The Sphinx's Lair

oAlt

12:35 AM

Nice

CCCC: A man getting hate, crazily! (8)

Deusovi

ANATHEMA (compound anagram &lit)

oAlt

@Deusovi correct

Deusovi

nice clue!

oAlt

Thx, surprised at how it (kinda) worked out neatly

Deusovi

eh this feels slightly messy but

CCCC: Perhaps, a type of wood trimmed counter! (4)

Sciborg

2:38 AM

Seems goofy, but what about PINE ("perhaps a type of wood" = def, "trimmed counter" = (-O)PINE).

since "opine" typically means "to speak in opposition to", which fits "counter" i suppose?

bit of a stretch

oAlt

i was thinking trimmed on both sides, but that seems to work too (and a better fit)

Sciborg

Could also be trimmed on both sides, but i can't think of any plausible six-letter words that contain "PINE", "TEAK", etc.

"counter" could also just be the def and mean something straightforward like "slab", maybe

oAlt

3:19 AM

mm

bobble

have your considered an &lit?

Parcly Taxel

Is it permissible nowadays to just dump a very hard sudoku (no variations whatsoever) onto PSE for others to solve?

(put "very hard" in quotes, it might not be very hard)

bobble

3:51 AM

If it's interesting - some nice trick etc. - it'll be received better

Parcly Taxel

Does "I generated it randomly through Simon Tatham's program and Andrew Stuart's solver rated it Extreme" count?

(This was done when I made my Puzzle Waffle)

I know that computer-generated puzzles typically have multiple ways of attack, so would asking for "as clear a solution as you can" work? (Stuart's solver needs crazy strategies like "Finned Swordfish", "Digit Forcing Chains", "Bi-value Universal Grave" to solve the Sudoku I have)

Deusovi

i don't think computer-generated puzzles are acceptable

something like "what's the next step in this Sudoku" may be alright, but we don't want mass-producible puzzles in general

at the very least, it would probably be seen as low-effort

@ParclyTaxel That's... disappointing. You had "An accepted answer will include a workthrough of the Sudoku in this puzzle", but it sounds like you didn't know that there was a "nice" path through the puzzle.

Parcly Taxel

4:08 AM

@Deusovi The "hard Sudoku" was only a fancidul side project

Deusovi

Computer-generated puzzles are not guaranteed to have a path through the puzzle that doesn't involve lot of painful bruteforcing.

It was a "side project", but one that was required for an answer. That's the reason I stayed away from the puzzle (because I don't particularly like Sudoku).

Parcly Taxel

The "hard Sudoku" was a 9×9, not a 6×6

Deusovi

Yes, I realize that you're talking about two different things here.

(I misunderstood "side project" as "a small part of the Puzzle Waffle" at first, but I was aware that there were two separate Sudoku puzzles being discussed)

Parcly Taxel

OK. Now onto another thing: do enigmatic-puzzles naturally attract less attention?

Deusovi

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

how much attention puzzles get varies wildly by time of the day, day of the week, clickbaitiness, and whether the random number god has smiled upon you

if you're referring to your recent puzzle, i've looked at it and not made much progress besides the obvious decoding. it looks like there's a reference that i need to get to proceed, and based on the clue it's very unlikely that i'll be familiar with it

Parcly Taxel

4:16 AM

On the "special animal": there's Morse code on the top

(The "very hard Sudoku" is 9...5...8..1.2..5..6...4..1.7....3..1.......6..9....8.7..6...9..2..9.6..3...7...5)

Parcly Taxel

4:39 AM

Like any one-dimensional code there are two ways to read that, one of which is obviously wrong

Deusovi

@ParclyTaxel yes, that's the "obvious decoding" i've done

ahh i think i see now

Parcly Taxel

The bottom-left image is not required to solve the puzzle proper, but hints at an algorithm

(I recently tidied up the songs on my computer and now I'm really hooked to some of them. Currently listening to Nelly Furtado's Promiscuous)

Sphinx

4:58 AM

0

Q: This'll Keep 'Em Busy

But for how long? Let's take it from the top! Be ready to allocate something just short of 1.7KB of memory for this task, you eager beavers you.

Sphinx

5:22 AM

0

Q: A Sequence That Keeps Changing?

So I get this special sequence of "items" as the following: 2 1 3 4 7 8 2 5 2 3 9 But look! If I put some numbers (randomly) in front of the sequence: 3 4 2 1 3 4 7 8 2 5 2 3 8 And yeah! It's changed! ... Wait... The sequence is oddly shuffled now... Oh! And longer?! 3 4 2 1 7 4 3 8 2 5 8 3 ...

pattern number-sequence sequence

Jafe

7:52 AM

@ParclyTaxel i first read that as the song title being "Nelly Furtado's Promiscuous" and was like "wow, that's really rude of whoever songs that"

Jafe

8:44 AM

and by songs i mean sings... d'oh

Parcly Taxel

8:57 AM

@Jafe Yes, I should have put quotes there…

Sphinx

0

Q: What is the relationship between these numbers?

Find the relationship between the following numbers, and the number which replaces the ?. 1726 (3176) 4342 2162 (7516) 7995 1725 (?) 8418

mathematics number-sequence number-property

oAlt

10:35 AM

oh boy, looks like first letter indicators are not the only indicators i'm about to overuse

cough hidden word indicators cough

Jafe

that's something i'd never do

May 5 '20 at 15:50, by Gareth McCaughan

@jafe I do think that your puzzles generally lean rather heavily on substring clues.

