The Sphinx's Lair

awesomepi

3:35 AM

dang, chat just flopped over and died here

Sphinx

1

Q: Take note, this is my favorite thing

An entry in Fortnightly Topic Challenge #30: Metapuzzles. Step one: Gathering information ?. degeneratiVe A simple cipher that utilizes the differents. Key: 177 157 149 144 133 128 103 94 75 62 61 47 33 28 24 0 IOEQL LAPEA OCVMM CR, FXDO 1. devolvIng Shouting madness This ...

Deusovi

3:52 AM

Yeah, it happens.

I'm not sure if "Take note..." would qualify as a metapuzzle. I'd have to see the solution first, of course, but at the moment it doesn't seem like one.

Sphinx

4:38 AM

3

Q: Tic-Tac-Toe Without a Predefined Board

On a warm and uneventful summer day, John and Mary passed the time by playing games of Tic-Tac-Toe, taking sticks and drawing in the soil. John and Mary are both child prodigies, so within two rounds they solved the game and got bored. To decrease their boredom, Mary proposed a new and exciting v...

strategy game tic-tac-toe

M Oehm

5:26 AM

So no-one has solved the CCCC yet? I'll take a stab.

Deusovi

@MOehm Gareth and I have both likely solved it but been too busy to write another.

M Oehm

I had has also solved it yesterday, but didn't post it, because my repository of clues that have passed my personal QA had run dry. I'm at work now, where I've got another repository, so I'll post it now.

@Rubio I think it's CANCELLER - [c]ELL[s] in CANCER

Rubio

And so it is.

M Oehm

CCCC: Search silver lining for last sign of hope. (6)

Rubio

for any quibblers, CANCEL can explicitly be to mark a ticket as used or invalid, though finding that specific definition/sense may take some searching. I forget which dictionary I finally found it explicitly in.

M Oehm

5:33 AM

"Compostez votre billet", as the signs in the Métro in Paris say.

The technical term is probably to invalidate the ticket, but canceller is clear from the context. I take it to be one of the little boxes that print a timestamp on the ticket.

Rubio

CANCEL is usually a stamp or mark, but I did find the specific mention to perforation, i.e. literal "punching" of a ticket

a canceller can be such a device for doing that, or (presumably) a person who does so

Techidiot

Hmm..Didn't even thought of that word. I was thinking about a tool to punch tickets :p

Ticket punch

A ticket punch (or control nippers) is a hand tool for permanently marking admission tickets and similar items of paper or card stock. It makes a perforation and a corresponding chad. A ticket punch resembles a hole punch, differing in that the ticket punch has a longer jaw (or "reach") and the option of having a distinctive die shape. A ticket punch resembles a needle punch in that it makes a distinctive pattern in the item punched, but differs in that it makes a chad. == Uses == Ticket punches are widely used to mark railway passenger tickets, particularly if it is important when and where the...

Like this one ^

Sphinx

5:57 AM

0

Q: Find out, why I'm so happy today

Find out, why I'm so happy today.

enigmatic-puzzle

0

Q: What does 1+1=?

Most of the is flavour, with a section of puns setting the scene at the start, and then the story itself in the middle. Scroll down for the actual puzzle. Everything in this story is true, except for the bits that aren't. That's probably not very helpful... Someplace, somewhere, at exactly s...

cipher wordplay enigmatic-puzzle steganography humor

Beastly Gerbil

Wow that was quick @Sphinx

And woo, new puzzle!

Techidiot

6:43 AM

@BeastlyGerbil I can see a lot of binaries in there :-)

Mithrandir

@awesomepi unfortunately, it happens...

Beastly Gerbil

@Techidiot do you know? (Hehehe) Lets see how far you get with that ;)

Techidiot

oolsoogfinesohck is what I have for the outer bars of dots(B&W) which seems kind of anagram of a message.

Beastly Gerbil

Aah

Techidiot

But, I am sure you won''t use anagrams of a message. So, there must be a start and end indicator.

Beastly Gerbil

6:54 AM

You got it right started wrong place

Look at the circles in the side

Techidiot

I can see double || bars which I thought was right place

Beastly Gerbil

That marks the end

You are one letter off

Apart from that good start. Now you just have to figure out what that string means. (And yes no anagram)

Mithrandir

OW PUNS

Techidiot

Hmm..olsoogfinesohko?

Beastly Gerbil

Wrong way

Mithrandir

6:56 AM

Normally I enjoy puns. But O_O

Beastly Gerbil

@Mithrandir hehe I was quite proud of those

They were extremely bad ones :P

My favourite is the poet one

Techidiot

lol.. OK HOSEN IF GOOSLO is the reverse..

Beastly Gerbil

So close

Shift the other way

Aka start to the right of the double lines

Techidiot

koolsoogfinesohc - > CHOSEN IF GOOS LOOK

Beastly Gerbil

Umm, I think you may have made a mistake with s

Should be r

Rubio

7:02 AM

chosen if Go or Look ?

Beastly Gerbil

Yep

Well I meant it the other way round 'Look or go if chosen'

But you should still get it

Techidiot

But...01110011 is S :-/

Beastly Gerbil

Oh ok my mistake then. I'll fix it later today

Techidiot

So, is that it?

Beastly Gerbil

The next bit should be easy

Rubio

7:06 AM

Bad Gerbil! No pellet!

