The Sphinx's Lair - 2017-08-15

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12:09 AM

No, question marks do not mean the fit is weak.

They mean that the clue is more unusual... well, than usual.

Yep, that makes sense to me

4 hours later…

3:54 AM

Slight hint/clarification: feel free to look things up to your heart's content for this one

4:49 AM

oh I already did that, and it didn't help.

well - looked in one area anyway hehe

4 hours later…

9:06 AM

There are a whole bunch of questions incorrectly tagged puzzle-history. We should probably clean that up.

AFAICT, it's about the history of puzzles themselves, and it's being used for e.g. classical puzzles.

Agreed

Agreed

0

Q: Were there any real-life 'escape rooms' before Real Escape Game in Japan?

According to Wikipedia, the first official 'escape room' was Real Escape Game in Japan. However, I can't find anything about a physical escape-the-room type activity before that, and I seem to recall having been to something of the sort before 2007, when Real Escape Game was developed. (I keep th...

2 hours later…

11:07 AM

0

Q: Doubts about algorithm

Hello I came across a really good algorithm perfect for a minigame I'm making. When I was trying to implement the algorithm I stumbled with some doubts and I can't the algorithm right. I'm talking about this old post: 4D Maze Creation! And the algorithm is written by BmyGuest (at the end of th...

mathematics algorithm

2 hours later…

1:29 PM

0

Q: The SUM 50 Game

Attached Grid (Total 5 x 5) has a black box grid (3 x 3) inside it. The Black box grid needs to be filled out with numbers 1 thru 9 using all numbers once. The Outer Red box squares (Total 16 ) need to be filled out with numbers 10 thru 25 using all numbers once. All numbers must be used once....

number-sequence no-computers

3 hours later…

4:01 PM

0

Q: The most mines that can be swept!

So the other day I was once again on Minesweeper, just doing my duty and trying not to explode. I had the thought: What is the most amount of mines possible on a solvable puzzle? For arguments sake the board size I was playing on was 20x35 tiles so a solution this size is good! What possib...

logical-deduction video-games

1 hour later…

5:17 PM

Anybody going to GenCon this weekend?

@ me to answer <3

@feelinferrety drills hole somewhat downwards

nods

Nvm this would take forever

I'm struggling not to @ ferret and say "no"

5:42 PM

@ffao just do it

@feelinferrety I'm not going

@ffao Feel better?

yes, thank you

6:18 PM

That C4. Double question mark? :o

"Interrogate victim??" (8, 4)

...What's that?

QUESTION MARK

^

Ah. Wow..

6:25 PM

One is for definition, one is for the unusualness of the clue ;)

So the answer to the C4 is BI QUIZ - a double question mark.

user image

if that was a serious attempt at the C4, I don't get it at all

Well, that goes with the "naughty" clues that have come up lately. I mean, "uplifting drug", really? :)

@MOehm If that's actually the answer, please explain. I am completely missing this..

6:30 PM

It's not actually the answer

but he's saying "BI QUIZ" would mean that "??" is the definition

BI meaning 2, and QUIZ meaning question mark

No, it isn't the answer. I haven't referenced the clue and I haven't explained the wordplay. It was just a cheap joke, continuing from stack's clue.

I find it funny that 3 of the 4 BI QUIZzes in my image are aimed at women

as if the questions "are you attracted to men?" and "are you attracted to women?" don't suffice for anyone of either gender

you should make a website, this quiz looks accurate to me

Gurl.com question not applicable outside African country (7)

A(NZVOV)N

6:40 PM

Yes, of course. (That's not s straight answer, ist it?)

6:52 PM

Hullo, puzzlers

hey!

Any Midwesterners in here?

