The Sphinx's Lair

1:12 AM

on the other hand

Assuming perfect inversion of all verbal cues

"If your prior sentence was inverted, grunt. If someone is not sure if it was inverted, they can scream, requesting confirmation. If it was intentional, you can repeat it. Else, grunt."

this is a pretty clever workaround by putting it in the nonverbal spectrum

though not sure about having the entire population be a bunch of grunting banshees

Taco タコス

1:33 AM

Improved starting state of the grid puzzle and provided an interactive version for quickly testing theories :)

codepen.io/tacosontitan/live/f301334069c178f65405dc6aa5304d1f

Well apparently the live view has an issue with click events in edge? Bleh

Debug view works fine though

cdpn.io/tacosontitan/debug/f301334069c178f65405dc6aa5304d1f

Stevo

ok

let me see

(i now am prepared to solve CCCC's )

@Tacoタコス i got it with 212 moves :)

i did it all right... but thats 100% not optimal

i think i found something

if a tile has more than 1 number,

and the surrounding numbers are 1

click them around the number

so they are blank

then press the tile with number again

which preserves everything

hm

161 moves

@Tacoタコス how does F12 work?

Taco タコス

1:52 AM

You may need to do FN + F12

If you have an FN key

But it opens the developer tools on your machine

For your browser

Stevo

ok

Taco タコス

Assuming that's the hotkey for your browser

Stevo

i dont think fn f12 works

Taco タコス

That's they typical hotkey, but not all browsers adhere to it

What browser are you using?

Stevo

chrome

Taco タコス

1:56 AM

balsamiq.com/support/faqs/browserconsole/….

Stevo

oh

that

but then what?

Taco タコス

Should have a tab named console

When you click it, you'll see your move counts

Along with the moves you've made.

Stevo

i c

Stevo

2:14 AM

135 moves...

too much

125 moves... still too much

(this is a pain in the neck)

Avi

can you please please please add undo button

Stevo

@Avi yes please!

this is the best start i believe

i just moved wrong... now time to refresh and start again

Taco タコス

@Avi but then I have to track everything lol

Avi

@Tacoタコス uh

just track move list

Taco タコス

I’m joking 🙃

Avi

2:28 AM

and replay it from original state

if you really don't want to track everything

either that or compute a delta-list

i.e., exactly which squares changed from the move

Taco タコス

@Avi this would cause a neat visual effect I think lol

Avi

which is probably much smarter/more efficient

Taco タコス

@Avi I’ll save that for the full game

The code I wrote for that is highly redundant

I’m on my phone right now, so I can add it but it’s gonna take some time 🙃

Stevo

129 moves

uh

this is dumb

125 moves is my best

Taco タコス

@Stevo let me know when you get under 70

🙃

Stevo

2:32 AM

@Tacoタコス WHAT!

70?

thats impossible!

Avi

I uh

Taco タコス

Starting the undo button, back soon

Stevo

Ok

Avi

this is what we want, right?

Stevo

hh

how?

im sad...

Avi

2:35 AM

uh

i don't know

page refreshed

Stevo

go

to developers tool

before I could f12

oh

i was uh

@Avi use the debug one

Avi

2:35 AM

trying on live version :P

Stevo

@Avi was your start like mine? becasue in the center i get 1 and 8, how did u get 2 and 9?

I am now confused

@Avi could u tell me how u started?

Avi

Move 1: T[2, 2]
f301334069c178f65405dc6aa5304d1f:155 Move 2: T[3, 2]
f301334069c178f65405dc6aa5304d1f:155 Move 3: T[4, 2]
f301334069c178f65405dc6aa5304d1f:155 Move 4: T[5, 2]
f301334069c178f65405dc6aa5304d1f:155 Move 5: T[6, 2]
f301334069c178f65405dc6aa5304d1f:155 Move 6: T[7, 2]
f301334069c178f65405dc6aa5304d1f:155 Move 7: T[8, 2]
f301334069c178f65405dc6aa5304d1f:155 Move 8: T[9, 2]
f301334069c178f65405dc6aa5304d1f:155 Move 9: T[5, 5]
f301334069c178f65405dc6aa5304d1f:155 Move 10: T[4, 5]
f301334069c178f65405dc6aa5304d1f:155 Move 11: T[3, 5]