...oops

oAlt

hehh

Jafe

how's your crossword going

oAlt

still not too fast but actually making progress :0

Jafe

did you throw the old one away altogether?

oAlt

10:41 AM

I was thinking of doing exactly that, but i decided against it and thought to repurpose it for another time... gotta remove that one phrase which was so hard to clue elegantly

but yeah i thought it was too harsh to put it in the trash

Jafe

least you can do is salvage the good clues before scrapping the whole thing :)

the c4 looks like a type of wood without the first and last letter backwards, but can't find any good candidates

msh210

11:36 AM

@Jafe @Deusovi hCRIB< &lit? Not that a crib is really a kind of counter, but…

@Sciborg Oh! It's aSLAB< &lit! @Deusovi

oAlt

true for the first @Jafe , there are actually good clues in there lol

@msh210 Darnn

Jafe

aha!

oAlt

oh, took me a while to get what "counter" was doing in the clue lol

Sphinx

1:38 PM

0

Q: Safecracking Puzzle Redux

This is a follow-up to the excellent safecracking puzzle based on me misreading the problem. :-) You have a safe with four switches, each of which can be in one of three states (low, medium, high). Only two of those switches actually do anything; the other two don’t control the safe. As soon as t...

mathematics

Deusovi

2:28 PM

@msh210 yep, that's correct!

msh210

CCCC: Psychoactive ramen, chikara will yield a world champion (4,7)

Sid

2:50 PM

surely this is an anagram of Ramen, Chikara

Jafe

nope, it's _ve ramen chik_

Vera Menchik

Vera Menchik (Russian: Вера Францевна Менчик, Vera Frantsevna Menchik; Czech: Věra Menčíková; 16 February 1906 – 26 June 1944) was a Russian-born British-Czechoslovak chess player who became the first women's world chess champion. She also competed in tournaments with some of the world's leading male chess masters, with occasional successes including two wins over future world champion Max Euwe. == Early life == Her father, František Menčík, was born in Bystrá nad Jizerou, Bohemia, while her mother, Olga (née Illingworth; c. 1885–1944), was English. He was the manager of several estates owned...

Sid

ho ho ho.

oAlt

Darn, got misled into thinking that that's an anagram of "ramen chikara" yielding 'a' afterward

Jafe

@msh210 ^

msh210

@Jafe so it is :-)

Jafe

3:05 PM

CCCC: A mean person, one – by Jove! – deranged freak, at heart has vehement anger (7,3)

oAlt

I love that definition

A + V(.E. + RAGE)JOE* @Jafe

Jafe

yup! :P

although intended a bit differently, A + VE(RAGE)JO*+.E.

MikeQ

Where does the E at the end come from?

Jafe

frEak, at heart

oAlt

Ahh

CCCC: At first, withholding that is most sweeping (6)

@oAlt (oh, and I just noticed how off this parsing is, lol)

msh210

3:22 PM

@oAlt w_ id est

oAlt

3:36 PM

@msh210 correct, your turn to set :D

msh210

4:35 PM

CCCC: Spooner's unfortunately having very little (8)

Lukas Rotter

Instead of declaring that there was an edit, just change your answer to match the new solution. — FairOPShotgun 32 secs ago

Editing a question to something completely different than demanding I edit my answer with a completely different solution. what a guy

bobble

4:55 PM

I've rolled back the edit and pointed then towards the relevant FAQ.

What a thing to wake up to.

Lukas Rotter

They actually rolled back your edit at first, but after your comment they decided to rollback their edit again

Stiv

@msh210 POORNESS*

Had me thinking about Spoonerisms for a while before I twigged!

Lukas Rotter

Sorry for raising the mod flag I assumed they would not cooperate

bobble

I always try to try to ask nicely, if I have enough energy, time, and headspace to engage in such a way. Since I just woke up I have all of the above

msh210

@Stiv yep!

@Stiv that was the idea :-)

Stiv

5:08 PM

You fiend :)

bobble

whaa- I'm spam-banned again. I didn't think any of my edits got spam-blocked...

Sphinx

-1

Q: Four riddles with the same answer - you will be able to see me

The answer has to be able to answer all of the riddles below. If you walk outside.. you will be able to see me If you look into the ocean.. you will be able to see me If you look into space (with a telescope), you will be able to see me I am some people's favorite thing.. but a sad thing to othe...

riddle

Kabir Kanha Arora

5:28 PM

In reference to this, what is the difference between rot-n and shift-n?

Stiv

5:39 PM

CCCC: Disney character from Greece trapped within wood (6)

Gareth McCaughan

@KabirKanhaArora I don't know but my guess is that by "shift" they mean a shift in position rather than letter. So e.g. shifting AARDVARK one place might produce ARDVARKA.

Kabir Kanha Arora

5:57 PM

Ah, I see... Thanks

FairOPShotgun

6:38 PM

hi

Mithical

\o

FairOPShotgun

;-;

Stiv

7:30 PM

@LukasRotter @Amoz Since there's been some interest but no hard progress yet, I've dropped a hint for the Rodney Waddler puzzle...

Lukas Rotter

thanks :)

Lukas Rotter

7:46 PM

Well, at the very least I now know who the voice behind the flight lessons of Microsoft Flight Simulator 04/X is xD

Amoz

7:56 PM

@LukasRotter @Stiv Ro sounds like rot-n and Rodney Waddler is 13 chars which is why I spent so much time trying to rot-N the text. I'll have to think about if there is something else it shortens to, unless I missed something. Maybe row for row #. I was looking at other airport identifiers and train station codes as well. Would be nice to know if IATA codes are actually involved...

Stiv

Well, the narrator tried his best to make sense of them but didn't get too far it seems...

(Plus, note the lack of a 'knowledge' tag here...)

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