The Sphinx's Lair

Rubio

12:04 AM

oh. dear. sorry that should be (8)

I can't count today :)

CCCC: bored sounding music-maker with notable speaker's introduction (8) — correction

Rubio

1:45 AM

@Alconja You here?

Alconja

I am (working, but tab's open in the background)

Rubio

Oh. man. Was going to give you some corrections on that puzzle but then I ended up actually solving it.

Alconja

2:05 AM

Nice work. Though assist --> sist (plus "er")

Rubio

2:17 AM

Apparently he was looking for a cyst

i'm not happy about eff dee see a - see should be ess

eff dee see hints ex next, or nothing. but w/e - got 'er done

by standing on the shoulders of giants. or at least Alconjas. :)

Alconja

:) yeah. it's definitely a nice idea, but could've used a little more polish in places. A few of the steps are a little forced

Jonathan Allan

2:38 AM

@GarethMcCaughan Thanks! I edited the answer. It may be strange that 33 is the offset yes. But also why are the individual offsets adjusted the wrong way (to align them with the natural numbers we'd subtract the offset not add it)

Gareth McCaughan

The offsets are adjusted the right way

Jonathan Allan

they are?

:/

Gareth McCaughan

I think so; am I confused?

so when the OEIS offset is k, it means that the first term given in OEIS is for n=k

Jonathan Allan

The left-offset in OEIS is the natural number, n, for which the first term is a(n)

yeah

Gareth McCaughan

so if a sequence starts at position n in a sequence with offset k, it means that it starts at a(n+k-1) or something like that

Jonathan Allan

2:43 AM

so if we want the item with n=4 and the offset is 0 then we should pick the 5th item, not the third

sorry "not the fourth"

Gareth McCaughan

maybe I'm being dim (it's nearly 3am here so I probably am). Consider the sequence with f(n)=n, and suppose one of the patternbot sequences was 4567. OEIS might list that sequence as 0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,... with offset 0, in which case we'd be starting at position 5. Or it might list it as 3,4,5,6,7,... with offset 3, in which case we'd be starting at position 2. If we add starting position + offset then we get 5 either way, and we will get 5 no matter where OEIS chooses to start enumerating.

Jonathan Allan

yeah if we add start & offset - but in the question we add Hamming weight to offset to get start.

so we are subtracting offset from start..

Gareth McCaughan

There is an offset of 1 here arising from the tendency to count things "first, second, third, ...". If we fixed that up then we would get not 2,?,3,?,3,3,?,... but 1,?,2,?,2,2,?,... which, hmm, probably occurs earlier in A000120.

Jonathan Allan

no?

the other stuff all matches on Natural numbers, so I assumed it would continue to

Gareth McCaughan

(in fact it occurs starting at n=1, so this is surely what the pattern-bot actually intended)

I'm not sure what you're subtracting from what, but obviously a+b=c is the same as a=c-b etc. :-)

Jonathan Allan

2:50 AM

it'll still be 4,5 though (as it's Hamming weight) :p

he's done Hamming weight + left-offset = start index of OEIS sequence to use

Gareth McCaughan

I am definitely not understanding some things you're saying. This sort of thing is terribly easy to get confused by (even when conceptually trivial) so let me try to be as explicit as I can about how I see this, which seems to me to make good sense

Jonathan Allan

I could well be getting something the wrong way around :p

Gareth McCaughan

So.

Jonathan Allan

let's go by example.

Gareth McCaughan

For a typical OEIS sequence, there is some function f mapping integers to integers. OEIS then lists a bunch of successive values of f: f(k), f(k+1), f(k+2), ... where k is the "left offset".

Jonathan Allan

2:54 AM

the penultimate Hamming weight is 2

he adds the offset of A20 = 1

to get 3

and starts at index 3

which is n=4

Gareth McCaughan

[I will do a concrete example when I have finished stating the general case]

Jonathan Allan

right?

