The Sphinx's Lair

12:23 AM

@Deusovi That question got edited - doesn't seem to be a dupe any more.

@Randal'Thor Thanks, reopened!

By the way, I've noticed that you've been editing out detective from questions. If you want, you can bring it up on meta and we'll get a CM to burninate it. (I agree that it doesn't need to exist, BTW)

Rand al'Thor

@Deusovi It doesn't need a CM; detective is already a synonym of mystery, so you can just use the mod tool for merging tags.

But there are only two questions left to go anyway.

Deusovi

Oh right, we have a mystery tag. Forgot about that.

Rand al'Thor

1:19 AM

I'm sorry, but TheBitByte really needs to put more effort into their logic puzzles before posting them. They've posted three so far, and every one has been insufficiently specified or unsolvable in its initial state and had to undergo multiple revisions, even while answers were coming in, to become properly solvable.

Deusovi

@Randal'Thor Yes, agreed.

Rand al'Thor

Btw @Deusovi, since someone suggested putting an actual PSE question on the Tour page rather than the unicorn-daisies stuff: could you have a look at the list of possibilities and see how many there are?

Deusovi

Five. And none of them are very good.

65

Q: Correct way to add 22 to 4 to get 82

Inspired by this other puzzle, tell me a correct way by which adding 22 to 4 will give 82. As in that other puzzle, these numbers are all expressed in base 10.

7

Q: (Troll Math Question) Divided by sweets

I got "x" number of sweets. I can divide my sweets equally by 1,2,3,4,5,6,7 all the way to 101 friends such that I have no left overs. Find the least number of sweets I could possibly have at first? Note: This logic is a troll, so I thought it is fun. Wanna see how people answer. Anyways, the an...

mathematics logical-deduction lateral-thinking

7

Q: What 'T_RN' means?

Take a look at these letters and tell me what it means. "T_RN" It's a bit brainteaser. So think out of the box to get the answer.

rebus crossword-clues

22

Q: What is the optimal first move in tic-tac-toe?

I have been told that it is possible to guarantee no worse than a tie in normal 3x3 tic-tac-toe, but that the first move is very important. What is that important first move?

tic-tac-toe game

28

Q: Longest word in English without repeated letter

What is the longest word you can come up with that is a real English word that doesn't use any individual letter more than once?

word english

Rand al'Thor

Not surprising really. The best puzzles tend to have at least some formatting - quotes, spoilertags, etc. - in either the question or the answers.

Deusovi

I'm thinking we should despoiler a good question.

Rand al'Thor

1:26 AM

And any kind of formatting disqualifies it from being in the Tour, unfortunately.

This is the one which used to be there, until someone edited a spoilertag into warspyking's answer.

Deusovi

Including images?

Rand al'Thor

Probably.

Deusovi

The answer to the fourth question I linked (tic-tac-toe) has an image, but it still seems eligible.

Rand al'Thor

The question also has to be fairly short, as do at least two of its answers (preferably highly-voted ones).

@Deusovi Only because the two non-accepted answers don't have any formatting. If you put that one in the Tour, it'd be those low-voted answers that would show up.

Oh, my Puzznk puzzle has been solved, if anyone's interested. @Areeb @Lukas

Alconja

1:43 AM

Do locked questions qualify? If so, it's clunky, but we could create a "dummy" question with answers specifically for the tour (and lock it so no one messes with it)...

Rand al'Thor

There's probably a lower limit on votes for questions and answers on the tour, so it'd have to stay unlocked until it garners enough upvotes - and in that time, people might post spoilertagged answers or edit in quotes or whatever, which would then have to be edited out just as if we used an existing question.

Areeb

@Randal'Thor that was seemingly quick

Hah I told you it was Mad Jason

Rand al'Thor

@Areeb Do you like the way the solution came out, or are you disappointed?

(Please be honest - I won't be offended if you didn't like it :-) )

Deusovi

2:03 AM

@BenAaronson I don't know how to explain this without giving away part of the actual answer, but Deusovi's answer is incorrect. — TheBitByte 24 mins ago

Anyone know why my answer would be wrong?

Rand al'Thor

@Deusovi Goodness knows. I've pretty much given up on his last question:

@randal'thor Okay. I'm confused. Could you edit my post to clarify that the 3rd door is the answer? Not give away the answer, just make it so that the answer turns out to be the 3rd door. Apparently I've been trying to do this myself and failing. — TheBitByte 20 mins ago

(Monty Hall problems are riddled with convincing fallacies though, so it's possible your answer is wrong even if it seems to be right!)

