaughan

1:15 AM

@thecoder16 I suggest "by" rather than "with" -- in the surface reading it means "by the influence of" and in the wordplay it means "next to", which is kinda nice.

(no strong opinion on whether the "a" is good or bad)

(if you like brevity you can reduce it to "Plumber hurt by moon")

1:36 AM

It would be a little unfair, relying both on a technical concept (I.O. - as in data input/output) and the stretching of that definition, but "Plumber hurt by pipe flow (5)" makes for a pretty good surface reading. :)

that is a tad unfair, yes :P

3 hours later…

4:17 AM

^ I just love seeing sawdust!

Superspoiler: "sawdust" will be an answer in the cross-reference-word puzzle that will take another year to finish.

In the meanwhile,,, during an opportunistic lull, i went to the trouble of waking up,,, again, as luck would have it.

Remembering what seems like a dream.

Once upon a time before security cameras, after an eventful 3-day cross-country drive, I had to ask for a room.

They asked back.

Q. "What's that thing on your nose?"

A/Q. "A nare?"

C. "Looks like a giant zit."

A. "Just in time for my ID photo."

Q. "Do you smoke?"

A. "Only after someone stamps out the flames."

Q. "Seriously, do you smoke?"

A. "Truthfully, not tobacco."

They gave me the catbird's room and a master key.

Life is full of Qs and As.

I'm heading out on foot to see who Qssaults me next.

(But couldn't resist laying that out here first.)

dailymotion.com/video/x2n8dgz

^really? YouTube shows up but dailymotion doesn't? Dear SE.

4:41 AM

xxxxxxxxxxxxx, tried to close the door but this tail was in the way:

dailymotion.com/video/x2o82a1

I just love a sausage factory! Signed, editor.

Hi @lauir

Hi @n_palum!

What happened to the 'ol humndinger

Dangerdiddleydoo, dunno.

How're you?

4:45 AM

Up and down. For the last year i hungmn out here in the middle. And u_?

@lauir Sounds like Snakebird

Ooh, catbird seat sounds quite fancy

(Another link that took some effort to hear. C'mon SE.)

(And worth it!)

I'm alright, been a busy Fall with school

That's where I just woke up, back in school.

Teaching or slabbing?

Or both. ("Slabbing"? just made that up in reference to jotting notes on a tablet.)

4:52 AM

After I finish finals this week I'll have just two semesters left.. I'll be done by the end of next Summer

Super-nosy (without that zit): What direction/field?

(and you knew this was a comeback, quoted in Snakebird:)

Deee-Lite - "Groove Is In The Heart" (Official Music Video)

(Every piece of music, as each slice of life, quotes another.)

. . . back in a half hour, if there's a lull . . . that would be good new usernym, "@lull"

@lauir Still finishing up Game Design/Development as my degree.. still unsure what I want to pursue full time

5:09 AM

Anyone else think that this question is too broad?

7

Q: The head chef and the mad king

There's unrest in the royal kitchen. The king has lost his mind. The head chef tells his cooks his one wish: to stop the king from bullying him once and for all. They conclude that the only way to end the head chef's suffering is to poison the food tonight. But there's a problem. The king is ...

lateral-thinking story situation

also, regarding the CCCC, I think "diet" means "legislative assembly"

Lateral thinking = 9/10 too broad :P

0

Q: What is the probability that all the bullets will be destroyed?

A gun shots bullets with different speed each second. The bullets form a straight line. The bullets keep their speed (not getting slower or faster). But if they collide, 2 of them are destroyed (annihilated) The gun stops after 12 bullets fired. What is the probability that all the bullets will ...

mathematics probability

5:25 AM

@Deusovi How is Diet=Legislative assembly?

it's called that in some countries.

Huh. Wow, never knew that.

Japan is one example. I'm not sure if some Mediteranian country uses it, though.

I'm not sure either, but I'm sure it could be interpreted as "legislative assembly of a Mediterranean country".

(Not necessarily one that uses the word "diet".)

Depending how groan-inducing it is, it could be something that feeds the Mediterranean... like the Nile.

5:48 AM

I think I know the word, but not all of the wordplay

got it

QUIN(TESSEN)CE - The Knesset is the unicameral national legislature of Israel. Lose K(ilo) and exchange ends. Centered on hard fruit, quince. Core == quintessence

Yep, that should work.

ah, I never would've gotten that

didn't know the KNESSET, and QUINCE wouldn't've come to mind

I didn't know Knesset either, I figured it out after I got the word. Correct me if I'm wrong, but we're allowed to use Google for these, right?

Sure.

Okay, good. Mind if I wait until tomorrow afternoon to submit a new one? I need to go to sleep, and M Oehm should probably verify.