I know what the offset means :)

Gareth McCaughan

[I am not going to try to think about it in "your" terms until I have finished trying to be clear on "my" terms because otherwise my head will explode and it will take my wife for ever to clean up the mess]

I know you know what the offset means

Jonathan Allan

ok

Gareth McCaughan

but I want to state what is going on clearly and (unless I am confused) show that nothing is the wrong way around

Now, the patternbot's n'th sequence starts at some point within that sequence, which we can describe in two ways. (1) We can give its index within the OEIS sequence as given, so that "1" means it starts at f(k) where again k is the left offset.

(This is what you did at first when listing the starting points.)

Jonathan Allan

2:57 AM

yep

Gareth McCaughan

Or (2) we can give the thing fed into f, so that "1" means it starts at f(1).

Jonathan Allan

indeed

Gareth McCaughan

I claim that if we describe the starting points in the second way -- which is to my mind the less arbitrary way -- then those are the things that follow the Hamming-weight sequence.

so now let's see whether I've got it backwards, and I'll look at the same example as you

(but will not read what you wrote because again it will make my head explode)

Jonathan Allan

so the penultimate Hamming weight of 2 should mean we start at A20(2)

Gareth McCaughan

so we're looking at the second-last sequence in the puzzle

which begins 1 2 2 6 18 and comes from A000020

it begins with the second position listed in that sequence, and the sequence has left-offset 1 meaning it begins f(1), f(2), ...

so the starting-point for this sequence is 2

(it was 3 in my previous version where I didn't fix the extra offset of 1 from counting the OEIS-listed sequence elements from 1 instead of 0)

and indeed the Hamming weight of 20 is 2 because 20-16+4

er, 20=16+4 (the "-" was a typo)

so nothing is backwards here, nothing is being subtracted instead of added

Jonathan Allan

3:01 AM

Oh so that's where I've gone wrong he does subtract from Hamming weight?

Gareth McCaughan

that's entirely the wrong way to think about it

the Hamming weight says what value of n to plug into f(n) to get the first element in the sequence as sent by the patternbot

Jonathan Allan

which is an adjustment by left-offset

but I wrote add cos I am going backwards >_<

Gareth McCaughan

so for n=20 (aargh there are too many things for "n" to mean; here I am taking it to mean the 20th sequence generated by the bot) we compute hammingweight(20) which is 2, and then we look at the function described by A000020, which is "number of primitive polys of given degree over GF(2)", and then we feed numbers from hammingweight(20) onwards into that function

and that is what the patternbot sends you

Jonathan Allan

...
http://chat.stackexchange.com/transcript/message/33631539#33631539

hmm

not sure why that does not expand

Gareth McCaughan

so you shouldn't think about the "left offset" at all

Jonathan Allan

3:04 AM

why ever not?

Gareth McCaughan

and you shouldn't think about indexing into the sequence as listed in OEIS at all

Jonathan Allan

It's where the sequence given starts

Gareth McCaughan

but only think about the underlying function and what values get fed into it

Jonathan Allan

same thing

just got it backwards

Gareth McCaughan

the whole process is completely unchanged in a hypothetical universe where Neil Sloane picked completely different offset values

and gives the same outputs

and bringing the OEIS starting points and left offsets into it just complicates matters

Jonathan Allan

3:05 AM

yeah and would still work by adjusting by those offsets

I just saw the adjustment and got it back to front and thought it was wrong

but it's not

Jonathan Allan

3:18 AM

@GarethMcCaughan Now it all makes sense. The Hamming Weights used are also of the natural numbers which is far more satisfying. Thank you!!

Gareth McCaughan

hooray!

Deusovi

7:09 AM

-2

Q: Find the secret word

Here is a list of words. Mother Clam Game Anagram Immune Maximum Image In each word, there is an indication on how to read a secret word. But some words gave a false indication and should be ignored. Can you find the secret word? NOTE If this proves to be harder than expe...

Too broad?

Rubio

7:19 AM

I'm tempted, but holding off

Actually no. At this point, Xeno's answer had me convinced it was right, so I think too-broad is appropriate

Deusovi

Yeah, exactly. It seemed really plausible to me.

Rubio

annnnnd the Beastly Gerbil has posted his image-o-rama. I can't wait :)

user189275

@Rubio That one is probably very trivial, you have to use a variation of pigpen ( just replace the triangle by circle) here.

Rubio

Or, maybe you could let me actually look at it before spoiling it?

