The Sphinx's Lair - 2021-03-18

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12:16 AM

0

Q: Inscribing an octagon in a rhombus

Let's have a rhombus with sides AB=8 and with two opposite angles 60 degrees each and the other two opposite angles 120 degrees each. What is the maximum area of an octagon that can be inscribed in the rhombus? The octagon is convex with all sides equal. NOTE: Include complete geometrical drawing...

mathematics geometry optimization

1 hour later…

Anonymus 25- Reinstate Monica

1:33 AM

My friend said: I know the best torturing device! I asked, what is it? And he replied: Cryptic Clues

6 hours later…

7:22 AM

@Jafe It doesn't seem to, alas.

0

Q: Another encrypted things

Inspired by encrypted fruits and vegetables, this simple puzzle encrypts a set of things having a common topic. So, please, figure out the topic itself (unlike the linked questions, clues are comma-separated here unless the commas are within parentheses, braces etc.): 🤘, $\boxed{6}+\alpha\to?$...

rebus science emoji

Anonymus 25- Reinstate Monica

7:42 AM

I'm making a slitherlink for my next puzzle, following Deus's guide, but I'm running into a lot of contradictions in the corners :(

Corners are tough

You can always start near the corners and propagate towards the center

Anonymus 25- Reinstate Monica

Ok, thanks!

8:40 AM

0

Q: Slitherlink: The Couple of Question Marks

This is my first slitherlink puzzle. I made it myself. Feedback is appreciated! (I hope this one has a unique solution, unlike my other past puzzles, wink). Rules of Slitherlink (taken from Nikoli): Connect adjacent dots with vertical or horizontal lines to make a single loop. The numbers indic...

logical-deduction grid-deduction

9:30 AM

@Stiv typo in "Another encrypted things": element 19 is potassium, not phosphorus :P

Anonymus 25- Reinstate Monica

10:17 AM

I have officially created my first sucsessful puzzle! :D

@oAlt @hexomino Thanks for spotting and fixing that! (facepalm) At least I had the symbol correct!

10:41 AM

@Anonymus25-ReinstateMonica What's the difference between an empty square and one with a question mark?

11:12 AM

0

Q: What's an Oedipus word?

This is in the spirit of the What is a Word/Phrase™ series started by JLee. If a word conforms to a special rule, I call it a Oedipus Word™. Use the examples below to find the rule. $$ % \def\Pad{\P{0.0}} \def\Title{\textbf{ Oedipus }} % \def\S#1#2{\Space{#1}{20px}{#2px}}\def\P#1{\V{#1em}}\def\...

1

Q: Placing 9 cars into a 4x4 carpark

A carpark is arranged in a 4x4 grid and has a single entry/exit as shown in the diagram. A car has the size of a single cell of the grid. Cars can move through adjacent empty cells of the carpark either horizontally or vertically, but not diagonally. Cars cannot move outside the car park, except ...

mathematics combinatorics

1

Q: Progress Towards Insanity

When the fever starts to spread this year, you're gonna need to call an expert! FERUPTEMEFOLCANIMEFATERIAMEFINVOLVEMEFIMEFAMEFINDOOMEFCHILDRENMEFGAMME ILWAUKABETEASHELPBALLLAYASSISTRHOSSERVELUBASOORLDSBOOSTRIESITLSUPPORTS DEMPRIVADINASDLEFADIRDELLAGULLYDWRETADCIMPOTARDCIDA LIKECNAHCITINRARISENIL...

word knowledge enigmatic-puzzle

to table a proposition is to stall it, and the initials of "sports team accepts loss leading" spell out STALL, but i don't get how the middle part would work in that case

D is an abbreviation for down so "drop down" could mean we remove D from something to get a word for "table"

useful terms for sports teams include the A's from oakland or perhaps a common abbreviation like FC

it has to be a very short word if we're meant to put a word for "loss" inside that

11:30 AM

CCCC hint: The word 'sharp' could actually be removed from the clue entirely and it would still work in the same way. (I debated removing it before posting, in fact...)

0

Q: smort bee honey

You have decided that you want to become chubbee, but not too much. You will need to eat exactly 10 liters of honey in order to achieve the desired effect. The bees produce 10 liters of honey on request, with an additional amount as a gift. But since bees can only count until 5 they spread th...

decanting-problems

Anonymus 25- Reinstate Monica

Because I need to show that the snake passes by those squares — Anonymus 25- Reinstate Monica 18 secs ago

11:47 AM

@Anonymus25-ReinstateMonica If that's what you mean by "?" then you should indicate in the question post that "?" means a number >0.

There's no way to guess that, especially since you indicate some 0s explicitly.

the snake passing by those squares is forced by the 3 and the 0 next to the two ?'s, btw

Anonymus 25- Reinstate Monica

So the ?s aren't needed?

