The Sphinx's Lair

user189275

00:48

@Ankoganit You shouldn't mention the four C's in a comment, except when youre asking, because it clutters up this

Rubio

I find it amusing when AK comments on other participants' chat etiquette.

4

@Randal'Thor Oh. My. Title length overload.

user189275

@Rubio It's not etiquette (I don't care much about it), but its about not cluttering up the search space.

Alconja

@ArbitraryKangaroo Ironically, that comment clutters up your own search :)

user189275

@Alconja Nope, I used "four C's", not "C**C".

Alconja

Click the link

user189275

00:59

Will I flag it for mods ?

user189275

@Alconja What's the tags on your puzzle for the community metapuzzle ?

Alconja

music+visual+enigmatic-puzzle+word (the last simply because things resolve to a single word)

user189275

Oh tagging music and I'm not there. Is knowledge of music required to solve it ? (You shouldn't include the visual and enigmatic, they're obvious to be present in your puzzles)

Alconja

Not really, and I'm including the absolute basic music theory necessary

Deusovi

Ooh, a puzzle involving music theory? This'll be fun :D

user189275

01:06

@Deusovi How you will make your metapuzzle from the puzzle answer ? (The tags)

Alconja

No more deleting!

Deusovi

I don't see a need to.

The search is fine IMO.

It's not a significant amount of clutter.

Huh? What do you mean?

(Also, on the topic of music theory, here's a chiptune in 7/4 time)

Come to Me (Instrumental Version)

►

user189275

I mean how you're making the metapuzzle from the puzzle answers ? (Based on which tags ?)

Alconja

I do love me some strange time signatures (and/or polymeter/polyrhythm)

Deusovi

I haven't decided on the tags yet. Probably visual, wordplay, and of course metapuzzles.

user189275

01:10

Here's a completely joke (and easy) C3:

user189275

Technology giant stacks the first letter upon itself and contains 75% of lock (7)

user189275

And here's a ridiculously easy C3:

user189275

May I have a cake ?(2)

Deusovi

Hm, I can't get either of them. Are you sure they follow the rules of cryptic clues?

user189275

Yeah, sure this time. Will I tell the answers ?

Deusovi

01:14

You don't have to.

Alconja

I can't see the answers either (treating them as cryptics)...

user189275

Okay, so I'm telling both:

Alconja

BTW deus, is your most recent one in the chain still unsolved? Saw you got mine last night, well done! (I was worried it was a bit hard given I was being a bit mean with using traditional indicator words not as indicators)

Rubio

Deus's latest hasn't been solved that I've seen. I can't make any headway on it.

user189275

• (First one is a complete joke) Alconja (= Bill Gates = Technology giant), Puts upon first letter upon itself (A on A) and 75% of lock (loc) (Alconja)

Deusovi

01:17

Yeah, mine's still unsolved! And I loved your clue. Clues that play with the genre are always fun.

Where does the NJ come from?

user189275

• Pi (May I have a -> 3.141), A cake (= pie)

Rubio

Either I badly misunderstand the rules, or neither of those follow them.

Deusovi

"May I have a" is not a definition or valid wordplay for "pi". And you'd need a homophone indicator for "pie". Maybe "cake, he asked" or something.

(Also, you'd need an anagram indicator for LOC --> LCO.)

It should be possible to get the answer from either half entirely without the other half.

user189275

Oh okay, so very sorry, none works. I guess I have to solve craploads more before making some crappy ones.

Deusovi

It takes a lot of practice! My first cryptic clues were awful.

Rubio

01:20

my first one was solvable but not legal. hehe

Alconja

@Deusovi Thanks. Appreciate the sentiment. Enjoying learning a new puzzle skill. :)

Deusovi

In case it wasn't obvious by now, cryptics are my favorite type of puzzle :P

Alconja

I want to say that the answer for yours is leak (def: gas from seals), but that doesn't fit any (parents - western) patterns I can find... Wondering if "western" is EU or something...

(of course I expect no confirmation either way, just thinking out loud)

Rubio

01:56

I was thinking "gas from seals" is HISS, western gas is Hydrogen (the only gas on the left/west side of the periodic table), so extracting western gas from seals = ISS. but I can't do anything from there to make PARENTS give another letter that solves it.

