The Sphinx's Lair

Alconja

12:00 AM

non-US people refer to entree (and yes, entrée) as the dish that comes before the main meal

North

Aye

I see

So America has screwed up more grammar and words like theyve done with everything else

Alconja

"The word “entrée” as a culinary term first appeared in print around 1536, ... “Entree de table” (Entrance to the table) describes the first stage of the meal."

(from wiki)

North

Quoth North: Hmmm

So entrée is actually the appetizer. Intersting....

Alconja

at the end of the day, meh... language evolves (just bastardisations that basically become contronyms are somewhat grating)

"I could care less"

ffao

I wouldn't consider "entree" to be an evolution :P

thecoder16

12:04 AM

heheh i've always wondered about that one

i use "i could care less" then think wait, "i couldn't care less" then i get confused

Alconja

I think that's another US predominant one... I mostly hear it locally (and certainly use it myself) as "couldn't"

thecoder16

the thing is the other one doesn't make sense really

North

I could care less ---> means you do care

thecoder16

"i could care less", ok... so what

North

But I couldn't care less ---> you already don't care so.....

It's like going negative

Alconja

12:07 AM

which is why it grates more than other bastardisations (bastardiZations?)

North

My friend once told me (as a joke) that English is a combination of Germanic, Anglo-Saxxon, Normandy conquest, Latin, Greek, Media, and Internet

It was actually much longer, but that's the shortened version

Also I can't remember the long one

Doorknob

@thecoder16 it's sarcasm

as in, "haha, I could care less"

North

Why don't we all just say we don't give a shi*

Very straightforward

Or better: I don't care

Sphinx

0

Q: A Crozier Copy-Cat!

A “Crozier” Riddle. I saw this one yesterday and I wanted to create my own! Spanish plantation name for the seventeenth-century. A toy that goes up and down. The “bear” country. I represent un-real things. Who claims he wants to “catch them all”. What you hold on Jeopardy! The ...

word

Mike Q

The grammatically correct version is "I could care fewer"

4

thecoder16

12:16 AM

i hope that's sarcasm

Alconja

oh yeah, he's really being sarcastic

thecoder16

i hate sarcasm on the internet

Alconja

I invented sarcasm on the internet

thecoder16

I invented the internet

Alconja

I invented the (the word)

North

12:18 AM

I hate who ever invented the internet

Alconja

Well, you know what they say... haters gonna fewer

2

thecoder16

Don't put all your books in one oven, you know

ffao

@Sphinx not exactly earning high marks for originality, are we?

Mike Q

@thecoder16 That's killing two birds in the hand with one stone in the bush

2

thecoder16

@MikeQ Wow, you deserve the hot fibula for that

North

12:25 AM

@thecoder16 Hey! Don't judge a chicken by it's coops!

thecoder16

@North Well, better never than late.

But I'll give you the doubt of the benefit, you should go back to the writing panel.

North

Lost get go coder16the

Mike Q

@thecoder16 Well, aren't you the cat that ate the canary out of the bag.

North

This conversation: Beated my still heart

@MikeQ Ate the bullet, didn't you?

Mike Q

@North It's like they say. You can beat a dead horse to water, but you can't look it in the mouth.

North

12:33 AM

@MikeQ Well, I've been feeding a lot over the forecast lately.

@thecoder16 I'll charge you a dollar for your thoughts

thecoder16

You know, every cloud has a golden inside, but you should get the clouds out of your head.

North

This is a very cold potato, indeed

You know what they say: Louder words are softer than action

thecoder16

Then again, I've got cloud thirteen, so I'm not one to prance with the precipitation

Icwci2i, or is it lung to lung?

North

Your treeing up the wrong bark

thecoder16

You can't make a human without breaking a few bones

North

12:37 AM

And we're totally not spamming other users

That arm and a leg costed an arm and a leg

thecoder16

Nah, these are very puzzling so it's on topic

North

Stop spilling over the milking lizard

Tce16 your the cat right?