5:58 AM

That's certainly right, but go ahead and take your time.

Thanks. 'night

See ya!

6:12 AM

(Something's wrong with the latest version of Windows 10.0.0.0.0.ooooooooo.)

(What else is new?)

So I tried to sneak out the door.

My favrite neighbr asked, "aren't you scared to go out at night?"

"Scared?," "I only fear those who know me."

Those who don't know me think a few times and then tell me their lives' stories.

Clinically it's called autism. Where someone takes in more than they let on.

On the beat, if you're lucky(?) enough to be born there, it's called street smarts.

This time i wore my Puzzling(tm) shirt! Got a couple of takers.

It's cold here at the moment, below freezing, but everyone has a warm heart.

(here = geographical, not metonymical)

(Maybe that too. I was a standalone autist until someone taught me how set others up. Any help?)

() without parentheses. Around here every Q (P) is a setup.

One thing I said to that neighbr was, "guess i look open to everything, ready for anything, and, under the covers, a little scary."

"And again, no fear except for those who know me."

Neighbr: "I see what you mean."

That N'r knows me, thrills me, chills me, sees right through me.

I also said something like, "when you have a preternatural ability to heal wounds (mine, not others') you get beyond physical fear."

Every bit of learning is a wound healed.

But the above allusion relates to actual tissue. After so many years i'm surrounded by friends infirmed.

For too many reasons.

6:43 AM

@EricTressler Yes, that's it, well done!

0

Q: Find the Girlfriend

From past few weeks, I am strongly feeling that my husband is secretly dating someone but don't know who she is. I asked one of his close friends about it but instead of telling her name he gave me a piece of paper. I think its a puzzle and I need to solve it to find that girl. The text written...

I think using google to solve the C4 is fine. I have to look up the precise or alternative meanings of words in online resources very often.

Is English even your natural language, @MOehm?

Or one of them?

Signed, nosy as ever.

Not mine, by the way, but i make do.

Land on planet melanguish.

@lauir No, that would be German. It is my first foreign language.

@MOehm , I would love to see a poehm in German by you, accompanied by translation.

6:55 AM

Oh, I'm probably not a great poet.

Chances are!

Poehmtry is up to interpretation.

Many fools never get it.

Many others will.

Some were had at the moment.

Poehmtry. I like that. :) (It will probably be quite dadaistic.)

(That's why others who speak whatever language, including English, want me to edit. Until the ink dries there's another chance.)

@MOehm , please let on.

We'll figure it out. And learn something, perhaps intended or not, in the process.

Signed, an autist who has found an outlet.

(Really, without a keyboard i'm a shallow shell. Good for hugs but not for return.)

(maybe that's another reason no one molests me out and about)

(One of these days I'll be fully @human)

(meanwhile, what's with the (parentheses)?) Not there yet.

The speakers are sagging. No interims?

Frank Zappa - Penguin in Bondage ( from "Roxy & Elsewhere" )

. . . sidenote, when i disappear (again) it's because the input swamps the channel . . . find your own excuse . . .

@MOehm, catch me on a good day and I'll help turn that p'try to English. It could be like two blades of a scissor.

Metapho 'R sus.

user image

(I taunt for uplift, never downslaught, sometimes upfelt)

One Fine Morning by Lighthouse

"wipe the sleep from my eyes" (signed, m. etaphor)

It really is a bizarre life to shelve fear only to the interpersonal.

Soon as you answer, i'll recoil.

Meanwhile, i go and write preposterous puzzles. I go and talk with strangers. And learn better.

And walk the dark streets without mortal fear.

^ Guess that has nothing to do with this site, but this site opens me up as much as it shuts some others down.

Never a tear shed without an eye blinked open.

7:37 AM

I might give it a try some time, but don't hold your breath. At the moment, I'm involved with the more prosaic things in the office, unfortunately.

^ comes as it goes!

Holding our breaths.

Almost every day, my musical muse, who still hasn't gotten used to knowing more than everyone else, gets this: "More power to you!"

Think i'll change mynym to @morepowertoyou!

Rats, too many characters, including a banned one.

You saw it approaching:

The Who - Go to the Mirror!

"Following you, I climb the mountain. I get excitement at your feet."

^ ! ! ! ! please listen to that song again and again, in so many ways.

I've played it on all kinds of instruments but now, for the first time, never actually heard it.

. . . so the feral kittycat just thumped the door open. And waited for a pattycake before moving on to the food dish.

. . . it's freezing outside again!

. . . signed, signatore to a snowbank.

Who needs a thermometer when cats roam.

