The Sphinx's Lair

Rand al'Thor

00:19

@Alenanno New idea: maybe the two letters Y and O in "you" are "sequins" because they're just 'decorative' in the sense that the word would be pronounced the same with both of them removed. Then "the last" is U.

ffao

02:20

yesterday, by ffao

Unique code reminds me of unicode

@Randal'Thor you should have listened :P

Sid

04:29

@Randal'Thor think of phrase as a verb rather than noun..

user230888

05:37

The other part is STACK EXCHANGE. It combines and makes PSE - for which Sid for low marks. :D

user230888

Just a guess, of course.

duzzy

:32807975 Yarp >_>

user230888

@duzzy ?

duzzy

Your message, before it was removed, asked if I was online all the time.

user230888

Yeah, but what is yarp and the symbols?

duzzy

05:43

Yarp = yes

user230888

All the time? You don't sleep?

duzzy

Narp.

Okay, I do sleep.

user230888

I see you online all time.

duzzy

As long as I'm logged into any SE chatroom on one of my computers, it keeps me in any of the rooms I had previously joined... and I pretty much always have the space exploration chat open on my primary desktop.

That's kind of my SE home.

Otherwise, I lurk a lot. I read what other people say, I try to understand things, I try to learn what I can from that.

Alenanno

09:10

@Randal'Thor cc@ffao :P ahahha... yup.

@ffao Very good job! :D And yes, the biggest hint was "unique code", which @Randal'Thor was hovering on for a lot of time. That's why I gave the last hint, I wanted him (and others) to read the last stanza aloud so he would have heard the familiar sound in "unique code".

Granted, the riddle would have sufficed with the four mini-puzzles, because 5A-65-75-73 are decimals and that's enough to get the final word. But even if the riddle was not necessary, I liked the idea of making you think that it kinda was and force you on the larger route.

@ffao How did you get the other clues? I'm interested in how you got the ideas. Was it a "AH-HA!" moment? :P

By the way, for the second stanza, the first version was a bit harder because it said "pick a letter and go ahead", so I didn't specify the last.

user189275

@Alenanno: How Alconja solved it ?

Alenanno

@ArbitraryKangaroo @Alconja guessed the correct answer, but he/she was lacking the riddle solution.

I think he/she did have a AH-HA moment.

Is Alconja a woman or a man? lol

@ArbitraryKangaroo Did you read @ffao's solution?

user189275

@Alenanno: I don't know, but I guess Alconja's a man, because I referred to him as "him" and he didn't protest. I mean, how he guessed the answer ?

user189275

(It's getting extremely ridiculous - why the "lol" After the "Is Alconja a woman or a man?")

Alenanno

@ArbitraryKangaroo Because I don't know. Why are my lols that important?

I don't know how he guessed the answer, I wasn't told.

I guess @Alconja could tell us.

user189275

09:25

@Alenanno How "5A-65-75-73 are decimals and that's enough to get the final word" happens ?

Alenanno

@ArbitraryKangaroo I'm not sure I understand the question...

user189275

@Alenanno: How the solution, Zeus, can be deducted from the four answers without the riddle ?

Alenanno

@ArbitraryKangaroo My bad, not decimals, they are hexadecimal numbers.

So even without the unicode syntax, you can work them out.

Like: cryptii.com/hexadecimal/text

user189275

10:00

@Alenanno: Oh, okay. I guessed Alconja guessed that it would be a hexadecimal, then converted it into letters.

Alconja

@Alenanno A) numbers looked like hex (in the printable ascii range), B) the next step was a wordplay riddle, so I figured letters/words world be more useful than numbers, so just did the ascii conversion.

Alenanno

@ArbitraryKangaroo Yeah, that's probably it. @Randal'Thor was very close, I was kind of expecting him to guess

Alconja

(Ascii overlaps Unicode at the bottom end)

Initially (given the double letter end clue and the early U and possible S) wondered if the riddle gave Suess, then spotted the unique code clue, but still got hung up with letters, so was trying to fit the riddle to ascii or similar (again, double at the end)

Constructive suggestion (it was still a good puzzle), could have used something in the higher Unicode ranges that made letters that just looked like ascii characters, to make the short cut impossible.

Alenanno

@Alconja Thanks for the suggestion: could you elaborate on that? I'm interested.

Alconja

So like, (lemme find an example), use U+25E1 for "U"

◡

Or x: U+2613 ☓

Alenanno

10:11

@Alconja So you think I should have given for example just "13" and then let you guess "u+26" in the riddle?