Stevo

thx

Avi

undo button crashed the tab 😥😥

Stevo

thats what happens in live

Taco タコス

2:44 AM

Yeah it doesn’t work at all on mobile

Gotta get my laptop back out lol

Avi

sigh

Taco タコス

I'd wait for a minute as I have to frequently save to update the view

Avi

lowest i've been able to get is 46

Stevo

my lowest

is 110

Taco タコス

@Stevo work the inner rows to your advantage

They have the most adjacent cells

Stevo

2:48 AM

@Tacoタコス ok

@Avi that might be the answer

Avi

sad

i had something good going

then i clicked the undo button because i messed up a move

Stevo

@Avi oh no

Avi

... and then my computer bluescreened

fun times

Stevo

Very fun times

Taco タコス

Infinite loop lol

Avi

2:53 AM

is there some way to uh

pop the last item off of moves

and just have it render

Taco タコス

That's what it's doing, but it's keeping a reference

Avi

no redo, just undo

Taco タコス

So it's having an issue currently with infinite loops

1 sec

Stevo

300 people have starred this message

someone star it once and look at it on the star board

Avi

fast 4 me

^ star this

only 2 people though

Stevo

2:56 AM

oh

lol

Avi

3fast5me

Stevo

ok ummm

Avi

Move 1: T[2, 2]
f301334069c178f65405dc6aa5304d1f:155 Move 2: T[3, 2]
f301334069c178f65405dc6aa5304d1f:155 Move 3: T[4, 2]
f301334069c178f65405dc6aa5304d1f:155 Move 4: T[5, 2]
f301334069c178f65405dc6aa5304d1f:155 Move 5: T[6, 2]
f301334069c178f65405dc6aa5304d1f:155 Move 6: T[7, 2]
f301334069c178f65405dc6aa5304d1f:155 Move 7: T[8, 2]
f301334069c178f65405dc6aa5304d1f:155 Move 8: T[9, 2]
f301334069c178f65405dc6aa5304d1f:155 Move 9: T[9, 3]
f301334069c178f65405dc6aa5304d1f:155 Move 10: T[9, 4]
f301334069c178f65405dc6aa5304d1f:155 Move 11: T[1, 2]

Stevo

nice

44 moves

mines 71

Avi

uhh

1 takeback works

more than 1 tends to mess up

Taco タコス

3:08 AM

Yeah it's the nuances of reference types in JS

C# would make this a breeze

Even a fast clone is keeping reference some how

Stevo

89 moves

getting there

Taco タコス

Moved it to the top too

It was bugging me on the bottom

Stevo

74 moves

77 moves

Taco タコス

Okay, undo button works now

Stevo

ok

Taco タコス

3:22 AM

Okay, I'm out for the night :) enjoy :D

Stevo

bye

80 moves

72 moves

66 moves

65 moves

60 moves

54 moves

Avi

5:24 AM

41 :P

Stevo

5:49 AM

ok

lol

um

can i get under 41

is the question

Stevo

6:00 AM

no i cant :(

hi slate!

Avi

hi msh

msh210

@Avi hello

Stevo

hi

hi hello and how are u

(totally not singing a lullaby)

msh210

@Stevo hello. I'm well, thanks. Yourself?

Stevo

@msh210 Im tired after looking at the screen 6 hours straight; school

msh210

6:03 AM

@Stevo I recommend you stop looking at screens, then.

Stevo

@msh210 thats what im about to do

decided to pop in first

and take a look

at the oldest posts on puzzling

like emrakuls resignation,

msh210

That's counterproductive if the objective is to stop looking at screens.

Stevo

@msh210 alconja's newspaper... i couldnt stop myself

anyways, better time to force myself away from PSE...

Avi

@Stevo casually flexes

Stevo

look away Stevo. LOOK AWAY. Yes, go outside... no... dont come back... yes... no... come on...

Avi

6:05 AM

may have been looking at the computer for uh

8 hours now?

Stevo

@Avi casually closes the laptop in 5

4

Avi

shocked

Stevo

3, 2

1

bye!

Avi

</3

but uh

i should get back to programming

<3 y'all best of luck

Sphinx

8:52 AM

2

Q: Oh no, my puzzles are corrupted! What should I do? :(

This morning, I made three small and easy puzzles to be posted today. However, when I come back from my lunch, all of my puzzles are corrupted! :( The first one is a standard Curve Data puzzle. Somehow, all clue shapes are "blurred" and replaced by '#' symbols. The second one is a standard Yin-Y...

