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00:16
0
Q: A collection of Tatami puzzles where touching numbers must be equal

Will.Octagon.GibsonIn these puzzles, place the Tatami mats (domino shapes) into the grid subject to the following conditions: Each Tatami mat must be used exactly once. Tatami mats can not be rotated. Each Tatami mat must completely fit into one of the domino-shaped regions in the grid. For example, in the sample...

@Stiv yeah this is the correct answer, per the link jafe found (and other dictionaries)
00:38
0
Q: A three-dimensional triangle centre

Parcly TaxelA disphenoid is a tetrahedron whose faces are congruent acute triangles. Its opposite sides are the same length and it can be inscribed in a cuboid. Given an acute triangle, form a disphenoid out of it. Now take any one of its four equivalent vertices $P$ and orthogonally project it into the pla...

 
1 hour later…
02:05
I'm ready to release the cryptic family reunion in a bit
 
1 hour later…
03:14
0
Q: Cryptic Family Reunion: Key to my Heart

oAltThis is a Cryptic Family Reunion puzzle, where a set of cryptic clues has been given, and the answer to each clue follows the same theme. Since a definition for the answer would give the answer away, the definition has been replaced by a family member. In this puzzle, answer lengths are also show...

 
6 hours later…
08:56
Ah, this all makes sense now. I think the only reason I didn't just type "define castle in spain" into Google was that I didn't at all suspect that would turn up a result!
CCCC: Troubled prince warned after blunder? (6)
(I promise no Shakespeare this time...)
09:14
well you might be LET off with a warning, and ordering HAM is a blunder (if you're jewish or muslim)...
prince is 6 letters for the anagram if the def could ever be "warned after blunder"
19 mins ago, by Stiv
(I promise no Shakespeare this time...)
darn
@Jafe could also be the other way round, if Andrew were a troubled prince
If...
I see a bit of controversy about him on Google news, but I'm not really sure if that's what Stiv intends
This one could be relevant
09:34
@oAlt that actually seems plausible. Or would, had Stiv not replied "If...".
i mean prince andrew definitely counts as troubled, wasn't he like in the middle of the epstein scandal
My 'if' might rather be signalling that 'if' might be better replaced in that sentiment with 'since he is clearly'...
Pizza Express anyone?
@Stiv ah, so @oAlt is correct, you mean?
I think oAlt essentially has the wordplay here even if he doesn't quite realise just how troubled Andrew is! Maybe a UK media thing though I'd be surprised if it hasn't made the international news too...
Personally, I don't follow U.K. royalty news at all, though I'm sure there are those here who do.
09:38
This and this are probably the most pertinent sections of his Wiki page...
SNL's weekend update made fun of the guy having to stay away from schools so definitely not just a UK thing
Anyway, I think @oAlt clearly knows the wordplay and has tugged at the definition too, so he should call this a win and take the next clue.
("there are those here who do" — I meant in this country, not in this chat room)
speaking of royalty news, i had no idea before moving here how much aussies care about the royals
example: there's a magazine sold at every supermarket named Royals Monthly, which is all royalty gossip, and as the title says a new one comes out every month
It is a hundred. Pages. Long.
And how long is the subscription you've taken out for it?
