The Sphinx's Lair

Q: All the moderators have been kidnapped!

12:08 AM

@msh210 I can do enough of your sonnet puzzle to be pretty sure I'm the wrong person to try to do all of it.

(Which is to say, not all that much.)

Avi

12:21 AM

@Mithical Did this question ever get solved?

I'm a bit worried. I just got an email from mods@puzzling.stackexchange.com. It looked like this: Dear Puzzling Users: Hello - you don't know me, but I have been watching your site for months. I have looked at new puzzles, monitored the election, read new answers, read chat transcripts, ...

2 hours later…

Q: My suffix is infantile paralysis

2:28 AM

My prefix is a parking lot for ________, My suffix is infantile paralysis with a _______. If you remove the letter ____ form my whole, You get the anagram of the property of water. What word am I?

riddle word poetry

Q: Setka - Complete grid using clues and sudoku-style logic; Theme - Fear Itself

This is a Setka puzzle; you can find more (along with a more detailed explanation of the rules) at our website, linked from our profile. Theme: Fear Itself How to play Setka, the short version: Answer each clue using only Puzzle Letters and vowels. Clue answers, minus vowels and duplicate let...

word wordplay sudoku crosswords logic-grid

1 hour later…

Q: Does it exist a way to find the least number of trials when a certain weight is requested?

3:43 AM

I'm not very sure how to tackle this sort of problem: It is as follows: At a groceries store there is a two pan scale and two weighs which are of $250\,g$ and the other of $500\,g$. It is known that the store has only $5\,kg$ of sugar on sale. Find the least number of weigh trials that...

optimization weighing

2 hours later…

Q: A possible 5-bit binary code

5:56 AM

This image and puzzle comes from Level 18 of a game called Boxentriq. I have solved the preliminary mastermind puzzles on this level to reveal the sequence of pawns and bishops shown here, which, based on the spacing, I assume to be a 5-bit binary code, giving a 4 letter word. I have exhauste...

cipher alternate-reality-game

Mithical

6:27 AM

@Avi mostly

1 hour later…

Q: My subordinates keep my sanity in check

7:29 AM

I’m neither a star nor a planet But my subordinates surround me They keep my sanity in check If more were to join, I become pessimistic If some were to leave I‘m overly optimistic Who am I? Who are my subordinates?

riddle word poetry

Q: A joke riddle about a serious thing

8:26 AM

My prefix means to work together, and when written in full words, it means something almost rectangular. My infix is neves semit thgie semit enin in Italy, and when written in full words, it means something usually rectangular. My suffix is indivisible, and when written in full words, it can end ...

riddle wordplay

2 hours later…

10:55 AM

Q: Playing blindfolded 2048

Suppose you are playing many 2048 games, all blindfolded. As usual you can press left, right, down, or up to move the tiles. When there are no more moves the game terminates and you are told your score. This is all the information you get. What should be your strategy to maximise your average sco...

strategy game-theory

3 hours later…

1:44 PM

Q: ...vs VTE(next)

What do these letters and numbers below represent? After you've figured that out, replace the three question marks! LXE 329, CIE 266, PNS 260, KPE 141, HCQ 132, LZE 122, FVS 111, DIG 101, VTE 100, DBE ??? Note: You'll find this online!

knowledge cipher pattern

1 hour later…

2:56 PM

CCCC hint: The first letter is P.

1 hour later…

4:14 PM

@msh210 I think the solution must be PHIL OCHS, who wrote a song called "I'm tired" and whose name can be subdivided differently as PHI LOCHS (letter pools), but I don't know where the "painting angry signs" comes from; I think I lack the requisite [knowledge]. He wrote a song called "I ain't marching anymore" which I thought might be about protest marches and say something about being tired of painting angry signs, but it turns out to be about marching to war in an army.

(I had wondered whether we might be looking for someone who made paintings using what here in the UK we call tyres but in the US are called tires, but apparently not.)

hexomino

4:40 PM

@GarethMcCaughan Apparently he has a song called "The War is Over" which mentions "Angry artists painting angry signs"

Ah, that'd do it. I didn't feel like going through all his many songs and checking all the lyrics, though I did look at a couple of the ones with more promising titles.

Q: A set of eight related to eight

The 36 words below comprise a set of eight related to eight, a set of seven related to seven, a set of six related to six, and so on. Which word belongs to the set of one? ABILITY ALTO ARCHING BANANA BONE BOSC BRAN COMPUTER CONFERENCE CONY ...

knowledge wordplay language

1 hour later…

5:57 PM

@hexomino … which, if you read the lyrics, he's tired of. So, yes, you (pl.) got it.

John Dvorak

"using" as a connector?

6:13 PM

I don't mind at all whether hexomino sets the next one or I do.

Just out of curiosity, what was the hint that would have been a complete giveaway?

(I don't think anything would have been a complete giveaway for me; I had never heard of Phil Ochs before.)

Quintec

6:47 PM

Hint: The answer is Phil Ochs

Rand al'Thor

Damn it, I saw rot13(GEVIVNY) and looked briefly for others but didn't find them because I'm a moron. Anyway, you want rot13(gur Wnpxfba Svir naq Fhcre 8). — Gareth McCaughan ♦ 19 mins ago

@Gareth If you're a moron, what does that make the rest of us? :-)

I found another set now, but it's veeeery tenuous and I wouldn't be surprised if it's wrong.

My strategy is to look for the rare/unexpected words and try to find sets for them. That's how I found the set containing BOSC, and also the set containing VIAL.

Next target is CONY. I keep wanting to put BAL with it to make a more common word, but BAL doesn't go with anything else.

@Quintec True enough, that would have been sufficient.

7:15 PM

@GarethMcCaughan restating the clue with "painting angry signs" in quotation marks

Even if you'd never heard of Ochs, Googling would be trivial.

@JohnDvorak definition using wordplay, yeah: it uses the wordplay

No?

@GarethMcCaughan wait, then how'd you get it?

7:39 PM

@GarethMcCaughan well, you can say what you've got and invite collaboration, if you want…

Q: How can I find which person belongs to a specific occupation when the clues involve degree of friendship or acquaintance?

7:58 PM

The riddle is as follows: Brenda, Lara, Mie and Nancy have each one profession. These professions are, baker, graphics designer, photographer and cosmetologist. But not necesarily in that order. Lara and the graphics designer known each other. They are godmothers. The phot...

logical-deduction logic-grid

Q: How can I find which sport and what hobby does correspond to a certain group of friends when a set of given clues is provided?

How can I find which sport and what hobby does correspond to a certain group of friends when a set of given clues is provided? The riddle is as follows: Marina, Mike, Roger, Phillip and Justin has each only one hobby from the following list: motocross, badminton, swimming, atletics and karate b...

logical-deduction logic-grid

hexomino

@GarethMcCaughan Definitely you. I can't take any credit on this especially after my catastrophically wrong answer.

8:23 PM

@msh210 I was expecting it to be a person's name, probably a musician because of the [music] tag in the hint. I had P-I- for the first word. There aren't actually many words or names matching those letters, so I was like 80% confident it was going to be PHIL something. So I put <<<phil musician site:en.wikipedia.org>>> into Google and scrolled down the list looking for surnames looking like ---S.

8:38 PM

@msh210 I guess. I've posted a super-duper-partial answer. Perhaps Deusovi will come along and solve it in five minutes; it's the sort of thing I would expect him to do well. (One of many sorts of thing I would expect him to do well, actually.)