Alconja

that's quite good. western could also just be referring to the left most letter

Rubio

anyway - trying to find ways to parse "western gas" as H haven't proven very fruitful.

true

Alconja

but if "western gas" is H (or G), then the definition can't be gas from seals (they overlap), making it parents, but then we need a word that means parents that's "seals" - [HG]

Other possibility is western gas = WES (stock exchange listing)

Rubio

hm. yeah, i didn't think of that

Deusovi

(All necessary capital letters have been provided.)

Alconja

02:05

provided by you? I.e. none (well, just P at the start of the sentence)

Rubio

@Deusovi That, surprisingly, doesn't help me at all. ;) I'm not sure what capitalization flags in cryptics.

Deusovi

Western Gas, the company, would've been capitalized.

Alconja

nor me. making your clue more cryptic than the cryptic :P

ahh kk

Rubio

oh. ok thanks

Deusovi

It's not a cryptic thing, just an English thing

Alconja

02:06

:) fair enough

Rubio

oh. hm.

Gareth McCaughan

Some other observations (which have not so far led me to the answer): "Parents" can be a verb as well as a noun. "seals" could also be a verb (perhaps suggesting one thing stuffed inside another").

er, dunno what that quotation mark is doing there; ignore it.

GUMS means something a little like "seals" and shares many letters with MUMS which could be clued by "parents", and the required change is even at the left (west) side, but I don't see any way to put those pieces together so that they actually fit.

Alconja

Yeah, that's getting pretty close... GUMS (seals) - G (western Gas) ...but needs another M

Gareth McCaughan

yeah. I will be quite surprised if that actually has much in common with the solution.

Alconja

I was also thinking about verb/noun trickery and though parents could be rear or something

Gareth McCaughan

02:10

(would need to be "rears")

or raises or breeds or various other things with more than four letters.

Rubio

I don't think this works, but gonna check. POPS, because ... gas from seals might be He, minus the western gas (H) is E; extract that from Parents=Fathers=Popes -> POPS. that can't possibly be right, but hey. :)

Gareth McCaughan

so where's the definition part of the clue if that's right?

Alconja

I agree, which is why I kind of dropped it

Gareth McCaughan

(that's a polite way of saying I also don't think it works)

Deusovi

Nope, that's not it. Definition and wordplay are entirely separate, as Gareth indicated.

Rubio

02:11

Oh. Right. If parents=POPS as def, then parents can't participate in wordplay. right?

Gareth McCaughan

if solving this hinges on knowing that, I dunno, mugms are a kind of seals then I shall be (very slightly) annoyed.

Alconja

Ahh yes, the famous mugm seal

Deusovi

It doesn't require any obscure knowledge, don't worry.

Rubio

Native to Western Zimbabwe, if I remember correctly.

Gareth McCaughan

"from" looks like it ought to be just syntax but of course it could play a more substantial part (indicating EX or something). But so far as I know EWGX doesn't mean "parents" :-).

Rubio

02:13

They are natural ecological partners with the Schmulrog penguins.

Gareth McCaughan

(none of what I'm saying seems likely to be very helpful; I'm just trying to think of things it's easy to miss, assumptions it's natural to make but that could be wrong, etc.)

"Parents extracted" could mean that the role of the parents in the clue is simply to be removed from something else. But it's hard to make the clue fit together in that case.

Alconja

(non-useful things are still useful, shifts others' thinking in alternative directions)

Gareth McCaughan

that's the point, yes

Alconja

parents extracted = kids?

(i.e remove parents from a family)

Gareth McCaughan

I think that's a bit too much of a stretch.

Alconja

02:16

no, doesn't feel very deusovi-esque

deusovian?

Gareth McCaughan

deuoviate?

er, deusoviate

Deusovi

:P

Alconja

deviate

Gareth McCaughan

deiovi?

(I mean, if Deusovi = deus ovi = god of sheep, then its genitive would be dei ovi...)

Rubio

Deusovian, is I believe the proper form for the loanword. :)

Gareth McCaughan

02:18

(I don't think "ovi" actually quite means "of sheep"; I guess it's actually "ovium" or something.)

