The Sphinx's Lair

Deusovi

12:13 AM

Yeah, that is not a good post for this site.

More evidence that people don't understand Puzzling, I guess. :/

Rand al'Thor

12:27 AM

An insta-self-answered riddle? Someone doesn't quite get how this site works ...

Rand al'Thor

1:36 AM

@EngineerToast Congrats on 10k rep!

Beastly Gerbil

10:23 AM

@Randal'Thor, your are desperate for more people to get 10k aren't you :P

Beastly Gerbil

10:34 AM

Woo earnt the outspoken badge

Puzzling — BOUNTY!

11:39 AM

9

Q: Ricky McCormick's Notes

On June 30 1999, Ricky McCormick was found dead in an isolated area, 15 miles away from his home. He didn't own a car, and the area was not subjected to public transport so it is a mystery how he got there. The case has been identified as a murder, not a suicide. Found in his pockets where two n...

Gareth McCaughan

@Randal'Thor @BeastlyGerbil I'm sure there must be an elegant solution to the cubes puzzle. Something parity-ish. E.g., #adjacencies = 3/2 #cubes, so it's enough if #adjacencies is even; perhaps more strongly the number of "x-adjacencies" has to be even and ditto for y and z.

Mithrandir

@Randal'Thor Give me the link and we'll see if I can add 11k to that :P

Beastly Gerbil

I'm inclined to think it is possible too, it's just every way I've tried so far has resulted in failure

@Mithrandir, you're back!

Gareth McCaughan

I kinda want to colour the cubes two colours (say black and white) by parity and label each adjacency with the direction it heads out of the adjacent white cube in, and then ... well, unfortunately it isn't the case that you have to have the same number of these in all directions (I have counterexamples), but maybe +x and -x have to have the same parity or something.

Mithrandir

@BeastlyGerbil Yup :D

Beastly Gerbil

11:45 AM

Does that mean a puzzle is coming out soon?

Mithrandir

Eh. Sci is still avoiding helping.

So possibly.

:P

Beastly Gerbil

Well then maybe you can help with Alconja's puzzle

Mithrandir

I'm not a great solver...

Beastly Gerbil

It's tricky, but I got the first bit :P

And I'm an awful solver

Mithrandir

...Ikea inspired.

Beastly Gerbil

11:46 AM

:P

Mithrandir

You can't even click on the images.

Beastly Gerbil

You can hold right on them and click open in new tab, but then they are really small

Mithrandir

I know. I'm looking at the source :P

Sep 20 at 13:38, by Arka Karmakar

@Mithrandir @Randal'Thor I have found answer to a question (What does Mithrandir want to tell us ? :- ) before it's asked. The answer is, from quipquip, congratulations you have found my info good for Vou but there's nothing of interest here . :-P

...What? A 'v'? How is that possible?

And why did he ping @Randal'Thor in that? o_o

IAmInPLS

12:04 PM

English people needed : can I use the adjective eponymous for a place? Like, a restaurant?

Beastly Gerbil

@IAmInPLS, I don't even know what that means, hang on...

Yes you can

It can be of a thing or of a place

Maria Deleva

I tried making a 6 by 6 crossword and failed. Multiple times. Grandiosely.

Beastly Gerbil

@MariaDeleva, don't give up :P

Rand al'Thor

@BeastlyGerbil Not particularly; there are already enough active 10k-ers to delete questions that need deleting. I'd really like more people to get 20k though, so that not every deleted answer has to be mod-deleted.

Beastly Gerbil

Well I'll get 10k soon...

Rand al'Thor

12:15 PM

@GarethMcCaughan I was thinking along exactly those lines, but haven't yet been able to prove that the number of face intersections must be even.

@Mithrandir Hey, welcome back! Link to Literature :-)

Maria Deleva

@BeastlyGerbil thanks. I am wondering if it would be easier to write a code to brute force this for me... :)

Rand al'Thor

@Mithrandir Because I wrote the "What does leoll2 want to tell us?" and "What does Lukas Rotter want to tell us?" puzzles and the one about you?

