The Sphinx's Lair - 2021-01-19

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12:55 AM

1

Q: 4x4 square with no increasing triples

Can you fill a 4x4 grid with numbers from 1 to 4 such that: Every number occurs exactly once in each row and in each column (Latin square). No row or column contains 3 adjacent numbers that are all in increasing or decreasing order. For example you cannot have "1, 2, 3" or "3, 2, 1", but you can...

combinatorics latin-square

1:20 AM

0

Q: 8x8 square with no adjacent numbers summing to a prime

Can you fill a 8x8 grid with numbers from 1 to 8 such that: Every number occurs exactly once in each row and in each column (Latin square). No two adjacent (horizontally or vertically) numbers sum to a prime. Good luck!

mathematics combinatorics primes latin-square

9 hours later…

10:34 AM

0

Q: Four touching circles

Three identical circles are placed such that they touch each other. A larger circle is drawn around the smaller circles such that it touches them, as shown in the diagram. Can you find the ratio between the radii of the smaller circles and the larger circle?

mathematics geometry

Anonymus 25- Reinstate Monica

11 hours since the last message, that's a new record!

2 hours later…

12:40 PM

0

Q: Divided by Pie Squared. Aaahhh

I have a machine that can divide a square pie into 9 equal square pieces using 4 blades: The blades can be moved, but there is only one control - which defines the width of the blades in both dimensions We simply have to set the width, then place the centre of the pie at the centre of the blades...

1:30 PM

Jan 6 at 15:23, by bobble

@Anonymus25-ReinstateMonica don't chat just to chat. Rooms can be quiet for a bit and that's fine - don't try to force talking because you're bored.

1 hour later…

2:46 PM

1

Q: Three to Seven in five or less

Can you change the word Three to the word Seven in five steps or less with the following rules: You must exactly replace two letters; one vowel and one consonant of the word in each step with a different consonant and a different vowel. The new vowel or the new consonant can go in the place of e...

no-computers word-ladder

3:12 PM

0

Q: As seen in a dream

Almanac Blancmange Curie Dynastic Eruptions Flamboyance Giraffe Heredity Ingenuity Javelin Kinetic Lavoisier Nursery Osmotic Polishes Quiz Recuse Standard Theses Unravel Vaccines Wisconsin Xenophobic Yacht Zebra -- Which of those above can I accept, and why? Know that in a sunnier month I can acc...

wordplay enigmatic-puzzle

Prince North Læraðr

Eyyyyyy

My Chain Puzzle hit HNQ!

Hey bobble!

applause

Prince North Læraðr

It has a lot of upvotes per view. I've never had this big flow of upvotes ever since my mod-kidnapping attempt

Maybe I would get more views if I kidnapped Deusovi instead -_-

Don't take Deus, we need him!

Prince North Læraðr

Should I take kidnap you instead? :P

3:17 PM

Can I do online school from wherever you kidnap me to?

Prince North Læraðr

Yes. I give free WiFi to all my kidnapees

I'm not a monster

Then sure, that's fine

Also, Skeptics is really slow on approving suggested edits

I suggested on on the 11th and it was only approved yesterday.

Get your act together, people!

It's really a pretty small site. The HNQ traffic just makes it seem bigger.

They are sort of perfectly made to HNQ a lot

Prince North Læraðr

Why do you say so?

3:26 PM

Their point is to look at claims that people care about and fact-check them

Prince North Læraðr

Ah, I see

So since people care about the claim, they click on the link to go see what people have to say

Prince North Læraðr

I though skeptics was like questions about atheism

no, it's scientific skeptism

whatever that means

Prince North Læraðr

Hm

3:28 PM

they're FactCheck.SE

Prince North Læraðr

Lol

@bobble precisely

There's also a great (well not great but funny) meta question where the OP eventually ends up accusing the mods, and the site regulars in general, of being a skeptic of theories that have no evidence behind them.

The response was "... well, yeah?"

Prince North Læraðr

Okay bobble, I'd better get five more upvotes to balance the -200 rep :P

?

-200?

Prince North Læraðr

3:33 PM

Ah. Bounty :)

ah

Prince North Læraðr

I really liked your Marching Bands question anyways and felt bad that it never got more attention

which one?