Mike Q

Give a man a fish, shame on you. Teach a man to fish, and he'll count your chickens.

North

the cat killed the curiosity

I've had it! This is the first straw!

thecoder16

@MikeQ I suppose you're going with queerity over quiddidy?

North

12:42 AM

That's the bestest bread since sliced thing

Sphinx

1:27 AM

0

Q: Tiling rectangles with F pentomino plus rectangles

Inspired by Polyomino Z pentomino and rectangle packing into rectangle Following on from Tiling rectangles with W pentomino plus rectangles The goal is to tile rectangles as small as possible with the F pentomino. Of course this is impossible, so we allow the addition of copies of a rectangle. ...

geometry computer-puzzle tiling polyomino

Deusovi

@WELZ Sure, but that doesn't make it clued at all. It's irrelevant to everything else in the puzzle, and never even remotely hinted at.

Sphinx

2:03 AM

0

Q: Tiling rectangles with N pentomino plus rectangles

Inspired by Polyomino Z pentomino and rectangle packing into rectangle Also in this series: Tiling rectangles with F pentomino plus rectangles Tiling rectangles with W pentomino plus rectangles The goal is to tile rectangles as small as possible with the N pentomino. Of course this is impossib...

geometry computer-puzzle tiling polyomino

0

Q: Tiling rectangles with T pentomino plus rectangles

Inspired by Polyomino Z pentomino and rectangle packing into rectangle Also in this series: Tiling rectangles with F pentomino plus rectangles Tiling rectangles with W pentomino plus rectangles Tiling rectangles with N pentomino plus rectangles The goal is to tile rectangles as small as possi...

geometry computer-puzzle tiling polyomino

Sphinx

2:19 AM

0

Q: Tiling rectangles with U pentomino plus rectangles

Inspired by Polyomino Z pentomino and rectangle packing into rectangle Also in this series: Tiling rectangles with F pentomino plus rectangles Tiling rectangles with W pentomino plus rectangles Tiling rectangles with N pentomino plus rectangles Tiling rectangles with T pentomino plus rectangl...

geometry computer-puzzle tiling polyomino

0

Q: Tiling rectangles with V pentomino plus rectangles

Inspired by Polyomino Z pentomino and rectangle packing into rectangle Also in this series: Tiling rectangles with F pentomino plus rectangles Tiling rectangles with W pentomino plus rectangles Tiling rectangles with U pentomino plus rectangles Tiling rectangles with N pentomino plus rectangl...

geometry computer-puzzle tiling polyomino

Deusovi

@Sphinx Really?

Sid

@Sphinx how is that not a dupe?

Sphinx

2:38 AM

-1

Q: Tiling rectangles with X pentomino plus rectangles

Inspired by Polyomino Z pentomino and rectangle packing into rectangle Also in this series: Tiling rectangles with F pentomino plus rectangles Tiling rectangles with N pentomino plus rectangles Tiling rectangles with T pentomino plus rectangles Tiling rectangles with U pentomino plus rectangl...

geometry computer-puzzle tiling polyomino

Alconja

3:23 AM

...so these lateral thinking puzzles that keep getting HNQed. They're almost always low quality (IMO), but due to the way HNQ works, they become a positive feedback loops: lots of quick answers => HNQ++ => more eyes => repeat. My feeling about this (low quality, easy to generate content) is that any given individual puzzle is not, strictly speaking, an issue, but they tend to breed copy cats which collectively reduce the signal to noise ratio and overall quality of site content.

I already downvote the question, but what other approaches should/could be taken?

Should I be VTCing, even when the "correct" answer is clearly the intended one, even if there are many other "plausible" ones?

(seems like a hard policy to maintain, when there's often loophole technicalities which could be applied to many puzzles, regardless of quality)

Should I be downvoting all the pile-on answers to try and discourage more and more stupid edge case technically correct answers?

Should this be (re)raised on meta?

Apep

Protecting the question would probably stop some of the answers after it hits HNQ, but not many users are able to do that.