Alconja

You could find characters that would look like most alphanumeric characters

No. If you followed my suggestion, it would necessarily make it more complex, because you'd either need a common range, so the riddle could prepend the same thing, or just have long numbers with "U+" riddled

So possibly wouldn't make it better, just harder to short circuit... I only say so because seeing the hex made me immediately think/try ascii

...though I like the 00 clue which would be ruined..

Alenanno

@Alconja :D ahah yeah. That was one of the first rhymes that came to my mind

I'm happy my first puzzle was challenging enough, although it's hard to foresee if your design choices are good.

user189275

@Alenanno: If you accept (constructive) criticism, then I must say that although your first puzzle's riddle is good, you should ditch those "guess what I'm thinking" mini puzzles, because there is infinite sane answers to every four "mini-puzzles".

Alenanno

@ArbitraryKangaroo Sure I accept criticism. But if you're right, could you find an alternative answer that fits the mini-puzzles?

I think they're rather unambiguous

but if you have an idea, please share.

Alconja

I think they were ok

Alenanno

10:26

I'm not being "pouty" here, I was genuinely asking, @ArbitraryKangaroo. If you know an alternative answer that would fit, thus making them ambiguous, I'd like to know so I can avoid it next time, if it happens.

user189275

@Alenanno I'm typing. Many sane answers. You have to just curve fit with two variables with an answer of your choice, and that will deteremine the coefficients completeley. For I, the variables are the number, and the letter in A1Z26, for II, it is roughly okay, for III, curve fit with the two letters in A1Z26, and for IV, the two numbers. Well, I am bit stupidly arguing about II, III, IV, because

user189275

they can be guessed an the choices are natural, so II,III,IV is okay, but I is extremely nonsense. I am bit overly stupid arguing because these kind of stuff occupies nonsensense IQ test questions, and I have very bad afterexperience after taking those tests.

Alenanno

@Alconja Thanks, by the way.

@ArbitraryKangaroo But the alternative solutions you, @Sconibulus and @Randal'Thor were discussing at the beginning (2 days ago), always had something off, no?

For the most part they fit, but something was off about those solutions.

Alconja

Semi serious, but over the top idea (re: higher range unicode): change the riddle to a song, make the "u+" part the chorus, and the other parts verses. Then you have a chorus and verse for each letter and spell out a longer word (and one of the verses could still have the 00 clue). :)

user189275

@Alenanno: I agree that 2,3,4 is okay, as the solution feels bit natural (but still you can curve fit, but then the answer is not so good, but with ugly coefficient like 1.568 etc), but you should avoid mini puzzles like 1.

Alenanno

10:30

@Alconja Ahah good idea. :D

@ArbitraryKangaroo I can see you don't like it. :P

Alconja

(And now you can see how my puzzles get out of hand)

user189275

@Alenanno: I (am repeating for around 6~7th time) like the riddle but I don't like the minipuzzle 1,4

Alenanno

@Alconja I'm afraid my third one is going to be tough eheheh

@ArbitraryKangaroo Yes, I got it

user189275

@Alconja: What is "getting out of hand" ?

Alconja

@Alenanno I'll keep an eye out

@ArbitraryKangaroo I was just meaning the song idea was over the top, which shows the way my brain works. Over complicating things and evolving ideas too far.

Or do you mean what does the idiom "get out of hand" means? (Not sure if English is your native)

Alenanno

10:42

Uhm, I got my first downvote.

Well, it happens, I guess... :P

user189275

@Alenanno: Well, they ain't so bad that they deserve a downvote.

Alconja

Happens to the best of us.

Alenanno

I don't think my first puzzle did, and I'm not saying this because it's mine.

user189275

@Alconja: [Bengali != English ]

user189275

You think the song idea is complicated ? I find it's more beautiful than a moderately metred poetry.

Alconja

10:47

Not complicated, yet... Just heading that direction. :)

user189275

@Alenanno: Will you post any hint to your second puzzle to narrow down the possibilities ? When you're posting the third puzzle ?

Alenanno

@ArbitraryKangaroo I don't know yet, honestly.

If it's still stalling by the time I post the third, I'll see what I can do.

user189275

@Alconja: Is there a way to know which questions have no accepted answers (but may have non accepted answer) ?

user189275

24

Q: The Curse of the Ancients

The night has grown fearful. It has been a fortnight since the rising - when the dead have begun to shamble out of their graves, hunting and preying on sleeping men and women and children. The people are saying the gods are angry; they may very well be right. The land is cursed, and crops are fai...

user189275

Random upping, good puzzle.