Deusovi

@ArbitraryKangaroo: How do you expect to figure out the missing ones?

user189275

7:25 AM

I dunno - It may don't work, but it was the thing that came to my mind, so I was telling.

Deusovi

7:37 AM

@BeastlyGerbil: Ooh, I think I've solved the pigpen part. I like it so far! The hidden numbers were very well-done.

Rubio

I believe I know what they are but can't get them to make sense yet. heh

Do you have more than the tables? Have you applied them to the circle?

Deusovi

Yes.

Just posted an answer.

Rubio

I'm trying to do so, assuming they provide meaning, and I can't get any. I apparently Did It Wrong™.

Oh. You're reading around.

Didn't think of that ;)

Deusovi

Ah. Yeah, I read around so that I could also read down the columns if necessary.

Rubio

Makes sense.

Though reading down throws away some possible orientations; you may have to read left to right each row, with the circle on the left. Or top to bottom, with the circle at the top. And so on.

er. circle=>center.

Is there a reason for some of your letters being lowercase?

Deusovi

7:48 AM

Sure, but considering all cardinal directions are used, it didn't seem likely.

The arrows on the southern tiles.

Rubio

Gotcha.

Beastly Gerbil

You are doing well so far

Deusovi

Aha!

Rubio

Lol. You said that. I didn't read that far yet. hehe

Deusovi

REGARD EACH OBSTACLE METICULOUSLY

Beastly Gerbil

7:50 AM

Yes! That's the message

And now you've got to my trick regarding the next url

This is where movie knowledge is required

Deusovi

Hmm...

The obstacles in the film are the spear, pit, pressure plates, and idol trap.

Beastly Gerbil

Oh wait I've jumped the gun, that's later

To get the next URL look at the arrows next to the white slabs - they indicate case

Rubio

that didn't seem to help

Deusovi

Yeah, I saw that. lkBcH isn't a valid URL.

And neither is HcBkl, or either of those case-swapped.

Beastly Gerbil

I'll check

Rubio

7:58 AM

you decoded wrong

Deusovi

Ah, alright!

Wait, I decoded all of them wrong?

Oh!

I was reading them upside down.

Rubio

oYjyL fjz5p HXPGh 1Tfp5 ipvKi for convenience

ah, and here's where the knowledge of the movie comes in.

Deusovi

Ooh, I think I know what to do here.

Beastly Gerbil

Go on then :)

Sid

The obstacles look familiar though..Wish I had paid more attention to the movie.. (sigh) :-)

Rubio

8:04 AM

so door 1 has (down-arrow) |_|

door 4 has (up arrow) |¯|

door 5 has odd markings on the wall

Deusovi

I think it's KxcHT. I may have gotten one wrong though.

Rubio

door 1 suggests making a K lowercase, but there isn't one. similarly door 4, a Q uppercase, but also not one

Deusovi

Huh?

What do you mean?

Rubio

Where'd you get KxcHT ? hehe

Deusovi

The pigpen letters in each door.

Rubio

8:07 AM

You're more observant than me. I only saw 2.

Deusovi

Yeah, they're tricky! The spiders and faces are arranged in the pigpen patterns.

Rubio

oh. good god.

boboquack

I got KxcHT as well

Deusovi

Rearranging in the movie order gives xHKTc, I think.

Someone check me on that? spiders-spikes-pit-plates-boulder?

Sid

@Deusovi You are a genius.... Holy... How on earth did you get that idea?

Rubio

8:09 AM

I wrote it down wrong, no wonder. Duh.

Deusovi

@Sid Well, we had five doors to look through, each one being a trap from the movie, and we knew that movie knowledge was important. Since KxcHT wasn't anything, the best idea was to arrange them in movie order.

boboquack

Is it just me or does that have nothing on it?

Deusovi

Yeah, that's why I want you all to check me.

I think I got the order wrong.

Sid

NO, the pigpen part, I don't see anything,actually... (hides)

Rubio

The images led to by the doors have pigpen symbology in them

Deusovi

8:10 AM

I noticed the pit and boulder first. Then the spiders and faces were the tough ones to get.