I have 2

Prince North Læraðr

The second one

D: that one had a mistake on posting

should be fixed now though

Prince North Læraðr

3:35 PM

<3

Thank you so much for everything :)

I suspect that one got less attention because of how big it was

I knew that solving it would require a large time investment

0

Q: 10x10 grid with square root sum of lines integer

This puzzle is inspired from Dmitry Kamenetsky's 8x8 square. Can you fill a 10x10 grid such that: All numbers are integers greater than 1 Every number occurs at most once in each row and in each column The square root of the sum of all numbers in a row is integer The square root of the sum of a...

mathematics combinatorics optimization

3:51 PM

what are some good tags to use for a Vowelbuger(tm) puzzle?

Prince North Læraðr

Eh, don't worry about the Vowelburger puzzles

I just bumped one to Markdown-ize its table and it only has word, seems like there should be other tags

Prince North Læraðr

Probably just word or word-properties maybe. Honestly, I think just word is fine

[word] indicates the answer is a single word

doesn't really apply

Prince North Læraðr

ehhh

shrugs

I don't really worry about tags in PSE :P

3:58 PM

(also: it's word-property)

Prince North Læraðr

(ah oops)

0

Q: 8x8 grid with adjacent numbers summing to square numbers

This puzzle is inspired from Dmitry Kamenetsky's 8x8 square. Can you fill a 8x8 grid such that: Every number occurs at most once in each row and in each column The sum of two adjacent numbers is a square number All 64 chosen numbers are not square numbers All square numbers are unique Ticked a...

mathematics combinatorics optimization logic-grid number-property

4:14 PM

@PrinceNorthLæraðr ah, but how good is said wifi?

Prince North Læraðr

As good as the one you use sat home, however strong that may be :P

interesting

Good morning :D i love the Portal chain puzzle!

hey mick :) i just saved you from the black hole of hugs

Thank you, Captain Matt :P

Prince North Læraðr

4:24 PM

'borg!

Thanks

Would you like to help with tagging Vowelburgers, 'borg?

specifically this one I just bumped

Sure, what are those?

Ahh, I see. These are fun :D

I'm glad your saga of converting to Markdown tables continues, screen readers everywhere thank you.

screeny must be very excited

I'm getting a stronger prescription in February once my insurance covers it, so I'm hoping that will help to reduce the Screeny days :p

yayyyy

4:31 PM

How is your Minecraft solar system going?

well i saw two options for powering the minecart rails:
a) redstone blocks under everything
b) redstone torches every eight blocks or so
neither of them looked very good though

(yes i'm in creative)

Ah, makes sense

Is the USS Cerritos accepting crew applications? :P

i'm not sure but probably yes

i would like to humbly leave my science officer application on your desk

alright then :)
what's your rank (ensign, lt., cmdr., ...)?

4:36 PM

i am only an ensign, Captain

hm

but i do bring one of my bobblies, Cuddles

they love science

could prove useful

the other bobblies in my apartment walls decided not to join me on this expedition

why not?

4:40 PM

Not sure, they might be multiplying

Prince North Læraðr

@Sciborg How many bobblies do you have?

what is going on with my markdown

They keep appearing in my apartment so I've just accepted them and have started giving them all names

Prince North Læraðr

hehe

@Sciborg it's also, from the clips i've seen of lower decks, a bit old

4:52 PM

0

Q: Is this an infinite family of numbers?

Are there infinitely many integers with the property that the block of its first k digits (for all k, 1<=k<=n, where n is the number of its digits) is either divisible by k or a prime? An example of such a number with 9 digits is 149,251,283. If not, what is the largest number with this property?

5:39 PM

> There were a few answers, or a couple answers, you could say.

Please enlighten me as to how a "few" answers and a "couple" answers is any different

According to some random answer on english.SE, and I quote, "Couple is certainly fewer than few."