09:49
I guess royalty gossip takes provides some respite from worrying about drop bears.
that must be it
I don't know how I've never heard of drop bears before, but I am loving reading their Wiki entry, which I am sharing here to undo the horrors of the last Wiki pages I posted...
By the way, I'm led to understand that (live) people are weighed in kg in Austl. Is that right? Do you know whether that's true among older people, too, or do they perhaps use pounds or stone?
@Stiv the map on this page is a nice touch
yeah kg is all i've ever heard used here
hm, okay, thanks
09:59
don't have any old folks at hand to confirm how recent that is though
just wait a few years
heheh
i assume you had to learn to use kg, cm and whatnot when moving to israel
Yeah. But I still haven't got the hang of degrees Celsius for weather. I always have to convert it to Fahrenheit to understand what it means.
makes sense
not too familiar with fahrenheit, think someone said it's actually better from a weather standpoint
like celsius was made from the point of view of water and fahrenheit from the point of view of humans
but yeah that must take some getting used to when literally everything is written in different units all of a sudden
coming from finland to aus all i had to learn was to drive on the wrong side of the road
apparently the metric system was adopted here in the 1970s so some older people could definitely still remember using imperial units
10:38
is it too hard to make shakespeare quotes only from airport codes?
@Jafe ah interesting, thanks
I was thinking of posing it as a challenge
@Stiv noted
@Stiv also noted, and the first one was what Jafe pointed out too
CCCC: Quebec City's procedure not true (8)
M.O. + n't + real
10:56
@Jafe yep
CCCC: Nice feathers! That's all I'm gonna say. Time to chill! (8,6)
@Simd only one way to find out
@Jafe pose the challenge?
try it out yourself was what i had in mind
probably can't do it using major airports only but there are a whole lot of little airports in the world so if you can use any of their codes maybe it's doable
11:14
Also it presumably depends what Shakespeare quote you're thinking of. Like, "to thee" might be easier than
> If music be the food of love, play on; Give me excess of it, that, surfeiting, The appetite may sicken, and so die. That strain again! it had a dying fall: O, it came o'er my ear like the sweet sound, That breathes upon a bank of violets, Stealing and giving odour!
@msh210 I was thinking that you get to choose. The challenge is to find the longest quote you can make
@Jafe I guess there will have to be some leeway with spelling
in any case you probably want to try it out yourself first
Given a text file of the complete works of Shakespeare and another of a list of airport codes, it should be quite easy to write a program to build the longest possible quotation. I could probably do it myself, even, and I'm no coder. I wonder whether an entire sonnet, say, can be built using airport codes.
it's a great question! Maybe you shouldn't be allowed to reuse an airport
reading out the quote as a list of aiports might result in some weird itineraries on the map
11:22
Heh, that's an idea. Draw a map connecting airport codes, and ask people to identify the quotation.
ugh, trying to assemble documents for a citizenship application and somehow getting police clearance from spain is a massive pain in the peach emoji
you'd think EU institutions would talk to each other pretty well at this point but nah
0
Q: Comparison of some NA countries