Beastly Gerbil

Generally I use online tools to help me when making crosswords or sudoku @MariaDeleva

Mithrandir

I chose 'Professional of Expert' :P

Because I count myself as an expert, and and I'm 'working' on becoming a professional.... Sort of....

Rand al'Thor

Woo, 70 committers!

Mithrandir

12:24 PM

@Randal'Thor Ah, yes.

Rand al'Thor

Now see if you can refer Sci ;-)

Mithrandir

:P

Wouldn't you want to add ~50k to your count on there? :P

Rand al'Thor

Well, really I'd like to add 88k.

Beastly Gerbil

200k?

Mithrandir

51,000 is part of 88,000.

Rand al'Thor

12:26 PM

Do you mean Sci has 51k? :-o

Mithrandir

Yup.

Mostly from SO.

stackexchange.com/users/3846032/scimonster

Rand al'Thor

Anyway, sure, I'd like more referrals, but "it's share and share alike aboard my vessel, sonny boy!" I don't want to grab them all :-)

Mithrandir

I'm still wondering if this was the first proposal closed at 100% commitment...

Sid

Is it allowed to have multiple accounts on Stack Exchange?? Specifically here??

Mithrandir

Yeah, basically. Just don't vote for yourself.

Or accept your own answer, or other stuff like that.

Rand al'Thor

12:30 PM

85

A: How should sockpuppets be handled on Stack Exchange?

How can I be sure I'm looking at a sockpuppet? You can't ever be 100% sure. What you think is a sockpuppet could in fact be my good friend Nog Shine, who loves everything I write, copies my writing style, and uses my computer to vote and post stuff when I step away for coffee. But in practice, ...

Beastly Gerbil

Wow I'm the 7477792nd user on stackexchange!

Rand al'Thor

6

Q: Unintentional misuse of a sock puppet account

Storytime: I joined your wonderful community, and immediately posted a riddle about The Beatles. Then I posted another one about The Beatles, and then one about David Bowie. The Bowie riddle was answered by someone who had seen the two Beatles riddles. He told me that when he saw my name on ...

discussion editing reputation user-accounts

@BeastlyGerbil Is that number significant? (Also, is that really your age?!)

Beastly Gerbil

Yes thats my age, and no its just a big number of users on stack exchange!

Rand al'Thor

@BeastlyGerbil I occasionally visit Stack Overflow just to gawp at the big numbers there.

Beastly Gerbil

User 1

:P

Rand al'Thor

12:35 PM

Also, you might like this: stackexchange.com/questions?tab=realtime

Mithrandir

I sometimes gawk at that...

Beastly Gerbil

I am so, so close to a breakthrough on Alconja's puzzle... but it's just out of reach

Mithrandir

Wow, @BeastlyGerbil is younger than me! :P

Beastly Gerbil

@Mithrandir, younger minds think clearer :P

Mithrandir

(666*2+(8^2)/2)/2+16=a

^Annoying.

<Annoying.

Beastly Gerbil

12:43 PM

You want to find a?

Mithrandir

Nope.

I made a.

:P

Beastly Gerbil

:P

It's 698 (I think)

Is that relevant?

Mithrandir

Not now.

#Cryptic

Your 3D cube is making me dizzy. Probably because I'm rotating it very quickly.

Beastly Gerbil

:P

I'm stuck on the last face

Rand al'Thor

@Mithrandir You should check out the cube here, if you haven't already.

Mithrandir

12:47 PM

@Randal'Thor I did.

I was #4 to upvote, BTW. :P

Of course, it's at 72 now...

Beastly Gerbil

How do you remember you were 4th? :P

Mithrandir

I'm a freak.

Beastly Gerbil

Photographic memory :P

Mithrandir

I also reviewed some first post that got +100 upvotes...

puzzling.stackexchange.com/review/first-posts/23179

Rand al'Thor

@Mithrandir Moozaroot?

פריק

Mithrandir

12:51 PM

@Randal'Thor Huh?

Rand al'Thor

13

A: The many usernames of SFF:SE

You might want to take a cup of coffee and sit down for this. Well, it all started in 2007. The world was a much more innocent place, or was I younger and more innocent? Who's to tell? Anyways, being on volunteer work in Haifa Israel, a bunch of my friends and I started calling each other "Frea...