Rubio

I only saw two of them at first. Deusovi saw 'em all, cuz he's got eyes

I looked back at spiders and STILL didn't see it ;)

Deusovi

I'm actually colorblind. :P I couldn't see half the numerals in the original cipher.

boboquack

I only saw spiders after faces one

Rubio

Heh. I couldn't see the 19 or the dots in that one at all

Deusovi

Look at spiders. See the arrow on the left side pointing down?

Then on the right side of the torch there's the upper right quadrant of a circle. Ignore the rightmost three spiders and the ones on or below the hand.

It's pretty sneaky - took me a while to get it.

Sid

8:14 AM

I see the ones on the spikes and the pits...

Deusovi

The boulder one is written on the boulder.

The other two are the hardest to see.

Sid

AH, the arrow and the cipher.

Deusovi

Yep!

Sid

@BeastlyGerbil You have my upvote precisely for this step... :-)

Deusovi

Anyone else know what to do next? I think my ordering is right, but I'm not quite sure.

Sid

8:20 AM

The pit is first,then the darts and then the boulder...

Deusovi

Hm? What about the spiders and the spikes?

Sid

I need to check...

Ohh, no sorry, my mistake...

Deusovi

@BeastlyGerbil: Are we missing anything?

Sid

The darts come twice actually.

Beastly Gerbil

Sorry was AFK. Where you at?

boboquack

8:24 AM

Finding order @BeastlyGerbil

Deusovi

We've gotten the letters, but the movie ordering doesn't seem to work.

Beastly Gerbil

From memory (I'm on the mobile version) those letters look wrong

Check again

Deusovi

@boboquack double-checked me.

Rubio

lol. so

i.stack.imgur.com/cxTKH.jpg is an image, but not a helpful one :)

Beastly Gerbil

What are the letters you've got?

Deusovi

8:28 AM

KxcHT in room order; xHKTc in movie order.

@Rubio: gamedev.stackexchange.com/questions/71583/…

Rubio

technically the pit is twice also

@Deusovi You found that frighteningly quickly.

Deusovi

Google image search! :D

Rubio

I looked for every permutation of xcKHT. that one is the only image.

Deusovi

All 120?

Rubio

yup

Deusovi

8:31 AM

Wow, impressive. How'd you do it so fast?

Rubio

Never underestimate the power of a scripter. :)

Deusovi

Ah, coding. Nice!

Beastly Gerbil

What's the movie order you are using? Might be erong

Deusovi

Spiders-spikes-pit-plates-boulder.

Rubio

perl -w -e 'use strict; my @L=qw(x T c K H); my %used; sub try { my($depth,$prev)=@_; return print("https://i.stack.imgur.com/$prev.jpg\n") if ($depth>4); for my $l (@L) { next if $used{$l}++; try($depth+1,"$prev$l"); $used{$l}=0; }} try(0,""); ' | xargs -n1 wget -O/dev/null

and magic happens.

So either we're supposed to use one letter twice

Beastly Gerbil

8:32 AM

That's right so must be letters wrong

Rubio

or we've decoded something wrong

and I rechecked the letters

Beastly Gerbil

I'll check

Deusovi

Huh.

boboquack

Do we need to try putting the letters back into the rings and then rotating again perhaps?

Rubio

Unless we're all missing a dot in the first door's image? I have trouble seeing stuff on that background

Deusovi

8:34 AM

I'm colorblind, so...

Beastly Gerbil

Aaah the pit has a hard to see dot in it

Deusovi

Ohhhh.

Beastly Gerbil

Should have made that clearer

Rubio

Hm. That didn't help either.

Deusovi

i.stack.imgur.com/xHBTc.jpg doesn't go anywhere either.

Rubio

8:36 AM

I find i.stack.imgur.com/HcTBx.jpg as the only non-empty image

and that one is a single pixel blank image ;)

Beastly Gerbil

Check the other ones for dots

I will too but have to go AFK soon

Rubio

1 apparently has one that none of us can see

2 definitely has none

Deusovi

We got the dot on the spikes.

Rubio

3 has one, we counted it

4 has one, we counted it

5 has one, we counted it.

Deusovi

Yep.

Rubio

8:38 AM

those respectively give B x c H T

Sid

What if one of the spiders is a dot?

