The Sphinx's Lair

Done.

2:47 AM

Hello all

I've got a question, if anyone's here?

Howdy, what can we try to help ya with?

Do the "What is a _____ Word™" puzzles automatically do the formatting with the links up top? Or if they don't, how does one create such a format?

Copy and paste from an earlier puzzle. I built the most often used template, and it's made to be pretty easily reusable.

I'd had an idea for one, and I have another puzzle idea in the works, just not certain which to publish first as well. Word one, or unrelated puzzle? Which do you puzzling folks prefer?

So just literally copy/paste the whole thing and then put my own info in it?

puzzling.stackexchange.com/questions/53864/… - if you click the Edit link you can grab the source markdown and paste it into your own, then change as needed.

2:55 AM

Thanks! I'll post that one first then.. hopefully people don't figure it out super quickly!

This makes it easy for new setters to contribute their own. Of course it also makes it easy for inexperienced setters to post a bad puzzle. I suggest you look through the old ones to get a feel for how they work and what ones have already been done

Hrm.. Then I guess the other one would probably be a bit better to do.

Was thinking of making it part of a series, but then I realised I don't have any ideas for second and third puzzles in said series!

well; second, third, and so on and so forth till I get bored of it.

Your first two puzzles here were good, btw - glad to have you here

Thank you! I'm not a very good solver, but I can at least write half-decent ones, I guess

I especially like coming up with fluff surrounding the actual puzzle itself. It's fun creating a little story for something.

For fluff, would it be best to make it in italics?

That works. You could also put the actual puzzle in a quote box (though quote formatting is sometimes irritating to deal with).

3:07 AM

I'll probably end up doing both, honestly. And I've decided to make it a small series anyway, just for kicks

Sounds fun!

I know the people here are experts that can solve puzzles within like two femtoseconds though... Don't have very high hopes for this one.

Unfortunately not. Network delay.

...there's no way to actually do block quotes of any form, spoiler or not, is there.

Wen1now

Use >

3:10 AM

Huh? There are. You prepend > before the quote.

For spoiler, >!.

The syntax is finicky though. It doesn't like cooperating with multiple lines.

Other than the admittedly annoying approach of making the quote look like a 4chan greentext that's not even funny, if you're trying to do multiple lines.

Like
> Line 1 of the quote
> Line 2
> oh no a third line!
> [pun everyone saw coming]

Apep

You can use blockquote tags, with a br tags as new lines, as an alternative.

If you put two spaces at the end of each line and put one line break in between, it should work.

4:04 AM

Puzzle postified. Good luck to all who try it!

Q: The Million-Euro Piece of Paper

4:20 AM

1

This is the first in a small series of puzzles. I'll try to get them out as soon as I can after each one is solved! Friends, At my latest visit to my local coffee shop for something to drink one recent morning, I found a scrap of paper with some strange information written on it. I tried my ...

enigmatic-puzzle

Q: Identify this ciphered number

7:23 AM

0

200400100500300300100900500800100200500400300100200000600500300400400 Identify this number.

cipher enigmatic-puzzle

Q: Find out the Word using three clues. combination of three words

8:31 AM

0

I am 13 letter word. My first 5 letters is a hobby with playing cards other than playing, Next 4 letters are completed, Last 4 letters are the natural property of a river. What am i?

riddle word cipher wordplay word-property

9:11 AM

@boboquack (and others in general): FYI, editing a post from the Low Quality queue in a way that doesn't actually fix the fundamental thing about it that makes it low quality—a case of "repainting the Titanic as it sinks", as it were—actually removes it from the VLQ queue entirely; it acts as "a unilateral Looks OK vote". Unless you think your edit salvages it from being Very Low Quality, it's best not to do it. See here for more info.

(For rudimentary edits, just go directly to the post and edit there, but don't do it from in queue)

Q: Edit view without highlighting

or don't edit at all

Puzzling Meta

0

So I was recently reviewing a suggested edit, and it said: Included spoiler tags (hopefully got it right) Well, I hoped they got it right too. I went to click Accept anyway, and crossed my fingers, ready to make a remedial edit if something went wrong. They got it right. But how was I supp...

feature-request spoilers editing reviewing

(I edited this ^ so clicking on an image gets you a readably sized one instead of just the mini version again)

9:59 AM

@Rubio Oh sorry, didn't realise it worked like that. I'll take that on board for next time.

