Hey all

I'm back from the dead

more or less

I posted my first puzzle in just over a month

Does anyone know how I can change the font size of a MathJax table (e.g. in a word-property puzzle) in the SE editor?

@LukasRotter Uhm try adding \Large after \begin{array}?

If it's too big, use \large.

Does it work?

It says misplaced \hline, I tried this: \begin{array}\large{|c|c|}\hline \text{Round Word™}&\text{Not Round Word™}

Sorry, I'm a total noob in MathJax :P

Ah right my bad, try \begin{array}{|c|c|}\large

I'd advise against the vertical lines by the way. And most of the horizontal ones. :P

From a typographic perspective.

lol

Still throws the same error with \begin{array}{|c|c|}\large \hline \text{Round Word™}&\text{Not Round Word™}

Also without the space

Let me see.

$\large \begin{array}{|c|c|}\hline ...

@LukasRotter This works. :)

The others are: \Large, \huge, \Huge.

\Humungous!!!!

@BeastlyGerbil lol

Thanks! But the problem is the table is still too big with \small ;( Is there an extra small or something?

\scriptsize, or \tiny

\Tiny?

or \footnotesize

So in descending order: \footnotesize, \scriptsize, \tiny.

@Alenanno Thanks, \scriptsize perfectly fits

I'm eagerly waiting for you to post @LukasRotter

@LukasRotter No problem. MathJax is basically Latex which I'm intermediate in :D

Woah how the hell did you figure that out

@BeastlyGerbil The hints were too obvious.

Apparently a pattern topic challenge is coming soon (21th probably)... My guess is that 45% - 55% of them are going to be word-property puzzles :P

Finally sussed Hugh's "Dealing in Double-Talk" puzzle and boy, do I feel stupid for not getting it earlier.

Can I use the sandbox to post a question which I can't make head or tails of? But, It's not a riddle. Just a maths question- Not sure if It is a textbook problem or a puzzle...

Ask here, perhaps?

@GarethMcCaughan Yo.

@Alenanno Yoyo.

Err. Alright... I would better do that...

Here's the question:

"10 ants are walking on a real line. At time, t=0, the kth ant is at k^2 position. At t=1, it is at position, (11-k)^2 moving at a constant speed. What is the number of definite times in which at least two ants are at the same position?"

@GarethMcCaughan Gahahhh. That Double-Talk puzzle! I expected there was going to be something to actually figure out from the riddle text (steganography). Also without the answers to the fill-ins, that puzzle is literally impossible, and short of OP giving those to us as a "hint" deriving them from the original posting is also literally impossible as nothing whatsoever hints at "strengths" and there's a vast array of choices to rhyme "unfair".

Glad you solved it, but ... I call shenanigans.

@Rubio You see, Gareth is actually an AI. He can solve things when mortals like myself are still trying to figure out what the hell is going on... :P

@sid I think I believe that.

Also, he must run on spare cycles of some busy datacenters, because he seems to do most of his solving during U.S. off-hours.

His website is also obviously generated. It even says (slightly paraphrased) "Until early June 2006, I was a human. I'm not any more.". Not sure what happened in 06, but apparently he's not always been an AI... This could also explain why he can act like a human so well and that he can manipulate us... Am I being manipulated right now? Help?

@Sid so if I'm understanding right, ant k starts at k^2 and then moves with velocity (11-k)^2-k^2 = 121-22k, and then the question is how many t there are for which two of the ants are in the same place?

So at time t ants p,q are at p^2-(121-22p)t and q^2-(121-22q)t which are equal iff p^2-q^2 = 22(p-q)t or, if p and q are different, iff p+q = 22t. If I haven't made any mistakes, you should be able to take it from there...

@Rubio I see what you mean, and I also was very very stuck until Hugh told us what the blanks represent ... but I also remember looking at the title and thinking "hmm, maybe there's some sort of repeated doubling thing going on".

(And then completely failing to make the connection with "strengths that you find in a pair" for literally days, which is why I now feel stupid about it.)