AncientSwordRage

9:24 AM

I'm much more confident about this one:

@msh210 wait... This doesn't have an indirect anagram, that what my solve would need

Damn, another near miss (not going to share unless you want me to?)

msh210

Up to you.

But no, there's no indirect anagram in the intended solution.

AncientSwordRage

Just for fun then: TRIAC (by Green Vehicles Inc) is a sort(apricot) without O(range) or P(ink) essentially. Green as in the company making it.

Which would violate more that just indirect anagram rules I guess

It's the whole noun Vs adjective malarkey again

msh210

C4 hint: The definition "half" is at the start.

AncientSwordRage

@msh210 that cuts off some other ideas I had

AncientSwordRage

10:13 AM

Btw, I'm really enjoying wrapping my head around this C4

Jafe

11:28 AM

TIL that there are tons and tons of varieties of peach

AncientSwordRage

@Jafe that's interesting

My two current leads aren't bearing fruit though

Jafe

(ba dum ch)

looking for one that's either a colour minus O and P(I?) plus an E, or maybe a colour minus O and IN plus G

what's the standard abbrev for pink? P could be either pink or purple

AncientSwordRage

@Jafe I had thought that A SORT => sorting algorithm => MERGE, but I can't get the wordplay to work

or A SORT => BREED, which contains the 'essential' parts of green (REE)

Jafe

interesting

AncientSwordRage

then I'm after B...D from 'peach color, without orange or pink.'

M Oehm

11:41 AM

Or if the def is A = ALPHA and "peach color" minus stuff is anagram fodder, except that it doesn't have two As. Or ALEPH is "A, sort of", but then there's no angram indicator.

AncientSwordRage

the link you supplied said that BIG RED was a kind of peach, but how you go from IGRE to 'color, without orange or pink.'

HEAP(sort) is another sort of sorting algorithm, which shares enough with peach to be tempting me

Jafe

"A, sort of" would be pretty clever but i don't get what "peach" is doing then... just modifying "colour"?

the clue reads a bit like an &lit... there are green peaches, and maybe one of them has a colour named after it

except of course a) i think msh210 generally uses the ! for &lits and b) the hint would make no sense then

M Oehm

Yes, especially b).

Anonymus 25

It should be a sort of peach. THat is the only part that makes sense. So maybe it's "color" - o - p + "essentially green"

Jafe

yeah a sort of peach is my top theory as well

M Oehm

11:48 AM

Do you think "orange or pink" is a single item? Or is it even "pink, essentially"? Nectarine has (p)IN(k) in it, but nothing that fits orange.

Anonymus 25

PEACOCK -O&P would be EACCK

AncientSwordRage

based on the hint, the def is likely one of: A, A Sort, A Sort Of, A Sort of Peach, A sort of peach colour....

Stiv

@MOehm Unless you count 'orange... essentially' as wordplay generating (or)AN(ge), potentially...

AncientSwordRage

If peach colour = pinkishorange, then removing orange or pink => ish

but also minus OR ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

M Oehm

@Stiv Yes, but they're not in order. And subtracting in any order would mean an indirect anagram of nectarine.

Jafe

12:00 PM

in addition to all the peach varieties there's also a massive massive number of words for different colours to consider

M Oehm

If it's not in /usr/share/X11/rgb.txt, it doesn't count. (That file has peach puff as rgb(255. 218. 185).)

Jafe

wp's list alone has peach, peach (crayola), peach-orange, peach puff, peach-yellow... what on earth is going on

AncientSwordRage

@MOehm I came close to doing hex or RGB subtraction and realise I was doing a C4 not a mainsite puzzle

ROYGBIV -O(range) -V(iolet, which isn't pink, but I'm at a loss otherwise)

Jafe

hm, i've actually never realised that the finnish word for peach (persikka) comes from a word meaning persian

as in prunus persica = persian plum

seems obvious in retrospect

msh210

@Jafe I never did, either.

Jafe

12:13 PM

hehe

Anonymus 25

By the way, I always thought your name was pronounced Jafey

msh210

His name is pronounced "Jafey". (Depending on how you pronounce "Jafey".)

Jafe

good thing we're in a textual medium, i doubt people actually need to pronounce it all that often (or if they do, i have follow-up questions)

it's not like in the real world where i'm constantly telling strangers how to spell my real name :P

Anonymus 25

"fey" as in 'hey"

msh210

You mean your real name isn't just "Jafe"? I thought you were one of those mononomic (is that the word?) people like Cher.