Alconja

4:01 AM

I have the power to do that, but you can't do it until the question is 24hrs old

Memor-X

5:01 AM

just curious, is the feed bot here supposed to get flagged when it posts the spam questions from the site?

tripleee

the above two notices were flagged as spam ... I accepted with some hesitation as a user with the privilege to do so, but I'm really not sure that's the proper way to go. A better approach is probably to get a hold of a Room Owner and ask them to remove these messages

@Memor-X ^ exactly

Semiclassical

Clearly they're spam on the main site, but it seems a bit dubious labeling them as such here.

tripleee

the actual spam is removed already; in the future, if you want to get actual posts removed, feel free to contact the folks in the Charcoal HQ chat room

3

Semiclassical

Right.

Alconja

I seem to remember a mod saying previously that the chat bots that post site content are immune to banning via flags anyway, so probably no harm in flagging them(?)

Puzzling Meta

5:20 AM

0

Q: Should I tag my puzzle with 'chess' if it requires a 'chessboard' and not a 'checkerboard'?

About two years ago, I asked this question. The solution requires a knowledge of the algebraic notation of chess positions, but doesn't require one to know how to play chess. Hence, I had tagged the question with the chessboard tag. Now it seems that the tag has been deleted, and has been replace...

discussion tags

Sid

5:54 AM

@Alconja yup. But, I don't see why there would be any different answer than, "downvote, bring to the OP's notice that their puzzle is low quality and eventually the no. Of Bad Puzzles would due down"

M Oehm

6:38 AM

@WELZ Hmmm. I'll give you that rot13 is a bit of a staple here. When you see a message like V QBA'G XABJ, it's one of the first things to try. But in your case, it was just a wild guess. Up to that point, the puzzle consisted of a chain of hints toward imgur codes. So why expect something else now?

Besides, the image doesn't say TERRA ONE X very clearly. It has a bag of crisps (that happen to be Terras), the word ONE and an iPhone (that happens to be an iPhone X). And the result, green bark, isn't very convincing as answer.

That's why I said I wasn't very confident that it'd be right. With a good puzzle, you should know when you have solved it. (That's also why imgur-chains can be problematic: They are just random five-letter codes. You don't know whether they are right unless you check the URL.)

(By the way, five-letter imgur codes are also staples here, as are chemical symbols, US state abbrevs and airport codes. It's strange that the hint towards i.stack.imgur was placed in the second clue, after the first one already required knowing that.)

And didn't I say that I'd groan when I see the answer to the "What makes a man wise" puzzle? Well, I did. So you get letters from two unrelated sources (Morse and colours, with distracting CRT-style lines to boot), gratuitiously rot13 them and then rearrange them for good measure? Your grandpa is just making you guess. He's not wise, just senile. :)

Sid

@MOehm I would say "white hair" at least makes enough sense as a final answer to that puzzle.

M Oehm

6:55 AM

Yes, that's a good and funny answer. But, c'mon, my grandpa gives me an imgur address and asks me to pick RGB colours? My grandparents weren't like that ... :)

I don't want to sound as if I were rantig (but I probably do), but after I made the (in my opinion) valid complaint that the rot13 was a bit unwarranted, the reply that hey, everyone knows that they should try rot13 rubbed me the wrong way.

In the grandpa puzzle, all the ingedients were there, but no-one knew what to do with them. That might have been a hint that the puzzle was a bit unfair. And the hints themselves were not very halpful. "Fried eggs" -- what? I don't even understand it after the fact.

Perhaps I'm going out on a limb here with my criticism. After all, I have never posted a puzzle myself. But that's waht I'm afraid of: That I think I've created a nice puzzle, but it turns out that it's an overwrought un-fun affair.

Anyway, enough now. My inner psychologist says that I've only written so much because I want to put off my scheduled spring cleaning.

Sid

@MOehm Just pay someone to do your cleaning. :P

@MOehm Well, it's worth the risk.