Alconja

10:53

Yeah, on mobile so can't remember exact syntax, but search accepted:no or something...

user189275

puzzling.stackexchange.com/search?q=accepted%3Ano

Alconja

There's a meta question somewhere with useful suggestions, which includes it

Advanced tips on the right - hasaccepted:no

user189275

@Alconja: I am so stupid - I didn't notice there was a "Advanced search tips" before you commented.

Alconja

:)

user189275

What's the difference between hasaccepted and isaccpted?

Alconja

10:56

I think has refers to questions, is refers to answers... Maybe...

user189275

Second time stupid. Hovering the cursor tells the info.

user189275

The isaccepted is for answers and hasaccepted is for questions.

Alenanno

In the browser, choose "Unanswered" to see questions with no upvoted or accepted answers.

Alconja

Yeah, only problem is upvoted "partial" or wrong answers

user189275

@Alenanno: The unanswered makes no sense in PSE, because there is partial answers. It's so ridiculous that even this question is not in the list.

Alenanno

11:02

@ArbitraryKangaroo Headache material

The sequence of letters like that.

Alconja

@ArbitraryKangaroo relevant: meta.puzzling.stackexchange.com/q/4766/5208

Alenanno

@ArbitraryKangaroo The question you linked, they have all those letters, killing my eyes.

user189275

@Alenanno: What letters does it have ? What is "killing" you eyes ?

Alenanno

@ArbitraryKangaroo Why are you removing your past messages?

I just meant that it's hard to look at a wall of letters like that .

user189275

@Alenanno: I mentioned it before

Alenanno

11:07

@ArbitraryKangaroo Oh

user189275

@Alconja: Can you migrate questions ?

user189275

0

Q: Find the missing number

Find the missing number: 4 9 25 49 ? 361 121 169 289

mental-arithmetic

user189275

Is applicable for here.

Alenanno

He can only vote to (if the site is available in the list).

But you can flag a question for migration, if you think it should be migrated.

A moderator will do that if they agree with you.

ffao

12:33

@Alenanno I just saw U and a positive sign, and that reminded me of unicode, then the "unique code" in the riddle made me sure I was right

Ironically enough we only had U at that point because we solved puzzle 1 incorrectly

If we had solved as 5A from the start I might have been more tempted to go for ascii as Alconja did

Lukas Rotter

12:52

What is the difference between cryptography and cipher? The description for cryptography reads "A puzzle concerning techniques for secure communication in the presence of (hostile) third parties." - Does this mean that the puzzle must include a third-party (i.e. in the story)? Does it mean that the method must be "secure"? If so, can I tag a puzzle with a complicated or secure (e.g. AES) encryption method cipher? "A cipher is a simple method of modifying messages" :P

Jonathan Allan

Programming Puzzles & Code Golf members can't spot a puzzle. I posted the below with nothing to get them started and it got four downvotes off the bat. One comment was "I downvoted because ASCII-art challenges should have some pattern or sequence (same with kolmogorov-complexity), but this is an arbitrary image which isn't even a proper ASCII representation of the PPCG logo, nor does it even use a consistent pattern of characters" and has seven useful flags. Maybe I should have posted it here!

-3

Q: ASCII PPCG Beta Logo Golf

We shall soon have a new logo & site design, let us use this last breath of the simple times and golf this ASCII version of the speech bubble beta logo: +-------------------------------------------+ | .---------------------------------. | | .EPEpEpBPEpEGCXCgCgCGJgCgP&PWP&P&P&Y` | | .R...

code-golf ascii-art kolmogorov-complexity

don't know yet what "isn't even a proper ASCII representation of the PPCG logo" actually means either

it's all ASCII, and it looks roughly like the beta logo :/

Rand al'Thor

@ffao Damn, I hadn't seen that :-/

I even saw what Alconja said and couldn't work out how he got ZEUS.

@Alenanno I was at a disadvantage here because I don't know much about computers. Given the word 'unicode', I could probably have Googled it up to find out what it is and how to convert things using it, but it certainly wasn't something I would have looked for by myself.

@LukasRotter I would use cipher for an actual cipher puzzle and cryptography for a question about cryptography. I'm not certain whether this reflects the wider usage of the tags though.

