The Sphinx's Lair

Gareth McCaughan

12:45 AM

What's ... no, sorry, can't make myself do it.

oAlt

3:36 AM

@TakingNotes could we have a C4 hint (won't force you though)?

TakingNotes

Sure thing!

@msh210 C4 Hint: Neither definition indicated in this message is the intended one.

oAlt

(thanks :))

AncientSwordRage

4:43 AM

@GarethMcCaughan why ... What's up... Gareth?

juicifer

@TakingNotes ok taking a shot in the dark here: blue can also mean pornographic (see sense 12 here), or TRIPLE-X, and TRIPLEX was a brand of glass often used in windscreens

TakingNotes

@juicifer There we go!

juicifer

ah cool

oAlt

ohh nice spot

juicifer

5:43 AM

CCCC: Perhaps a bun with a bit of garlic - maybe you'll ask what it is (5)

Jafe

5:58 AM

hehe, this is updo + G_

juicifer

nothing much, this is up with you?

(but yeah that's right :P)

Jafe

hah

CCCC: Seafood is something Galadriel would never give to Sauron (7)

msh210

6:15 AM

@Jafe lobster ddef (kidding)

Jafe

hahah

Jafe

6:37 AM

since it's december now, if anyone's interested in making christmas-themed puzzles for the PSE advent calendar there are a bunch of slots still open and we'd love to have some more people involved -- see chatroom

3

Anonymus 25

@Jafe Isn't this (3,4)?

Jafe

@Anonymus25 what did you have in mind

Anonymus 25

ONE RING, but then I saw the other half of the clue, so nvm

Jafe

ok yeah that's not what i had in mind, doesn't really fit the "seafood" part like you said

Anonymus 25

6:53 AM

Perhaps [Pollock](peter-jacksons-the-lord-of-the-rings-trilogy.fandom.com/wiki/… and Pollock? (Kinda weak sauce tho)

(At least to me)

Jafe

nope, that's not it

Anonymus 25

Yeah

Ok, this is kinda funny, but this shrimp exists

Based off of the thing I saw above, I declare the answer is BAGGINS

(lol)

Jafe

7:46 AM

"The world is changed. I feel it in the water... No wait, it was just this one weird shrimp"

oAlt

@juicifer oh my gosh hahahah

oAlt

8:29 AM

I'm a bit surprised that Google isn't yielding relevant results for "something that Galadriel would never give to Sauron". I may need to train myself to become better in Google-fu. Either that or there's something else going on in the clue (maybe "something Galadriel ... Sauron" isn't a single unit, although I don't find that likely)

P.S. I thought an "updo" was a specific kind of bread bun originating from some foreign place (just like how "pho" is a specific kind of soup), but then I searched what it was and I found out that 1) it wasn't that type of bun at all and 2) I'm an idiot

Sphinx

0

Q: PSE Advent Calendar 2022 (Day 1): A festive Sudoku

This puzzle is part of the Puzzling StackExchange Advent Calendar 2022. The accepted answer to this question will be awarded a bounty worth 50 reputation. Rules: Normal Sudoku rules apply Numbers along an arrow must sum to the number shown in the circled cells Numbers on a thermometer must stri...

Jafe

ooh it's on

msh210

9:42 AM

Found it: 40.4589ºN 83.0773ºW

3

Jafe

hahah

i was about to give the coordinates to Wally which is what he's called here but apparently there's no such town anywhere... pretty shocking tbh

tangentially related, someone told me there's a city or town in the US for every planet's name (including Earth, Texas) except Uranus

msh210

@Jafe there's a Uranus, Missouri

or was, at least

Jafe

oh!

misinformed then

msh210

Oh, never mind: it's I who was misinformed: Uranus is not an official name.

Uranus, Missouri

Uranus is a tourist attraction in unincorporated rural Pulaski County, Missouri, United States, along the former U.S. Route 66 (US 66). All the businesses are owned by Louie Keen, who calls himself the "Mayor of Uranus". Uranus has 25 residents but no formal local government and states on the entrance sign, "It's Not a Town, It's a Destination." == Attractions == Uranus's businesses include a Fudge Factory and General Store, Moonicorn Creamery and Funnel Cakery, Chicken Bones Party Bar and Grill, Fort Uranus, Escape Uranus, Skin City Tattoo, Uranus Axehole, Combat Archery Uranus, the Sideshow...

Jafe

anyway when people were like "yeah that makes sense" the guy pointed out that there is still a Mianus in Connecticut

msh210

9:52 AM

@Jafe pronounced, um that way?

Jafe

wikipedia says /maɪˈænəs/

which still sounds dirty but a little better than the obvious alternative

msh210

Apparently (IIRC) there's a "Uranus Fudge" manufacturer in Uranus, Missouri, which has tours and a shop. Advertising includes "the best fudge comes from Uranus" and on your way out of the store they say "thank you for picking Uranus!"

Jafe

haha, i would have loved to be a fly on the wall when they brainstormed slogan ideas

ceo walks in like "okay jensen, what have you come up with" and everyone tries to keep a straight face

msh210

Just the fact that they make fudge was probably for the humor of it.

Jafe

10:08 AM

found their website, apparently their small sample pack is advertised as "a taste of Uranus" and the larger box is named "big package in Uranus"

some advertising guy has been like "man, this is the job i was born to do"

Anonymus 25

11:47 AM

@oAlt I just type up Lord of The Rings and see what pops up

Stiv

12:01 PM

@Jafe This would be HERRING (Seafood), since Galadriel refused to marry Sauron, and would not give him HER RING (def+cdef)

AncientSwordRage

@Stiv 🤯

Stiv

Hang on, have I misremembered that?