Deusovi

There aren't any in the thing.

Rubio

There are no extraneous spiders inside the quarter-circle

Deusovi

Yes, that.

Sid

The ones on the hand?

Deusovi

8:39 AM

The hand isn't part of it.

Beastly Gerbil

No spider dot

Deusovi

Beastly Gerbil

That may be a mistake though, try it with a dot

Sid

Yes, I had seen that.... I was thinking, one of the outside spiders was a dot..

Deusovi

Rubio, do your thing. :D

Beastly Gerbil

8:42 AM

I don't know the combo we are looking for as it is on my computer so I am as stumped as you are until I get home. I'll be home around 5 GMT

Rubio

doing it :)

i.stack.imgur.com/TctBH.jpg is pretty, but not our goal

i.stack.imgur.com/BTtHc.jpg lol

and I think that's all of them

Beastly Gerbil

Gtg I'll check on you later

Sid

You sure, that's a T on the lat one? My solver shows an U

Rubio

Bummer

upper right dotted quadrant should be 20=T

Deusovi

Yeah.

Sid

8:46 AM

20th Alphabet is "U"...

Deusovi

No, it's T.

Sid

Ohh, No... I am an idiot...

boboquack

I'm not sure if anyone saw, but if not, may I reiterate: Do we need to try putting the letters back into the rings and then rotating again perhaps?

Deusovi

I don't think so. We never rotated anything in the rings in the first place.

Rubio

That would seem unlikely at this point

boboquack

8:46 AM

Just a suggestion

Rubio

Especially with BG knowing where we're at and helping us find the right letter, rather than the right step :)

Well. This is a little maddening.

I also tried T→X in case that dot isn't supposed to be one, and got nothing

I'm, eh, widening the search. A lot. Here's where I get flagged for something :)

Deusovi

Oh god.

"I swear, I did it for the sake of puzzles!"

Rubio

i.stack.imgur.com/KkbTQ.jpg lol

Why are some images inlined and others not

i.stack.imgur.com/Kkltb.jpg ... clearly, BG is giving us the thumbs-up on finding it. *cough*

boboquack

Why Kk?

Deusovi

Well, I'm off to bed. See ya!

Rubio

9:03 AM

It's doing a brute force search through any possible combination of upper and lower, dotted and undotted for the shapes in the images

it's going to find a lot of crap, obviously

and I'm too lazy to refine it beyond that

But this is going to take forever, so I'm going to kill it

Sid

The upper and lower part is defined well.

And except for the bees, all have dots on it(so does the first one, apparently)

Lukas Rotter

10:46 AM

@ArbitraryKangaroo @tpk Didn't you say you were familiar with adobe photoshop once?

Mithrandir

12:29 PM

@Randal'Thor What about my guess for the second one?

dcfyj

1:05 PM

I think the question submit isn't liking my question, lol

Ah never mind, it finally posted

Puzzling — BOUNTY!

2:29 PM

6

Q: Professor Halfbrain's cuboid theorem

Professor Halfbrain has recently made a fascinating discovery on cuboids in three-dimensional space. Halfbrain's cuboid theorem: Let $ABCDEFGH$ be a three-dimensional cuboid that has an inscribed sphere $S_i$ (that touches all six faces) as well as a circumscribed sphere $S_c$ (that contain...

mathematics geometry

Sconibulus

3:26 PM

hmm, quiet this morning after a flurry last night

Matt

shhh, people are sleeping

dcfyj

@Sconibulus Lol, I was about to ask if the addition I made helped you, but then I realize I hadn't added it yet >.<

Sconibulus

oops :)

It might not take an addition, just a cleverer person

dcfyj

Like I said, that second to last word is nearly all unique letters, thus making the deciphered solution ambiguous, like it shouldn't be...

And the addition doesn't give away any words, just more information

Added the new bit

Sid

I sort of don't understand GPR's puzzle... Not sure,what to do there...

Sconibulus

3:40 PM

umm... are those letters underneath right?

one, there appear to 20 letters for 19 blanks

and for the words I have to make sense, one of them should probably be an 's'

although, actually, what I have doesn't make sense anyway, because in the part I think I've solved I've already has changed more than five letters

dcfyj

oops, I did miss the s

Sconibulus

or does jumps->jumped not count as part of the change?

dcfyj

I thought it was jumped...