Lukas Rotter

13:17

@Randal'Thor Sounds reasonable. But yeah, looking at the questions tagged cryptography it seems like most of the questions are either tagged cipher and cryptography, or only cryptography, but should've been tagged cipher by this rule. :P

Beastly Gerbil

0

Q: Crytography and Steganography

We have two tags: cryptography steganography After the recent boom of steganography puzzles, which have been well received, do we really need cryptography? Here are the two tag infos: Steganography: Hidden data concealed in otherwise unsuspicious pictures, text, and/or audio. An...

discussion tags

Lukas Rotter

@BeastlyGerbil I don't think they're the same thing, because cryptographic algorithms usually don't hide plaintext in the sent data, but rather "change" them. I.e. not "daoijsdadjHelloadssajd" but "Tltke" :P

Alenanno

@Randal'Thor It's ok, I think you were doing a good job nonetheless!

Puzzling Meta

13:40

0

Q: Crytography and Steganography

We have two tags: cryptography steganography After the recent boom of steganography puzzles, which have been well received, do we really need cryptography? Here are the two tag infos: Steganography: Hidden data concealed in otherwise unsuspicious pictures, text, and/or audio. An...

discussion tags

Rand al'Thor

@BeastlyGerbil I'm working on an answer ...

Rand al'Thor

14:06

2

A: Crytography and Steganography

Cryptography and steganography are two very different things... Both involve concealing a secret message so that its meaning is not apparent, but in cryptography the message is hidden within apparent gibberish, while in steganography it's hidden within a different message which seems to have a t...

Sid

15:17

@Randal'Thor in that case, will my latest puzzle come under Steganography or cryptography??

Rand al'Thor

@Sid Steganography, since you're hiding one message inside another.

Although there are ciphers involved too ...

Sid

But, it isn't meant for anyone to really know...

Rand al'Thor

Going by what you said about phrases corresponding to verbs, I've picked out all the verbs from the message:

> prepare, lie, realised, ought (?), bluff, accept, are, exclaiming, gone, was, are, wasn't, repeat, was, being, lost, was, had, lost, didn't, sit, affected, had, begun, grew, couldn't, focus, be, studied, got, 'twas (?), stumped, went, may, say, had, befallen, was, frozen, reiterate, has, opened, made, has, called, promise, would, be, repeated, would, try, do.

Not all of these are main verbs of phrases though ... I guess I should take out some of them.

Amusing adjacency on today's HNQ list:

4

user189275

16:12

@BeastlyGerbil: Why you are randomly updating the REJBAS ? It's solved and it's good and it's accepted, so what's the point of updating it ?

Beastly Gerbil

@ArbitraryKangaroo, I added the bit I had missed at the top, I'm a perfectionist, I do that to most of my posts

Like I said I'm a perfectionist, I update a lot of stuff if I don't like what I see.

I've edited over 250 posts (excluding my own)

I've made 719 edits total.

REJBAS is one puzzle, I edit a lot of things to make sure they are correct

user189275

16:33

Anyone Japanese here ?

Beastly Gerbil

I... doubt it

user189275

[I want to know if the Haiku is really as pointlessly ugly as depicted in various puzzles here, in original Japanese language]

Beastly Gerbil

Haiku

Haiku (俳句) listen (plural haiku) is a very short form of Japanese poetry. It is typically characterised by three qualities: The essence of haiku is "cutting" (kiru). This is often represented by the juxtaposition of two images or ideas and a kireji ("cutting word") between them, a kind of verbal punctuation mark which signals the moment of separation and colours the manner in which the juxtaposed elements are related. Traditional haiku consist of 17 on (also known as morae though often loosely translated as "syllables"), in three phrases of 5, 7, and 5 on respectively. A kigo (seasonal reference...

user189275

The Haiku, as depicted in PSE, are wrote like this:

user189275

You write some gibber/You make the middle thick, add slash/ Haiku is made

user189275

16:37

Really, I don't actually see any point of writing prose in so cryptic way. But, obviously, that isn't a fault of Haiku, but of my experience and perception of Haiku is fauly.

Beastly Gerbil

thehaikuguru.com/famous-haiku-poem.html

I doubt you'll find anyone (a Japanese and (b active

user189275

Is this really any difference between:

user189275

I kill an ant
and realize my three children

have been watching.

- Kato Shuson

user189275

And:

user189275

I kill an ant and realize my three children have been watching.

Beastly Gerbil

16:39

Poetic structure

Meter

Of course, it is a poem

user189275

I don't know any good thing about poetry, and I didn't read much pieces of beautiful poetry, so it's better to stop writing nonsense thing about poem (esp Haiku, metre and all that) from me.

Beastly Gerbil

oh ok

METER - any regular pattern of rhythm based on stressed and unstressed syllables.