Mithrandir

@Randal'Thor ?יפ. סו וואת

Rand al'Thor

translate: ?יפ. סו וואת

(from Hebrew) -Jeep. Sue and and

Great, thanks Bing.

Mithrandir

>.< It's transliterated.

It says. 'Yup. So what?'

Gareth McCaughan

1:24 PM

@Randal'Thor I think you owe GentlePurpleRain a checkmark for the Tight Words (tm).

Rand al'Thor

@GarethMcCaughan I owe four checkmarks here now, and I normally award them in batches of five.

Gareth McCaughan

ah, fair enough

Deusovi

@Randal'Thor Wait, really? Why hold off until you have five to give away?

Rand al'Thor

@randal'thor very true - it looks like the OP edited the question as I was writing my answer haha. Should I leave it here, or just delete it? Not sure what the standard approach would be :) — Joe 13 mins ago

Any thoughts on this?

(i.e. should answers that have been invalidated by good edits to the question be left or deleted?)

@Deusovi To keep my rep on a multiple of 5 (yes, I'm weird). I accept answers either to balance out downvotes or, if I repcap or don't get downvoted, in batches of five.

Gareth McCaughan

I don't tend to delete my answers unless in hindsight they're indefensible (e.g., an answer to a mathematical question that's founded on a flatly incorrect bit of reasoning). If I thought an answer was a perfectly good one to the question as originally asked and it was then invalidated by a change to the question, I'd edit in a remark explaining what happened.

If it wasn't very convincing to begin with and the edit(s) to the question just clarified that, I would probably leave it there for downvoting :-).

Rand al'Thor

1:32 PM

Another factor (especially for riddles) is that the existence of many different answers is often used as an argument for VTCing as too broad.

But I supposing editing in a remark would help to deal with that.

Sconibulus

@Randal'Thor This seems a little weird to me, because it seems like a majority of riddles get several answers that ignore at least a line or two

Rand al'Thor

@Sconibulus Agreed. Personally, when deciding whether or not to VTC as too broad, I always check how many completely valid answers it's got (i.e. check every answer posted to see how well it fits) rather than just counting the number of answers.

Deusovi

@Randal'Thor Yeah, same here. A lot of the time, riddles attract bad answers from well-intentioned new users.

Rand al'Thor

Many people post answers which only sort of fit, or fit most of the riddle but not one or two lines. (I probably used to do so myself, but I try to be more careful these days and only post answers which I think have a very good chance of being right.)

Dan Russell

1:52 PM

@Randal'Thor @Deusovi The problem is, the "correct" answer to some of these riddles—like this or this or this—only sort of fits the clues.

Sconibulus

Oh, @Randal'Thor I didn't get an answer, do you mind if I use your Modular Riddle pattern (Reassemble the Riddles) for a riddle of my own?

@DanRussell I think that makes it a bad riddle, not a closable riddle

Rand al'Thor

@DanRussell Well, if the correct answer doesn't fit properly, then we're into "plastic bag" territory and the riddle is worth closing or at least downvoting.

@Sconibulus Sure, that's fine.

(I assume you mean using the idea of riddle reassembling and not the lines themselves?)

Sconibulus

yeah, just the idea

Maria Deleva

Wow 3 people give the same answer, and I give a different one. But wrong one, of course

Dan Russell

@Randal'Thor Yeah, of course. (I have downvoted all three of those.) I'm just musing on why people might, in good faith, post answers that don't quite seem to fit: Because they're used to seeing fairly crappy riddles with fairly crappily fitting answers.

Rand al'Thor

2:03 PM

@DanRussell Or perhaps a better reason: because it does fit most of the lines and they think it might fit the one or two remaining lines in a way they haven't yet worked out.

Dan Russell

@Randal'Thor Yep.

Rand al'Thor

I've often posted answers with one or two "Not sure about this line"s which the OP or someone else then helps me to work out (and they do fit the riddle well - I just hadn't realised how).

Dan Russell

That's why I think if there are 6-7 answers that fit >50% of a riddle's lines, it deserves a skeptical look for VingTC.