I'm all jelly of the folks who got to meet each other at their math thingy last month, so now I wanna know if anyone'll be in my neck of the woods this week. :|

depends on what exactly you call the Midwest

all of the folks got to meet at the math thingy in Brazil, now that I'm not there :(

@Deusovi I figure locals are more likely to attend: GenCon

6:55 PM

ah - I'm not going, unfortunately

It's my first... and I lived 15 miles away for over a decade DX

7:12 PM

@Deusovi I thought you were a X-coaster

user image

So that's why he's so fast

@stacksfiller *SIGH*

Nope. I'm neither on a coast nor actually a roller coaster in disguise.

That's it, I'm doxxing.

I can't keep track of anything for shit

I'm glad you clarified you're not a roller coaster

I'm also shivering just from looking at this picture of that drop

7:19 PM

Heh, I would rather sit at home than risk my life and sanity on that roller coaster..

My partner is a coaster enthusiast

I'm...

the opposite.

Oh, come on, roller coasters are fun!

Especially when they're colorblind Puzzling mods.

Is D colorblind?

Or you?

Deus is, Yes. Or so he claims. :P

Yes, I am.

Not entirely, but it makes color-based puzzles annoying.

7:31 PM

What, like red-green?

Yeah, just red-green deficient.

(Off-topic- Man, just watching Garry Kasparov play, with all those facial expressions, gives you the chills.)

@Deusovi what color is the shirt in your avatar?

Red.

Just curious. How do you know?

7:39 PM

(Also, that's the most annoying thing you can do to colorblind people - start asking them what color things are. Basically everyone does it. :P )

What color is magic?

Because it's not "all shades of red and green are indistinguishable".

user image

The two sides of this image look the same to me.

@Deusovi I was leading up to the 'how do you know' question, and then have a discussion about shades ;)

ohhhhh funny

@Deusovi that's interesting. I wonder what animals with 4 pigment whatevers see in that picture.

7:42 PM

I wonder if those are supposed to look similar to non-colorblind eyes

assuming i'm right about that it's a pun on there also being shades in the image

because the top left one seems to have significantly higher contrast to me

@stacksfiller Ah. That would make sense.

@Sconibulus No, that's the default "everyone should be able to get this" Ishihara plate.

The others are the actual tests.

ahh, ok

I saw the "Marv films" logo before a movie not long ago

7:46 PM

@Deusovi So you can see the 25 and 56, but nothing else?

I wonder why they decided to make their logo unseeable for some people

seems dumb...

user image

The logo in question

@feelinferrety Those are the easiest to see. There are sometimes "faint outlines" of the others, but I can't see them all at once.

You're not too bad off, then. Those are quite similar, even to (what I am pretty sure is) normal sight

If I started filling in all the circles that looked "different" in one of them, I could probably get enough of them to see the actual numbers.

@Deusovi If you are able to see faint outlines, that means your vision is okay.

7:49 PM

@Sid No - like I said, I can't see the numbers all at once. I have to look really closely at a tiny portion of it and squint to see a bit of the number.

And even then it doesn't always work.

Even for me, it would be easier to see if the image were blown up 2x

^

To my eyes 25 is more than twice as easy to see as 56, which is about twice as easy to see as 45 and 29, which is about twice as easy to see as 8, which is about twice as easy to see as 6, which is hard for me to see

user image

Here's one plate. I assume this has a number in it.

I cannot see a number. I think the outside is green and the number itself is a reddish orange, but I'm not positive.

Much better sizing. Still have to look directly at it. Doesn't work in periphery.

Except for the "easy" ones, I have to look directly at the circle to see it, and possibly even lean in to double check.

7:50 PM

Yes, it does.

@Deusovi you are correct.

user image

This is what the image looks like to me. I don't see a difference between the two (besides the second being a little blurrier and smaller), but if the simulator thing I uploaded it to works, I assume you all do.

Wow, that's hard to see (but still slightly visible).

I can still sort-of-maybe make out a number, but I wouldn't be so sure if I hadn't already seen it. :\

That is hard to see. It's only because I have already seen it that I am able to make some number out of that

7:53 PM

Actually, it looks kinda like an olive pizza.

Exactly - I can see tiny portions of it if I look closely. And if I filled in all the circles that looked different I could probably get a really distorted number out of it.

