The Sphinx's Lair

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Sphinx

12:58 AM

Q: Cryptic clue, have answer but do not understand all of it

Found this cryptic clue in the #1 Times quick cryptic book. I got it for Xmas so I could graduate to some more complicated cryptic puzzles than the rubbish you see in the mass market ones though, if this is the quick Times one, I'm dreading the normal one I also got :-). I have the answer but I d...

cryptic-clues

Q: Single cryptic clue understanding sought

A cryptic clue from the #1 Times quick cryptic book where I can't quite comprehend the process to get to the answer. It's obvious what the answer is, since I have the first and last letter of a three-letter answer :-) The clue is: MI6 girl in family (3). Incomplete extra details are hidden belo...

cryptic-clues

3 hours later…

Sphinx

3:53 AM

Q: They are all K-verbs

Find the missing verb. $$ \begin{array}{l|lll} \text{G} & \text{Fold} & \text{Break} & \text{Pry} \\ \hline \text{D} & \text{Reduce} & \text{Vibrate} & \text{Rob} \\ \hline \text{B} & \text{Soak} & \text{Subtract} & \text{Thrash} \\ \hline \text{J} & \text{Sleep} & \text{Squeeze} & \text{?} \end{...

word knowledge enigmatic-puzzle wordplay language

1 hour later…

oAlt

5:09 AM

@ACB ROT13(V cyna gb pbzzrag "uggcf://chmmyvat.fgnpxrkpunatr.pbz/dhrfgvbaf/28494/guvf-vf-vzcbegnag-v-arrq-lbh-gb-yvfgra#pbzzrag84345_28494" ba lbhe chmmyr, fvapr vg erzvaqrq zr bs Nypbawn'f chmmyr juvpu nyfb hfrf gur fnzr farnxl zrpunavfz, ohg V urfvgngrq fvapr vg znl fcbvy gur chmmyr. Fb V'yy nfx svefg jurgure lbh nyybj zr gb qb guvf be abg.)

ACB

5:30 AM

@oAlt I have no objection.

A hint was given, "Click to enlarge", however the given answer shows that not all people get that hint.

It has been also done before, I think it was one of BeastlyGerbil's puzzles, and someone commented there pointing out that.

Let me find that puzzle.

Phew, Here it is.

ACB

6:06 AM

And in the 'linked questions' section, you can find some more.

oAlt

6:32 AM

@ACB ah, that one I didn't know of

@ACB anyway, 👌

3 hours later…

AncientSwordRage

9:44 AM

C4 hint: the word has many dialectal spelling variations, but only one fits the word play here

Jafe

10:21 AM

a banshee foreshadows death and has the ban- at the start, maybe there's an alternate spelling that works here?

oAlt

That's exactly what I thought as well, with J.J. O'Shee (or J.J. Shee) being the party member (it says he was "Elected as [a] ... member of the Irish Parliamentary Party) but as I said before that's only 7 letters

1 hour later…

humn

11:52 AM

Gonna play with English words. Not the first time. Frayed beyond recognition.

What is the time to get wet? Maritime.

^ one of the best words ever, "maritime," in one of the worst languages ever ^

. . .

@oAlt , uUnderstandme!

-- iAlt

no mean feat; i've been inscrutable online for more than half a century; another inexplicable half century to go

Will wreak havoc on every exposed flaw and praise every flower.

AncientSwordRage

12:14 PM

BANSHEE is not correct

humn

@AncientSwordRage , you are clever!

So many clues yet every answer so far has a letter on each side.

Sphinx

12:39 PM

Q: Forming 2023 with 7s

Idea from Ed Pegg Jr. Can you form 2023 using only the digits 7, exponentiation, modulus and factorial operations?

mathematics

ACB

Random: Can anyone help to embed this gif in the post: puzzling.stackexchange.com/questions/98509/… ? It is less than 2mb, but the edit panel does not allow me to upload it to the site's imgur server. Not sure why.

ACB

12:59 PM

Yes, there is a link to an external source in the post, but it's good to have the gif in the post itself.

AncientSwordRage

@ACB that's a link to the album (note the url has /a/ in it)

ACB

1:19 PM

@AncientSwordRage well, I'm not a regular user of imgur outside SE, so not sure I understand what you say, correctly.

AncientSwordRage

@ACB imgur has two url formats i.imgur.com/foobar.ext which is a direct image link (using the i subdomain, however stackexchange has its own subdomain stack) and the gallery or album link https://imgur.com/a/foobar which uses the a path, and directs to a website.

somehow your link has both the extension (.gif) of a direct link and the path of an album (/a/)

you need the direct link for the StackExchange Image Loader to know how to insert it correctly (or, if you put it in manually, to render at all)

ACB

Ok, thanks : )

AncientSwordRage

I'm hoping that helps. I'd fix it myself but my work seems to have blocked i.imgur and plain ol' imgur, so I can't load the image to then fix your url

ACB

1:46 PM

I'm still having trouble getting the direct link, however, when I try to upload the image from my device, this is what I see, so there could be some other reason as well.

ACB

1:58 PM

Here is the direct link: imgur.com/w1cH3jX and it does not work in the format ![img](link) :(

Argh, forgot the extension, silly me : )

Done

AncientSwordRage

2:18 PM

It's a shame you can't upload it to SE, as I can't see it now

Sphinx

Q: Hat guessing without knowing the colors

Generalization of this problem: Guessing hat colors. 4 prisoners Suppose that there is $N$ prisoners, insted of $4$. Shows, by finding explicitly the strategy, that if $N$ is even there is a strategy that allows prisoners to save themselves with certainty. Show instead that if $N$ is odd there is...