3

Q: Skyscrapers in Sudoku!!! - SS#10

An entry in Fortnightly Topic Challenge #47: "Wacky Sudokus" Other puzzles in this series Welcome to the tenth puzzle in this series! For more information about the series, see the first puzzle and the introduction. Enjoy! 9 really blocks the view yknow... Google Sheets link RU...

logical-deduction grid-deduction sudoku

0

Q: As seen in a dream

Action Almanac Blacksmith Ball Chow Curie Dynastic Drainpipe Eruptions Emerson Freer Flamboyance Garner Giraffe Ham Heredity Indias Ingenuity Javelin Kinetic Koala Lavoisier Levi National Nursery Osmotic Orchard Polishes ...

wordplay enigmatic-puzzle

^ Déjà vu

6:08 PM

0

Q: Black board attack

Find a way how should black attack all the squares in chessboard (unoccupied squares must be in check by black piece/s) with only ten legal moves for black starting from position as shown.

@bobble Certainly in the UK, 'a couple' usually means 'two', whereas 'a few' means 'three or more'.

Can some people who know how undeleting works help here?

Or somehow direct them to chat more firmly?

@BeastlyGerbil thank you for the skyscraper Sudoku. I am liking it so far.

6:23 PM

@Stiv @bobble same in my (U.S.) idiolect, at least

3

Q: Didn't you ask me for a crossword?

An entry in Fortnightly Topic Challenge #47: "Wacky Sudokus" Here's that crossword you asked for... Sorry, what's that - you didn't ask me for a crossword?? TASK: Solve the puzzle (COMPLETELY) to find a concealed 9-letter word which tells you something that this puzzle is not... Across A) Sh...

logical-deduction word grid-deduction sudoku crosswords

6:43 PM

@sid no problem! It's personally my favourite out of all the wacky sudokus I've ever done, I just really liked the concept of thinking of the numbers as buildings :)

And another great solve from @JeremyDover :P Although I hope any others who tried it enjoyed!

I'm trying to pack in as many solves as I can while Deusovi is away at the MIT puzzle fest :-)

You had a nice one on Stiv's puzzle...that was a neat one.

The variant tomorrow will seem pretty tame and boring in comparison, but the final 3 should all be quite interesting, especially 12 and 14

I'm just impressed he managed to find a grid for both! There must be very very few that exist in a solvable way so it's incredible he's managed to put them together

I had to back up a bit for the Pento-Doku, and remove some clues... they were going to allow a solver to skip past a bunch of interesting logic. Not sure if it will be out on time, as I will only release if I am satisfied with the solve path

6:59 PM

A complete puzzle is always better than a rushed one so don't worry too much if you miss the deadline!

My current problem is there are several spots that I had marked out as clues, and I have logic that depends on clues being there... but actually placing any clue there will destroy earlier logic. So problems

In creation I just try and make sure theres as much interesting logic possible to start with, because the more clues that are filled in the less likely it becomes that someone will follow your intended solution path

@BeastlyGerbil took me quite a bit of hair pulling before I got it, hehe. :P

But if you can guarantee theres something interesting at the start that is required to solve, then it'll be an interesting sudoku either way

@Sid haha it took my a while to figure out the major logical steps when I first attempted one, but once you work out the key things it all falls together nicely :P

7:14 PM

0

Q: 2020: a year in moderation

As we say goodbye to the old year and welcome the new one, we have a tradition of sharing moderation stats for the past 12 months. As most of you here are aware, sites on the Stack Exchange network are moderated somewhat differently to other sites on the web: We designed the Stack Exchange netw...

discussion moderation statistics

@BeastlyGerbil, I think you have the wrong click-through picture now - it leads to this

Thats not even a picture I've seen before huh

Did I get a link that already exists?

I dunno what happened

Anyways, I think it's a mistake

Oh definitely but I have no idea how thats happened as I uploaded normally and don't recognise that photo

Ummm...

Every picture I upload is that image

No matter the picture

Sounds like a meta question is needed

Or is there something that'll work quicker?

7:26 PM

wtf

Is it just me?

I also get other images when uploading one

hell will break loose on meta soon

Ok not me

Quick, go to main meta!

7:27 PM

I got this one

user image

Who will write the meta question first?

Or something else?

That's the only avenue I know of for bug reporting

user image

Uploaded :P

Uploading directly to chat works

@LukasRotter there are much worse images to get :P

@BeastlyGerbil I'd suggest linking to some examples

7:29 PM

or a recording or something

converted to gif

also add the [images] tag

I linked the image I keep getting

I shall watch this meta question with interest

@LukasRotter ahaha thats a great comment :P

Could you test to see if uploading to chat works for you, gerbil?