Yeah no worries - that was meant to be educational, not rebuking :)

I edited the post noticing that it was at -5 and therefore wouldn't put it at the top of the main page, didn't know about the other consequences.

@Rubio Thanks. I find this (v) interesting too, but that's a different and much harder to solve problem IMO:

(in the revision history of that post)

diff in general is a notoriously hard thing to get exactly right. different algorithms - or even the same algorithm on the same change but at a different position in the text - can pick different snippets as what it thinks changed. What it's indicating is, technically, correct, even if not "simplest" or semantically most meaningful

Yeah

observation: diff should prefer to offset its highlight if it means selection of fewer newlines. Additionally, it should avoid spaces unless it means selecting newlines.

10:11 AM

That would seem to work... but I'm sure someone could come up with a usecase where that doesn't work

I'm interested in such a usecase

AB\nCD\n -> A\nB\nCD

Gets highlighted as:

A B \n B ~~C D~~ \n C D

(remove spaces)

instead of

(the more obvious)

A \n B \n C D \n

First priority: fewest characters?

Hmm

I'll think about it, will come back to you

(hopefully)

Thanks

10:25 AM

(why, are you trying to write your own diff algorithm?)

Nope, just theorizing.

ASCII-only

<- tried to ~~copy~~ write a diff algorithm once

GameN all

ASCII-only

presses Win + Space

Damnit don't have it on this laptop

@boboquack GameN?

Sid

@ASCII-only Good Night is what he means

ffao

10:53 AM

That's when you know your sleep cycle is really screwed up - when an Australian is wishing you good night and you're still up

Please stop assuming everyone is an American. Oh, wait...

Corollary: Every Australian's sleep cycle is screwed up by default.

ffao

Except for the first Australian to sleep

Or maybe Australians who live alone and don't get wished good night by anyone

11:16 AM

I will also note that usually people are up when being wished good night.

12:05 PM

0

Q: the answers you wont like

Why does a ball not go backwards when you, chuck it into the air??? The windows are closed your doing 70mph; ball going up you going forward air is not a solid.... but same pliable for this!! If you are in a room not "vehicle" you do same and walk forwards it will land behind you.. whilst your at...

riddle

that seems unclear to me

Apep

It seems like a physics question to me.

He seems to be asking "why does a projectile match your forward velocity when thrown vertically into the air without wind resistance?"

ASCII-only

No physics needed what goes up must come down, your moving away... logic says impossible. But it is and it does. Air is not a solid — barrie-jon bowee 20 secs ago

wut (also yes this is definitely physics)

humn

3:53 PM

steganography in real life politics detected!

In case this hasn't been mentioned yet (didn't find any):

Apep

4:06 PM

If that message is meant for the president, who, or what, is he supposed to resist?

4:22 PM

It's not meant for the president, it's meant for the people who are opposed to him.

humn

^

(that was supposed to be " ^ ! ")

4:52 PM

Curses! Someone got it quickly Dx

@Sphinx Closed as off-topic. "I find this puzzling" does not make it a puzzle.

@TheThirdMage Welcome to Puzzling ;)

What did you think, if you'd seen it?

5:07 PM

I assumed immediately they'd be geo coordinates, I just didn't have any time to look at it

Ah. So I'd made it a bit too easy then.

The heading/distance bit I didn't get, and honestly don't know if I would've

Q: Hidden message in pictures 2

10:08 PM

1

Find the hidden sentence behind these pictures. Story starts: "I am in very big trouble. The next sentence: For full size image, right-click the image → open in new tab.

visual rebus

10:45 PM

@ASCII-only Good ~~afternoon morning evening~~ Night

Gareth McCaughan

10:56 PM

the political stego thing reminds me of this: huffingtonpost.com/2009/10/30/…

(warning: contains the word "fuck")

Well, now this chat needs a warning too :P

Gareth McCaughan

(in case it wasn't obvious, I give such warnings just because their pointlessness amuses me)

5

gasp. scandalous. FLAGGED.

11:15 PM

puzzling.stackexchange.com/questions/54333/… seeks discriminating puzzlers to put it out of its misery. 10k+rep users only, please. Have you got what it takes to do what must be done?