The Sphinx's Lair

12:38 AM

0

A great long line of men stands before you Occasionally 2 and 3 stand side by side 1 was a lover. 1 was extremely funny. 2 were winners. 4 were lucky. 8 were from the city. 12 were devout. 13 had done nothing wrong. 14 showed mercy.

Sphinx

4:23 AM

1

Q: What is a Trump 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 (or phrase) conforms to a special rule (and it's a fantastic rule, believe me!) I call it a Trump Word™. Use the examples below to find the rule. $$\begin{...

pattern word-property

Sphinx

6:04 AM

0

Q: A rebus from a while ago

A few years back, I came up with the following. Can you tell me what the picture is about? A small note for solvers - this does exist elsewhere on the internet, and while I wasn't able to find it on a Google Images search I humbly request that you avoid doing so if you want to find the answer ...

rebus

user61230

7:45 AM

Waiting for the meta bot to catch up...

user61230

8:01 AM

It sure does take a long time for the meat bot to catch up.

5

user61230

....that's a typo, but I'm leaving it.

Rubio

8:43 AM

The meat bot is delicious.

Puzzling Meta

10:26 AM

4

Q: Should we require that puzzles remain apolitical?

I realize this is a touchy subject. I don't want to start a dumpster fire of politics, but I think it's something we should (and can!) civilly discuss. Politics right now is a little nuts. No matter what you believe, and (almost) no matter where you are in the world, I think we'd all agree on tha...

discussion questions

user61230

10:50 AM

@PuzzlingMeta FINALLY. JEEZ. WHAT TOOK YOU SO LONG.

dcfyj

1:13 PM

@Emrakul I dropped my two cents in your bucket.

dcfyj

1:26 PM

@Randal'Thor sorry about that "you're" I obviously wasn't paying attention/tired, I normally don't make those mistakes.

Sphinx

0

Q: The Vacuumed Quotes

A colleague of mine likes to put his favorite quotes up on the fridge using those little magnetic letters. This morning the cleaner came and accidentally vacuumed up all the letters. We were able to retrieve all the letters (100 in total), but unfortunately we can't remember any of the quotes. Ca...

cipher arithmetic

Rand al'Thor

@dcfyj I think our answers are saying more or less the same thing, only you've said it more succinctly while I've included a lot more detail and justification and background info and examples.

dcfyj

@Randal'Thor I was thinking the same thing

You are rather more verbose than I am after all :P

I think they should probably both stay, but do you want me to remove mine?

Rand al'Thor

@dcfyj No, of course not! If anything it helps to see that at least two people feel strongly enough the same way to post answers.

dcfyj

true

Rand al'Thor

1:37 PM

There could also potentially be an issue with puzzles which don't seem political at first glance, but turn out to have political solutions.

Like a cipher puzzle whose plaintext is e.g. "Nigel Farage has a punchable face".

dcfyj

Like I said specifically in my answer, as long as they keep it neutral and aren't praising or bashing someone or other, I see no problem with it.

Rand al'Thor

But that's an orthogonal issue really. Whatever our stance is on political puzzles, it won't affect those 'hidden' political puzzles until they're solved and then will become relevant after they're solved.

dcfyj

Of course we can't stop people from posting ciphers with "punchbag faces" but we can do something after the fact.

And as emrakul said, it's not really a problem, just a potential one

Rand al'Thor

I've seen this kind of thing happen before: what seemed to be a perfectly valid puzzle getting deleted once it was solved.

dcfyj

Which is unfortunate, but if it's offensive then it doesn't really belong anyhow.

Rand al'Thor

1:41 PM

I suppose my point boils down to, what makes politics different from any other subject?

dcfyj

Just that people are touchy about it for whatever reason

Khale_Kitha

Deletes puzzle because I find its lack of faith disturbing

Rand al'Thor

Some people will get all nasty and abusive when discussing politics, but others won't, and SE bans nasty/abusive stuff anyway.

Well ...

Some people will get all nasty and abusive when discussing religion, but others won't, and SE bans nasty/abusive stuff anyway.

Or gardening. Or programming. Or anything.

Khale_Kitha

Clowns.