Rand al'Thor

@ArbitraryKangaroo I think @JoeZ. speaks Japanese.

Beastly Gerbil

Shame he hasn't been active in months

Rand al'Thor

He was in here just a couple of weeks ago.

Beastly Gerbil

16:45

Was he?

Missed that

Rand al'Thor

@ArbitraryKangaroo I've never seen the point of haikus either. They're not even very challenging to write, since all you have to do is count syllables. Writing a poem in rhyming iambic pentameter, for instance, is much more challenging and interesting.

Beastly Gerbil

I prefer puzzles :P

Rand al'Thor

Why not both?

Some of the best riddles have some interesting poetic structure as well as nice wordplay or metaphors.

Beastly Gerbil

Because I can't write a good poem

Rand al'Thor

You can't write poems, you beast?
It isn't really that hard, Mr Gerbil.
Writing poems with rhyme, at least,
Has beauty both written and verbal.

Jonathan Allan

16:54

Joe just recently posted a question on PPCG.SE so he's around

^@Randal'Thor @ArbitraryKangaroo

Beastly Gerbil

Whatever happened to @f"

Sid

@BeastlyGerbil he sort of disappeared. Maybe he got bored with the site..

user189275

Joe is from Japan?[If yes, there's very slight chance of I and Joe online at the same time, because of time zone and other reasons]

Avigrail

Good day

user189275

@Avigrail: Any new hint to your puzzle ? There's probably more to the puzzle except rotating, stacking, and seeing patterns in vases etc.

Avigrail

17:03

Any hint now would give it away

user189275

@Avigrail: How close is the chat to the solution ?

user189275

Avigrail is now chatting [here]

Beastly Gerbil

17:48

@Randal'Thor, not a fan of Tolkien? :P

Rand al'Thor

@BeastlyGerbil I'm a huge fan of Tolkien, but the question obviously isn't about Tolkien.

Just inspired by a work of Tolkien. That's not enough to tag it tolkien.

Beastly Gerbil

Oh isn't it?

Rand al'Thor

I'm pretty sure I know what the answer is, but I come from the wrong part of the world to know much about it :-/

Beastly Gerbil

The tag wiki says a puzzle related to Tolkien

Rand al'Thor

@BeastlyGerbil Tags should describe the actual content of the question.

@BeastlyGerbil And the puzzle itself (presumably) isn't related to Tolkien. The Tolkien references must be just a red herring, otherwise it'd be too easy.

Puzzling — BOUNTY!

18:49

121

Q: Merlin and Hermes: Mysterious Lines

Two adventurers, Merlin and Hermes, approached a large iron door built into a cliff face."Well...", said Hermes, "What do we do now?". Merlin produced an old, large piece of crumpled paper from his pocket. "Hrm...", Merlin mumbled. "It says here that we must speak the six letter keyword to open t...

enigmatic-puzzle

Rand al'Thor

@ArbitraryKangaroo You're giving away almost all your rep? :-O

user189275

@Randal'Thor: Yeah, I'm deleting my account, because i. I spend most of the time doing thoughtless stuff here, mostly including herd thinking and thoughtless random comments and all that. ii. Honestly, the sole purpose of my participation is here is not for the love/thrill of solving puzzles, but getting nonsense reps iii. I am not persisting enough with any single puzzle. So, well, I decided to quit, and solve puzzles independently without screaming about it or poking the OP of hints .

user189275

So I thought it's a good idea to give most of my rep to a good answer.

Rand al'Thor

Aww :-(

Deusovi

@ArbitraryKangaroo Aww :c

I'm sad to see you go.

user189275

18:56

@Deusovi @Randal'Thor The most stupid part is ii, and that's extremely horrible and freaky, but it's all over my head and I can't control it passively, so the best thing to do it secretly and without any artificial helps (hints from OP's)

Deusovi

You mean iii?

I haven't noticed anything like that at all. o:

user189275

"...not for the love/thrill of solving puzzles, but getting nonsense reps"; "herd thinking and thoughtless random comments " is also dangerous.

user189275

For example, well, in the REJBAS chat, to be honest, all I did is to comment random things whatever came into my mind without thinking about feasibility or all that, and this happened in Avigrail's puzzle and The Letter from the past's chat too. This happens for around 95% of all the time I spend on any chat, be it Sphinx Lair.

Deusovi

Hey, that's fine. Brainstorming is an important part of puzzle solving.

user189275

Brainstorming, like discussing #8 rebus, and saying thoughtless random nonsense like this is completely different stuff.

Deusovi

19:02

I don't see how that's "thoughtless random nonsense".