Hmmmmmmmmmm, wouldn't that be a difficult crossword. A cross-language-word. Every clue only makes sense if you know another language.

I'd go cross-species.

And it's about time.

That little headbutter already tries to stroke every key after me.

In the meanwhile, life just gets more Pling. Forwarded from a lover from another:

Guardians of the Galaxy: Awesome Mix Vol. 1 (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)

8:10 AM

Are you getting snow? Thought you were in Cali? Which as far as I've heard, is largely on fire

Fire to the north and the south.

Here, it just rained two weeks ago.

You can believe I have the hoses at the ready.

The danger, locally, is more of landslides and flooding. Life is good.

But, yeah, lucky middle ground at the moment, it's freezing.

Thnk i'll change @mynym to @lucky.

Brrrrr!!!!!

Ohai ~~plum~~ spy

Timeout. @Mithrandir, you have super powers, not just here.

See 'em and call 'em.

Supermith?

Be careful.

And thank you for generously displaying your fledge feathers.

By "be careful" i meant "drive safely"

And by "drive safely" i mean "i love you"

And by "i love you" i mean "please hang on for the ride."

8:26 AM

And what a wild ride it is, indeed.

From all sides.

After sheltering here for a couple of years, i accidentally mentioned someone in front of another one.

The body language was too telling.

"someone stabs you with a poisoned pen"

^ why isn't that song a classic!?!?

"battered by a love gone green" !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Am i the only one here who undertands both music and English?

Can't be.

"eyes are drilling holes in the back of your head"

What a wanderlust of imagery.

"someone wants your ass in the hot seat"

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And then it comes back to jealousy. So recursive.

Re-recursive.

Please press replay.

And rehear while at it.

Mind you, the guitar licks then were avant garde.

^ how imperative. Not meant as such.

Rush - Subdivisions (with lyrics)

The more apart i feel, the more alike we are.

"conform or be cast out"

Here castouts are broadcast!

Rush on.

Rush - YYZ Live (Rio)

D'n't y'see? Every bit of music is a clue.

8:53 AM

0

Q: Hexominoes into 7 simultaneous congruent shapes

I came up with this puzzle 16 years ago, it was on Ed Pegg's Mathpuzzle site but nobody solved it AFAIK. The 35 hexominoes (which look like this): are to be arranged, in groups of five, into seven shapes congruent to this one. The sample above is not a useful shortcut, if you start like this ...

tiling polyomino

Sometimes i wonder if someone isn't anonymously fledging a feather.

Always hoping they are.

Nobody else at the moment? You know I'll let the ushers find the peanut gallery when and if, possible.

hum, @lauir, how can you rephrase " fledging a feather", can't deal with it

When a new flight feather springs.

And it's time to take flight.

oh

You understood all that other muck?!?

Giles, Giles & Fripp "Elephant Song"

9:04 AM

I have some trouble to understand you sometimes, often in fact, but that's cool

Were this a published paper, you'd undertand every word.

Until it hurt.

But this is for pleasure.

@Skyvask you are not the only one.

Like music!

That's how i edit, assuming that it makes easy sense for the writer.

The challenge is to channel it to the reader.

Here, though, i let the frays loose for others to figure out.

The challenge is to understand you @lauir

Telling me.

9:10 AM

Its the hardest puzzle, i want to solve it :p

You're typing to a tangle of information and languages.

How about The Case of the World's Hardest puzzle? @lauir

Nobody's solved them!

Zip ahead to 7:osomething:

make that 8 or 9 or somesuch

is that a french song ?

Dunno. But the visuals just keep going.

9:18 AM

Oops. for anybody reviewing reviews, I clicked the wrong thing on the 'first posts' review. sorry

@Skyvask , good call. On the hunt.

It's Romanian, Thought it was Peruvian at first.

@lauir, it's not a canadian film ?

Truly.

But the pictures! I never saw ballet the same after that.

I think Butter, the feral cat, sees everything like that.

When I playground any toy, the dinger-danger-kitty-catter seems to follow the trace.

And brings inside one dead capture after another.

Yuck.

And yum, intellectually.

If nothing in our observisphere moves, we'd never see it.

But everything moves in some way, so here we are.

Every movement, every feint, is a clue.

And every clue leaves scratch marks.

Like that feral kittycat. That problem solver still doesn't know whether to sit inside or run out.

I feel like Maxwell's demon.

Always opening and closing the door.

Too esoteric?

Too weird? That I'll accept. With a strawful.

Every one of those lines was a setup. Don't mek me reach.

What's the difference between 1 and 0?

It's 1, but that's the same.

B'dump.