(and I say "actually" just a little too much; sorry)

Alconja

It's funny, but being limited to a 4 char word, is actually making this harder... especially with the plurals involved. Not many plural parent words or plural seal words to choose from (which is why I moved to "gas from seals" def in the first place)

Gareth McCaughan

anyway, I'm AFK for the next 15 minutes or so. I hope someone will have solved this by the time I get back.

Deusovi

Want a hint, or would you like to puzzle this over some more?

Alconja

dads, mums, moms, caps, gums, leak, hiss

lemme have a little longer....

Rubio

don't forget pops, not that it helps

Alconja

02:21

helps as much as the others...

is there any synonym that gets "seals" -> "chaps"?

Deusovi

nope

Rubio

@Alconja if (gas from seals) is def, what is "Parents extracted western" supposed to be then? I'm not sure there's anything that could fit that.

i mean, compositionally, let alone finding actual words that worked.

Sconibulus

parents extracted->Orphans... Western to imply Gotham, and therefor Bats

Alconja

Yeah, you're right, it's pretty awkward, but I think(?) it's ok to munge grammar a little when cluing such that "parents extracted western" could mean <parents synonym> minus <western clue>

Rubio

Hm. Ok yeah I guess I can see how that might work.

Alconja

02:27

It is a bit rough though, and we've seen that deusovi stickles on rules, so I think you may be right

Though similarly, if the def is "seals" that leaves a hanging "from" (but I'm pretty sure it's ok to bridge def to wordplay with a linking word like that)

meaning to be as "clean" as possible, the def must be parents

Rubio

02:40

ok I can't do anything with this, but I think it shows promise.

Deusovi

Hm?

Rubio

Parents (v) -> GETS. need a word for "seals" that can have "western" extracted from it, leaving GETS.

i'd love it if GASKETS worked, but i can't get "ASK" from western.

Alconja

definitely feels close

Rubio

as far as I know, that's the only workable (4) for Parents that we haven't already niggled to death

Alconja

though gaskets would be just seals, so we need to extract "western gas" = ASK from it...

Rubio

02:44

ah. yeah. i'm trying so many gyrations I lost track of what I was doing :)

Alconja

:) I know that feeling

Deusovi

03:01

Time for a hint?

Alconja

...yeah, I got nothing

Rubio

Yeah I'm out of ideas

Alconja

@GarethMcCaughan (sorry Gareth, we failed you)

Deusovi

Alright - there's one clue type you all haven't figured out yet. You're right that it's a deletion clue, but there's a bit more to it.

Gareth McCaughan

Just to be clear, you're saying there's a construction no one has mentioned yet? (Including, in particular, my suggestion that "seals" could mean "contains" and indicate one thing inside another?)

Rubio

03:06

Yeah, keep in mind at least half of us are novices and have only the barest idea of what constructions can exist :)

Alconja

maybe western means right to left... i.e. western gas => SAG

Gareth McCaughan

another possibility is that "gas" is an anagram indicator (think of gas molecules moving around at random and ending up any old where). So e.g. start with PARENTS, extract (meaning throw away, though of course it could equally be the opposite) the western part leaving ENTS, anagram to make NETS which kinda sorta means something a bit like "seals"

(but not enough like; I am not suggesting that's the answer)

(also, "from" would then be doing no work at all)

Rubio

I'd be quite surprised at "gas" as an indicator word.

Gareth McCaughan

me too

but I have a feeling I saw it once

Rubio

@Deusovi can I ask then - is "extracting western" a compound indicator to remove the leftmost match (only) of a deletion? I've already considered that, though I haven't seen anywhere that it makes any kind of difference. Just trying to make sense of your hint.

Deusovi

03:11

No, it is not.

And no, "gas" is not an indicator word.

Rubio

You're no help. ;) This makes my brain hurt hehe

Welp. I've no real idea then what clue type we haven't figured out yet. I hope we can safely assume you mean (clue type we for sure know about that we haven't yet figured out [how] to apply), and not (clue type we haven't yet figured out exists)

Deusovi

Yeah, I meant the former.

(I already did the "new clue type" gimmick with SCHOOLED.)