AncientSwordRage

I don't think so?

Sid

@Stiv if this is right, this is one of my favorite clues.

Up there with, "000-ish" and "0.9"

oAlt

12:21 PM

0.9??

Lemme search it

Jul 11, 2017 at 10:42, by Gareth McCaughan

Astonishing Deusoviesque cryptic clue from some months back, which I just spotted in an old Guardian crossword blog entry: 0.9 (3)

What the frick?

Sid

Yeah, the answer is NIX. (N + IX)

oAlt

Yeah just saw that too

Sid

There's a variation of it: "6.9" which is the obvious (S + IX)

Although that could be classified, NSFW...

oAlt

But I haven't looked at the explanation for . = N yet

Oh....

Sid

@oAlt . = Point = Compass Point = N(North) or S(South)

oAlt

12:28 PM

@Sid yeah I got that as soon as you showed the 6.9 explanation... Is that even fair cluing? LOL

Sid

It's indirect but not completely unfair imo. Since when you speak out loud, you will say, "Point"

Anonymus 25

@Stiv Wait, Galadriel tried to marry Sauron once? Not Saruman?

But isn't Sauron the giant glowing eyeball?

One does not simply marry an eyeball

oAlt

@Sid it still feels unfair to me since we started with "." and ended up with "compass point"... And never in my life have I seen the symbol for the period used to mean a compass point, but in the end I get where you're coming from

And well the clue answer is only three letters and the clue is short and doesn't have a lot of components, so in that case maybe that type of indirectness is allowed after all

As opposed to a long clue with many components that can be parsed lots of ways, which if you add the . = N in would make it more difficult than it's supposed to be

@Sid So in the end, I might agree with this, that (in this specific case) it's not completely unfair

~~Thank you for coming to my TED talk~~

Jafe

@Stiv this is correct

Anonymus 25

@Jafe WAIT WHAT?!

7 mins ago, by Anonymus 25

One does not simply marry an eyeball

Jafe

12:39 PM

(as in, galadriel was the bearer of one of the elven power rings, which she would never give to sauron)

oAlt

@Stiv (before I leave for now I'll say that that's a clever cdef/wordplay @Jafe )

Jafe

i'm not aware of marriage ever being on the table, but then again i haven't watched Rings of Power yet so maybe there's something i don't know :P

thanks!

Anonymus 25

@Jafe Ohhhh

Just confused about Stiv's parsing of the wordplay, very nice!

2 days ago, by oAlt

Nov 1 at 4:06, by Alconja

It's an superunequiliteral clue, where the clue has waaaay more characters than the answer!

Jafe

when you asked whether it should be (3,4) i was like "well... kind of..."

Anonymus 25

@Jafe Yeah...

But still, very sneaky

Mithical

1:03 PM

@Anonymus25 Sauron was never a giant eyeball.

AncientSwordRage

85

Q: Was the "Eye of Sauron" Sauron's actual physical form?

During the time frame of The Lord of the Rings, was the Eye of Sauron Sauron's actual physical form? If not, what form did he have?

the-lord-of-the-rings tolkiens-legendarium sauron

Anonymus 25

@AncientSwordRage Ahhhh

Stiv

1:29 PM

@Jafe Yeah, after I posted it I suddenly doubted my memory. It's been a loooong time since I've read the books or seen the films though and I haven't been watching the new series. Wonder why that was lodged in there though...

Stiv

1:39 PM

CCCC: A prolific poison, whitened in acid, regularly derived from toxic plant alkaloid (9)

msh210

@oAlt seems unfair to me, too, fwiw

oAlt

1:50 PM

Yeah

@Stiv "a pRolIfiC poIsoN, whIteNed In aCid", regularly = RICININIC (I don't see any dictionary results but from intuition it could mean "derived from toxic plant alkaloid", because it could be ricinine + -ic)

Stiv

@oAlt That's the one :)

oAlt

2:31 PM

CCCC: Perhaps one who drives coach to insert Green in Warriors' second unit after win (with Curry at center position) (7)

oAlt

2:47 PM

Nov 23 at 14:00, by oAlt

I just encountered a sports article whose title happened to be good material for a cryptic clue... When the time comes I'll make a clue out of it for the C4

If anyone's curious it was this lol

msh210

3:29 PM

If "with" could clue ONE, I'd have it. But I don't see how it could.

@oAlt did you perhaps mean "…with a Curry at…"? :-)

oAlt

3:47 PM

@msh210 nope. Hehe

Sphinx

0

Q: The Animal Catchers

Using subtle context clues, try to figure out where the animal catchers are and what they are searching for. In a massive, massive desert - one of the biggest in the world - I trudged through the harsh landscape in search for a bear... could I do the trick? I know they're quick (hey, that rhymes!...

wordplay story

juicifer

5:22 PM

@oAlt curry at center? probably best that you leave the coaching to steve kerr lmao

@msh210 I think your ONE comes from "unit"

so to wrap this up we have G (Green) in A (Warriors' second) ONE (unit) after W (win) with R (Curry at center position) -> WAGONER (perhaps one who drives coach)

msh210

5:58 PM

@juicifer oh thank you!