Deusovi

Wait, he's trying to make you make the puzzle for him?

That's... not how it works.

Also, he just changed his mind and said my answer is correct.

Rand al'Thor

@Deusovi Well, I did my best. And hey, it gets me one step closer to the Illuminator badge :-P

Areeb

2:19 AM

@Randal'Thor it had an interesting story to it, the solution was simpler than I thought it would be. It wasn't a bad puzzle

Deusovi

Ughhh, look at the comment thread here.

I know, it's just that if it's about getting the correct solution, then Herb Wolfe got it first. If it's about explaining the working leading to the solution, Herb Wolfe seems to have gotten it wrong. — TheBitByte 1 min ago

Rand al'Thor

@Deusovi You're not being very helpdful :-P

Deusovi

@Randal'Thor What am I supposed to say? It's not my choice which answer gets accepted.

Rand al'Thor

@Deusovi Well, not responding at all would probably be better than saying exactly the same thing over and over again.

Deusovi

@Randal'Thor Hey, it's not exactly the same thing! It's slightly different.

@Deusovi Well, personally, I find it interesting. In my opinion, if you're downvoting it because it's too easy, just answer it. If you enjoyed answering it, consider upvoting it instead. — TheBitByte 57 secs ago

??????????

Rand al'Thor

2:26 AM

If you wanted to, you could advise on which answer to accept, having made it clear that it's up to them. But if you don't want to do that (since you're one of the answerers yourself and therefore biased), then why not just let them think aloud in comments and eventually come to a decision?

@Deusovi Heh, that does seem a bit contradictory.

Deusovi

@Randal'Thor Yeah, I didn't want to seem biased. I was trying to explain that it was their decision, but it seemed like they didn't understand that.

@Randal'Thor How so? You can answer a question and still think it's a poor question.

I typically try not to answer and close vote, but I don't see any issue with answering and downvoting.

3

Q: Is it unethical to answer and downvote the same question?

One encourages better quality questions, the other helps a person with a problem. Both admirable goals. Right?

discussion questions etiquette

Rand al'Thor

@Deusovi I meant, what he's saying seems contradictory. Downvote => answer => upvote?

Deusovi

Oh. Yeah, I honestly don't get it either.

Rand al'Thor

Though, I personally tend to think one shouldn't both downvote and answer a question. If it's interesting enough to answer, it shouldn't be bad enough to downvote.

Anyway, bedtime for me. G'night :-)

Deusovi

Night!

Rosie F

4:57 AM

@Randal'Thor I disagree, as long as the question's open. You might think it's confusingly worded, but at last understand and find an answer. Or perhaps you think it's ill-posed but you make plausible assumptions and then answer.

Mithrandir

7:30 AM

@MariaDeleva ישראל.

Maria Deleva

8:30 AM

Farther than I thought. @Mithrandir

Mithrandir

So where are you?

Maria Deleva

8:55 AM

Bulgaria

Mithrandir

Like Krum? :P

Maria Deleva

Are you referring to Khan Krum? :)

As in 12 centuries ago?

Mithrandir

Nooo

Viktor Krum :P

Maria Deleva

Hahaha. Your question was ambiguous :)

A J

11:28 AM

@Randal'Thor Seems like you're about to get a generalist badge, if one tag gets +11 rep.

Puzzling Meta

11:42 AM

0

Q: Very good but forgoten posts

I'm sad. Everyday I can see posts with very low quality or too easy. Others on hold for multple reasons ... and just a few amazing puzzles. I love seeing a good puzzle, which took a lot of work and effort to build. But as they are not easy, there are no answers, there are no views and eventuall...

discussion

Rand al'Thor

12:40 PM

@AJ Nope. The top forty tags (not twenty) need to have >=200 questions for Generalist badges to start being awarded.

A J

@Randal'Thor okk

A J

1:22 PM

@Randal'Thor Screening room has graveyard silence.

Puzzling Meta

1

Q: MathJax HNQ bug

There is currently a question from the personal finance stack in HNQ, titled: Getting $10,000 and have $16,000 balance on two credit cards - How to allocate payments? However, this renders like: This appears to be a consequence of changing the MathJax delimiter, and odd to see since MathJax...

bug mathjax

IAmInPLS

1:57 PM

Are puzzles tagged story in multiple (two, actually) parts acceptable?