Alconja

06:04

Joke/rule breaking CC: "Fore!" you injected, without the slightest energy (4)

Deusovi

06:30

Heh, clever. (FO(+U)R(-e) - enumeration is the definition)

Alconja

:P

(this is me not solving yours)

Deusovi

Want me to give it away and make another? (Or just give a hint?)

Alconja

I gotta head off now anyway, so I can't pick up the torch.

See who comes in next and how they go with it....

Deusovi

Alright, sounds good!

IAmInPLS

08:46

You might know this one, but I came across it today (shame on me?)

After 19 years, I got into myself. Who am I?

Sid

15:10

Well, today has been the worst day of the month for me....IRL :-(

dcfyj

?

Sid

I might as well say "of the year"

@dcfyj Things went terribly bad today...

dcfyj

That bad?

Sid

Yep.. and they don't get bad with me usually.

@JonathanAllan Well, then I give up... Because for non-integer solutions, they usually take a lot of time and require use of logarithms and so on(I think.. I used them to find cube roots)..

Sconibulus

16:39

It's probably not right, but the last line of this riddle makes me think of the Strong Nuclear Force. I wonder if I can find a formula...

GentlePurpleRain

32

Q: Is there an equation for the strong nuclear force?

The equation describing the force due to gravity is $$F = G \frac{m_1 m_2}{r^2}.$$ Similarly the force due to the electrostatic force is $$F = k \frac{q_1 q_2}{r^2}.$$ Is there a similar equation that describes the force due to the strong nuclear force? What are the equivalent of masses/charg...

Sconibulus

17:03

nope, those don't seem to be makable from a word as described in the puzzle, oh well, a longshot anyway

Sid

DOesn't the link part not work in the chat as it does in the puzzles. Isn't this the correct syntax, [insert] [1] [1]:http.....

dcfyj

You mean a [text link](example.com)?

Rubio

[text to display](url) is easier

GentlePurpleRain

@Sid You need to use the "short form" hyperlink syntax: [Display text](URL).

Anyone else? :P

Rubio

hehe

dcfyj

17:11

I'm more confused why mine didn't turn into a link...

GentlePurpleRain

@dcfyj You need a valid URL. With http:// on it.

dcfyj

Chatception!

Sid

Ahh, thanks... So, that's what I had been doing wrong all this time...

Sconibulus

example

Sid

What happened to the CCCC?

dcfyj

17:15

It's still on @Deusovi's as far as I know

Deusovi

Yep!

dcfyj

this one: Parents extracted western gas from seals (4)

(Yes I have it copied from outside chat, I glance at it now and then)

Rubio

well. that would have been a lot cooler if it formatted right.

dcfyj

I have no idea what you're doing

Rubio

nevermind. :) that just plain didn't work

dcfyj

17:17

Rubio's an AK puppet!

Sid

@Rubio One AK is enough.... :P

Rubio

Man. One delete. hides head in shame

Sid

On a more personal note, I broke my spectacles today. ;-(

dcfyj

I hope that's not why your day is going poorly

Sid

Nope, that's only the tip of the iceberg...

GentlePurpleRain

17:19

@Rubio You mixed up your brackets. You were doing ()[] instead of []() for one of the links.

Sid

Now that CCCC.... Probably means to take out one of the "s" or both the "s" from seals... Not sure about parents...

Rubio

so the hint, such as it was, that Deusovi gave us is that there is a clue type that we for sure know about that we haven't yet figured out [how] to apply

dcfyj

gas from seals could be the definition of a LEAK?

Sconibulus

maybe 'Parents' means to look at etymologies?

Extrahere vesper khaos fra (selkhaz|sigellum)

Deusovi

It's not etymologies.

GentlePurpleRain

17:32

@Sconibulus What language is that?

dcfyj

One that you don't know?

Sconibulus

Latin, Greek, and ProtoGermanic I believe, depending on the word

dcfyj

humanshu!

Rubio

we tried to get to LEAK but didn't find a good way there.

GentlePurpleRain

Ah. Makes sense, then. Google translate was having a lot of trouble with it.

Sconibulus

17:33

I dunno I used this site

Rubio

of course we're overlooking something

manshu

@dcfyj you might be confusing yourself between humn and manshu

GentlePurpleRain

Has anyone considered "western" as the movie genre?