Rand al'Thor

It's a problem with the people, not the topic.

dcfyj

1:43 PM

Some people will get all nasty and abusive when discussing [Insert subject here], but others won't, and SE bans nasty/abusive stuff anyway.

Rand al'Thor

Damn, I should probably overhaul my answer to make these points more prominently.

dcfyj

Go for it

Khale_Kitha

That's kind of what I got from your answer, tbh.

Perhaps I was biased by my personal opinion - not sure.

Matt

2:28 PM

bleh, I do not feel like doing work today. time to make a puzzle

Rand al'Thor

2:59 PM

I've posted some rhyming cryptics!

cryptic-clues + rhyme would probably have qualified for Unconventional Tag Fusion if I'd posted it during that challenge.

Sphinx

0

Q: Riddle Poem Two

My first poem’s response was poor. Perhaps solving it was a bore, But I do not feel sore Because I find it fun, And I’ve plenty more For you to explore Like this one! Although a bit of a chore Matching the rhyme to score, The puzzle scheme’s the core So get your but up off the floor, A...

riddle poetry

1

Q: Three Blind Mice - rhyming cryptics!

Each line of the following poem is a cryptic clue. Free blind mice with spirit are bound; Hack tail off, our first glorious inch. Tool is almost fine after quick sound; The mice's tails in the breeze did flinch. I'll provide the word lengths too, but in a spoilertag in case you want t...

rhyme cryptic-clues

Rand al'Thor

3:18 PM

@Sphinx Apparently I chose a lull time in site activity to post this :-/

Matt

3:28 PM

The riddle poem is really broad ...

@Randal'Thor you fit as an answer?

Rand al'Thor

@Matt ?

Matt

Riddle Poem Two

it's just a rhyme with no real direction

but your name fills the rhyme

Ankoganit

Rand's first poem had a poor response??

Rand al'Thor

@Matt Oh right!

:-D

Matt

answered because I can't see the poem pointing to anything specific besides itself and its predecesor

Deusovi

4:52 PM

Morning everyone!

Matt

hello!

I've got 7 minutes of morning left

dcfyj

Good Aftermornight @Deusovi

@Matt We're in the same timezone! (Depending on what your thoughts about noon are)

Matt

I mean, noon is pretty clearly defined as 12pm

aka 1 minute from now

dcfyj

So yes we are then :P

Sphinx

5:34 PM

0

Q: A riddle from HQ

Here's a riddle haiku from HQ: I am just on fire! A fun, diverse distraction. This ilk but more known. What am I?

riddle poetry

Sphinx

5:54 PM

0

Q: What kind of people can answer this riddle?

What kind of people can answer the following riddle? Call a=1, b=2, and so on. What is the longest common English word that can be made from only prime letters?

word

Sphinx

6:18 PM

0

Q: I'm Wandering About - A Riddle

I'm wandering about. There's always blue overhead. The dear ones frolic, And few words are said. Or, maybe I'm a place. A creepy lake forked, And I'm locked in its shadow, My key worn and warped. No, I am here - Embodied by this very text. Think about what I'm doi...

riddle word wordplay poetry

dcfyj

6:42 PM

Good Aftermornight @MariaDeleva

Rubio

@MariaDeleva A quick thought, you might want to link to the original numberless sudoku from your current one. People who didn't see that one would have no idea what they're looking at or how you'd go about trying to solve it.

I meant to say that a while ago and kept forgetting :)

dcfyj

Are you talking about the "sudoku" with the greater than and less than signs?

Rubio

Yes

dcfyj

Isn't it tagged as enigmatic? I looked up sudoku with signs (or something like that) and found out what they're actually called (can't remember at the moment) and how to solve them with fair ease.

Rubio

Well - I mean - puzzling.stackexchange.com/questions/47987/empty-sudoku-puzzle was the one Maria quite recently posted, and if you'd seen it you'd know immediately what you're looking at and exactly how it works. People who hadn't seen it, though, would be at a bit of a disadvantage in getting started.

dcfyj

7:01 PM

I never saw that puzzle, but as I said, I found how to solve them with relative ease.

