The Sphinx's Lair

Q: Find the result of this dual key cipher

4:07 AM

I came up with a neat little cipher that I'm calling the dual key cipher. The basic premise is that there are two cipher keys that, when used together can decode the cipher text against a given alphabet. Here is a basic example. Key 1: CAT Key 2: DOG Alphabet: ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ Cipher T...

cipher pattern puzzle-creation algorithm puzzle-history

Q: Four Directions #17 - Where and what am I?

4:46 AM

To the East is a place where arrows may flow To the West you may see Beelzebub hitching a ride To the North is a view if your vision's not clouded To the South is a place where language was born I'm known for my color and was named for my diminutive residents Where and what am I?

riddle knowledge geography

4 hours later…

word wordplay number-sequence cryptic-clues

9:01 AM

Q: Mathematical cryptic clues

Programming language, after removing loss for you, reverses time (6) Complex arithmetic begins, Turing tests start beforehand (7) Quadruply male doctor Einstein, familiarly (11) Lie on a 100/100 imaginary item (9) Between 3.14 and 2.718 is risky mathematics, originally (5) Arctan map...

2 hours later…

10:58 AM

Q: Reasoning of puzzles

120,10,3，？，？ 41,23,61，？ 011010,100010,100010,100010,000010，？，100010 1001,4524,4299,3984，？ 123456，？，93332736,3359978496 I have been thinking about these five questions for a long time, but I still can't get an accurate idea. In the fourth question, inside, what I want is to convert groups of...

logical-deduction

7 hours later…

6:10 PM

@Randal'Thor Fancy meeting you here.

Rand al'Thor

waves

tSL seems quiet these days.

Shh, you'll wake the sphinx.

The Sphinx doesn’t like to be awakened. It tends to start asking ... questions.

Rand al'Thor

If you want to add some context, you need clicky linx.
If you're feeling a bit sleepy, just take forty winx.
If you need to wash your hands, go and find some sinx.
If you want some fun in winter, get out on the ice rinx.

That sphinx is a saucy minx under a jinx.

Your humo(u)r stinx, methinx.

Gareth McCaughan

6:18 PM

conspiracy theory: Rand al'Thor == humn.

Oooh. I mean, we seldom see them in the same place, right... I can get behind this theory.

Rand al'Thor

@GarethMcCaughan humn often inspires me to get poetic.

But thanks for the mcCaughmpliment.

So y’all, riddle me this

(For 10kers) puzzling.stackexchange.com/a/81366/30633

This ... indecipherable mess of typos and thought fragments took over 18 hours in the review queue to finally be deleted. And pulled one “looks OK” in that interval.

(If you can’t see that, the “answer” was:

>I think it is
>
> becaus eit not it is because it does that where it does the thing. because schools are and janiotras are not bad because it does that goodenes. janiotras are cool it because it does that where it ra and schools are not it because it does that where it rans.
>
> okay?

Not exactly an emergency to get dealt with, but at the same time it seems like 18 hours is a long time for something like that to be visible and be in a review queue but not get enough good reviewers on to be dealt with. Any ideas how we can ... (ew) increase engagement here?

6:36 PM

Look. You deal with my draft process, I take care of reviewing. Deal? ;)

Well. That edit didn’t do what I wanted at all. Oh well.

@Mithrandir draft process?

Like, army draft?

Yeah

Yeah I just realized the little I know about that process there, you’re hitting that age eh.

When does that happen?

I was supposed to have a first summons a couple weeks ago, but I pushed it off till the 17th because I have some doctors to see first.

Then it's a process that lasts roughly a year and a half.

So instead of heading to the summons I went to try out for the elite cycling team instead. :P

How intensive is all of that? I mean, I have no direct experience but I understand that e.g. in the US Army, the Basic Training interval is several weeks during which you’re effectively single-mindedly focused on just getting through it, so no real time for anything outside of that. Curious if, with largely everyone of that age going through it, if your experience will be similarly rigorous or if it’s a little more relaxed

6:47 PM

@Rubio So, there are a few different steps.

(This'll be easier to type on the laptop... hang on)

Take your time, I gotta run out for a half hour ish. Having said that, if someone wants to respond to my original question on review/moderation activity and how we might nurture more of it, that’d be cool too :)