Rubio

that should be capitalized though

Sconibulus

yeah, but I couldn't make 'Bean' into anything

dcfyj

17:34

I thought of western like little house on the prairie, does that count?

Sid

It's not LEAK... Alconja tried that yesterday...

Or technically today...

GentlePurpleRain

I wonder why "extracted" instead of "extract"? Maybe "extracted" is the definition word?

dcfyj

I thought it was supposed to be word play + definition

GentlePurpleRain

Yes; I'm saying maybe "extracted" is the definition part, and the rest is wordplay.

Rubio

a past-tense word for extracted in 4 letters is going to be a tough find

dcfyj

17:39

No, I mean, I though it was supposed to be the word play followed by the definition

Rubio

@dcfyj can be any order, they just have to be entirely distinct from each other

dcfyj

ah

GentlePurpleRain

@Rubio "ored"? (It's a stretch, I know).

Sid

I have got the weird feeling that it might be "PAST". Past tense of extract, First two letters from parents, s from seals...

GentlePurpleRain

@Sid Way too vague. There's nothing cluing the "first two letters/last letter" thing.

Rubio

17:42

there's no definition part that matches PAST, that I see

GentlePurpleRain

@Rubio How about TOOK?

Rubio

hm. That might work. :)

Sconibulus

maybe it's an organic compound gas

coming from seals

COOH or COHH?

there's probably a way to make parents extracted western match that

GentlePurpleRain

I wonder if "extracted western gas" could mean "fracked"?

Gareth McCaughan

the definition part can't usually be in the middle of the clue. I don't see any way "extracted" could be the definition in this case, for instance.

Rubio

17:49

Yeah it's hard to make sensible wordplay out of the rest of it

In any case, it's not just that we're using the wrong wordplay or wrong definitions for the pieces we've looked at. there is a clue type that we for sure know about that we haven't yet figured out [how] to apply. I don't know what it is, but Deusovi gave us that hint to unstuck us.

So what clue type have we not considered here?

15 hours ago, by Deusovi

Alright - there's one clue type you all haven't figured out yet. You're right that it's a deletion clue, but there's a bit more to it.

that's what he said exactly, and he confirmed what I said is what he meant.

Gareth McCaughan

ok, let's try to enumerate everything that could be happening in the clue.

"parents": doesn't seem like a cryptic-syntax word at all.

GentlePurpleRain

Well, the definition is probably either "Parents" or "seals".

Gareth McCaughan

"extracted": indicates some portion of a word being removed (and then either just that being used, or just the remainder being used; D's use of the term "deletion clue" suggests the latter)

"western": could mean taking the leftmost part of something; could signify W; could (though it's a stretch) mean taking the leftmost instance of something ambiguous (someone suggested e.g. that a word might have two gases in it and we'd have to remove the one that's further left).

[obviously these words could also just be words, whose meaning is used as such; or could be sources of letters; I'm trying to figure out what cryptic-clue constructions could be in play here]

"gas": could maaaaaybe be an anagram indicator.

GentlePurpleRain

"western" could also mean reversing a word (gas -> sag)?

Gareth McCaughan

GPR: yes, good catch.

Rubio

17:57

I specifically asked - is "extracting western" a compound indicator to remove the leftmost match (only) of a deletion? I've already considered that, though I haven't seen anywhere that it makes any kind of difference. Just trying to make sense of your hint. He said it isn't that.

Sconibulus

western could theoretically be referring to sunset as well, for the end of a word

Gareth McCaughan

@Rubio: right, but I'm trying to list every single possibility :-)

@Sconibulus if you mean that "western" could indicate the right-hand end of a word, no, I really think that would be too unfair.

"from": could indicate that what follows contains (or clues something that contains) something we're working with; e.g., "extracted X from Y" may mean that X is removed from Y. Are there other possibilities for this?