Prim3numbahIt's known that the United States is smaller than Canada but larger than Mexico. But in this puzzle that's not true. Can you figure out how this list was made? Replace the question marks with the correct numbers.

@msh210 that sounds fun!
@Jafe is peach emoji always the bum/ass?
@Jafe maybe they do speak to each other, and that's why they won't give you police clearance
@Jafe Cool down, period.
11:39
@msh210 correct!
@msh210 "error: record too long"
@Simd have you ever used it for anything else?
@juicifer CCCC: France cacophonously atonal with Spain (7)
(cacophonously, I'm assuming)
anatol*+E (=france)
@oAlt er, yes, sorry
@Jafe er, yes, not sorry
👌
12:01
@Jafe I have never used it but I was wondering if it also generally meant sex
it's hard to guess!
12:11
I suspect sometimes it means "peach".
As in, "I like big 🍑🍑 and I cannot lie."
2
don't forget to buy three asses from the shops please?
@msh210 There's a fella named James who's known to say this
@Simd sure, if you need pack animals
@msh210 this is very helpful. Thank you
@msh210 was gonna say that too
12:16
i just write peach if i mean actual peaches
I feel we should ask the spies who have all our online chats how often it just means peaches
same with eggplants, the risk of miscommunication is too high
Especially if you start talking about the delicious recipe of peaches stuffed with eggplant.
@msh210 that sounds rather unpleasent
don't knock it 'til you've tried it
I hear it's very popular in prison
12:19
@AncientSwordRage that's probably accurate no matter the underlying meaning, which is good for communication
@msh210 popular with a small proportion of the population
i think in prison they use the wallet emoji instead
@AncientSwordRage you mean unpleggplant
that needs explaining!
@oAlt :) good effort!
Lol
(of course, only the vowel sounds match, so that was a bad one)
@msh210 what makes you think I haven't 👀
12:22
@AncientSwordRage no one has aubergine and peach !
alternative recipe is replacing the peaches with melons
ah yes!
although that recipe is better in theory than practice I am told
it's really an insta recipe
@Simd You can make a pizza sauce using the peaches and then thinly slice the aubergine
Dried peaches and aubergine is screaming middle eastern cuisine tbh, very doable
@AncientSwordRage dried peaches doesn't sound as sexy
I'm talking about food here!
12:29
@AncientSwordRage Peach sauce instead of tomato sauce?
@AncientSwordRage that's what we have been talking about all along!
@Simd yes
it will be sweeter, but you just need to add savoury and salt elements to balance it
I have never heard of this idea for pizza!
@Simd there's a guy on instagram who just makes videos of him making pizza and he's done crazy stuff like this before
@AncientSwordRage has anyone ever thanked for it?
@Simd repeatedly
@AncientSwordRage the sort of dish I was thinking of
12:32
@AncientSwordRage on pizza??
@Simd ... maybe not that on pizza
google has no record of anyone making a peach sauce for pizza instead of tomato :)
@Simd be the change you want to see - add a fake account of doing that, so google reflects what we want it to have 🙃
(or, preferably, give it a go)
🌬 🍆 🙇 😯 😲 😵 💀 💦 👻 . Apparently you meant to be able to interpret that !?
@AncientSwordRage :-D
so.. back to airport codes and shakespeare
(deepseek llm didn't do a bad job at interpreting the emojis. It's just me that can't get them)
12:57
@AncientSwordRage they put mango sauce on shawarma (≈doner kebab) here
and they include eggplant, too, often
@msh210 @Jafe just to confirm you saw this
@msh210 Where's Here?
@AncientSwordRage Israel
@msh210 ahhhhh
Amba or anba (Arabic: عنبة, Hebrew: עמבה) is a tangy mango pickle condiment of Baghdadi Jewish origin, and was typically prepared for Shabbat. It is typically made of pickled green mangoes, vinegar, salt, turmeric, chilies, and fenugreek. It is somewhat similar to savoury mango chutneys. == Etymology == Mangoes being native to South Asia, the name "amba" seems to have been borrowed, via Arabic, from the Marathi word āmbā (आंबा), which is in turn derived from the Sanskrit word āmra (आम्र, "mango"). == History == According to the legend, amba was developed in the 19th century by members o...
@msh210 I've definitely had mango pickle in 'indian' takeaway meals
(continues reading wiki article) which is Achar (sounds familiar)
Meorav yerushalmi sounds tasty
I wonder why it's mostly made with unripe green mangos in Israel?
13:22
CCCC: Have a clear vision about taking time off to make person in the snow? (5)
sorry for the delay, had this clue ready to go but had to censor out offensive content
13:35
@AncientSwordRage dunno
@AncientSwordRage I had it only once. It was very tasty but very fatty.
@Jafe ANGEL
NGE is something to do with a glasses brand that sells Clear Vision, and AL is annual leave
13:51
not the intended answer, i'm afraid
 
1 hour later…
14:52
@AncientSwordRage that sounds familiar to me... Word borrowed from India too
24
Q: The end of open-ended puzzles

Brandon_JConsensus has been reached. I say this on Rubio's authority - the contents of this post are considered to be a part of the definition of this site's scope. So, I posted this open-ended puzzle a while ago, looking forward to all the fun around it and the upvotes that would pour in. Nope. Tha...