6

Beastly Gerbil

:P

@Techidiot yeah that's the phrase needed. Figure out what it means

Techidiot

It reminds me of OEIS sequence - Look and say

Look-and-say sequence

In mathematics, the look-and-say sequence is the sequence of integers beginning as follows: 1, 11, 21, 1211, 111221, 312211, 13112221, 1113213211, ... (sequence A005150 in the OEIS). To generate a member of the sequence from the previous member, read off the digits of the previous member, counting the number of digits in groups of the same digit. For example: 1 is read off as "one 1" or 11. 11 is read off as "two 1s" or 21. 21 is read off as "one 2, then one 1" or 1211. 1211 is read off as "one 1, one 2, then two 1s" or 111221. 111221 is read off as "three 1s, two 2s, then one 1" or 312211. The...

But, that may not be it

Beastly Gerbil

Nope

This is steganography if that helps

Rubio

The design is the mad ravings of a broken mind. 1+1=2, obviously. QED

Techidiot

Logic

Beastly Gerbil

7:09 AM

Yep

Techidiot

So, 1 + 1 = LOGIC?

Beastly Gerbil

No! You have the rest of the circle to complete yet! :P

Everything in the circle is involved

Now you need to work out which logic

Techidiot

Now, that sounds good. :) 1+1 = 1 logical way could be TRUE AND TRUE = TRUE

So, I believe the pairs are TRUE/FALSE

Beastly Gerbil

Nope

Check the circles in the left of the main one

What might that V mean?

If you figure out the circles, you will know where to look next for the rest of the puzzle

Techidiot

I see the pairs of squares in the V shape inside the circle..

Beastly Gerbil

7:13 AM

Not relevant

That was just the only way they would fit :P

I'll give you a clue: the outermost ring of the circle on the left could have an 'I' in it

Gtg to go in a sec. I'll try and leave the gate open for you to solve (clue). I'll check back in a couple of hours for progress

Techidiot

For now, I will post a partial with whatever I found. Someone else can take it ahead if not me.

Sp3000

9:46 AM

@boboquack fyi we indeed know where to go, not quite how to get there (there's two possibilities in mind)

Beastly Gerbil

10:19 AM

Any progress?

Techidiot

Nope. Everything I tried led me to gibberish

Let the better brains dig in. May be I am not seeing something there .:-)

M Oehm

10:32 AM

I'll be gone for two days now. If you want to verify solutions to my CCCC, the A1-Z26 letter sum is 52.

Always Confused

10:42 AM

1

Q: How would it be if a SE site is created on Bangla (=Bengali) language?

(Originally asked at SE Meta) Bangla (Eng. Bengali) is a language common in Bangladesh and part of India (West Bengal) with a rich history of literature and cultural heritage. How would it be; if on AREA-51 site is opened for discussion about question and answer about Bengali language? The fun...

arts proposal-scope languages

@SohaFarhinPine You may visit this proposal on Area51

Sphinx

11:15 AM

0

Q: First attempt at a riddle

First attempt, I thought I'd give it a shot. Might be too easy, or too vague, but lets find out :) My faces are different, yet equally plain, they change their expressions to mess with your brain. I appear quite distorted, I'm twisted, you see, when I gain my composure I fill y...

riddle

Sphinx

11:29 AM

0

Q: What is number of car parking spot ?

. What is the number of this car parking spot?

logical-deduction

Gareth McCaughan

^ This (1) is a dupe and (2) looks to me like it's probably plagiarism too (i.e., the image containing the actual puzzle is almost certainly copied from elsewhere without attribution).

Techidiot

Yup.

VTC'd

About CC, I can see AG(silver)+L(lining)+R(for last)

But no words with that pattern matching with def

Sphinx

11:53 AM

0

Q: Mr. Zimmerman knows the answer. Do you?

I met Mr. Zimmerman a few weeks ago. He came to me, took a piece of paper and wrote the following: How many roads must a man walk down Before you call him a man? How many seas must a white dove sail Before she sleeps in the sand? Yes, 'n' how many times must the cannon balls fly Bef...

riddle story

Ankoganit

@AlwaysConfused Woo this is interesting

Always Confused

:D

Techidiot

@n_palum Gamen! No luck with my CC yet?

:)

n_palum

Ha GaMen! and no I haven't been too active on here this weekend - busy

user278890

What's this place for ?

user278890

12:04 PM

What's CCCC ?

user278890

What's contact ?

user278890

@AlwaysConfused I am in if you restrict the scope to literature+riddles, and allow questions like this: "Why the very common cliche of long lost relatives appearing as long know disguised persons reappearing, is seen in around a bit over half of Feluda stories ?"

Techidiot

@SveinungHelsing Welcome!

CCCC guide is attached..

Contact guide is attached to its own room

user278890

What the heck place is this ? This is driving me crazy.

Techidiot

It's a chat room as you can see.. And it does drive people crazy :-)

user278890

12:14 PM

@AlwaysConfused Or say, questions like this: "Why did Feluda picked up only Mahitosh Singharoy as the sole suspect in Apsara Theater-er Mamla, while it was equally, or even more probable that someone murdered Mahitosh Singharoy (for some other reasons), and say, Dharani Synal and/or Vujanga murdered the lead actor (or some other)(for some other reason; say - both of them were doing some bad stuff earlier; and it lead to a debate), and Surdhendu was indeed a new actor, not Mahitosh in disguise ?"

user278890

@Techidiot Where is the other room ?

Techidiot

Here chat.stackexchange.com/rooms/53490/contact

n_palum

@Rubio You may have to pin your CCCC guide post soon

Also @Techidiot I forgot to keep track of your CC you gave me

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