(again, other than e.g. the possibility that the word is part of a definition like "gas from seals" -> LEAK or LEAKAGE or something, or that it's being used as a source of letters for wordplay)

"seals": could maaaybe mean that something is stuck inside something else (e.g., if "extracted western gas" is AB and "from" is CD then "extracted western gas from seals" could be CABD, with AB inside CD)

are there other cryptic-clue structures that "seals" could be indicating? I don't see any right now

Rubio

I asked I know cryptics use specific signal words for things. is the pattern "(thing) extracts (foo) from (bar)" constrained to signal that (foo) is in fact being taken from (bar), or is there latitude to have it mean something other than the straightforward reading? - Deusovi noted that there's pretty much always latitude, but that in general the reading I assumed is the usual one.

Gareth McCaughan

in this case it's "extracted" which I think leaves some extra latitude for it to be the parents that are extracted

Sconibulus

could there be a hidden larger word from which parents is extracted?

Gareth McCaughan

18:05

incidentally, and probably not usefully, I would like to remark that one word meaning "parents" I haven't seen considered yet -- ... uh-oh, Deusovi is listening ... -- is DAMS which means "mothers" and also happens to mean something a little like "seals".

Rubio

huh.

Sconibulus

from which the remainder matches a 'western gas from seals' definition

Gareth McCaughan

the larger word would need to be indicated somehow

"from" could certainly mean there's a hidden word in what follows

but what follows is just "seals" and there isn't a lot of scope to hide things in that

"western" could also, rather unsoundly, be we-stern = back of "we", which I guess you could interpret either as the "w" or the "e". I don't think that's Deusovi's style, though.

GentlePurpleRain

"Parents" could also be a verb.

Gareth McCaughan

yes

though so far I haven't thought of any verb meaning "parents" that either has four letters or looks like I can extract anything useful from it to leave seals or gas from seals or anything

which doesn't mean it can't be done, just that I haven't thought of a way to do it yet

GentlePurpleRain

18:10

Was just going to say the same thing.

Gareth McCaughan

rears raises bears breeds fathers mothers fosters ... more?

sires

gets begets

(gets is four letters but already got considered without anyone thinking of anything that works)

(might be worth reconsidering, though)

the idea that was mentioned before was G(ASK)ETS which would require ASK to mean "western gas", so it seems at least

GentlePurpleRain

From thesaurus.com: develops, grows, produces, provides, rears, supports, breeds, cultivates, fosters, groups, nourishes, nurses, plants, propagates, sows, suckles, trains, weans, brings up, drags up, fetches up

Gareth McCaughan

most of those really don't mean "parents"

GentlePurpleRain

No, you're right. I went from "parents" to "raises", and then forgot where I was.

Some of them do, though.

Gareth McCaughan

yup, and I think they're all ones I already mentioned :-)

aside from "brings up", I guess; I didn't consider multiple words

GentlePurpleRain

18:16

maybe "weans"? (Give me something here...) :)

Gareth McCaughan

maaaaybe

of course "western" could also mean "according to a pattern of language characteristic in the west" (the west of England, of the US, or whatever)

GentlePurpleRain

Anyway, back to the task at hand.

How many different definitions of SEALS are there?

- animals

- things used to close something

- the action of closing something

Gareth McCaughan

there are the animals; the things that block off other things (and the related verb); the Navy special ops people

GentlePurpleRain

- rings or other objects used to sign documents

Gareth McCaughan

the blocking-off has a derivative meaning referring to a token of authentic identity

... we are coming up with the same meanings in the same order ...

and that one has a further-derivative meaning of a person entitled to use a seal (as in the Lord Privy Seal)

though I think that's always capitalized

GentlePurpleRain

18:19

and that seems like a bit of a stretch for a cryptic clue.

Gareth McCaughan

yes

Sconibulus

It could just be a symbol as well, based on the token of authentic identity

Gareth McCaughan

the verb has a sort of metaphorical use, meaning to make something conclusive

(as in to seal someone's fate)

GentlePurpleRain

like "seal the deal"?

Gareth McCaughan

yes

I don't think the Navy special ops guys are any use because they're really meant to be all-caps, IIRC

GentlePurpleRain

18:20

So it could just mean "closes", "finishes", "ends", etc.

Gareth McCaughan

yes

GentlePurpleRain

agreed (regarding special ops)

Gareth McCaughan

this is all making me feel very stupid

so, back to basics. what's the simplest way to parse the clue? something like this. Take a word meaning "seals". Find within it something signifying gas, written R->L ("western gas"). Remove it. Get a result meaning "parents".