7:32 PM

:) Now I actually got bobbles exact picture above on a new attempt. wtf

Add to meta question?

user image

Thats not what I uploaded ahaha

I presume we'll get many more

This is quite fun tbh

You never know what you're gonna get

ahahaahah

free advertisement

7:39 PM

Thats amazing :P

What are the chances

this is ridiculous. A question about how uploading a puzzle image to puzzling.se fails gets reproduced by an image of a puzzle with contains the Puzzling.SE logo inside of it.

IT'S A CONSIPRACY

if all other explanations fail, I guess I'll have to be the scapegoat for obvious reasons :P

@LukasRotter are you sure you haven't hacked SE so that every image ultimately leads back to your puzzle? :P

2

and there we go :P

7:45 PM

I should be writing an economics essay right now, but honestly I'm having too much fun playing upload roulette

Well, I think we can assume it has something to do with what other users have uploaded previously. Otherwise I wouldn't have gotten bobble's pic, and Glorfindel not mines (which I used for testing). So in a few minutes you may see Glorfindel's real screenshot :P

Put that ^ in a comment for the meta question? Seems important

Did that

well, under the answer

Prince North Læraðr

I'm so confused

This is a wild bug

I'm glad I'm here for it

7:47 PM

They must all pre-exist I agree, but we're getting a lot of coincidences

Like we're getting pictures from people that we recognise

And think of how many users and images there must be

I don't just mean pre-existing, I mean that someone has uploaded that pic very recently (I tried my puzzle pic like 1 min before Glorfindel's answer), maybe site-wise

In chat here, the first time someone tried to upload an image it worked

Then the next times it didn't work

(I mean my image, first since we discovered the bug)

Some of the images I'm getting on puzzling aren't english so I don't know if that holds

Prince North Læraðr

Ah

then maybe network-wide, I dunno. Me getting bobble's picture and Glorfindel mine is just too much of a coincidence imo

7:51 PM

I agree with that

6

Q: I am getting the wrong image when uploading a picture

I have just tried to upload an image on Puzzling (although have checked and it is happening in both chat and on other sites) and it generated a link to a picture I have never seen before. It doesn't matter what picture I upload, I get given the same image. This is also happening for other people,...

If it is that is unbelievable

the main-meta question, for reference

Prince North Læraðr

Huh, what a weird bug

Quite a fun one :P

There doesn't seem to be anyone its not happening for, so def seems site wide

7:55 PM

If anyone gets an OCEAN pic, lemme know

0

Q: Unable to Upload Image

I am attempting to upload a couple screengrabs to an Answer, and no matter which image I try to upload (tried on multiple computers and multiple browsers), it looks like what's below. Looking online, I can't find any explanation for this behavior. The post I'm having a problem with is below. Mi...

someone else got the same image that you had initially, gerbil!

hell will break even more loose on all other metas, because not everyone knows theres a "meta meta"

Prince North Læraðr

A what now

True, this could be very confusing for people

Prince North Læraðr

There's a Meta for Meta SE?

8:00 PM

@bobble ooooh thats very interesting

No, I mean "the meta of all metas, the meta which rules them all", i.e. network-wide meta

imgur is migrating the stack.imgur.com to fastly, and something broke the upload, we're investigating — m0sa ♦ 50 secs ago

There we go

8:15 PM

user image

Interesting.

You have started the Upload Roulette, I see

@LukasRotter I got one that says HURRICANE... i.stack.imgur.com/TlR11.jpg

Thats what I got to start with

And I think someone else got it too

8:30 PM

Seems to be an issue with imgur, which means stack might have its hands tied for the time being

8:47 PM

oh, btw @BeastlyGerbil, your FTC suggestion actually caused me to get more interested into Sudokus and into the YT channel CTC, which I greatly enjoy.

I was however unpleasantly surprised when Simon said this in a recent video :P

Funnily enough it worked vice versa for me, CTC got me into wacky sudokus :P

If only you could could have an audio snippet alongside you profile pic....