Appearing nightly. On a good night, with pleasant dreams.

apoligia:

1934 SHE WRONGED HIM RIGHT - Betty Boop cartoon

"no more goodies left from me"

"things have gone from bad to worse"

"marry me, or be my wife" Hello, source material.

The neighbrs are about to yawn and take notice.

The Rolling Stones - Paint It, Black (Official Lyric Video)

It's true, In print and (elsewhere) online I live to make sense of others. Here online, I come to compensate.

And leave it to my colleague solvers to figure it out.

The Rolling Stones-Under My Thumb

9:55 AM

0

Q: I am you enemy hidden in your pleasures. Who am I?

I am your enemy, And I come under cover. Better to introduce myself as frenemy, Do you see me inside your lover? Remember, lust is one of the greatest seven. Oh but maybe you're a good person, Then it might be a direct flight to heaven. If you knew before, would the situation still worsen? Bewa...

"the way she talks when she's spoken to"

It's true, everyone has a talk button, somewhere. Press gently.

Think I'll change mynym to @real.

Five Stairsteps Ooh Child 70s TV

Hi everyone

World!

(or any segment)

Concerned loves ask why I get no sleep.

Sometimes.

Because, I answer, fresh air bubbles up at all times.

Breathe deep.

Hi @Wen1now

To that^3 point, back in the days, this was the test track that brought every piece of emerging technology to the waves:

Pink Floyd - Breathe

When we patched that together, a mug fell off the shelf.

(Think we've been here before. It stopped again?)

. . . that was supposed to be a nerdytale . . . ask again some other time.

You may take loud music for granted now, but once it was a technical challenge, piece by piece.

Get it, fellow solvers? Not all Ps are a matter of typing.

At the same time there were Ps of "auto"motive machinery.

Put them together, autolocomotion and audiopiction, and ride!

user image

See you there.

And that doesn't even tell half the story.

(Possible repeat) You haven't lived until you're halfway up a cliff and wonder whether to go up the other half or go down. And then realize neither will work.

The rocks on the way up crumbled.

The view is nice, though.

(Spoiler: we went left and lived to tell.)

10:29 AM

Always keep going up

you will get a better view

=optimism and =perspective!

Genesis - Dance on a Volcano

(^ another rererererepeatererererer)

"You're halfway up and you're halfway down. Whatever you do, you'd better start doing it right."

in fact, when you reach the top, the satisfaction feeling is incredible

Share the view!

Back in the muck. You're on what was claimed to be a road. It isn't ahead.

And it's night.

something like that, (spoiler alert, it's not me but i don't have my photo right now , but it's pretty much the same view, the same place)

user image

Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm!

Such an endearing background to such an immediate location.

10:39 AM

You just stop thinking, just apreciate the moment and the view after the climb

If you're lucky.

And focused.

Don't trust in luck

Luck got me into the worst situations (like that) and out of them.

It's just motivation and training

Thank you for bringing us along.

10:42 AM

Things happen or not, but never because of luck (imho)

To get to someplace like that takes planning. To live and share includes a smidgeon of luck.

This sport bring me in such a beautiful places ^^

Z

Oops. That was an accident

Type safely!

And climb safely!

Signed, fellow typist and climber.

And fellow daredevil.

I've written my will more than 8 times, each time not knowing what will happen next.

And for the last couple of years, here y'am. It just ain't fair.

At the moment I'm trying to talk the lover (who spawned decades of jealousy) into a visit to similar locales.

She climbed some amazing cliffs in the days.

Without technology!

But now I promised she wouldn't have to walk more than a few steps from the rental car.

I dangled a cello and got her thinking.

The best place i ever climb is in Itally

10:50 AM

Picture?

SOmething call Cala Gloritz

user image

Not mine another time but, yeah same place

It's this big rock:

user image

Thank you bringing the rest of us along now!

Oh man that looks scary

Talk about puzzle solving. Every grip is a ?.

Aha, my next step is a bit more cold

10:53 AM

Well done though! But still... just looking at that picture makes me shiver

For one, I'm fearless in a 100m tree, but on sheer rock! . . . .!

Guess after a few starts you gotta be fearless too to continue.

when you fall 4-5 times for something like 10meters, yeah it's a bit less scary

You fell!?!?!?!?!??!1!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

On rope?!?!?!?!??!?!?!?!

that's happen sometimes

yeah there is a rope

Me too, once. Changed my life.

10:57 AM

No, there's no rope. When you fall you have to use your wings to stop the fall

Otherwise you'll keep falling...

AC2 brotherood :o

parachute :D

I did fly away too, @Wen1now, many other times, figuratively speaking. And i'm no angel.

I've flown too, literally.

How's that?

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The Sphinx's Lair

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