The Sphinx's Lair

12:24 AM

boom! yes, PENTAPTOTE is it. And yes, nouns usually have six cases, in the sort of context where people use words like "pentaptote".

Both illustrative quotations in the OED are from people saying that "pentaptote" means having only 5 cases, or lacking a nominative case.

It's a probably-unfairly obscure word, though, I do admit. But I liked how the surface worked out :-).

(Obscure to the point of obsoleteness, really. Latest quotation in the OED is from 1656.)

Eric Tressler

12:39 AM

Well, I will try to limit the next clue to the Victorian era or later

Quintec

2:02 AM

Yay, hats!

Eric Tressler

2:14 AM

I have a new one almost ready, but I feel like the surface could be a lot better. I'm going to sit on it for a couple of hours. I'll post it one way or another before I go to sleep

Sphinx

2:31 AM

0

Q: Doubling/tripling puzzle: make 1 from 1536 in as few steps as possible

You start with the number 1536. Your mission is to get to 1 in as few steps as possible. At each step, you may either multiply or divide the number you have, by either 2 or 3; but, only if the result is a whole number whose first digit is 1, 3, 4, or 9. That is all.

Alconja

3:46 AM

Always nice to get feedback on your puzzles...

stacksfiller

4:06 AM

so as much as i dislike having to give hints i may want to start doing that on 280 unless yall still working / dont want them yet

hey if i give one negative hint and one hint that counts as 0 hints right?

Eric Tressler

CCCC: Refined gold in decline in former times (10)

Deusovi

yeah, I've been thinking on and off about 280 and haven't gotten anywhere :/

ManyPinkHats

4:23 AM

I'd also like some hints on 280, yeah

stacksfiller

alright, i'll do my -hint + hint then

whats a negative hint I hear you ask?

Deusovi

what, is the negative hint actively harmful?

stacksfiller

well you've done too well on one puzzle, so you've passed the answer and kept going

so you got to back it up a bit

- on the arrow down one

Deusovi

...okay, that makes zero sense to me - you're talking about the one that seems to say CANINES going downwards, right? (or maybe CANINE2)

is the answer CANINE?

stacksfiller

nope

so that's my negative hint which is in the g+ ones, would you prefer a positive hint on sxrt⑷ni,⑶txsin,r or ᴜĆ🚇H11⎕2N⠰Λ in the fb ones? first vote wins

ManyPinkHats

4:29 AM

... is DOWNWARD DOG / DOWNWARD DOGS an answer?

stacksfiller

no....

Deusovi

DOWNWARD-FACING DOG seems to be a yoga pose

stacksfiller

you still need to take a -hint

or I guess it means give a hint?

no votes on which fb puzzle?

Deusovi

no preference here

ManyPinkHats

I've got no idea on either fb puzzle, so I'd take a hint on either one

is DOGS an answer?

stacksfiller

4:34 AM

yea lol sorry

i didn't expect that to happen

ill try to codenames it then and give a little bit hint for both

Deusovi

wait, so we were supposed to get CANINES and just assume we needed a synonym?

ManyPinkHats

We were overthinking that one then, assuming the presentation played a part, yeah

stacksfiller

it was supposed to like a cluephrase yeah

I wanted CANINES AKA or something but didn't really work so i thought itd be ok

Deusovi

it looks very answery though - cluephrases are phrases for a reason :P

stacksfiller

yeah again sorry

anyway how about "link" for 2 (the two fb ones)

i love your hat hat mph

ManyPinkHats

4:36 AM

I'm looking through the Winter Bash hats rn to see if there's a pink one; hard to guess from just silhouettes

stacksfiller

what does it say on that hat

Deusovi

hm, just "link"? that seems kinda useless

stacksfiller

well it's a hint on 2 puzzles so it's really two half hints

-1 + 1/2 + 1/2 = 0

Deusovi

sure, if that's how you want to justify it to yourself

ManyPinkHats

The hat doesn't have text; it's the top bar icons for inbox/queues/trophies/drop-down

stacksfiller

4:41 AM

ah ok

Mithrandir

@ManyPinkHats They have colors on the list on Meta Stack Exchange

ManyPinkHats

Thanks, Mith. Now I must quest for the SO Goes Flapper hat (in a way that still fits with my philosophy for PSE)

Yeah, the 'link' hint is doing nothing for me. (My philosophy is that hints need to be fairly direct statements; making the hints puzzle-y themselves just frustrates me more, since not only do I not have a clue for starting the puzzle, I don't have a clue for starting the hint for starting the puzzle.)