Image issue appears to be fixed, if people can confirm?

yep

9:03 PM

Umm... Did the URL for puzzling meta change or am I tripping? It seems to be puzzling.meta.stackexchange.com rather than meta.puzzling.stackexchange.com

Although meta.puzzling redirects... was it always this way? xD

I have no idea, but very possibly :P

Yeah, the meta site URLs changed a few years ago, from meta.puzzling to puzzling.meta

@LukasRotter it changed in '17 or so

Which meant, among other things, the untimely demise of Metaphysics SE ;-)

wow, ok. I noticed that one early.

9:21 PM

Is there some kind of image-uploading chaos happening, or is it just me :P

@Sciborg what image did you get

it should be fixed now...

4

A: I am getting the wrong image when uploading a picture

Imgur moved our (*.)stack.imgur.com image hosting instace from CloudFlare over to Fastly. Due to a misconfiguration they were caching the image upload API requests from our back-end servers for a while. Kudos to Imgur for rolling out a fix before we did, we had an upload-URL-cache-busting PR read...

Seems fine now, but it was apparently wild a few hours ago

Ahh, imgur migration. That explains it

It was fun (though obviously really not useful) while it lasted :P

9:25 PM

Could have made a fun game of Image Roulette :P

Five points if you get a Nurikabe

Ten points if you get a game screenshot

20 points if you get an official Sciborg Doodle

Gareth McCaughan

This question puzzling.stackexchange.com/questions/106723/as-seen-in-a-dream is a revised version of the now-deleted puzzling.stackexchange.com/questions/106716/as-seen-in-a-dream. Someone (I will not say who in case they prefer to remain anonymous) has flagged it asking whether a mod could undelete the old one "so that there isn't a reposted puzzle", but I am unable to see how that would do any good. [... continues]

If we undelete the old one, edit it, and delete the new one then we have the same situation as now -- two versions, one deleted -- except that it happens to be a different one that's been deleted. If we undelete the old one and don't delete the new one then we have two different versions extant at the same time, which would be really bad. [... continues]

I agree that it's not good practice to delete a puzzle and post a lightly revised version, rather than just editing the original, but once it's done I don't see what is to be gained by undeletion. Does anyone see something I'm missing?

That's fair. My knee-jerk reaction was "this should not be here" and the flag was not entirely thought-out.

Gareth McCaughan

Good to know I'm not missing something obvious :-).

I was a bit confused by the reupload too. The revision was minor enough that OP could have easily edited the original with a correction.

Gareth McCaughan

9:29 PM

I don't think the deletion-and-reposting does much harm in this instance. The cases where it really matters are the ones where people have posted answers to the original version.

True, yeah.

People also have tried it to get around the old question being downvoted/closed

(which doesn't work, but they try anyhow)

Gareth McCaughan

Sure, but that's an entirely different pathology and the problem there is what they're trying to do, more than the mechanism by which they're trying to do it.

Also they said they were unable to undelete due to rep

which I don't think should be a problem? I thought you can always undelete your self-deleted stuff

9:31 PM

(Although not sure if thats true for own posts?)

Yeah I'm not sure how true that is

I'm pretty sure there's no rep ceiling for undeleting your own posts? but i could be wrong.

cries another declined flag

I had a perfect record for so long (though this isn't my first declined)

@GarethMcCaughan I agree. What I normally do as a mod in such situations is to post a comment warning the OP not to re-post, but I'll only bother deleting-undeleting if that would make a significant change to the circumstances of the post (e.g. the old one is heavily downvoted or closed, etc.)

Gareth McCaughan

9:49 PM

FWIW I didn't decline that flag; I'd been going to mark it as "helpful but no action required".

that's an option? nice!

1

Q: Why is “HADAT” the solution to the crossword clue "went after"?

I was doing crossword from NY Times, from Mon, Feb 11, 2019 by Howard Barkin + Will Shortz and I got the following clue. Went after The answer is "HADAT". However, I can not find definition for HADAT that fits the clue. Various links (ex. reference) shows me this is a common word used in crossw...

crossword-clues explanation

Gareth McCaughan

wait, that one hasn't been declined, so far as I can see, so if you have a new declined flag it must be another one.

no i was just anticipating it

my declined flags are in general NLN comment flags

10:37 PM

@Graylocke, care to drop a hint for your CCCC?