You would have to very carefully define "Shakespeare quote" and "airport code" to make optimality provable, and at that point it's just a brute force computer puzzle
@Jafe Ah, this is intuit taking t off, so Inuit
correct
@Jafe oh nice definition
I wanted to make the person in the snow = angel clue come true, but I have other plans:
CCCC: France and Spain have this between them: a party at arrondissement returning (7)
15:04
@msh210 thanks! i originally had "snowman?" but thought that was a bit too much
an + do + .rra<
@Jafe that's right!
15:20
@bobble thanks. That is very helpful, if also very sad
maybe I should just ask here instead :)
although I am not sure how easy it is to do in computer code
it might be ... BRITAIN; ITALY.
ah.. that's not a quote from someone speaking :)
15:41
CCCC: France and Spain have this between them, ultimately: The Independent (4)
@Jafe FR (_e) E
yup
CCCC: France and Spain have this between them: sea plants I hand out (8 6)
MD5 hash of lowercase answer: 9ed1b279e08529d24a214f288f62ae34
16:09
@oAlt Pretty sure this is PHEASANT ISLAND = SEAPLANTSIHAND*
MD5 hash checks out with a space between the two words
@Stiv that's correct indeed
Lovely, double confirmation!
Haha
16:24
CCCC: "Sold!" (Such an undisciplined and noisy contest...) (5,5)
Aside: There's a fascinating quirk on the Users page (from my egocentric point of view anyway) wherein I am currently the lowest ranked user by reputation on PSE for the year by dint of having given the 250 bounty for the Christmas Eve meta and being on -128 as it stands!
Just a bit at odds with last year...!
a bit at odds with every year since 2019
@Stiv hadn't heard of a SOUND CLASH* before but that must be it
@juicifer Yep!
@Jafe Ha, yes true...
@Stiv clearly you're not that egocentric
16:35
I think this year will be different though - I'm not puzzling so much right now while I engage with a couple of other personal projects. Though I appreciate that "I'll believe it when I see it" is an appropriate response to this...
@juicifer The viewpoint was egocentric, but hopefully I'm not too much myself in general! :)
CCCC: Getaway in Spanish peninsula (6)
@juicifer ESCAPE (Getaway) = ES (Spanish) + CAPE (peninsula)
exactly
16:54
CCCC: "Adolf, is Hermann secretly somebody who likes a good jig?" (9)
_f is Herman_
jig meaning lure here!
@Jafe Ja!
CCCC: Lena, maybe Santa's reindeer is somebody who likes a good jig? (11)
17:18
0
Q: Mathematics Fun Puzzle: Shade some squares in the grid

Jack Huthis problem is from usamts 2024 round 3, there is a solution from the website, but it doesn't show how to get the solution. usamts Shade some squares in the grid so that: Squares with numbers are unshaded. Each number is equal to the product of the number of unshaded squares it can “see” in its...

off to bed, MD5 hash for lowercase answer is 546c8f52fedd057cf2a4661cbdb9e289
17:58
River + Dancer = Riverdancer… and the md5 checks out
CCCC: Lena, maybe reindeer's leader is someone who likes a good pie? (6)
Ah, I was trying to make HABERDASHER work for too long there...
@msh210 HORNER (Jack, of nursery rhyme fame...) = HORNE + R_
@Stiv what sense of "jig" is that? Wiktionary, at least, has no hat by that name.
@Stiv yes indeed
@msh210 I was pretty sure that a sewing machine uses a 'jig' somewhere or other...
ah
> A device in manufacturing, woodworking, or other creative endeavors for controlling the location, path of movement, or both of either a workpiece or the tool that is operating upon it. Subsets of this general class include machining jigs, woodworking jigs, welders' jigs, jewelers' jigs, and many others.
(Wiktionary.) So you're likely right.
(And a Web search turns stuff up, too.)
(And anyway I was wrong about hats. Apparently a haberdasher is "a men's clothing store that sells suits, shirts, neckties, men's dress shoes, and other items"… I thought it was a hat store.)
18:13
That would be a milliner...
CCCC: After Spanish (in recess) Alfred, maybe, makes pudding (8)
@Stiv ah, yes
18:25
The C4 is interesting to me, @Stiv, because rot13(V xabj vg nf n sybhe engure guna nf n chqqvat, naq gur anzr sebz onfronyy engure guna gur fgntr). But I don't have one prepared now, nor time to prepare one, so I'll let it go.
18:38
@Stiv SE< MOLINA
 
2 hours later…
20:38
1
Q: An International Cooking Tournament's Awkward Issue Concerning Trophies

TruejPreamble At an international cooking competition, there are 6 Chefs who have made it to the finals. Each of these Chefs are masters of their home countries cuisines, so the judges have decided to test how good each Chef is outside of their comfort zone. Each Chef has been assigned 2 different cui...

@DanielS yep :)
20:58
CCCC: James White maybe repeatedly makes pudding. (5, 5)
21:55
@DanielS if "maybe repeatedly" means the "maybe" applies to both "james" and "white" then we could have james BROWN and BETTY white, making pudding
22:24
@GarethMcCaughan Regarding a possible issue with counting "suspensions lifted early", did the Puzzling SE moderator team actually lift two suspensions early in 2024?
@juicifer Just so.

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