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Sphinx
Sphinx
03:15
0
Q: Four-cornered cow inheritance

Parcly TaxelWhile travelling down a road in a socialist country you meet a group of four young men and women sitting in the front porch of their house, with a lively cattle ranch adjoining. "Our father died, and he willed distinct unit fractions of that ranch's cows to each of us four, none less than $\frac19$,

mathematics lateral-thinking story humor
 
4 hours later…
msh210
msh210
07:05
@Stiv I'm guessing not, but could this possibly be SLACK as an &lit? The end of saying something is big is when it has a slack off (that's the definition) and the wordplay would be _s + lack, with "lack" being clued by the question mark (as in "I'm a smart guy(???)").
Stiv
Stiv
07:35
Nope, sorry
Stiv
Stiv
07:59
CCCC hint: This is not an &lit - the clue has a definition part and a wordplay part, not necessarily in that order.
ACB
ACB
08:16
@DanielS nice! I also added another candidate.
Daniel S
Daniel S
08:27
@ACB Excellent choice; a lovely example of the "Aha!" moment.
msh210
msh210
08:58
@Stiv can this be TOAST ddef? "If I catch you at it again, you're toast" = the end of. And "Tremendous!" can (maybe??) be used as a toast. Again, I doubt this is it, but figured it's worth a try.
Stiv
Stiv
Again, not it... I think (or hope) you'll know it when you see it...
 
2 hours later…
msh210
msh210
11:10
It's interesting that the C4 ends with an eroteme, "end" is E (as in a maze), "of=o'" is O, and RTEME are the first letters of "tremendous". But I suspect that that's mere coincidence.
(or likewise "the end" is E as the last letter of THE)
oAlt
oAlt
11:37
I've been thinking about "space" since "ace" can mean tremendous, and the space can be right before the opening parenthesis, but that leaves "the end of" = sp which is impossible, so I think this is a dead end
Daniel S
Daniel S
Ditto I've tried to stretch definitions of end to cover EMEND, but come up short.
msh210
msh210
Yeah, same, plus have tried to find four-letter things clued by "of", none of which seems to work.
msh210
msh210
11:56
Maybe "THE end" can be HE? And then "?" can be HENCE (as in "x?y:z" in programming). We'd need "of 'tremendous'" to somehow be NCE, which I can't see.
 
1 hour later…
Sphinx
Sphinx
13:21
0
Q: Design a magic trick

Dmitry KamenetskyYou are a magician designing a new magic trick, which goes like this. First you are blindfolded. Then your assistant asks 4 members of the audience to write 4 distinct numbers between 1 and N (inclusive) on the back of 4 cards. The numbers are shown to the assistant and the audience. Now the assi...

magic
oAlt
oAlt
13:43
Is there perhaps a word meaning both "the end" and "tremendous"? If so then I haven't seen it
Daniel S
Daniel S
@oAlt ULTIMATE?
... though I can't quite hammer ULTRA into the same shape.
 
2 hours later…
Sphinx
Sphinx
15:35
4
Q: Invalid Jigsaw Sudoku Layout

JCOThe Jigsaw Sudoku Layout below is invalid (no Latin Squares exist for it). Why? Please find a short, yet complete, explanation (no computations involved). +-------------------+---------------+ | . . . . . | . . . . | | +---+ | | | . . | . | . . | . . ...

logical-deduction grid-deduction no-computers
0
Q: How long will it take for the horse to be captured?

user88178Source: https://open.kattis.com/problems/ambush Problem: When Farmer Oskar doesn’t watch his cows closely enough, they tend to wander off into the forest to hunt for horse spies. To catch an enemy agent horse, the cows lure it into a cow trail and set up fences at the endpoints of the trail, whic...

optimization game-theory pursuit-evasion
GentlePurpleRain
GentlePurpleRain
16:06
@msh210 I had noticed the eroteme as well, but couldn't find any way to make it useful.
oAlt
oAlt
16:25
"?" could be something like "huh" or "what", indicating confusion and need for the speaker to repeat themself. "Again" is 5 letters and serves the same purpose, but it doesn't look like it can be built from the clue, so that's another dead end
GentlePurpleRain
GentlePurpleRain
The end of "trem", end o' us. -- The end of "trem" is REM, which is SLEEP. And dying (the end o' us), is sometimes referred to as SLEEP. #GreatC4Solutions
juicifer
juicifer
the end of the string 'tremendous' is a QUOTE, or a TICK, or potentially a stand-in for any number of other things
PRIME in particular looks interesting but that would still leave half of the clue unused
 
1 hour later…
bobble
bobble
17:50
1
Q: Is there a way to search for "easy" puzzles

Patrick McElhaneyWe have a weekly lunch-and-learn / culture building type meeting in which we always start off with a puzzle to get people engaged. The puzzles we present are relatively simple, like the one with fox and the hen and the feed crossing the river. While looking for a source of new puzzles, I remember...

discussion puzzle-difficulty
Sphinx
Sphinx
18:12
0
Q: Is the 7-clue 6x6 Sudoku solvable?

CrSb0001So I was trying to find an 8-clue 6x6 Sudoku because I knew from this paper that only 8 clues were needed to create a 6x6 Sudoku with a unique solution. However, I have managed to find one with 7 clues: Or, if you're like me and prefer it with 2x3 boxes: While I am aware that this is supposed t...

logical-deduction grid-deduction sudoku
 
3 hours later…
bobble
bobble
21:32
I think this puzzle is becoming "guess what I'm thinking", something that [humor] puzzles especially can struggle with
Sphinx
Sphinx
0
Q: Meta Connect Wall #3

jackSort the sixteen terms into four categories. The four categories are joined by a common thread, with that being the solution. I think this one will play hard, so good luck! PLAGIARIZE WREATHS TAKE THE ROPES ESKIMO KISSES MAGNETIC FIELDS SKINNY DIP LILY PADS JOINT ROTATIONS BASKIN R...

pattern connect-wall
GentlePurpleRain
GentlePurpleRain
21:55
@bobble I think this answer, combined with the comment below it, hit the nail on the head. The question states that there are between 80 and 100 cows. If they have 88, you give them 2, they divide them up as 1/2, 1/5, 1/6, 1/9, leaving 2 left over that you take back.
Doesn't seem that ambiguous to me. None of the other answers fit the criteria (80 to 100).
 
1 hour later…
ApexPolenta
ApexPolenta
23:09
Another try at a cryptic:
Container and shortened gratitude is protection (6)

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