*Updates dox* Deusovi: slightly red-green colorblind

But right now, I have no idea what the number is (or even how many digits it has).

(And yes, this is only a moderate case. There are much worse cases of colorblindness.)

I know someone who wears special glasses to see color.

Would those work for you?

...now I want to steal those glasses and experiment

7:55 PM

@Mithrandir Enchroma glasses? I've heard of them. Not sure if they'd work for me. Sounds like it'd be interesting to try them out though.

which site did you use for simulating?

color-blindness.com/coblis-color-blindness-simulator

8:22 PM

you should have shown the second image first for more dramatic effect

now that we've all seen the number, it's hard to unsee

even when it all looks almost basically the same like in the second image

Well, it's not like I knew how different it looked to you.

I didn't even know if the simulator worked when I downloaded the image.

8:50 PM

Anybody still here?

I'm here.

Kiiinda need more peeps for games

PS I wanted to share this total *smh* moment: puzzling.stackexchange.com/review/suggested-edits/29758

That actually made me laugh

Like... "Who..." *headdesk*

"OMG, it's been 18 years and this guy is 18! What gives?!?!?!"

That's hilarious.

8:56 PM

Don't really care for that puzzle anyway, usually if you're referring to a room or a house number you'll say so

(also, yeah, that's a terrible puzzle)

Oh, sure. I agree, but still........

@feelinferrety games?

Games!

Games are good

Does anyone want to write up the rules for the meta?

9:01 PM

For Zendo? I've got a partially finished draft.

did you have to go through a lot of waiting for people's turns when you played it?

seemed to me like that could be a bit of an issue

it wasn't too bad, but that was definitely an issue

Anyone have a handy link to the room?

Zendo

For playing the game Zendo, where players compete to guess a h...

Thanks

Hey, could we faq that meta post?

9:07 PM

Eating dinner now. Will do it (and finish my Zendo writeup) when I get back.

Bon appetit

בתיאבון

What's for dinner?

@Mithrandir You speak Hebrew?

@feelinferrety בטח

lol

There are many languages I want to learn, Hebrew being among them.

It's very different from English.

9:14 PM

non-Latin alphabets tend to interest me the most

Good luck if you try. בהצלחה.

I married into a partially Jewish family, so part of it is wanting to be able to take part in the reading at Seder

I also happen to live in the heart of the Orthodox Jewish community of the Chicago metro area, so there's no shortage of witnessing everyday usage.

What does partially Jewish mean?

I mean only one side

Which side, if you don't mind me asking?

9:20 PM

Mother's, so yes my partner is by default culturally Jewish.

יפה :)

I just need to leave Google Translate open, don't I?

Though honestly I learned more culture from my year and a half working in an Orthodox-dominated office building than I have in 10 years from them. :)

אז אם אתה באמת עובד על זה, אתה תצליח. אבל ללמוד ספה חדשה זה קשה רצח, אבל זה ישמע כמו אתה במקום יותר טוב מהמון אנשים.

עברית זה במיוחד קשה.

Ugh, annoying that the period runs to the wrong side.

learning a new couch is hard to murder

@feelinferrety them = Google Translate?

9:26 PM

google translate poetry

@Mithrandir My partner and in-laws.

@Mithrandir The selection tool gets interesting.

@ffao saffa, not sappa, d'arvit

Also, Google Translate does not do well with slang, such as קשה רצח

I see ferret has also witnessed the AI's language skills

Sorry, I missed your saying it first.

That's gold, though.

ווי, גוגל, מה אתה עושה?

9:44 PM

23h C4 hint: This C4 would not work on any other site

Oh, hey! I'm putting together my dossier and found out that Rubio's in my area

10:22 PM

well, this hint looks more like a confirmation

but I still don't know how to get only 6 letters from all that stuff

Pretty sure it's going to be RE [XXXX]

Like RE CCCC but that sounds off

1 hour later…

11:56 PM

Anyone for Contact?

ya

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Aug '1715

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