@Rubio Please consider the following two explanations for why someone might be active mostly during US off-hours. (1) They are actually an AI running on spare cycles in a datacentre. (2) They are located somewhere other than the US. I appreciate that to many in the US #2 is literally unthinkable, but I confess I had hoped for better here :-).

@GarethMcCaughan I was looking at doubled letters in the riddle because steganography which is a completely wrong and misleading tag. That combined with the fill-ins being something you'd expect to be ancillary to the puzzle, not the entire heart of it, given they were given away as a hint and not derivable from the puzzle at all .... that's kind of a bad puzzle, honestly.

@Lukas I have a feeling that in some languages the word you changed does actually sometimes have that meaning, but in English it really doesn't at all.

Hah, I assume you're not US based, but it was funny. C'mon, work with me here :)

@Rubio yeah, I know

but I'm trying really hard to pass as human and it's depressing to keep getting unmasked :-)

@GarethMcCaughan I forgot to mention that my definition of "slightly paraphrased" is "Completely change the meaning of the sentence to fit your theory", sorry.

@Lukas yeah. It was right on the border of being really offensive too, btw. (It's OK, I'm not upset. But you might want to be careful about that sort of thing.)

@GarethMcCaughan It was at least 2 ants. So, it can be 2 ants, or 3 ..... or all 10 ants at the same place.

@LukasRotter That was a bit harsh.

@Sid yup. Or two pairs of ants at the same place.

@Sid but the question is at what times?.

Yeah, the options, IIRC are : 45, 17,11 and 9(I think, can't guarantee much)

It's from a recent exam I gave today..

That is: at what t are there integers p,q, both of them in the range 1..10 or whatever it is, for which p+q=22t?

Possibly...

so the number of such t is just the number of distinct values of (p+q)/22, or equivalently the number of distinct values of p+q

which ranges from 1+1 to 10+10 i.e., from 2 to 20. That seems like 19 values rather than any of the numbers in your list.

@Sid I just saw the sentence and thought if I'd switch the word with human it would fit nicely in the Gareth = AI theory. I thought the context of the conversation and the ridiculousness of the statement "Christian is a synonym of human" made that clear, but I was obviously wrong.

@Lukas as I say, I wasn't actually upset. But there is a bit of a history of people treating those who don't share their religion as less than fully human, which I personally would prefer to keep well away from :-).

@GarethMcCaughan Exactly history! The world has changed.. I believe

My religion worships me as a god. And anyone who doesn't practice my religion is clearly inferior. BOW TO ME.

@Sid You're certainly right as regards the modern industrialized West (though there are parts of e.g. the US where you really really wouldn't want to be, say, atheist or Muslim). Not so sure about all the rest of the world.

@GarethMcCaughan And don't trust my list. I am not at all sure about the options. But, I don't understand the "at least 2" stuff.

@Sid hang on, just engaging in some dinner-related activities; back in 5-10 minutes and will have another go at explaining more clearly. (This is probably not of interest to anyone else; should we move it to the obvious other venue?)

I get that you're not upset, but since my whole comment had a "not serious, stupid remark" vibe to it I thought it wouldn't be near the border of offensive. But I'm bad at judging "offensive" content anyway.

@GarethMcCaughan All right.

For example, why isn't @Rubio 's comment considered offensive? (I assume it isn't because nobody complained yet)? I think it's as clearly unserious as mine.

@LukasRotter Who said I wasn't serious? Muahaha

yeah, all hail the mighty Rubio!! Now, I am superior?

As for the difference, I think any time that you're treading on ground that some people might actually take seriously—which my comment clearly doesn't qualify as—you want to tread lightly. Some people do feel that anyone not of their faith are unworthy, for some definition of unworthy, so your comment might be construed by some as a subtle way of saying that.

The world is that intolerant?

You new here? ;)

@Rubio Some people will take anything seriously. But I get that making up a religion instead of naming a real one will lessen the amount of offended people. But I still don't see how my comment in the context of the conversation is offensive, honestly. It'd be different if I'd throw out the paraphrased quote on it's own.

the conversation about the AI had nothing to do with faith, so hiding a passive aggressive remark in an unserious comment seems strange to me.