It's fine to say you don't know something.

user189275

That's not a perfect example of hogwash, I'm providing.

user189275

Thoughtless: After 1 minute of reflection, the answer to my question is completly obvious.

user189275

Plagarism: It was, in any way, not my idea, but completely of Phlarx'.

Deusovi

Everyone makes dumb comments. You should see the ones I've deleted.

user189275

@Deusovi: But you've too see the percentile. Mine occupies around 95~99%.

Deusovi

19:09

And building off other people's comments is not plagiarism.

You say that, but I haven't seen anything like that! You've provided lots of helpful ideas when doing puzzles.

user189275

@Deusovi: But the first line is totally wrong: A single word is not my idea, but all is a trivial restatement of Phlarx'.

ffao

He says his comments were useless, yet he was the only person to bring up the punchcard in the letter chat

user189275

That's completely thoughtlessly obvious when you see "You need Deusovi for that", coupled with trivial eliminations.

Deusovi

...No it's not. I never thought of that.

You're definitely understating your contributions here - you've helped out a lot, and I've really enjoyed talking to you.

user189275

Sorry, it's off in a different side - I am not saying about the 5~2% half gibber stuff or how they helped puzzlers; To be honest, these were just for collecting lots of reps and had nothing to do with the fun of doing puzzles. And anywhere I wrote that "It was fun to do", that's a complete lie, the true statement is then "It was fun because I got some rep ! Now see how my monodimensional ranking shoots up some percentile further".

Deusovi

19:14

I can't say for sure either way, but I don't think that's the case.

user189275

But I can say for sure.

Lukas Rotter

Why would you post helpful comments in chat if all you cared about is rep? Wouldn't you just keep the information to yourself? :P

Deusovi

Yeah - you do things all the time that don't have anything to do with your rep.

Like talking in chat, for one.

If you really only cared about your rep, you'd never be here.

user189275

@LukasRotter It's because of the nonsense awarding system, which happened here. The guys I've mentioned in my answer would've got the answer with some brute forcing possibilites, but I found only that - but I take all the rep ! I participate in the chat to hope similar things happens.

Gareth McCaughan

@ArbitraryKangaroo If you want to quit, then of course you should (especially if you think it's bad for you psychologically), but I agree with the others here that your participation has been far from useless.

Deusovi

19:19

@ArbitraryKangaroo If you really wanted to just take other people's ideas then you wouldn't say anything.

You'd just watch people talk and steal their ideas.

But you've contributed a lot. I don't think that's just rep-grabbing.

I'm sure everyone has done something small just for rep. Hell, you could consider my writeup of Alconja's "This is important" puzzle to be one of those things - after all, it was mostly f'' who solved that one.

user189275

Who knows ? An extemely great example is that (It is ridiculous of course) I imagine to solve the Kryptos to get the 1750 floating bounty on that question, not for the fun of solving a question that's unsolved for 26 years. But anyway, PSE is a great site, and it's surly gonna great fun to solve an Alconja question, in the future, without looking at the hints or discussing with anyone or letting others know you've solved it, and do it in secret.

Deusovi

Sure, it would be. So?

I don't see how that's relevant to participating today. After all, the reason lots of puzzles are so good is because feedback from solvers helps refine them.

Take Alconja's treasure hunt puzzle. It was good, but it wasn't solved without a lot of hinting. Without the rest of us saying that some parts needed more clues, it would've been left unsolved.

Lukas Rotter

20:26

Does someone know why this question got downvoted 3x times? I'm not good with riddles so I'd like to know. I suspect it's because the ridde is "low-effort"? I.e. no proper rhymes, just a clue after the other? :P

Rand al'Thor

@LukasRotter Dunno. I upvoted it. Maybe it's because of the non-descriptive title? (in which case, why not edit rather than DV)

Lukas Rotter

@Randal'Thor Btw, have you tried solving my latest puzzle? I think the hints + the remarks made in answers and their comments are enough to solve it if you take some time (maybe the +50 bounty isn't enough motivation?). I'm asking you because you solved my error message puzzle and almost my text message puzzle, which are similar to this in terms of the theme. :P

Rand al'Thor

> basic knowledge of HTML5 and CSS3 is required

I don't even know what these things mean.

I can make absolutely nothing of that puzzle, sorry.

I don't ignore tags, but if I did, computer-puzzle would be top of my ignore list.

Both the error message and text message puzzles only required knowledge of ciphers.

