The Sphinx's Lair

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Avi

01:08

"just" seems extraneous?

maybe "Lost lover breaking art is too much (5)" - except, that falls victim to the cooked/cooking thing :(

oAlt

01:22

@jafe same... I pronounce the "oo" in poor like the "oo" in "loop" and the "ou" in pour like the "o" in "core".. that would be the only sentiment I have with the clue @bobble

other than that, as others have said, the surface is fine :0

Deusovi

02:05

"poor" and "pour" are homophones for me (both rhyming with "core") - definitely a dialect thing

oAlt

02:50

Sphinx

03:22

Q: A Puzzle about "Codeforces Subsequences"

I'm quite intrigued by an "easy" problem in recent Codeforces contest: Codeforces Subsequences. In this problem, you have to create a string $T$ as shortest as possible such that $S = $ "CODEFORCES" appears as the subsequence (not substring) of $T$ at least $K$ times. We actually don't care about...

1 hour later…

oAlt

04:34

@msh210 well, ABE containing SU hasn't taken me anywhere :P

@Avi seems fine to me

Sid

05:24

@msh210 I was thinking baseball. Ideally, it should be "Run, for eg" but I think "Run?" Is sketchy but okay

msh210

@Sid How is "home" a type of "run"? Maybe there's baseball terminology I'm not familiar with. As far as I know, "home" is one of the bases (as in "he ran home") and "home run" or "homer" is a type of "run". I've never heard "home" as a type of "run" — but maybe I'm behind the times dialectwise.

Alconja

I guess it depends on your etymological interpretation of the phrase "home run". If "home run" is specifically differentiating from a normal "run" where you just cross the plate, isn't that implicitly classing it as a type of run (even if you never explicitly refer to it as a "home"). Is "sports" a type of car?

msh210

05:39

@Alconja Ohhh, I get it now. Thanks.

Well, is "sports" a type of "car"? If a clue said "car", could that clue SPORTS?

oAlt

msh210

These are the weighty issues affecting all of civil society and it is up to us to resolve them.

Mithical

@Alconja Wouldn't a run be a base hit, as opposed to a home run where you cross the plate?

Alconja

Continuing my earlier thought... I would personally say that the term for the type still needs the full phrase since it's such an ambiguous adjective based "type". But that, I think, highlights the root of the problem... When a type is unique, it sounds fine by itself but a type built off a more adjective structure sounds weird. E.g. granny smith apple vs green apple (granny smith as a type seems fine; but green doesn't sound great).

@Mithical Not a baseballer (is that even a term?), but isn't a hit where you are allowed to start running bases, and a "run" is when you finish crossing the home base? Where as a "home run" is when you hit and make it all the way home in one go?

I.e. Person A hits and moves to 1st base. Then Person B hits and A goes to 2nd/3rd/home to score one "run", but B goes 1st/2nd/3rd/home they score a "home run".

Mithical

05:55

Possibly

On second thought, with the existence of terms like "RBI", yeah a run is crossing the plate

Been over ten years since I was at a baseball game. ;)

Sid

06:18

@Mithical I thought Home run is the one where they hit the ball out of the field and then run 1st/2nd/3rd/home base

Mithical

Well, it doesn't necessarily have to be out of the field - just if it's out of the field it is definitely a home run because there's no way for them to get the ball to tag them out

2 hours later…

Sphinx

08:05

Q: See me once, See me twice #15

See me once, greetings to my brother in town See me twice, my effect is weighing you down I'm prepared to give a hint in a day, if needed. Usually my riddles are solved very quickly though :) Good luck and have fun. If you are not familiar with my See me once riddles, I recommend you first have...

riddle word rhyme

2 hours later…

jafe

10:31

apparently wikipedia calls the poor/pour thing the "cure-force merger", although if you browse earlier revisions you can see it referred to as the "pour-poor merger" as well

TIL

(or i suppose YIL, but TIL what it's called)

2 hours later…

Sphinx

12:10

Q: The 15 Pebbles Game

This is a game for 2 players - Each player uses a different coloured marker or pencil. Players take turns to colour 1, 2 or 3 pebbles(player chooses how many). When all pebbles have been coloured, the winner is the one who colours the odd number. For example - If you get seven and your opponent g...

number-theory

oAlt

Ughhh, I have too many three letter word spaces

msh210

12:31

@oAlt The good news is, if you get rid of one of them, you lose another automatically. (Usually.)

jafe

one solution: combine some of them together

e.g. if you have ICE and AGE in the grid you can just have one clue for "ice age"

Gareth McCaughan

13:26

@jafe When I speak, the vowel sounds in "cure" and "force" are much further apart than the ones in "pour" and "poor".

Sphinx

Q: Find the unique passcode

"Is this the Coldport Lost Property Office? I think I left my puzzle-book on the train this morning, and I was hoping someone had handed it in." The speaker was a tall gentleman with a six-sided flat cap. "It is," said Sally, who was (wo-)manning the desk that morning. She sighed slightly. "H...

mathematics no-computers

oAlt

@msh210 @jafe true

And I'm going to be stuck with combining some since for some reason I can't get this grid to become neat and have less three-letter spaces at the same time

never mind, I have reduced it and I think that's about as few as I can achieve.. seven

but I'm satisfied now

Deusovi

13:55

@jafe Huh. "cure-force" are completely different from me. "Cure" is probably somewhere around [kjʊ̘r], with the [ʊ] being fronted? (Or maybe it's closer to [ɵ]? Not sure, vowels are pretty difficult to analyse.)

I've definitely heard of people pronouncing "cure" with a "force"-like vowel though.

@oAlt Hm, mind showing it?

Sphinx

14:15

Q: Cryptic Family Reunion: Pocket Edition

The answer to this puzzle is a list of ten thematically related words or proper names or phrases. Each of these is clued cryptically, and the theme is to be determined. Since the definition part of a cryptic clue would give away the theme, these cryptic clues use a family member (e.g., mom, siste...

knowledge cryptic-clues

ABcDexter

15:02

@Deusovi thanks :D

Sphinx

Q: Anagram a specific word to describe a current event

My first submission. If the answer is offensive during these trying times, I will gladly leave the community. Take a word, anagram it, add the original word to create a phrase. Bonus: Take the original word, anagram it again to describe the peoples answer to it.

anagram

ABcDexter

The last leg of the Puzzle Ramayan has started : logicmastersindia.com/PR/202006

1 hour later…

Sphinx

16:14

Q: Swapping the first and last digits of an integer

Take any n-digit integer (n > 1) and interchange its first and last digits. If neither of these is 0, and they are different, does it happen infinitely often that the resulting number is a multiple of the original one? If so, for each n (say up to n=20, unless a general solution is provided), wha...