@LukasRotter I don't think it's offensive. Gareth didn't either. I think we're all good here. I do think it's interesting that we've become so politically correct these days that people sometimes take offense on other people's behalf, which I personally find silly - but we don't get to pick the world we live in, we just get the opportunity to try to make it a better world than it was before we got here.

"That was a bit harsh.", "It was right on the border of being really offensive too" - I was referring to these comments, sorry.

@LukasRotter I apologise. I didn't mean any offence.

@Sid LOL

@Rubio ??

I just wanted to know the reason why you thought it was harsh...

@sid ?? ??

@LukasRotter You see,equating a christian with human feels a little wrong. It sort of devalues other religions. I know, you didn't actually mean it.. still controversy is best avoided..

@Rubio Your pen-penultimate comment was meant for me?

@Sid Oh. Yeah. "here" being the world, not PSE.

@Sid Controversy finally brings life in the Sphinx Lair on weekends. I quite like it :P

@Rubio Depends on your definition of "new". I am sort of an idealistic guy.

Anyway. I'd sum up by saying that no rational person should have taken your comment to be offensive, which I think is what makes you puzzled at the reaction. The reason for the reaction is that so damn many people in this world are not rational, and I think you'd be surprised at the lengths people go to be offended at things. :)

@LukasRotter Yep.

Now let's all make up. We can't hug but we can kiss.

Ho ho.

(That puzzle puzzles me, which I guess it's meant to. There's a really obvious conjecture at what sort of things Mack and Zag are, and more specifically what Zag is, on the basis of the bullet points, but I don't at all see how to make any sense of the dream stuff if that conjecture is right.

I had a thought for what mack was but I couldn't figure out zag

then I realized the dream doesn't make much sense with what I thought

Hell, Mack reminds me of squares. Maybe, I am too much into maths..

Huh, we're opposite ways around: I think Zag is obvious but Mack is ambiguous. (Perhaps our guesses at the overall situation are completely different.)

what were you thinking for zag?

Chess pawn.

interesting

Mack is the rook then?

Or bishop. Or even the knight, if you think of its move as made of two orthogonal bits.

What I was thinking for Mack (which I pretty much had proven wrong) was the 'Hello Mac' controller for the Nintendo 64

(I am guessing that "turn in straight angles" means right angles rather than "straight angles". I could of course be wrong.)

Hmm, hadn't thought of video games, but anything's possible.

(My thought, in case it isn't clear, is that "the 64" means the chessboard with its 64 squares.)

well I just thought of the N64 from the comments

oh, there are comments?

but yeah I understood what you were thinking

So yeah Zag could be the pawn, Mack could be the bishop or rook, but what about the dream?

The chess thing doesn't make any sense at all out of the dream, so far as I can see (unless there's some Lewis Carroll stuff going on, which has both a chess game and a cat, but I don't think the cat gets borrowed).

So I think the video game hypothesis is actually better.

I immediately thought this must be a N64 title featuring characters with no hands

I guess Zag is a character that gets more powerful as the game progresses, or something.

interesting

Something along the lines of DigDug - where one is limited to cardinal direction motion, and the other can move freely

(have to go and make some food now, maybe back later)

kk

But I can't think of any that fit even that, let alone feature a "Zag" that moves erratically at first and then moves with greater purpose

Well I can't think of Zag,

But I suppose 64 could be the squares on a board, the Rook as Mack, and a Pawn (→Queen) as Zag

but I just thought of SSB

The dream is ... surreal, in any case

disregarding the dream,

in super smash bros on the n64

and a large body

so it can't hug people

also, there is a wrestler named Kirby Mack

No, that sounds like too much trivia...

maybe

I liked the chess idea but the dream sort of shattered it... (It was one of the ideas that I had on seeing 64, but helpless, develop later,threw me off)

Cat reminds me of Schrodinger's cat. But, no idea how that can be used...

as for the hug thing

there's the french kiss

in chess, the pawn can do the move en passant

which is french

but the cat thing still throws it off

I'm really surprised this puzzle isn't tagged rebus or steganography... How else am I supposed to find meaning in images? ;(