Good Aftermornight, by the way

Rubio

7:22 PM

@Randal'Thor there's no indirect anagramming going on in your rhyming cryptics, right? I feel like I have an answer if there is, though it needs a little more work, but I would rather abandon it if I know for sure there's nothing shady going on :)

dcfyj

Referring to "Free"?

Rand al'Thor

@Rubio I actually don't remember exactly how the clues work now (don't worry, I have it all written down, but it's been a while since I made them), so I can give you a "no comment" without any possibility of you working out the actual answer from that non-answer.

Rubio

lol.

and yeah, referring to "free"

dcfyj

According to this site it's a possible anagram indicator

Rubio

It is, yes.

I'm not asking for a hint, btw - I'm asking for a confirmation it's a proper clue. (indirect anagrams are, well, not proper)

dcfyj

7:27 PM

I was looking at anagrams of blind/blind mice to no avail

Rand al'Thor

What would be "indirect" about using "free" as an anagram indicator?

dcfyj

If we're looking for a synonym of blind, would be my guess

Rand al'Thor

Or to put it another way, what do you mean by indirect anagramming?

Rubio

nothing. what would be indirect is if you were using "free blind mice" to, say, remove the "i" from mice and then anagrammming "MCE".

dcfyj

That would be a cool set up, if it were done so that there's no indirect

Rubio

7:29 PM

or in the alternative, anagram a synonym for "blind", as dcfyj mentioned.

Rand al'Thor

@Rubio How would that be indirect? Looks to me like just applying two consecutive operations to the same argument.

As long as the operations are associative, and there's a clear ordering if they're not commutative, I can't see a problem with that.

dcfyj

It's indirect because the indicator isn't next to the word it's manipulating (at least that's how I'm understanding it)

Rubio

Um. Because you're not applying an anagram indicator directly to the stuff being anagrammed. You're doing it to the result of some other non-verbatim fodder. That is, literally, indirect.

For my example, "Free mice blind" and "Free blind mice" are different. One's legal ... the other isn't.

Rand al'Thor

@Rubio Hmm, I don't see it that way. Applying two wordplay operations consecutively to the same base word doesn't make the second one indirect, it just makes it ... the second one.

Sconibulus

Free and Blind are both adjectives for Mice, they should be applicable in any order

Rand al'Thor

7:33 PM

You can see my mathematical training coming out here :-)

Sconibulus

(assuming that's a thing that's happening here)

Rubio

Yes but it doesn't work that way. Anagram fodder is expected to be verbatim. Full stop.

Maria Deleva

Hey, all! Perhaps it is a nice idea to put a link to the original empty sudoku. But anyway, the sudoku doesn't seem to be the problem. :) Although the newest answer might as well turn out to be on the right path...Waiting for explanation

dcfyj

I remembered a cc Deusovi helped me with

Demonic pets reform endless mafia with deceivers (9)

consecutive indicators is valid

@Rubio according to deusovi anagramming a word that you remove a letter from is fine.

Rubio

That's not what he said. Read it again :)

dcfyj

7:37 PM

Jan 31 at 19:36, by dcfyj

Can you have sequential indicators for the same word?

Jan 31 at 19:38, by Deusovi

f(g(x)) means "apply g first, then f". It's slightly different here since you can put the indicator on either side, but the same principle applies.

That is exactly what he said lol

Rubio

Hmm

Maybe I misremembered that conversation then

dcfyj

@MariaDeleva Sorry, Good Aftermornight :P

@Rubio Feel free to reread

Maria Deleva

Good Aftermornight! :)

This time I am here :)

dcfyj

:)

Maria Deleva

What about good Postmanoctis?

dcfyj

7:42 PM

I'm seeing the pieces but that's a bit rough to read :S

Maria Deleva

Heh, I guess I can't think of a good one :)

Rubio

7:57 PM

@dcfyj (back) ... yeah so, ok I apologize then, it was my quite distinct impression that anagram fodder was quite literally supposed to be exact and verbatim. It's even stated that way, in bold, in @Deusovi's guide: "the text to be anagrammed must appear verbatim in the clue." So color me puzzled. :)

Sconibulus

@Rubio Well... it does

dcfyj

I think by that he means don't use synonyms

Sconibulus

M(-I)CE anagrammed still has MCE verbatim

dcfyj

mce does appear in the text, but I get you're point

@Sconibulus the issue he has with it is the fact that the I is missing

Deusovi

I might want to update that to be more clear, then. The text can appear amongst other text - it just can't come from synonyms or be extracted (like "with heart of stone" cluing "add O to this anagram").