Anonymus 25

12:24 PM

Finlandiers have weird names :P

msh210

"Mononym{ic/ous}" is the word, apparently.

Jafe

hehe

AncientSwordRage

Can one word in the word play be reused?

msh210

@AncientSwordRage Not unless I messed up. Which has happened before.

AncientSwordRage

Can essentially be used on the preceeding and postceeding words?

ah ok...

Well, this might be another #JustForFun solve then...

@msh210 CASTE: def(A Sort of), C (essentially ECO (green) + ASTE (PASTEL 'A peach colour without Orange or Pink (Pastel Orange or Pastel Pink)' essentially)

msh210

12:30 PM

caste = a sort of?

Anyway, no, that wasn't my intention.

(Also, I think that would yield ASTEC, not CASTE, no?)

AncientSwordRage

@msh210 maybe just 'a sort' then?

@msh210 ...yes... good point....

I'll be over here points to corner waiting for the grownups to solve this one

:p

Jafe

i got it, it's CLING (a sort of peach)

C(o)L(or) + (p)IN(k) + G (green)

Anonymus 25

Nice!

AncientSwordRage

(where'd the orange go?)

Jafe

the o in c(o)lor

AncientSwordRage

12:33 PM

OH

color.without(O, OR) + essentially(pink) + G(reen) ?

Jafe

yeah

G and O are the standard abbreviations (ROYGBIV)

msh210

@Jafe yep!

Jafe

that was a tough one, even when we sort of got what the parsing was going to be it wasn't easy to find the correct one

although i probably should have looked at "color" in plain text sooner instead of going through all. the. possible. colours.

msh210

@Jafe :-)

Anonymus 25

Once it was solved though, you could see how beautiful it is

That is a good puzzle

msh210

12:37 PM

thank you

Anonymus 25

You have redeemed your old saw :P

(I will never stop reminding you that...)

AncientSwordRage

@Jafe makes perfect sense

that was an excellent C4, would fail to solve again :D

@Jafe I initially read this is you taking alternate letter somehow (thus my confusion)

msh210

@AncientSwordRage heheh thanks

Jafe

1:11 PM

CCCC: Horror of old, worse than asp, in front of underground labyrinth filled with goblins protecting precious metal (14)

Avi

1:42 PM

oh my god

12

Q: What are the rules to my Sudoku?

I made a Sudoku variant puzzle pictured here: Your puzzle is to figure out what the rules for the puzzle I created are. The puzzle has a single unique solution so if your rule-set allows more than one solution then it's wrong. The rules I have in mind are not very complex and are easy to underst...

sudoku reverse-puzzling

my disappointment is immeasurable, and my day is ruined

Jafe

@Anonymus25 Out of curiosity, would you enjoy people constantly bringing up which of your old clues they didn't like? Because if you wouldn't, maybe don't do it to others?

Avi

O.o

i had completely forgotten about the old saw

AncientSwordRage

@Jafe My mind is whirring but no gears are catching

Anonymus 25

@Jafe I wouldn't mind, they're horrible anyways

Avi

ok ok

have you reviewed the lessons from your ukulele clue recently

not gonna comment on the quality of it, but there were some good points they brought up at the end

Anonymus 25

1:59 PM

@Avi Yeah, I have learned

Avi

👍

Taco タコス

3:39 PM

Updating some of my old pens; what was I thinking?! lol

Much better :D

AncientSwordRage

4:03 PM

@Jafe I'm getting one word when I work from my guessed Def and another when I work from my guessed wordplay, even though they're very related words D:

msh210

@Tacoタコス "pens"?

Taco タコス

Ah, sorry, code pens; it dropped a word lol

M Oehm

@Jafe PHANTASMAGORIA = (THAN ASP)* + M(AG)ORIA

msh210

@Tacoタコス goes to Google…

Taco タコス

codepen.io/tacosontitan

It's a site to host web based code snippets

Some of my old ones have some terrible styling to them

I'm updating them :D

msh210

4:14 PM

@MOehm nice

@Tacoタコス got it, thanks

Taco タコス

Oh this was fun:

codepen.io/tacosontitan/pen/xxKRGzJ

I forgot about that lol

M Oehm

@msh210 Thanks. Took me a while to see that "worse than ASP" wan't ASP.NET MVC ... :)

AncientSwordRage

@MOehm brilliant

Kicking myself for dismissing 'phantasmagorical' and not looking any further

M Oehm

The praise should really go to Jafe for setting the clue.