And since # of answers is a key component of what makes it to the HNQs, we end up with our broad riddles on that list all the time.

Rand al'Thor

I doubt there's a single site on SE which is really happy with their representation on HNQ. Every site gets some of its bad questions showcased there - it's not a Puzzling-specific problem.

Dan Russell

Also, for the record, I have no idea what this accepted answer has to do with that riddle. Even looking at the explanation of each line makes no sense. Almost suspicious, as I find it hard to believe that was deduced from the clues.

Rand al'Thor

2:08 PM

There have probably been plenty of calls on main meta to change the HNQ algorithm or abolish it altogether, but to no avail.

Dan Russell

"Light's away and the crowd will sway" = "Without light you can't measure time"?

"Comfort and joy you get from me, Always taking what I have." = "You can measure the correct length of time using a sand clock."?

Sconibulus

maybe it works way better in another language, which they happen to share?

Dan Russell

</needless complaining>

Maria Deleva

What I think is that the answer was correct and the OP didn' t really pay attention to the "reasoning".

Dan Russell

2:33 PM

@MariaDeleva Yeah, but does the reasoning even make sense with the clues?

Maria Deleva

@DanRussell it doesn't. It feels like a completely different reasoning, not entirely related to the clues. As if the answerer just twisted the clues to fit into their way of thinking. But that doesn' t make the answer incorrect. You can get the right answer with wrong reasoning.

Dan Russell

@MariaDeleva Agreed. In this case, however, even knowing the answer it's hard for me to see what the "right" reasoning could've been.

Maria Deleva

2:59 PM

Light's away and the crowd will sway - that could refer to the fact that even if the light is off, the sand (its particles, i.e. crowd) will continue to go back and forth - when you rotate the hourglass.

Comfort and joy you get from me - it can be comforting watching as the sand falls - like watching a waterfall or something.

Always taking what I have. - the hourglass has sand. It always takes it. i.e. it goes from one triangle to the other and vice versa. It is never lost. In a way, the lower part, "takes it", but the hourglass already has it.

@DanRussell there is your reasoning that could be the intended one.

Rand al'Thor

@Gareth @Beastly Oh wow. It seems the cubes thing was doable after all!

Ankoganit

@Randal'Thor All the while I was trying to prove it's impossible...:(

Rand al'Thor

Me too!

Rosie F

3:20 PM

@Randal'Thor Neat. Two components :( but this shows that it's possible with 34 cubes, thus banishing any parity-based notions such as that n had to be a multiple of 4.

Gareth McCaughan

Nice!

(and surprising)

Gareth McCaughan

3:38 PM

@DanRussell That's really weird. Especially in the light of this: meta.puzzling.stackexchange.com/questions/5391/…

whrrgarbl

3:56 PM

is there a consensus on when to tell people they're going down the wrong path? my latest puzzle appears to have tricked people, but I don't want to detract from the puzzling experience :P (kind of like giving hints too early)

GentlePurpleRain

@whrrgarbl Well, you've done it now. :P

I don't think there is a consensus. You can let people stew for weeks if you like. Or you can keep nudging them along.

whrrgarbl

@GentlePurpleRain I made sure they weren't in this room first :P

hmm, ok. I'm curious to see how far they get actually, so I guess I'll wait a bit and see

Gareth McCaughan

they might visit later and see this discussion

whrrgarbl

true. I'll probably post a comment later tonight anyways, I was more concerned about butting into a collaborative session prematurely

Rand al'Thor

4:24 PM

@GentlePurpleRain This question has got a lot of upvotes now. Fancy a quick tag merge? :-)

Sconibulus

I don't know if I'd categorize 7 as a lot

GentlePurpleRain

@Randal'Thor Have the questions with the tag been re-tagged?

It sounds like they shouldn't have the tag, so if I merge now, we'll have a bunch of questions with etiquette that shouldn't have it.

Rand al'Thor

@GentlePurpleRain No retagging is necessary. You can just merge good-practice into discussion and all will be well.

Since none of them are really about etiquette anyway.

GentlePurpleRain

Ah. I thought you wanted to merge it into etiquette.