Sphinx

8:55 AM

0

Q: Get 59 from 1,9,4,8 in order

I’m stuck on trying get $59$ by the numbers $1,9,4,8$ in order. I made it without order: $(-1+8)*9-4$ You can use not only the basic math operators, I tried factorial, powers, squares, logs, even binomial coefficient but that we read it from top to down. I would like for help from anyone, maybe a...

riddle mathematics

Rubio

9:15 AM

@Alconja I recently shared my thoughts on the HNQ-bait brain-teaser type "riddles" in the comments under How can the baby live?. My comments apply to anything you might find in a jokes/riddles/brainteasers collection for kids. I encourage people to read and share their thoughts, and may make a meta post out of it eventually.

Sphinx

11:33 AM

0

Q: Binary Permutations from 50-50 matches

In the IPL this year after 3 rounds of matches, the Win-Loss permutations for the 8 teams were as follows: WWW WWL WLW LWW WLL LWL LLW LLL i.e. binary numbers 1 to 8 (000,001,010,011,100,101,110 and 111) were all represented by a team. If we assume in any given fixture, there is a 50% win chanc...

mathematics combinatorics probability

Sphinx

12:25 PM

1

Q: Is this a Riley? No, it is a Tylobrien!

With three I'm a worker With four I'm against you With seven I have an anagram that steals With all eight I save you Inspired on @tylobrien template

riddle

1

Q: A king in a fort with two doors with two buttons

A king wants to go outside. He comes to the end of the fort. There are two doors there, and two buttons. These buttons do opposite things - if you push button 1, the king will come out of door 2 and vice versa. If you press both at once, you don't know which door the king will come out (or whethe...

riddle

Sphinx

1:17 PM

3

Q: Simple Maths Riddle 2

I have a definition, but I'm not literally defined. The simplest of shapes, circles and lines. A decimal you'll require; my anagram leads a choir. What am I?

riddle mathematics

Sphinx

2:34 PM

1

Q: Surprise itself is inferior to me

I am the Apple of this very country. Some sort of politeness we will all share, will we? Surprise itself is inferior to me. But for you, today, I am mostly irony.

riddle

Sphinx

2:51 PM

3

Q: With apologies (or congrats) to Riley

(Obligatory XKCD comic) To start? I negate winter's chill My heart? Its roots grow deep and sound In the end? Surely that (if you will) My code is my self until found. What am I?

riddle riley rhyming

0

Q: Another one for Riley tag

My prefix you can find in every potion My suffix is between a place and motion My inflix may push you to pick up a girl And fools beleive my whole can store a soul

riddle word rhyme riley

thecoder16

3:45 PM

I'm in a huge catch-22 for my puzzle

is it alright to post a puzzle and mark it currently unfinished for a few minutes

yay figured it out

Sphinx

4:03 PM

2

Q: A meta-meta-Riley

Read: My prefix determines$\phantom{q}$ My suffix, a group My infix blunders My whole will confuse

riddle wordplay steganography

M Oehm

Oh! I've just seen a phantom.

Sphinx

5:16 PM

0

Q: Make numbers 1-30 using 2, 0, 1, 9

This is very similar to the 2, 0, 1, 8 problem. Just try to make all numbers 1-30 using the digits 2, 0, 1, 9. Rules: Use all four digits exactly once Allowed operations: +, -, x, ÷, ! (factorial), exponentiation, square root Parentheses and concatenation are allowed Squaring uses the digit 2...

mathematics

Eric Tressler

5:56 PM

@Doorknob VTC C4 due to existential crisis

Sid

@Sphinx imgur...

Deusovi

6:19 PM

@Sid ?

Sid

@Deusovi the italics letter spell that out...

I already don't like the sound of that...

Deusovi

oh, true

but neither fQfpc nor FqFPC leads anywhere

...huh, he uses different bold tags actually

Sid

@Deusovi Yeah, tried that already. :P

Deusovi

also tried **x** vs <b>x</b> as caps and lowercase with phantom q being 9, and reversed that

and tried phantom q as 1 and 0, because why not

Sid

...okay. You have done far more than me...