AncientSwordRage

Why not both?!

M Oehm

4:54 PM

Yes, why not? Thanks.

msh210

5:53 PM

@MOehm it's a good 'un

Sphinx

0

Q: Why am I failing?

Oh no! I just got my grades back and it seems that I am failing my math class. I thought I had been doing okay, but maybe I wasn't. I think that there is something wrong with my grades. Can you help me figure out what's wrong, and what my actual grade should be? Lesson 1: 12/1675 Lesson 2: 41/459...

riddle mathematics

Chris Cudmore

6:34 PM

@MOehm I'm still maintain a few old school ASP pages.

M Oehm

To be honest, that snide remark was just a cheap shot in the general direction of ASP, of which I have only a faint idea.

Avi

7:03 PM

Found recently on puzzling stack exchange: "Vacuums are no fun... they suck."

@MOehm can you explain this?

I'm seeing (THAN ASP)* + ???? with AG inside

but not sure how you got MORIA

Chris Cudmore

Lord of the Rings - Moria is the dwarf mine overrun by goblins.

Avi

I see - thanks!

AncientSwordRage

7:21 PM

> They call it a mine!

Sphinx

7:33 PM

-1

Q: I need help deciphering what looks like a binary message

I was watching a YouTube video and it’s filled with secret messages and codes. This is code #3. The last two codes were binary codes I inserted into a translator that spit out the answer, however that’s not working for this one. 1001-10100 10011 10100-1000-101 1111-1110-1100-1100110111-1-1100110...

number-sequence computer-puzzle sequence computer-science

AncientSwordRage

@MOehm ASP.NET MVC diagrammed and laced through Mote in god's eye sequel with shrewdness (15)

Chris Cudmore

7:57 PM

Does "The Gripping Hand" play a role?

M Oehm

No, the one after that, if my Googling skills haven't let me down.

Chris Cudmore

To much indirection in the wordplay!

AncientSwordRage

@ChrisCudmore way too much!

M Oehm

"Does not compute."

Jafe

@MOehm that's correct

M Oehm

8:04 PM

CCCC: Prepare to fight, fixing uniform after drill time in area of various trees (9)

M Oehm

8:19 PM

@AncientSwordRage Scottish city ousting leaders of Royal Navy separately after firm politician gets unusually taut is a peculiar expression of shrewdness (15)

But kudos for working ASP.NET MVC into the clue.

Avi

@MOehm feel like this is farmstead or hacienda but not seeing the wordplay

"arm" could be to prepare to fight, though

M Oehm

But hacienda is one letter short.

Avi

imagine being able to count

M Oehm

I can't. (Count or even imagine being able to.)

Chris Cudmore

@Avi It's overrated.

Avi

8:33 PM

true

msh210

"various" is interesting in the C4. I wonder why it's there.

Avi

probably signalling forest or something

or the woods

sad

I have an immature clue ready if I could solve this

i think it could be provision

if area of various is V_S

oh, but then the trees is left behind

AR(BORE+??)M

really not sure how fixing uniform becomes TU

but it's definitely arboretum

AHHH

Chris Cudmore

8:54 PM

time is t

Avi

@MOehm This is AR(BORE+T+U)M

@ChrisCudmore and uniform is u

Chris Cudmore

@Avi I'm not seeing that as a common abbreviation

Avi

it has to be U

Prepare to fight = ARM

Chris Cudmore

It has to be for the clue to work. I'm just protesting.

Avi

fixing (containing)

uniform (U)

after -> end

Chris Cudmore

8:57 PM

Everything works, except I don't accept that Uniform == u

Avi

drill (BORE) time (T) in (=) def

I've seen it somewhere

it's definitely uncommon though

Jeremy Dover

UNIFORM == U in NATO phonetic alphabet

Avi

nice :)

Chris Cudmore

that's it!

AncientSwordRage

9:10 PM

@ChrisCudmore the other sequel

msh210

@Avi or "fixing… in" = containing

Avi

ahh

makes more sense

Sphinx

9:37 PM

0

Q: I thought morse code was dead?

My computer went on the fritz earlier today and all of my messages were being sent in what looked like morse code. I recorded a few test messages to confirm my suspicions once the anomaly ended and to my surprise, it's not quite morse code, it just looks like morse code: Input Output Eins...