Deusovi

^

Alconja

4:56 AM

Back on canines = dogs... is there a reasonably well known movie/game/show that's just called "dogs"?

stacksfiller

alright sure

I'll make it more general but still trying to clue both

"link on the computer"

Deusovi

I don't think codenamesing this is a particularly good idea

stacksfiller

well i love bad ideas

so it works out <3

imo the best ideas are always bad ones

or something philosophical like that

well the worst ideas are also bad ones so its not saying much

xnor

5:19 AM

in case it hasn't been said, sxrt⑷ni,⑶txsin,r has two permutations of ,inrstx one after the other, if we skip the ⑶ and ⑷

there aren't any one-word anagrams for inrstx? with any letter for ?

Sid

5:39 AM

@Alconja Huh? Any idea why someone would write such a feedback?

Alconja

Yeah, I thought it was pretty random at first, but then I realised that I had VTC one of their questions not long before, so just disgruntled venting I think... (ironically it bumped the question to the front page, which meant I got a few more upvotes for their trouble)

Next time I guess I should leave a nice comment when VTCing(?)

Sp3000

8:54 AM

So I haven't really looked at 280 yet tbh, only realising the existence of it yesterday. What needs fresh (potentially useless) eyes?

Sphinx

9:23 AM

0

Q: Connect Wall - find the groups

connect-wall

Volatility

@Sp3000 the puzzles that need solving are:
sxrt⑷ni,⑶txsin,r
ᴜĆ🚇H11⎕2N⠰Λ
U+(🥤-🍵+🍒)+(💷-🎵)(946)

first two are for the fb meta, and the last one is for the g+ meta (which also need solving)

Sp3000

10:19 AM

Useless thought: sxrt makes an sqrt on a US keyboard

Sp3000

10:35 AM

Trying to fudge and X and Y relationship with g+ where X and Y have the same number of letters, like SIMPSONS/FUTURAMA, MARIO/LUIGI, DOGS/CATS and... A BUG'S LIFE/ANTZ?? I mean, the first letters could give FALCO but that doesn't look quite right.

Sphinx

11:10 AM

0

Q: It seems kids can resolve this puzzle faster than developers

It seems kids can resolve this puzzle faster than developers So, can you solve this puzzle ? | 8809 = 6 | 5555 = 0 | 7111 = 0 | | 8193 = 3 | 2172 = 0 | 8096 = 5 | | 6666 = 4 | 1012 = 1 | 1111 = 0 | | 7777 = 0 | 3213 = 0 | 9999 = 4 | | 7662 = 2 | 7756 = 1 | 9313 = 1 | | 6855 = 3 | 000...

pattern

Sphinx

11:40 AM

4

Q: Calling all number sequence lovers!

What number follows in this sequence 93 1 855 45 593 500 241 ?

knowledge number-sequence

Sphinx

12:26 PM

0

Q: Shady business in the local paper

I work as a delivery man for our local newspaper and noticed something that has my alarm bells ringing. The embassy of Warfaretania has ordered exactly nine issues of our paper, from December 1 through December 9. While it's possible that the officials of that faraway nation simply have great ...

wordplay enigmatic-puzzle knowledge visual story

Sphinx

2:15 PM

0

Q: This compound word is a fun thing

Here is an interesting compound word It has all the 5 vowels but used only once (no repeat of the same vowel) It has 4 consecutive words that include 2 names. It starts with a name and ends with a name. Of course it has 2 consecutive words; it is a compound word afterall. I...

word no-computers

Sphinx

4:21 PM

0

Q: Time for Dessert!

Here is another puzzle which StackExchange claims is perfectly identical to my previous picture-only puzzles... The answer is one word.

enigmatic-puzzle

stacksfiller

4:52 PM

Ha wow FALCO is right as it turns out

Deusovi

6:13 PM

oh

stacksfiller

yup that is the letter you were missing

Puzzling Meta

7:06 PM

0

Q: What exactly does the [no-computers] tag mean?

What does the no-computers tag mean, exactly? The description reads "A puzzle designed to be solved without using calculators, online decoders or computer programming." Reading this literally, this is suggesting that the puzzle design itself discourages using a computer to solve it. However, i...

discussion

Sphinx

1

Q: The Inducheon Conspiracy (Who is guilty #7)

At the Korean Nation Police Agency (NPA) in Migeun-dong, Seoul, researchers discovered that 73% of the Senior Inspectors (경감, 警監) all came from the small village of Inducheon. At first they thought it was nepotism. But the truth was far stranger. In this village, the elders set puzzles for the ch...

logical-deduction no-computers

Sp3000

9:17 PM

Man I can't tell whether that's right for the right reason or for the wrong reason

Sphinx

10:48 PM

3

Q: Informal relations

Both my prefix prefix, and my suffix suffix, became so the same sec, as my infix infix. What am I?

riddle word

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