Maybe, we just have to solve the riddle...

Apep

6:42 PM

I tried the double-starred F and C as 6 and 3, but got nothing.

Mithrandir

@tripleee I usually just manually delete. In the future, better to just ignore them.

Gareth McCaughan

7:32 PM

(I've added about a week of old C4 clues to the archive. Perhaps others with the awful privilege of doing so -- which I just requested so I could help get it up to date -- might take turns...)

North

7:46 PM

Hmmm

Sphinx

7:59 PM

1

Q: Something's a bit off about this

I received an email today, but I'm not sure how I'm meant to read it. The body of the message just contained ®ÞîX@èÐÂè@îÂæ@æêäÊ@Â@ÄÒè@ÞÌÌX@îÂæÜNè@Òè~. Something about it just seemed a bit off. The more I looked at it the more off it seemed. I'm not sure what it's trying to tell me.

cipher

-1

Q: a friend sent me some weird scrabbles on paper which apparently is a puzzle

https://imgur.com/a/nLkHJ These are the papers with the weird scrabbles, now, he says if I manage to solve the puzzle he'll give me 10 euros. I have no clue where to start, has anyone got some ideas?

riddle

0

Q: Riley again, this adds flavor to food

My prefix a conjuction is, an alternative thing. My infix add an l to it, there's royalty, and king. My suffix negative it is, can't add another hint. But all the words together fit and I'm a spice, like mint.

riddle word rhyme

North

@Sphinx Why? Just why? I figured out the word the second it said conjunction.

@EricTressler What do you mean?

thecoder16

8:35 PM

Sorry. guys I’m blind. The address is Imgur.com/a/xxxxx

I thought it was imgur.com/xxxxx, but it isn’t

The different bold tags are because bold*italic* doesn’t work

My illreteracy is really getting in the way of these puzzles

ffao

@thecoder16 if you make an imgur puzzle, you should use the stack exchange imgur

this way images are guaranteed not to go down

thecoder16

As you can see I have no idea what I’m doing

Thanks for tip

And oof that phantom markup lol

I have tried to make the puzzle “consistent”

Gareth McCaughan

9:20 PM

@thecoder16 Going to the imgur thing you intended yields a mysterious URL hidden behind a URL shortener. Nope nope nope nopity nope. (Yes, I do as it happens know how to turn shortened URLs into full-length ones. I don't think this is a thing solvers on PSE should be expected to do.)

... though as it happens the URL seems to link back to the original question.

Sphinx

0

Q: Help me beat my friend at hide-n-seek!

Throwing back to the days of childhood, I recently challenged my friends to a game of hide-and-seek. As the play area was restricted to my neighborhood, I quickly found all of them. One of my friends, Grey T. Hider, has requested me for a rematch. Being as competitive as I am, I agreed. He propos...

riddle word

thecoder16

9:37 PM

@GarethMcCaughan it wasn't intended to be mysterious, just a hint

Gareth McCaughan

Hmm. I just don't like setting a precedent for encouraging people to click obfuscated links...

Sphinx

0

Q: I am confuse on the F2L algorithm on 3x3. Could i have some help?

I have spent 2 weeks trying to learn F2L. I just can't understand it. I have tried 42 YouTube videos and none of them explain it well. Could i have some help understanding it? Thanks!

rubiks-cube

thecoder16

10:03 PM

@GarethMcCaughan ok, won't do it again

Sphinx

10:23 PM

0

Q: Riley word, this helps run things better

My prefix is not an animal and it is not a thing. My infix a process that happens to all, cheese, wine, even the king. The suffix is under the house, but when it's cut in half. And all together it's a thing, you need to run your staff.

riddle word rhyme

ffao

10:46 PM

I went to add the next week of clues to the C4 archive, but turns out that was when wen posted a clue and disappeared for two weeks

well, that was easy :P

thecoder16

11:04 PM

i'm now interested in what ffao's other two letters stand for :P

North

11:50 PM

Yolo

Rubio