@Jafe If "to (sharp) drop down" somehow clues L then we have STAL from initials + L = table. But it doesn't AFAICT.

Anonymus 25- Reinstate Monica

But that's the puzzle title :(

You could always change the title.

Anonymus 25- Reinstate Monica

11:50 AM

Maybe someday, cuz I can't change the puzz.link

12:02 PM

@msh210 it possibly could as sharp drop down is like a vertical line ~ l

a sharp drop down could be "dip"

Anonymus 25- Reinstate Monica

12:19 PM

Or a plunge

1

Q: Tapa on a Penrose Tiling

An entry in Fortnightly Topic Challenge #51: Non-rectangular grids. This is a standard Tapa puzzle, on a non-standard Tapa grid...the "grid" is a Penrose tiling! Since the grid is not rectangular, we need to interpret the standard Tapa rules in this scenario. Your goal is to shade some of the til...

logical-deduction grid-deduction

1:20 PM

@Sid interesting! But then the "to" is extra.

Yes that's true.

Though I guess the "to" could mean "abutting".

Yeah, I think this works (and if it is indeed what @Stiv intended then I think it's @Sid 's).

"abutting" as in Connector or like "Next to"?

like next to

STAL to L

A bit weak, but I think it's valid.

hm, is there a sentence where "to" by itself means "abutting"? not sure there is

1:28 PM

thinking

"pull up to the curb"?

sketchy, that

seems to me like "up to" is serving that function there

but not terrible

no, "pull up" is the verb, I think

hm, let me think of a better one

yeah, it seems to me like 'up' is almost doing double-duty in a weird way?

"stick something to the wall"?

i think "stick to" is a phrasal verb there

you can't just use "stick something"

Anonymus 25- Reinstate Monica

1:31 PM

"Leading to" could mean placing TO in front of the word

@Deusovi maaaaybe

@Anonymus25-ReinstateMonica ...it could, but that would be weird grammatically, and that's not what we're currently talking about

@Anonymus25-ReinstateMonica could but right now we are trying to make STALL work.

I agree "to" to connect parts of wordplay is weak. I probably wouldn't use it. But it may be what Stiv meant. And I think it's valid (though I'm not positive).

yeah, i do think my parses can be argued against - it's possible, just very weak and i would avoid it

1:34 PM

@Anonymus25-ReinstateMonica TO in front of . . . something accepting loss. That's probably be TO_L_ with a two-letter word meaning "Sports team". TOALS? TOFLC?

My biggest problem (with this C4) is that I'm having trouble accepting "(sharp) drop down table" as a definition half but anything else seems like it'd be too much wordplay for a five-letter answer.

Anonymus 25- Reinstate Monica

Yeah, if STAL is the initials of the first part, then "leading" is an indicator, and "to sharp drop down" should clue L, wih "table" as def, but if TO really is a leading part, then maaaaybe "sports team" could be def, and "accept" could be placed after the TO, then a sharp drop down table

But the comma is tempting me to think it's a ddef

@Anonymus25-ReinstateMonica Punctuation in cryptics is often misleading

@msh210 I think it has to be: [wp] leading to [wp] = drop-down table.

@Sid Like a Murphy table?

Anonymus 25- Reinstate Monica

@Sid Interesting! That makes TO_WP

1:40 PM

@Sid wait, no -- Stiv's said "sharp" is unnecessary.

@msh210 Possibly, yes.

@msh210 Ughhhhhh. Fair enough.

Anonymus 25- Reinstate Monica

Oh wait, yeah

It's not STALL, by the way. Just a weird set of initials that happened to spell something there by chance, I'm afraid!

Anonymus 25- Reinstate Monica

@Ankoganit help put us out of our misery :p

@Stiv Oh!

In that case, leading to = connector between def and wordplay?

1:41 PM

5 mins ago, by msh210

My biggest problem (with this C4) is that I'm having trouble accepting "(sharp) drop down table" as a definition half but anything else seems like it'd be too much wordplay for a five-letter answer.

Anonymus 25- Reinstate Monica

Or maybe TO in front, as I said

@Sid Unneeded, too much wordplay, as msh said above

@Anonymus25-ReinstateMonica Yes but a 2-letter Sports team would be... hard to find.

@Anonymus25-ReinstateMonica I said it seems like it. I'm perfectly willing to be convinced otherwise. :-)

Anonymus 25- Reinstate Monica

Stiv, you're an old saw :p

Ba dum tish

@msh210 Yes but then with Stiv's hint about Sharp being unnecessary, it's likely that the entire phrase is a definition.

1:46 PM

FYI Sid has said several wise things in this discussion...

@Sid The reason I had trouble accepting is as a def is: what can "sharp drop down table" define?

Anonymus 25- Reinstate Monica

There is a DS sport, so maybe TOADS? But then WAIT no just thinking of ADS as in advertisements

@Stiv as in other discussions

Anonymus 25- Reinstate Monica

Maybe the "wp"?