I was just working one out... tbh I would edit myself, on reviewing it. :/

0

Q: A challenge that's hard

So this challenge is you have (don't have to) make the numbers 1 - 100 and i'm stuck on how to make 51. Can anyone help me P. S. You can use +,-,÷,x,! And others you can think of. P. P. S. You can do this in a google doc and share it with me. Email: aidenbrewer@sbsd.net

mathematics calculation-puzzle number-sequence formation-of-numbers solvability

Should I give my hint as what I would reword it to? I am not very happy with it >.>;

sure, there's a precedent for that

Jul 23 '20 at 12:16, by jafe

CCCC hint: "strained" might have actually been a better fit than "stressful" here

example

CCCC hint/repost: Final moment's score below standard. (6)

10:46 PM

hmm... was "but" intended as a splitter? I think so

Hmm...

Now I think it's a word for "standard" before a word for "score", with "below" as an indicator that would work in a Down clue

equaling "final moment", of course

alternatively, a ddef with "final moment" = "score below standard"

I will not help anymore because I think one hint was enough ;p

> (Question) I'm stuck on how to make 100. Can anyone help me?
> (Me) This looks like a puzzle you found elsewhere, and for such puzzles we require attribution.
> (OP) No this i thought of

I don't believe you

... that's a weird conversation >.>

11:09 PM

@bobble Why not? There are lots of similar puzzles with other sets of input numbers. It's certainly plausible that this OP changed them slightly to make this one himself.

2

Q: In the sea or in the sky

In the sea or in the sky Sometimes also in your eye. Melancholy feels like me But energy I have plenty. Into me you have vanished Out of me you're astonished What am I?

riddle word rhyme

@msh210 Because they're asking for help and for us to make a Google Doc with our answers and share it with them

asking for help does not in general equal an original creation

@bobble Sometimes I come up with an idea for a puzzle that I don't know how to solve myself.

@Randal'Thor ^ this

Bunch of examples here.

11:12 PM

I admit I may be biased because of their insistence on asking for a Google Doc and sticking their email in the question

Both quite annoying

also, they changed the question at one point - it was asking for making 51 and now it's asking for making 100

blegh

reject-plz, btw

Thanks bobble.

@bobble Someone inexperienced with SE norms, that's for sure. Doesn't necessarily make them a liar.

blegh, I'm leaving that question. Don't want to deal with it

11:33 PM

> floor, ceiling, square root, nth root, nPk, nCk, gamma, zeta

Is it just me or does it actually sound like a part of poetry?

Prince North Læraðr

Hehe

Sounds like a math-themed spoken word slam poem

Prince North Læraðr

Also, why would one write it as nPk and nCk instead of like "permutations" and "combinations?" I'm not familiar enough with higher math, but that looks like calculator talk

Or like the Pokerap of mathematics

Prince North Læraðr

Also what is gamma and zeta?

11:35 PM

@PrinceNorthLæraðr You should ask in TNB :P

Prince North Læraðr

TNB?

The Nineteenth Byte

Prince North Læraðr

Ah

Code Golf's main site chat

Prince North Læraðr

Oh, is that coding talk?

11:36 PM

Permutations and combinations may refer to the general concept, while nPk and nCk specifically refer to the number functions

Prince North Læraðr

Ah, I see

@PrinceNorthLæraðr how dare you disrespect my language like this :p

Gamma and Zeta mean Gamma function and Riemann Zeta function

Prince North Læraðr

@Sciborg Coding talk. Boooo

What a nerd

Nov 12 '20 at 3:55, by bobble

Are we all nerds?

11:38 PM

I'm angry at your obvious correctness

how dare you

Prince North Læraðr

Ha, nerd!

Secretly cries inside for not having a life

Oh btw 'borg I made new updates on my score to feature a new piano solo :D you should check it out :P

Oooooh :D

Same URL?

Prince North Læraðr

Yup

I shall take a Listen

that whole song is such an absolute banger

does the piano come in around 2:00? i'm starting to hear it

Prince North Læraðr

bar 81

11:44 PM

ooh, yup, 2:30 is where solo starts

i like it :D

and ending too a little bit

Prince North Læraðr

Ah that one's not done yet

It sounds hella good so far though!

Prince North Læraðr

thanks!

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Jan '2119

The Sphinx's Lair

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