Rand al'Thor

7:59 PM

@Rubio The text to be anagrammed, or to have other wordplay tricks applied to it. In the same way as you shouldn't use "blind rodents" to clue MCE, you shouldn't use "free rodents" to clue ECMI, but "free blind mice" to clue ECM would be OK.

(Still no comment on whether or not that's my intended meaning, though.)

Rubio

I mean. "MCE" is not verbatim in the text. MICE is.
verbatim
adv 1: using exactly the same words; [...]

Rand al'Thor

@Rubio MICE is, so the operation "blind" could be applied verbatim to MICE to get MCE, and then the operation "free" could be applied verbatim to MCE.

Matt

if you want to get technical, "verbatim" can't be used to describe it because it deals with words, not to the granularity of letters

dcfyj

Here's an example you can use :P

Demonic pets reform endless mafia with deceivers (9)

Rubio

I'll ask Deus next i see him for some clarification, as I've actually never seen an example of anagramming the result of wordplay on verbatim text, other than @dcfyj's example. of course I haven't got nearly the experience many of you others do

Deusovi

8:01 PM

Um. Hello. I'm here.

2

dcfyj

lol, that was my thought

Rubio

oh. Hi, I missed your last message lol

Deusovi

2 mins ago, by Deusovi

I might want to update that to be more clear, then. The text can appear amongst other text - it just can't come from synonyms or be extracted (like "with heart of stone" cluing "add O to this anagram").

Matt

paging @Deusovi ... anyone seem him?

Sconibulus

@dcfyj this is less helpful without the answer :)

Deusovi

8:02 PM

Nope, no idea where he could be

dcfyj

Deusovi knows the answer :P

Rubio

He's probably slacking again

dcfyj

If he's forgotten I can put it up again

Deusovi

@Sconibulus FAMI(-a)*+LIARS

Matt

he's never around when you need him

Rubio

8:02 PM

(I know the answer too. And I like it, I just didn't really read that deeply into the revised clue to see the thing I didn't think you could do)

Rand al'Thor

@Deusovi checks Rubio's "ignored users" list

:-P

Deusovi

I mean, I wouldn't blame him. :P

@Rubio - I've changed the phrasing there. How does this sound?

"the letters to be anagrammed must come directly from the clue."

dcfyj

@Rubio This was in his original answer post Just like all the other clues, they can be combined with other clue types

But I understand where the confusion came into play

@Deusovi I think that's a lot clearer.

Maria Deleva

8:19 PM

We have a new puzzler :) Who seemed to have found the final solution of my puzzle.

Deusovi

Yep!

@MariaDeleva: "However, in order to accept one answer as the answer, it needs to have the full solution of the puzzle, including every clue described."

That's not necessarily true.

Often, an answer with just the final bit will be accepted.

Maria Deleva

Well, true. But the puzzle is still missing on some of the clues. Also, three different people solved the puzzle. - how can I accept only one answer?

dcfyj

Well, if she put that stipulation on her puzzle than the solver needs to address it, no?

Maria Deleva

Also, even in some meta questions regarding questions/answers, people state that sometimes the asker might require a better/fuller explanation before accepting the answer. I did upvote his answer.

Deusovi

Oh, I'm not saying you should accept it. (I'm not saying you shouldn't either.) I'm just letting you know that that's not a sitewide standard.

dcfyj

8:27 PM

She never said it was, but I can see how it could be misunderstood that way.

Matt

For the metacryptics I accept the first answer with the final solution

sometimes that answer includes all the previous solutions, sometimes not

dcfyj

By the way @Deusovi, did you see the cryptic-ception puzzle I posted? (I know it was easy, but I thought it was a cool concept)

stacksfiller

The three people commenting there are Deleva, Delaveau, and Desuovi

I mean the answer to Maria's

Deusovi

Yeah, I did! Didn't get a chance to jump in before it was solved, but cool nonetheless!