Sconibulus

if that doesn't count... we have one move and four changes in quick->first, so we only have one more change to work with, so it has to be hazy? But what is a hazy dog

Nah, Jumps is the source for 'S' in the pangram

dcfyj

oh, so it is lol

If you have the whole cipher, then you have your instructions ^^

Sid

4:09 PM

@BeastlyGerbil You, sure the letters that we found are correct?

Rubio

I went through all combinations

including all the dotted/undotted alternatives

keeping case intact

Sid

all 120?

Rubio

Nothing showed up.

oh, way way more than 120

30240 in fact

I found some interesting images, but none relevant to the puzzle.

Sid

Perhaps, the OP messed up somewhere...

Rubio

It's looking like that.

Either that or all of us are incapable of decoding the same pigpen ciphers. :)

Sid

4:17 PM

Impossible, that was quadrupled-checked I would say... Boboquack, Deusovi,you and me all did it individually and all were at the same result...

dcfyj

Perhaps you're all using the wrong cipher?

Rubio

Since we already used it once successfully, that's very unlikely.

i.stack.imgur.com/HTBxX.jpg ... gotta be it ;)

oops can't type

more better

It's got the torch and everything hehe

dcfyj

Perhaps the spiders and the faces are being misinterpreted? I don't know...

Rubio

So of all the images I found, i.stack.imgur.com/QtTKB.jpg earns a special place in my heart. That wall art. Man. I think there's a puzzle to be made just from that.

dcfyj

@Rubio Well, that's interesting...

Sid

4:26 PM

The devils?

Rubio

Apparently it's the new offices of Sky.com - twitter.com/nimabaniamer and scroll down to 8/Dec/2015.

Sid

ANyone understood what the cleverly disguised puzzle is all about? I don't understand what we have to do there except that we have to find out some words which have some connections among themselves...

Gareth McCaughan

Still thinking about it.

I don't have anything resembling good answers to any of the clues yet, though I have some guesses at words that feed into them.

dcfyj

@GarethMcCaughan You're on and you haven't solved my cipher?

Gareth McCaughan

which is your cipher?

dcfyj

4:37 PM

7

Q: The Etiquette Room

This puzzle can be solved as puzzle on its own, but its solution is also part of Deusovi's Community Metapuzzle. You wake up feeling rather dazed. Your head is pounding. Whatever just happened did not agree with you in the least. As you get up from the floor and start exploring the room you see ...

cipher no-computers

Gareth McCaughan

oh yeah, that one

it looked a bit horrible :-)

dcfyj

:(

Sconibulus has already solved the cipher portion of it. He just has to make sense of the instructions now

Gareth McCaughan

"horrible" doesn't mean bad

it means scary and intimidating

Sconibulus

|:o O:) O_o O_o :S 8) O_O :D

dcfyj

@Sconibulus You mean you want it?

Sconibulus

4:46 PM

At this point, if I were in front of the panel, I'd absolutely type that in to see what would happen

dcfyj

Keep in mind the first panel mentions your death lol

Sconibulus

I'm drugged in a stranger's sinister basement, is that really the worst thing that can happen?

Rubio

that panel renders badly in my browser

it's not aligned :(

dcfyj

Your browser doesn't do pre formatted text? :(

Beastly Gerbil

Okay I am home and can help with my puzzle

@Rubio I know you were involved especially

Sconibulus

4:49 PM

maybe it should have been prefaced with <_< :'( ^_^

Rubio

you didn't <pre> it so it's up to the browser and whatever its font is

dcfyj

I would've used <pre> tags specifically, but I couldn't get some of the characters to escape

@Rubio I used the space version of <pre>

Rubio

@BeastlyGerbil Welcome back :) I pretty much ground through all the possible permutations of the letters we found, and their dotted/undotted alternatives, with no success

dcfyj

@Sconibulus Seems to me you have that cipher completely under your whim haha

Beastly Gerbil

Got the letters, what did you have?

Rubio

4:51 PM

@dcfyj yah well. Spaces render differently in different fonts.

Sconibulus