Rand al'Thor

@Sconibulus For a question about meta tags on a small site? Few people care about tags, and even fewer care about meta tags. I'm surprised it got as many as 7.

GentlePurpleRain

4:27 PM

@Randal'Thor Done.

Sconibulus

@Randal'Thor /shrugs I'm just mindful about what happened with the Sandbox, I think it started at something like 16/0

Rand al'Thor

@GentlePurpleRain Great, thanks! status-completed?

GentlePurpleRain

Was just adding it.

Rand al'Thor

@Sconibulus Yeah, but that was a massive decision with a big impact on the way the site is run. Getting rid of one small tag on meta isn't something people are going to be up in arms about.

GentlePurpleRain

@Sconibulus This is a lot less significant than the sandbox.

No one is going to show up later and say, "I didn't get a chance to weigh in on whether we should burninate good-practice!"

Sid

4:30 PM

Is that tag ever used in puzzling??

Except maybe the one question for which it was created??

GentlePurpleRain

@Sid It's a tag on Puzzling Meta.

Sid

Ohh, Sorry... I rarely visit meta... Hence, I was not aware of it

Rand al'Thor

@Sid It was used on 11 questions until just now, but none of them really warranted it. See this post.

Saiid

what's burninate lol

Rand al'Thor

To burninate a tag is to eliminate it completely.

word-problem is pending burnination atm, but there's some questions we need to sort out and edit first.

Puzzling Meta

4:39 PM

1

Q: Gotta Tag 'em All

Whilst perusing through the tags, I noticed there is one for pokemon. Do we really need one specific to this or can these be removed or changed to video-games?

discussion tags

-1

Q: Do we need [liars]?

There's a tag called liars which, in my opinion, doesn't make any sense since the description says it's made of liars, truth tellers, and jokers. In other words the tag name doesn't provide all the information necessary to understand the meaning. In fact it only names 1 out of 3. Despite t...

discussion tags

Saiid

oh

duzzy

5:09 PM

In a room where I frequently chat, I asked about ciphers for a challenge, and someone directed me here. Is this a good place to ask about that sort of thing?

Rand al'Thor

@duzzy Sure! We have a cipher tag here and a lot of cipher challenge puzzles. I'm not sure exactly what you've got in mind, but you might like to check out Code Puzzles: What (Not) To Do? before posting.

duzzy

Well, I was mostly wondering if you knew of ciphers that would result in some strange punctuation.

For instance... "Urp jdann.bi. #5v1w frg jab yat. yd. urnnr,cbi y.qy abe o.. ,day frg jab er yr e.jre. cyv"

(I don't want someone to solve it for me. I just can't find any ciphers that do that).

Rand al'Thor

Hmm. You could use an ASCII-based enciphering method, but that might result in all sorts of weird symbols and not just punctuation.

There are also ciphers which have, say, full stops and hyphens inserted in weird places which, when you extract them, give a message in Morse code.

duzzy

Hm... that's an interesting idea.

Rand al'Thor

See e.g. this puzzle.

Sconibulus

5:18 PM

could be an 'every nth character' type cipher too, with a plaintext containing '...'

Rand al'Thor

Or this one for a more complicated example.

duzzy

Wow, I think I can see myself spending a lot of time on this SE site.

8

Saiid

Yup, it's fun

Beastly Gerbil

We reeled in another user :P

Rand al'Thor

@duzzy Yay! We've dragged another poor soul into the pit of ~~despair~~ neverending fun :-D

4

Saiid

5:24 PM

I started out on Mathematics and ended up here, I now have more rep here than anywhere else

Rand al'Thor

Once you join this site, you can never leave.

Saiid

And I'm likely to fail several classes because I spend all my time here

duzzy

@Saiid lol that thought did cross my mind as I was looking at some of these puzzles.