Lukas Rotter

@Randal'Thor Oh... Well, with Alconja's answer it isn't necessarily anymore, because it pointed out the thing about the box model. But yeah, I understand if you don't even like the theme of the puzzle, you also probably don't even want to try to solve it :P

That's probably the reason why it hasn't been solved yet, too... Just too specific in order to get enough people motivated to solve it in a short amount of time. :P

user189275

20:53

@Emrakul: Your profile text is a stenography puzzle ?

user189275

"Truly! Twas Gimoneus the wise, grand sorcerer of Elantorfan, keeper of the ancient rune of Turgochit, came nearest to slaying the mighty dragon of Ralmorgantorg; for he was old and sinewy, and the wretched beast near choked to death on his femur"

humn

21:23

Re:

8 hours ago, by Jonathan Allan

Programming Puzzles & Code Golf members can't spot a puzzle. I posted the below with nothing to get them started and it got four downvotes off the bat. One comment was "I downvoted because ASCII-art challenges should have some pattern or sequence (same with kolmogorov-complexity), but this is an arbitrary image which isn't even a proper ASCII representation of the PPCG logo, nor does it even use a consistent pattern of characters" and has seven useful flags. Maybe I should have posted it here!

8 hours ago, by Jonathan Allan

-3

Q: ASCII PPCG Beta Logo Golf

We shall soon have a new logo & site design, let us use this last breath of the simple times and golf this ASCII version of the speech bubble beta logo: +-------------------------------------------+ | .---------------------------------. | | .EPEpEpBPEpEGCXCgCgCGJgCgP&PWP&P&P&Y` | | .R...

code-golf ascii-art kolmogorov-complexity

You know, @Jonathan Allan, the "Puzzles" in "Programming Puzzles & Code Golf" is merely a last name, properly capitalized. The original name of that site was "Strange Case of Dr Puzzles and Mr Golf," which accounts for its disassociation from ASCII art as well but fails to explain its connection to programming.

By the way, beautifully rounded P in your:

+-------------------------------------------+
|    .---------------------------------.    |
|   .EPEpEpBPEpEGCXCgCgCGJgCgP&PWP&P&P&Y`   |
|  .RSRsRWRSRsRsHoNoNONxNONONuJuSUSUSVSUS`  |
|  :o@OTO@O@O@W@IDiDIWiDIDIDWZEZeZEWEZeZE-  |
|  :GWGFGfGFKFGFMEMwMEMEMeXEMZLZLWLZLzLZH-  |
|  :rLRLRLXLRLrLMBMGMGmGXGMGMLzTZLZLZLYLZ-  |
|  :AOAoBOAOAOAYAOAoAoBOAOAoAWZEZEZEVEZEZ-  |
|  :MGVGm!'""'!GRLr!'""'!LRKRS!'""'!uSuSU-  |
|  :XEME' .''% !Gf' .;G% 'GFG' .;P% '&PVP-  |
|  :IDID  !DI! !V! .OPoYOPOP!  -gCGCGHGCG-  |

Jonathan Allan

@humn hehe, thanks; C and G not quite so good though

humn

They're great too and made me notice the P!

Jonathan Allan

I'm sure you'd have spotted the pattern I added as an update to get them going on it

humn

Yep, and it has received some votes of approval by now too. Amazing instant allergic reaction, though.

Jonathan Allan

yeah 6 upvotes, 1 just before my update

humn

21:28

Ho, while you're here, i'd like to put you on the stop about A Strange Correspondence....

Jonathan Allan

(almost certainly from Jörg Hülsermann)

I'm not sure how to give hints on it :(

humn

Jörg Hülsermann?

Jonathan Allan

the first guy to answer

humn

Ah. I was looking back at one of our chats on Strange Correspondence and wonder if something you did/asked was a hint.

Jonathan Allan

he got an upvote and then he posted his answer

within a couple of seconds

what was it?

humn

21:30

(Oh yeah, i'm starting to learn the secret semaphore system of timing votes with answers and comments)

About Strange Correspondence, you asked me if the Korean letters looked double wide.

Jonathan Allan

yeah

humn

Months later, that question seems like a way to point my attention to those letters.

(at the time just seemed like a rendering observation)

Jonathan Allan

not a hint per-se, but could affect solving if one approaches it in a certain way and does not realise

which makes it a hint I suppose :p

humn

(^^^ ... thank ... you ... ^^^ ) Guess i'm most wondering if there is a visual component that nobody has picked up on yet?