Maria Deleva

There is a glitch in the matrix. It was supposed to be Deulovi :D

dcfyj

8:29 PM

@Deusovi You should write one sometime, they're an interesting challenge to make.

I still wish I could've gone 3 layers like I wanted, but it was getting too big way too fast.

Maria Deleva

Oh, I would like to see a cryptic puzzle by Deusovi...

Rubio

@Randal'Thor lol. Sorry, actually Doing Work - it's hard to concentrate on PSE/TSL when, you know, the boss is talking in your ear.

Maria Deleva

@Rubio what work? Are you slacking on us? :P

Rubio

I am, I know.... (*hangs head in shame*)

dcfyj

@MariaDeleva He's made them before

Deusovi

8:31 PM

I've made several puzzles based on cryptic clues. Chess Fortnight (the meta-metapuzzle with cryptic clue answers) and Plenty of Clues (the fishy variety cryptic) are my two biggest ones.

Maria Deleva

Well, no one would be hurt of some new ones :P

dcfyj

lol

I thought you hated cryptic clues, @MariaDeleva

Deusovi

I've got a few variety cryptic ideas saved up - I might just make one for this fortnightly theme

dcfyj

Cryptic clue rebus? That sounds unpleasant...

2

Maria Deleva

@dcfyj, nope, I don't hate them - I am just bad at making and solving them. But I find them amusing.

dcfyj

8:35 PM

Oh, I just thought of a very interesting cryptic puzzle. It'll probably take me a while to make it though.

(Interesting might be translatable to nasty)

Deusovi

Oh no.

Sconibulus

how do you make cryptics?

like, do you come up with a word, and try to think of ways to clue it? Or do you find interesting wordplay and look for a related word?

Deusovi

For free-standing clues, I look for words with interesting patterns

(eg OVOID is O + VOID, both of which could be clued by 0)

dcfyj

@Sconibulus I usually try to think of a random word that I can clue wordplay on.

I'll be honest, I saw the purplish/pink icon and I thought it was maria asking that until I posted in chat and saw sconibulus.

Sconibulus

8:50 PM

wait, did my gravatar change, or do I just not remember my life

for some reason I thought it was brownish

dcfyj

not as I recall

Matt

I remember pink

Sconibulus

fair enough, I guess I'm just crazy

3

Maria Deleva

I remember it as pink as well. It might have been brown on another site, though, so you might not be crazy.

Volatility

9:24 PM

@Sphinx Next logical step is to make a rhyming metacryptic. Whoops, that's already been done (shameless self-promotion :P).

Gareth McCaughan

9:42 PM

@Sconibulus I agree with D and D: I pick a more or less word and think "what can I do with this?". If you're making single clues rather than whole crosswords, you have the luxury of deciding that the answer is "probably not much" and trying again; I think on average when I post a clue it's for the second or third word I've tried. I'm particularly keen to spot things that will make for a nice surface reading.

So, for instance, a while ago I thought (I have no idea why) of SEISMOGRAPH. The word SMOG in the middle stood out, and then the word SERAPH around the outside. I realised that both of those had links to coal, and had a vague recollection of something earth-shaking in the biblical passage relating seraphim to coal (actually that turned out to be not quite right, but the idea was OK), and I knew that there was going to be something there that would sound pretty good.

(sorry, "a while ago" = "on solving a CCCC a while ago". I don't have a stash of these things, I make them as the occasion requires. Though, now I come to think of it, having a stash might not be a bad idea.)

Sphinx

10:10 PM

0

Q: Raven's matrices

Is anyone able to solve this matrix? It came up on a practice aptitude test I'm taking and this one in particular had me stumped. Thanks!

logical-deduction logic-grid

Sphinx

11:29 PM

0

Q: Another dissection puzzle

The figure shows a hexagon and triangle tiled by six identical tiles. My question is: What is the smallest number of polygonal tiles that will tile both a regular hexagon and an equilateral triangle in such away that all the edges of the tiles are all parallel to an edge of the tiled figure? ...

geometry

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