@Anonymus25-ReinstateMonica huh?

1:47 PM

Sid has also said some other stuff you need to ignore though - so have fun discerning which will help you! ;-)

@Stiv as in other discu--- wait, no

Anonymus 25- Reinstate Monica

Or the I, or maybe the "next to" connector, or "leading to" connector, or that the phrase is one whole def

Only helpful things Sid said^^^

@Stiv duhhhhh

It's discussions like this that make me suspect lots of the words I use are probably Britishisms that I've never been aware were so... Hope you can crack it!

Anonymus 25- Reinstate Monica

Hmmmmmm

Thinks with head in hands

1:50 PM

sports team SIDE accepting L for loss -> SLIDE = sharp drop down table?

not sure why "table" is there though

Surely, that's it

Anonymus 25- Reinstate Monica

Aaaaaand jafe butts in with the solution that makes perfect sense :P

@Jafe I think it could mean "table" as in a points table.

@Jafe YES!

Anonymus 25- Reinstate Monica

@Jafe As in Docs, Spreadsheets (table), and Slides

Oh wow, the old saw has been trashed

Ba dum tish again

1:52 PM

(This one should have been solved much earlier, hehe)

I specifically included table for the sports reference and overall reading. (It may have been a mistake?)

I don't get how table is part of the definition?

Anonymus 25- Reinstate Monica

It confused us, so maybe ;P

As in a sharp drop down the league table

@Stiv oh that works! and no Briticisms

1:52 PM

Ah

Hm

Anonymus 25- Reinstate Monica

Is Briticisms really a word?

@Anonymus25-ReinstateMonica why wouldn't it have a plural?

Anyway, I hope that doesn't cause too much lingering angst - thanks for running with it. Over to Jafe!

CCCC: Tiny bird, small and quiet, on top of new pier (9)

@Stiv I ran a script I made to find words that can have an "l" inserted to become other words (is that frowned upon?) and explicitly considered "side" as a synonym for "sports team" and missed "slide" as a definition lol

@Jafe SANDPIPER = def "tiny bird", S+AND+P+IPER*

2:01 PM

that's right

CCCC: Law that is, with its negation, removing England from English person behind bad guy (6,6)

(hopefully this one's fair)

BILL+IE+EI<+LISH

@Ankoganit Yup! You're up!

Nice clue :)

I don't get the definition.

2:05 PM

"person behind bad guy"

"bad guy" is one of her songs, and I wanted to exploit the fact that it's written in all lowercase

@msh210 Bad guy is the name of a song by Billie Ellish

got it

ahh

Anonymus 25- Reinstate Monica

Anko's turn

I know

Anonymus 25- Reinstate Monica

2:16 PM

Plays "Bad Guy" on Spotify while waiting for next c4

2:35 PM

CCCC: Agitated tirade, with furibund heart inside (8)

@Ankoganit diatr(ib)e* &lit

nice clue!

(and I had to look up "furibund", had no idea what that meant.)

yowza that was fast

@msh210 yep!

@Jafe the indicators were standard: agitated, heart, inside

this one wouldn't be allowed in some publications but hopefully it's okay here:

uh.

normally we don't have too much of a prohibition on certain topics here, but this seems to me to be crossing the line

(even if it's just a surface thing)

2:40 PM

You can delete it if you like, and I'll do another instead.

. . . done. The answer to that CCCC, btw, was SWEDE.

I had that one prepared, but no others: I'll have to think of one.

Okay, again not great, but:

CCCC: "Broadband, cable, woo!" (4)

3:03 PM

there's a John Woo and John L. Cable... assuming without checking that there's a John Q. Broadband as well :P

@Jafe You got it!

No, you didn't.

heheh

2 hours later…

4:40 PM

0

Q: I go to (and I am in) many places

I go to (and I am in) many places I know (and have) different faces You may think about me every day You may even need me to keep sane I live around rockets in outer space I am often talked about during a race What am I?

riddle word wordplay rhyme

3 hours later…

7:36 PM

0

Q: Can we always choose 2 numbers from 25 numbers with the following properties?

Given 25 different positive numbers, can you always choose two of them such that none of the other numbers equals either their sum or their difference? All answers are welcome but brownie points to answers which are intuitive. An intuitive answer, according to me, is one that is not just easy to ...

3 hours later…

10:58 PM

2

Q: When should this question be answered?

If you hover your mouse over the time marked in the right-bottom corner of this post, then you will see a string showing the exact time that I post this question, which reads 2021-03-18 22:32:47Z. See this post for more details on how to check the exact time of posting. Ignoring all non-digit cha...

mathematics computer-puzzle

11:28 PM

@msh210 I think this is ddef for COAX, which is a "broadband cable" and also means "woo"/entice

11:57 PM

@HTM yep!

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Mar '2118

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