This implies of course that the first part won't be the end of the... story

Rand al'Thor

@IAmInPLS You mean like one puzzle being a continuation of the next?

Of course: see the "SErial Killer" series, or my "Mysterious Email" series, or many others.

dcfyj

Hasn't that question been asked before?

in chat no less?

IAmInPLS

@Randal'Thor Alright

@dcfyj I thought so, but could not remember when

IAmInPLS

2:20 PM

@Randal'Thor Also, do these 2 parts would count for the fortnightly challenge, or will it be counted as a whole? Although I doubt I'll finish making this puzzle before the 19th...

Rand al'Thor

@IAmInPLS I think the fortnightly challenge counts individual questions, so they'd both be counted separately if they're both posted within the fortnight.

Sconibulus

how much story does a puzzle need to deserve the story tag?

Lukas Rotter

2:45 PM

@Sconibulus In my opinion pretty much everything :) "A puzzle that is dressed up as a story or a longer description of a situation. " If I define "longer" as "at least two words", a riddle that starts with "So my friend gave me this note with a riddle on it" could be tagged with story.

Sconibulus

that's almost exactly what I just made... just with a paragraph instead of a sentence

and... apparently I'm bad at StackExchange, sorry @rand et all who can see it

Rand al'Thor

@Sconibulus Self-deletes are "actual deletes". But deleting a post doesn't hide it from 10k-ers ;-)

Sconibulus

that's not an "actual delete", that's just setting a flag

I meant deleting from the db

Rand al'Thor

I don't think that's even possible.

Maybe a CM could do it.

Sconibulus

if I'd known that, I certainly would have just edited

now I get to just obviously suck at life to everyone with enough rep :)

Deusovi

2:59 PM

Well, it doesn't show up in the list - you only see it if you have the link or mod powers.

Rand al'Thor

@Deusovi ^ this is how I noticed

Sconibulus

I'm so dumb, I checked like 5 times to see if the puzzle matched my notes, or if I'd made any dumb transposition mistakes, but forgot to check if my notes matched reality until after it was posted

Deusovi

Hm, I guess the autorefresh doesn't check for deletes.

Sid

3:19 PM

@Sconibulus Is the extensive knowledge of computers required for your puzzle?? Or only the usual ascii or other stuff??

Sconibulus

I don't think it's extensive, but it's definitely worthy of the tag

well, extensive (or the right wikipedia page) might be needed to fully solve it, but I think you can get far enough to find that page without too much trouble

dcfyj

3:39 PM

Why don't many and sweaty rhyme :(

Rosie F

Why don't many and zany rhyme? ;-)

dcfyj

Those do, at least to me they do. My question was more of a forlorn complaint

Unless you feel that many and sweaty do rhyme, in which case I'm happy

Sconibulus

4:02 PM

many and sweaty may not rhyme, but 'many and sweaty' does rhyme with 'Lenny the Yeti'

Rand al'Thor

@RosieF Try reading this out loud!

dcfyj

Just goes to show how inconsistent the English language is haha

Rosie F

5:20 PM

@Randal'Thor Quite easy to understand through tough thorough thought, though.

5

Rand al'Thor

@RosieF OMG that's awesome.

Did you just make that up now?

dcfyj

@RosieF Easy to understand, sure. Still a pain to read.

Beastly Gerbil

Maria Deleva

@Rand I have also combined all these words in the past :) It is fun :)

Rand al'Thor

I believe this question should be reopened. By analogy with this one, if nothing else.

Beastly Gerbil

5:28 PM

@Randal'Thor, already voted to reopen

Sconibulus

Is that just a link to a countdown?

I don't see any images of a note or anything

I mean, there might be the seed of a decent question there, but as is, it's kinda crap, and I understand it being closed

the other one seems way more detailed, has embedded links to the youtube videos in question, and even in the original posting, explained the backstory rather thoroughly, as well as how prior steps had been solved

dcfyj

Yesterday that countdown had a red background with a dragon, now it's almost entirely black.

Beastly Gerbil

Yeah its changes, weird

dcfyj

If you look at the source, there's a ton of javascript on that page

Sconibulus

it's counting down to ~5 hours from now

dcfyj

5:39 PM

yup

to what? who knows