(going to find links for the chat record) puzzle in question:

23

Q: A Strange Correspondence

I voted to delete some questions on another SE site from two users due to them being garbled nonsense.* However when I got to the sixth I thought something looked suspicious, it looked to me like an encrypted correspondence since all the titles were fairly normal but all the posts were just stri...

story cipher language

in Puzzles Etc., Jun 4 at 20:41, by Jonathan Allan

Korean looks like 1.5 width

....

The puzzle will get solved yet.

Jonathan Allan

Well, I pointed at a line which uses one of the "many many" languages to two people who have said language as their mother tongue and asked if they could see anything that resembled a fairly common word; and they both said no. I then explained how it worked and they both said "Ahhhhh yes!" and one then said - and that is **** in ****. :)

humn

21:40

In chat? Don't want anyone to see those four-* words?

Jonathan Allan

I mean she spotted another word in another language.

Gareth McCaughan

@humn secret semaphore system?

Jonathan Allan

@GarethMcCaughan indicating it is you who is upvoting by timing it with your response.

humn

exactly!

Deusovi

Hm, it could be transliteration rather than an actual translation?

humn

21:43

Look out, JA, this is how some longstanding puzzles get solved around here.

Jonathan Allan

Should I add that text ^ as another hint (since I cant think of anything else useful)?

humn

By Deusovi, that is..... ^^^^ good idea about the hint

Rand al'Thor

@JonathanAllan If I downvote and leave a comment, I usually try not to do both at exactly the same time, precisely because of that ;-)

Jonathan Allan

well I think if I said nothing it would get solved eventually

humn

in Puzzles Etc., Jul 1 at 4:38, by Jonathan Allan

haven't you already said it all?

Jonathan Allan

21:46

@Randal'Thor I've done that too (although I often comment to explain why I am downvoting)

@humn, maybe :p

but @DanRussell (just to ping him to this chat portion!) asked for a hint

Rand al'Thor

@JonathanAllan Yes, that's what I mean. A downvote, and a comment with constructive criticism, but not both at the same time.

humn

Here's on of my favorite scores. The questioner checked the answer as correct but, based on the timing (ya hadda be there), also downvoted:

Gareth McCaughan

@humn That's really weird.

Jonathan Allan

One thing I don't love about the SE model, is that we can't change our vote later (after some time) without an edit - so if we mistakenly think a puzzle is bad and then see an answer which corrects our incorrect observation, we cant undo it

Gareth McCaughan

Weird enough that I would question your timing-based inference.

Deusovi

21:50

@JonathanAllan Yeah, agreed.

Rand al'Thor

@humn I've seen that done by a malicious trolly OP (on another site). It does happen.

humn

True, Gareth, inconclusive, but the questioner certainly didn't upvote in any case

Jonathan Allan

@humn, probably a misclick on the button and did not undo it?

humn

hmm, JA, i should go find it again and check

Rand al'Thor

@JonathanAllan Relevant:

4

Q: Up/Down Voters' Remorse

I was recently accosted in our main chat room about my mysterious non-content-changing edits. They were comprised of a single white-space character, or a new-line character which would not be visible as per HTML display conventions. It had been assumed that some unscrupulous reason had been my ...

feature-request voting

Gareth McCaughan

21:53

@LukasRotter Your HTML/CSS cipher is odd. There's a hint saying to decrypt in the most basic way possible and stressing the simplicity of the cipher, and you say the result should have "normal" letter freqs. But for me, at least, the most basic way to decrypt would be a Caesar cipher and the next most basic some other kind of simple substitution -- but the character freqs are completely inconsistent with that if the result of decryption is meant to be (presumably rearranged) ordinary text.

Jonathan Allan

@Randal'Thor I had not thought of making an edit myself, clever.

Gareth McCaughan

There are 400 characters, the most common of which appears 24 times. In typical English, ~1/6 of characters are spaces (that would be ~60), ~1/8 are Es (that would be ~50), etc.

Jonathan Allan

current music playing here has a repetetive noise that sounds vaugly like the ping noise for a chat notification :p

humn

perhaps its the music of the chats, @JonathanAllan (and, yes, now the vote total is 0 on that checked answer)

Jonathan Allan

Israeli trance... that'll be the problem.

+0/-0 now?

humn

21:56

don't know (faked the 0/-1 breakdown for illustrative purpose)

Jonathan Allan

^^

humn

turns out that we can see vote breakdowns without any rep, but i haven't gone to the trouble of installing that feature

Jonathan Allan

@GarethMcCaughan @GarethMcCaughan is that "A Strange Correspondence"?

(oops double ping)

...or the "html/css"

ah I guess the latter

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