4-letter words meaning "parents": moms mums dads pops dams -- any more?

none of those looks to me like we can add anything inside it to make something meaning seals in any sense

oh, there's also "gets" as discussed earlier which yields "gaskets"

but I don't see why "ask" = "western gas". KSA has some meanings but I don't think any of them has anything to do with gas.

(gas: substance whose atoms/molecules move about freely with few interactions; talk verbosely/frivolously; something that causes amusement; gasoline; to kill by means of poisonous gas; any more?)

(I see Deusovi has despaired of our making any progress...)

KSA = Kingdom of Saudi Arabia; Knowledge, Skills and Abilities or some formal statement thereof; any number of much more obscure things.

(Saudi Arabia produces petroleum oil which is refined to yield gasoline, but that's far too indirect to be useful.)

KS = Kansas which I suppose is western, but why would A mean gas?

oh, that's the wrong way around

we can't use KS to mean both right-to-left and pertaining to the western USA

I don't think A or AS signifies "western" in any way I can see

Rubio

sorry, drifted off to do real work for a bit

seal hatch latch gasket cover cap closure close badge emblem stamp shut hasp lock emboss sign secure ring scepter

those are the words I came up with for "SEALS"

was using that as part of a gross brute-force-ish approach to find any other words with that general meaning that fit other patterns

Sconibulus

18:46

Hmm, there's apparently a thing in the U.S. called Orphaned Gas Wells

Gareth McCaughan

ok. does that help

?

Sconibulus

probably not

I was just thinking about parent extraction and got orphan, the next things were western and gas

Sconibulus

19:02

Oh, hey, @Alenanno how did you go about making the Dice Star again? Was it a 3d model?

Beastly Gerbil

On a side note, did no-one notice anything odd about the guardian's name?

Alenanno

@Sconibulus Nope, Latex. Why?

Sconibulus

...I might be making another one that's more technically complicated, and was wondering what tool you used that I might be able to download

Alenanno

@Sconibulus Technically complicated, how?

Sconibulus

multiple die sizes (d4-d12) and a symbol instead of a character on one face

I can fiddle around and see if I can make Latex do it for me, if not I might start fiddling around with Blender like I've been meaning to for a while

Alenanno

19:09

@Sconibulus Oh, interesting. I... was actually thinking of posting another instance of it as well in the future. I'm not sure I understand the "die size" thing. As in number of dice? Or number of faces?

Sconibulus

number of faces, d4's are pyramids, d12's are dodecahedrons

D&D incidentally uses d4, d6, d8, d12, and d20 a lot

Alenanno

@Sconibulus I thought about that, but at a certain point it becomes impractical because some faces will be "weirdly hidden", since you cannot change perspective in 2D images.

How did you intend to solve that?

Sconibulus

larger dice have more 'hidden' values to fill in

It looked like there were orientations where 4 were legible on a d8, 5 on a d10, and 6 on a d12

d20 seemed like it could only have about 8 faces be actually legible, but I wasn't using it anyway

Alenanno

@Sconibulus I was referring to the faces who are "perpendicular" to the viewer :D ... Ah I see. Good to know. I see you enjoyed the Dice Star thingy. :D

Sconibulus

It was definitely a cool concept

Alenanno

19:15

It was not mine, unfortunately. But you're right, it was a good one.

@Sconibulus I'm off to dinner. Let me know if there are news about that. :) See you in a while.

Sconibulus

Take care

Gareth McCaughan

19:39

@BeastlyGerbil Doesn't look like it. I mean, it looks kinda odd but if there's an obvious hidden meaning it's eluding me. The surname is an anagram of, e.g., BLING DELAY or BAD YELLING.

Beastly Gerbil

@GarethMcCaughan what about his initials?

Gareth McCaughan

LND? I think I must be missing some reference. They're the first three consonants of "London", I guess. Off by one from "Moe". 3-letter code of an obscure airport somewhere in the US. Er, I dunno. What am I missing?

Beastly Gerbil

Oh it was just meant to reference London :P

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