Saiid

@duzzy lel

duzzy

Fortunately I'm nearly done with my degree, so hopefully this won't hold me back too much. :P

Saiid

5:25 PM

@duzzy good

Beastly Gerbil

Does anyone (looking (imaginarily) @Randal'Thor) know what happened to @f"? Hasn't been seen in a month

Would be a shame to lose our second top user

Saiid

lol school just started for most people about a month ago, they might be busy with school

Rand al'Thor

@BeastlyGerbil Nope, no idea. Seems to be a common phenomenon on this site: people shooting up to the top bunch of users and then just disappearing. leoll2, Bailey M, ...

Beastly Gerbil

@Randal'Thor make sure you don't fall foul to the same fate!!!

I was actually quite surprised that you came back after you were out for a year, such a long period of time would make some users forget about this site.

Pleased you did though...

Rand al'Thor

Well, I certainly hadn't forgotten about SE in that time!

Sconibulus

5:45 PM

you were gone for a year? why?

Beastly Gerbil

He was suspended for advertising his site

So it was a bit harsh by the mods

Rand al'Thor

@Sconibulus Long story, but essentially the old mods here didn't like me and wanted to get rid of me.

Beastly Gerbil

Ssssshhhhh, Emrakul's still here you know :P

I've been suspended as well, and I'm pretty sure the old mods didn't like me either because when I was suspended for 'voting irregularities' I was innocent! And then when I told them I was they didn't even respond! Lost a month of puzzling for nothing...

Rand al'Thor

Well, I always got on better with Emrak anyway :-)

Beastly Gerbil

Emrakul is a good mod, he's nicer than the old two were and I' glad the Deusov and GPR are more like him

Rand al'Thor

5:50 PM

@BeastlyGerbil A month? Was it your second suspension? (you don't have to answer - no need to rake up old coals if you don't want to)

Beastly Gerbil

@Randal'Thor, yes my first was after a week on the site when I thought sockpuppets were allowed :P

Naivety is a bad thing

Rand al'Thor

@BeastlyGerbil Naughty, naughty :-P

So the second was for sockpuppetry as well?

Beastly Gerbil

I don't know i was innocent!

Rand al'Thor

Well, you must have got a mod message at least, which you could have responded to if you wanted to protest the suspension.

Beastly Gerbil

So now if I accidently do something wrong, I'll be out for a year instead of a month. Bit unfiar

@Randal'Thor I did respond! And they didn't respond back to my response!

Rosie F

5:53 PM

That's rather a steep escalation, if first suspension's a week, next is a month and next is a year!

I know!

Is there any decay?

I don't know

like, if you're suspended for a week, then behave for three years, will the second be a month anyway?

Beastly Gerbil

I think so

Rand al'Thor

5:54 PM

@RosieF It's not a strict requirement - as you can see from Gamow, for instance (2-month suspension).

GentlePurpleRain

Suspension durations are always at the discretion of the mods, but the standard is 1 week, 1 month, 1 year.

Rand al'Thor

The mods have discretion as to how long to suspend someone for.

Yes, what GPR said ^^

Sconibulus

intruiginh

Beastly Gerbil

@Randal'Thor, did you do something wrong twice before? (You don't have to say)

Or was it just straight into a year

GentlePurpleRain

<ahem>

in Puzzles Etc., Sep 2 at 22:27, by GentlePurpleRain

We would probably all be better off if we tried to focus on the present. Randal'Thor has "served his time", so to speak, and is now back and contributing positively to the site. None of us is served well by continuing to discuss the events of the past.

Rand al'Thor

5:56 PM

@BeastlyGerbil Yes, I had two previous (and justified) suspensions, but then behaved myself for several months before the third one.

Beastly Gerbil

I'm still contributing I just feel I have been unfairly treated...

Better behave yourself now, or you account will be deleted :P

Rand al'Thor

@BeastlyGerbil Well, that's between you and the PSE mods - or, if you really want to 'appeal' the decision, the SE team.

Beastly Gerbil

@Randal'Thor, I won't go to that hassle unless I am suspended again I think...

It doesn't actually matter right now, but another suspension would see me out for a year instead of just a month, which is a big difference

Sconibulus

I would think that you might be better off appealing what you think is a questionable suspension without the spectre of a deserved suspension hanging over the proceedings

Rand al'Thor

@BeastlyGerbil Not necessarily. Like GPR said, suspension length is at the mods' discretion. If they decide your second suspension was unfair, or if you've earned enough 'brownie points' by behaving yourself in the interim, or if this hypothetical third suspension is for something totally unrelated, or for any other reason, they could choose to suspend you for something less than a year.

