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5:50 AM
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Q: Jumping knights on a 4x4 grid

Dmitry KamenetskyTwo players (black and white) alternate in making moves. Each turn a player must use one of his knights to capture an opponent's knight. Knights use standard chess moves. It is black's turn in the following starting configuration. Can the players work together to obtain a single knight on the gri...

 
 
4 hours later…
9:57 AM
For the current CCCC I'm seeing a RE or a C (about) and a CI or CA (one hundred and one) but I still can't decide whether the def is 'Talking', 'fruit, yes?' or just 'yes?'
 
10:28 AM
C4 hint: "about" is an indicator.
 
10:59 AM
@Stiv I wanted it to be GOSSIPING - 'Talking about', but I think that's now been scuppered
 
 
1 hour later…
12:05 PM
@AncientSwordRage I don't think "gossiping" means "talking about". I think "gossiping about" means "talking about".
 
@msh210 hmmm, not all talking is gossiping though. Gossiping is specifically when you're 'talking about' somebody/thing - right?
I guess I'm using a 'kids definition' ?
> Kids Definition of gossip (Entry 2 of 2)
: to talk about the personal lives of other people
 
12:37 PM
you could say "I was talking about George" or "I was gossiping about George", but not "I was gossiping George".
 
12:50 PM
i'm curious what kind of word the answer could be for the definition "fruit, yes?"
 
@Jafe For me, I wondered if this was a sneaky way of writing 'fruit, perhaps'...
 
hmm could be
 
But then I also wondered if it wasn't. I'm all at sea.
 
my bet is on the def being "yes?", which would mean both "talking" and "fruit" clue quite short words
 
Yeah, I'm leaning towards that given the hint
Pretty sure the answer will contain a CI or C+A but proving tricky to spot the requisite quite short words...
 
12:58 PM
date is a good fruit to fit into longer words
yes = xxxdately or something
 
If you can manufacture a way for 'Talking' to be 'ULE' then you can have ULE< + CI + DATE, meaning 'Yes'?' as in 'Go on...'
 
good point about about being a reversal indicator, i've only been looking at insertion for some reason
 
Here's a useful fruit for the future: a NANCE - new one on me
Of course, the def could also be 'Talking' and everything that follows 'about' could be reversed, potentially
 
 
1 hour later…
2:33 PM
@msh210 took me a bit, but I think it's LOQUAT about CI + Y to get LOQUACITY
not a fruit I was familiar with but maybe I'll have to give it a try now lol
 
3:20 PM
@juicifer indeed!
 
@GarethMcCaughan I'm thinking of "I was talking about George, with Alex" vs "I was gossiping with Alex"
@juicifer I thought his full title was Loquatus of Borg? Or am I getting confused...
 
lol
CCCC: Monstrous society in Joker (6)
 
3:47 PM
@juicifer can S stand for "society"? If so, I'd say co(s)mic
 
@msh210 I found it in several dictionaries, and that's exactly it
 
oh, cool
 
4:31 PM
@juicifer oh weird, I'd have never made that connection
 
4:44 PM
CCCC: It stops, right before a riot of delight (3,5)
 
@msh210 R + EDLIGHT*
 
@juicifer yes indeed
 
5:01 PM
CCCC: European replacing tremendously incompetent leaders in republic (8)
 
 
3 hours later…
8:01 PM
0
Q: Can a fair coin be used to simulate an arbitrary weighted coin, with on average only two flips?

weissguyThis puzzle is maybe a bit too difficult for this forum, but I suspect folks here are up for a challenge. It was told to me by a Stanford PhD student in a graduate course on randomized algorithms. You are given a fair coin, and your goal is to simulate a biased coin with an arbitrary(!) bias. On ...

 
 
2 hours later…
10:09 PM
1
Q: 🏁󠁓󠁴󠁡󠁲󠁴󠀠󠁹󠁯󠁵󠁲🏁󠀠󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁩󠁮󠁥󠁳󠀡

wjandrea  󠁙󠁯󠁵󠀠󠁨󠁡󠁶󠁥󠀠󠁳 󠁯󠁬󠁶󠁥󠁤󠀠󠁴󠁨󠁩󠁳 󠀠󠁰󠁵󠁺󠁺󠁬󠁥 P.S. This was inspired by the all-whitespace puzzle.

 

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