Beastly Gerbil

6:02 PM

In that case I beg the mods to be nice :P

Or better I don't get suspended again....

Rand al'Thor

@BeastlyGerbil Yes, that's always the preferred option :-P

@Sconibulus Still haven't got much to go on for the last two of your five history riddles ...

Though I suspect "An Empire was born" may refer to the British Empire, and "I was somewhere in France" maybe the Napoleonic Wars or the First World War?

Sconibulus

I think I should probably hold hints for a little while longer?

Beastly Gerbil

Wait a day then post a hint

Rand al'Thor

Sure, I'm just thinking aloud really (and hoping maybe a third person will add some ideas).

Though you could confirm how correct the three I've got so far are :-)

Sconibulus

6:17 PM

two of the three were ones I had come up with, the third is an entirely different, but eerily similar event, but yours works so I'd count it

(I've also forgotten what order you posted them in, so consider these comments in no particular order)

Rand al'Thor

I suspect the "third" here is the Rubicon one, since that's probably a less well-known historical event than the other two.

Beastly Gerbil

Wow, I've made a lot of progress on my casino puzzle, ETP: This week

Sconibulus

Rubicon doesn't appear to have happened under cover of darkness, from anything I've read

Rand al'Thor

Yeah, I've probably been overusing the "darkness" line.

Also, I could only work out four lines for the Troy riddle.

Beastly Gerbil

6:34 PM

@Randal'Thor, I crossed the salty water, And the river, In a large wooden construct may refer to a boat?

Rand al'Thor

@BeastlyGerbil Yes ... so we need a significant event in some historical conflict which involves a boat.

The Spanish Armada?

Beastly Gerbil

Maybe

Rand al'Thor

I wonder where @Sconibulus is from ... that might have an effect on which 'significant' historical events he's chosen.

Beastly Gerbil

doesn't say on his profile..

Rand al'Thor

I was somewhere in France,
I crossed the salt waters
In a large wooden construct,
Then the battle was won.

The Norman invasion of England?

Sconibulus

6:47 PM

I'm from the U.S.

Beastly Gerbil

Good...

Oh ok

Sconibulus

7:25 PM

I can't believe I transcribed seven lines of that before translating...

Beastly Gerbil

7:51 PM

Ive still got +80 so far for today even though I've given out a bounty. I count that as a good rep day

Beastly Gerbil

8:31 PM

Time to start another fortnightly challenge?

duzzy

8:48 PM

I figured out that cipher I asked about earlier. It was just a substitution cipher that included punctuation in place of some of the letters, and some letters in place of punctuation.

Alconja

9:10 PM

@Randal'Thor what are your thoughts on this suggested fix/improvement?:

2

A: Can we have site-specific control over HNQ?

With recent discussions and active attempts to handle the declining riddle quality on the site, I thought I'd also resurrect this question too, as I think it's related (since broad low quality riddles => lots of guesses => HNQ)... As GentlePurpleRain points out, the algorithm to select posts f...

(from the perspective of someone who is a regular/mod on other non-PSE SEs)

Rand al'Thor

@Alconja +1, nice idea. But realistically, I doubt you'll be able to persuade SE to change the HNQ algorithm even in this minor way. Everyone knows the HNQ system is broken, and nobody's done anything about it yet; I get the idea the CMs/devs have put the issue on a back burner for the foreseeable future and spend their time on other things instead.

You could propose it on main meta, but all you'd get is a bunch of upvotes (and main meta rep is the most useless rep there is) and no status-completed.

Deusovi

Yep, sounds about right to me.

Puzzling — BOUNTY!

9:36 PM

8

Q: Vulnerable Outside the System

I may be vulnerable here on the outside, back within your reach, but some of my kind run amok within their systems. Many are protected by fiery walls. One busies his time running cycles. Still another ensures that you’ve cleared your cookies. They are stewing over your calloused treatment of ...

riddle word story

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